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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> *****> the total comes to
> > about $290 a month.*****
>
> For your whole family or per person?


Whole family (of six).

> Just my monthly expenses for property taxes, electricity, basic telephone,
> internet, house insurance and my van insurance comes to $400/month.

Property tax (house and 20 acres) is about $260 a year.  Electricity is 
about $25 a month, ditto telephone (Al Gore's taxes being the biggest part 
of it). House insurance is $240 a year and the insurance on one vehicle is 
about $100 a year.  Internet is about $15/mo.  All that, if I'm adding 
right, comes to about $115 a month for those expenses.

> I also spend money on groceries, laundry, clothes, food, books and 
> magazines,
> propane, haircuts, van repair and maintenance, registration, etc........

There are no expenses for laundry.  It's done on a machine (some by hand) 
using soap we make and hung on a line to dry, or by the wood cookstove. 
Haircuts are a trim once a year (whether we need it or not), no expense.  We 
buy very, very little food.  Although we buy some propane for cooking on in 
the heat of the summer when you really don't want the cookstove going, it's 
negligible.  Vehicle registration is $18 a year.  We drive bottom feeder 
vehicles.  I paid $900 for a voyager and drove it 3 1/2 years with virtually 
no repairs.  When it died I bought a S10 for $800 ten months ago, still 
going strong.  In the mean time extra incidental income is put back in the 
vehicle fund for when the current vehicle dies, as it inevitably must.  We 
don't do expensive repairs.  Why replace something on the truck for $1800 
when I can just junk it and buy another one for $700 or $800?  It's a gamble 
but in the long run it's a good one and I'm way ahead on it.

If we go out (other than commuting to a job [which is only germane until 
January]), we combine it with the delivery of produce, eggs, some item we've 
made for someone so that the gas for the trip is paid for.  We buy books and 
magazines too, but only if we have surplus money with which to do it, if 
not, we don't.

Of course, we generally make a great deal more money than that and spend 
more than that.  But that's our line in the sand, how much we have to have 
on had to continue unabated in case income is cut off for some reason.  At 
that rate, it's easy to put away two or three years' expenses.  And it's 
easy to set up some sort of enterprise where that small amount can be had 
just about forever.

James