How to: To live at 15k, one will likely need to consider some of the following:
- Sharing living space, which can significantly reduce housing and utility expenses.
- Eating simply, eat at home more, share cooking with housemates/friends.
- Living close to work or school or other places you need to visit frequently, or live close to public transportation (AAA estimates it costs over $6500 a year to own and operate a small car!).
- Shopping in thrift stores or coops to cut down on living expenses.
- Consider starting a garden – it’s a great way to get food cheap, learn about the environment, and connect with like-minded people.
- Thinking through priorities and decide what’s possible for your budget given the 15k goal.
- Learning more about living simply – there are a lot of good resources to learn from books, websites, organizations…), including many people in your own community.
- Be willing to network, share and borrow tools/resources/rides/expertise ….Our culture emphasizes individuality, which means people tend not to reach out to others for support.
- Thinking through time priorities – different lifestyle choices will involve more or less time, so think through whether a given choice reflects your lifestyle goals. For example, growing all one’s own food is great but does limit other choices that may be more important…
Some of this – living together, shared meals, being close to school – many experience at home with family or in college, so it’s not all new. But for a lot of people, living simply is a new adventure, and does involve some level of commitment.
Budget: The $15,000 per year budget is based on what it would cost to live simply – but comfortably – in the US (some cities may be more or less expensive). Below is a rough breakdown, but different people may choose to spend more in one area than another.
- Housing/utilities – $650/month (implies shared housing, with careful use of heat/electric) – $7800/year
- Phone – $50/month – $600/year
- Food – $200 month ( eating simply, cooking yourself, and sharing meals can really stretch this quite a bit) – $2400/year
- Transportation – $100/month (this is a lot if you don’t have a car and can walk/bike to work most days….) – $1200/year
- Fun – $100/month (need to explore less money centered activities, and there are many!) – $1200/year
- Health care – $100/month (maybe use part for for major medical insurance in case of serious illness, save part for future sickness; new Affordable Care Act may help with this depending…see Risk for more on this). – $1200/year
- Clothes, tools, household items, etc – $540/year
- Total: $15,000 per year
For some, living this way may come easily; for others it may be a challenge and and take more time to work up to.
15kchallenge 