If you're new here, this blog will give you the tools to become financially independent in 5 years. The wiki page gives a good summary of the principles of the strategy. The key to success is to run your personal finances much like a business, thinking about assets and inventory and focusing on efficiency and value for money. Not just any business but a business that's flexible, agile, and adaptable. Conversely most consumers run their personal finances like an inflexible money-losing anti-business always in danger on losing their jobs to the next wave of downsizing.
Here's more than a hundred online journals from people, who are following the ERE strategy tailored to their particular situation (age, children, location, education, goals, ...). Increasing their savings from the usual 5-15% of their income to tens of thousands of dollars each year or typically 40-80% of their income, many accumulate six-figure net-worths within a few years. Since everybody's situation is different (age, education, location, children, goals, ...) I suggest only spending a brief moment on this blog, which can be thought of as my personal journal, before delving into the forum journals and looking for the crowd's wisdom for your particular situation.
According to wiki, a normal ten minute shower uses as much as 60 gallons of water. This means that the water tank of an boat or an RV(*) will be exhausted after a single shower. Therefore we’ll have to adopt to some kind of Stiletto Shoes QOIQNLSN Light Blue Women'S Summer Light Heels Suede Pump Gray Blue Basic Heel Purple x4C40w.
The thing I don’t like about Navy showers is having to turn the water off again to soap up. I’m just not ready for that kind of self-imposed discomfort in the morning. Thus I have devised a different kind of system.
(*) DW has been quite resistive about the Tumbleweed homes but surprisingly accepting of the RV idea and given that we don’t live next to a large body of water, the RV seems to be the better option, so now we’re looking at RVs.
I took an empty shampoo bottle and filled it with water. Before I turn the water on, this is used to make my hair wet after which I can use the shampoo. Then I turn the water on. Compared to a Navy shower this means I only turn the water on once (filling the shampoo bottle doesn’t count ). This works because being an office dweeb I don’t get dirty and thus there’s no need for massive scrubbing/use of soap.
For now I am interested in seeing whether this actually saves us any water. I am also interested in seeing whether DW will prove resistive, take it as a challenge, or just ignore my heroism Shower “fascism” seems to be a popular choice for people saving money and it usually ends with massive disagreements despite not really saving much money (**). One thing I’ve found is that if you want it, you will find solutions to make it work. If you don’t want it, you’ll find excuses why it wouldn’t work. This leaves you without solutions and failure results as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
(**) It saves non-renewable ground water resources more than 15,000 gallons a year, but we’re a couple of decades away from “peak water”, so water is still cheap. Therefore to save money it makes a lot more sense to focus on the size of the house and the size of the car first.
Originally posted 2008-06-11 16:55:52.