I've just about had enough of the Austerity Measures.....all this counting and watching our pennies is starting to piss me off. I'm about to go on a week long friggin' bender. Unlike the ones I used to enjoy in my twenties, this one will be a lot less like Trainspotting and more like Real Housewives of Vancouver. I just want to blow the budget on guilty pleasures like an un-self-inflicted spa day, an evening out for dinner without once looking at the prices, a spending spree on a few bottles of wine and maybe an extra bottle of Appleton's, then I will be off to blow the wad on a month long pass for hot yoga followed by the ultimate mind blowing purchase of the kayak I have been coveting since we moved here five years ago. Far cry from a heroin soaked junkie fest, but there you have it! Midlife crisis.....here I am!!!
I've been spending my free time lately fantasizing about living differently. Maybe its because we didn't win the Home Sweeter Home Contest and my dreams for fixing the broken dream home in this lifetime seem further away. Or perhaps its because the last seven months of living on the Austerity Measures budget have resulted in $7000 worth of debt repayment wiggle room which now needs to cover the $10,000 for the new furnace which leaves us $3000 over in debt from where we started.
Yes, I am happy that our good financial practices resulted in my not having to resort to prostitution to pay for the furnace....really had we not paid down some of the debt...we would have had to max out our line of credit and maybe more. Kudos to us! Yippee-kay-yay....but now we are back to square one again....10 more months left to daydream about when the day comes that our shackle of debt will let us free.
Well...free to incur more debt. Shit, who am I kidding?! We still have the kitchen to fix, the windows & doors to replace, the bathroom to gut and three kids to put through school. Plus, we want to go on a vacation before we're dead. Lofty dreams I know, especially for two slackers like us working full-time jobs and living large.
One of my super skills has always been the ability to get myself out of tight situations creatively, so rather than feel desperate and depressed, I decided to put it to good use. Since this keeping up with Joneses is starting to get on my last nerve and it could be getting on yours, I thought I would share with you some great ways to live off the grid, so to speak, and do things a little differently. I am seriously entertaining some of these as possibilities, some just because its a damn good distraction and others because I feel a shift coming otherwise knows as Midlife crisis.
Top 10 Ways to Live off the Grid or Mooch off Someone Else for a change...
1) Become a yoga instructor....hell, fake it till you make it...there is lots of Yoga crap you can watch on the internet to certify yourself. I have struggled to watch the guy on Eastlink TV to get my Yoga on and some days I swear I have to be high in order to appreciate it, he certainly is, so I think any of us could do it. Then find a great location to get your Buddha on. I think it would be good for me to calm the heck down.
http://www.yogatraveljobs.com/
2) It's time to put all my kids to good use. A few hours of honest help per day in exchange for food and accommodation and an opportunity to learn about the local lifestyle and community, with friendly hosts in varying situations and surroundings.Workaway.info helps families, individuals or organizations in an extensive range of different countries connect with those who are looking for volunteer help in a huge range of different fields. From painting to planting, building to babysitting and shopping to shearing, we could learn something new and potentially spend more time together as a family in a foreign country. That is until we end up in some sweat shop in New Delhi or even worse as Slumdog Millionaires. Hell, its worth a shot! http://www.workaway.info/
3) WWOOF is a world wide network of organisations.They link volunteers with organic farmers, and help people share more sustainable ways of living. WWOOF is an exchange - In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles. I can't even keep my house plants alive...I would probably be the worst organic farmer ever. http://www.wwoof.org/
4) HelpX is provided primarily as a cultural exchange for working holiday makers who would like the opportunity during their travels abroad, to stay with local people and gain practical experience. In the typical arrangement, the helper works an average of 4 hours per day and receives free accommodation and meals for their efforts. I currently work 9 hours a day...in my previous life as a Chef, 12 hours was the norm, so 4 hours seems like a pretty great deal so long as I get to spend the rest of my day with my kids. http://www.helpx.net/
