Creative Housing

Housing is often the biggest part of the budget. Many creative ways to cut back on housing expenses involve living with your parents, having a roommate, buying a duplex and renting out the other side, managing an apartment complex for free rent, and the list goes on.

I have tried apartment living. Too cramped. I didn’t enjoy the noise from the shared walls or the nosey neighbors watching me come and go. Plus rent increases were common.
Buying a home was a good investment because I bought it before the real estate boom but now that I don’t want it any more it has become an expensive chunk of my budget with looming maintenance bills.

When I was living in a smaller town for my past job I lived in an RV park. It was a nice park. The space rent was low and there were no age restrictions. The park would be almost empty in the summer and fill up with Northerners and Canadians in the winter. I brought in my own 5th wheel trailer but there were many trailers permanently set up with screened in porches and sheds. The price for one of these older trailers is about $10,000. That is not much money for a nice place to live. True, it is small but what do we need all that “stuff” for anyway?

I recently read about a couple who managed to retire at 38! They sold their home and bought a small trailer (the newest ones are called park models) in a nice park and use it as a base for their travels. Here is the link to their story: http://www.retireearlylifestyle.com/
They are inspiring. I would like to retire by the time I am 38 too. That is 3 years away.

That’s all for now. I will continue to explore creative housing in my next article.