5) Housesitters.com is a website that has me drooling. Get this....you watch other people's houses in places all over the world, do a few odd jobs and get free accommodation and sometimes more. It is a damn sweet deal and in some cases, is very family friendly. I found a house sitting job that was in Tuscany, home owners are trying to restore the villa to its previous glory and with 22 rooms, has plenty of space to spare in exchange for some help and inspiration in the villa project. http://www.housecarers.com/advanced-search-results-housesit.cfm
6) If the regular house sitting isn't for you....how about Luxury house sitting? Why settle for less when you can shack up in some rich guys fifth or sixth property which sits empty a good portion of the year. Its a tough life when looters, squatters or vandals frig up your exotic villa that you only visit a couple of times a year. This a great way to help those poor rich folks out. http://www.luxuryhousesitting.com/
7) Here is a story for the record books. In my frenzy of f*ck it and chuck it for the Austerity Measures, I started browsing Kijiji for RV's with the vision of cashing everything in and becoming the New Canadian Gypsies, soon to be a television show for CBC. I found the perfect trailer home on kijiji, right in Fall River, that a sweet couple were selling. Thinking I was posting a message to my husband, I sent something like this.," F...paying taxes, and insurance and our mortgage. Screw the whole thing! Lets buy this RV and hit the road...we can sell hot dogs when we need a little play money!!" Unfortunately in my excitement, I sent the message to the couple who was selling the trailer. Imagine my sharp intake of breath, pinhole corneas, and burst blood vessels when I realized seconds later that I had sent the message to the sweet couple and not my husband. A quick retraction followed with a heavy apology for my skanky language and luckily I had stumbled upon a couple with good sense of humour who got a good laugh out of my message. Found out later that we wouldn't even need to sell hot dogs, but could instead get work as work campers. http://www.workamper.com/
8) We are one of the few families that I know of that truly enjoy unexpected house guests. Every summer our broken dream home becomes a cottage filled with house guests that begin arriving July the 1st and turns our home into a B & B until the Labour Day long weekend. Frankly, we should enjoy our home as a cottage year round, since we tend to feel less badly about the shit that isn't working around here when it is a cottage instead of a home. Two months of who gives a crap goes a long way the other ten months of the year. This one is less of an option for us as a family since most can easily accommodate one unexpected house guest..how about five? On a couch? https://www.couchsurfing.org/
9) Nomadic Living on a Boat seems like a crazy good and horribly bad idea. Check out this article about couples living downtown Toronto for only $550 a month. Don't ask me why they would choose to dock themselves in Toronto given that they have a boat and could go somewhere warm, less smelly, a little more friendly and substantially more interesting. It's a thought...I checked out some places in Amsterdam that seemed pretty cool as well. Who wouldn't want to live in the Venice of the North?! http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/19/waterfront-living-eccentric-live-aboards-choose-to-live-on-their-boats-year-round/
10) Forget Mom & Dad retiring and moving in with me.....I am gonna retire right now and move in with them. This will give them an opportunity to reconnect with me on a daily basis as a mature adult and not as a difficult teenager. Since I left home at sixteen, I figure I still have 2-3 years owing me. Hell, my brother hung around for ages...I could easily negotiate 4-5. My parents and Andrew's parents have a few extra homes as well, so they wouldn't even have to spend the whole time with us. We could easily travel from vacation home to vacation home and not see them at all. Frankly, we could get a part-time gig as their home sitters if we could convince them it was a damn good idea. Somehow, I think that is highly unlikely.
I'm doing my best to keep a positive attitude about our debt, how we are approaching everything as a family and staying focused on being responsible but sometimes I have moments like anyone where I just feel like saying to hell with it. A little fantasy now and then doesn't hurt....maybe I should spend less time doing it and investing more time in learning how to make moonshine.
We are your average Canadian family and we may become Real Canadian Gypsies if shit keeps breaking at our house......
