JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
The one benefit to not having benefits is you can't lose what you don't have. The only benefit my company provides is PTO time. I am currently accumulating PTO time at the maximum rate of three weeks per year. I would lose that benefit if I switched to part time.

My health insurance is provided through my wife's work. I pay her for the upgrade that covered my boys and I.

I feel like I could get by on less if I didn't buy so much unneeded items (especially firearm related stuff.

I could try living on the amount of income that a 24 hour work week would provide and see if it is even close to doable. It definitely wouldn't leave any room for more firearm related spending.

I could make a request to work four 10hr shifts and rely on PTO and holidays to get more 4 night weekends at the property


Every trip down there, I always wish I could stay longer. It's a nearly 600 mile round trip and having more time during each visit makes the drive feel more worthwhile.

I'm not close to retirement but I'm doing ok (well at least when I'm not on workers comp…).

I've had my fair share of spending but I feel like if I had to, most of what I've bought I could get as much if not more for it if I sold it - but my wife is right, I'm not going to sell any of it.

So to be blunt and honest about my opinion after reading the thread it sounds like you need to start living that minimalist lifestyle now and get a handle on your firearm spending cuz if you have to go live in a cabin to not spend your money then it's a bandaid and it won't be long before you get the itch to add to your collection.

Just my 2¢.

Also, I agree with most of the other posts. If your completely off grid you are going to be working your hind quarter off for every penny you are trying to not spend so one way or the other you are going to be 'working'.

Best of luck! One man's cabin is another man's castle so do what makes you happy.

I've come to terms with I'd rather barely make it and be happy then have more money and no time to enjoy it.
 
You've got a choice, take the time or the money.

The problem with planning ahead is the unexpected. You may think you can make it on X amount of money and retire, but then circumstances change. Like now when inflation has increased rather dramatically.

Since the Covid thing hit, I see and hear a lot about people "retiring" early, that is, in their 40's and 50's. My view of things is, if you want any security in retirement, you have to go the distance. You have to work the years in whatever system you are vesting in. Everybody would like to not have to work yet still have money to live on.

I stuck it out as a federal employee under the old CSRS system. I retired at age 57, knowing that my own father died at 64 and never had any kind of retirement time off at the end of his life. My ethic was that you can't buy time in your life with more money, so I pulled the pin. BUT: All of our obligations were paid off. We live frugally and don't waste, yet want for nothing. Plus we've been lucky in life, something you can't count on.

We just had the Labor Day holiday. Which was cause for reflection for me. I'm happy I no longer have to think about employment. No more worries about budget cuts, reductions in force, installation closures, moronic management, etc., etc. Time is a relative thing. Most of my working life, I never thought ahead about retirement, being as how it seemed so far off. It was only the last few years that I began to realize that it was coming up. When I was a young soldier in the US Army, I was on a three year enlistment. Which seemed like a long time. But in retrospect, it wasn't, it flew by. So my last three years of work, I kept thinking, "This is like the army, it's only X amount of time left, it will go fast." And it did.

This November, I will have been retired for 15 years. I could say that I don't think much about what I used to do, except that I have dreams about it often enough to remind me. However, there is no way I could go back and take up that work again, so much has changed. Too many changes in policy and regulations. The last building I worked in has been torn down. Out of the entire employee compliment that I worked with, only one man remains in the system. He is a prisoner there of his own making; he refuses to retire to spite his ex-wife. Who as a result of a divorce settlement would be entitled to some part of his retirement pay. So he stays on, refusing to retire so long as they are both alive.
 
One of the best pieces of financial advio0ce i have ever received:

"Every dollar you don't spend is a dollar-fifty that you don't have to earn."

If a third of your income is going to taxes, every dollar you spend requires you to work for $1.50 in order to have that dollar left. Spend ten bucks on a fast food lunch? You had to work $15 worth of time to pay for that. Do a DIY home improvement project that a contractor bid $10k for and, arguably, the savings is worth $15k worth of your on-the-clock time.

Minimizing your expenditures is, by this measure, a great way to cut how much you have to work.
 
I wish I had a solution to share with you, as I'm in a similar boat. I make about the same as you, and daydream about spending less time at work and more time in the world.

As an outside observer, reading this post, it seems like you're aware that you spend too much on firearms and associated stuff.
This may resonate with you: I've gotten to a point in my firearm hobby where I've found, mostly, all the guns I can reasonably shoot. I know, crazy, right?
There's a bunch I just don't use, so instead of buying more that I might want, usually because I can convince myself that it'll help me shot better, I've been getting a lot of time in behind the ones I'm really good with and I'm considering selling the ones i don't use.
So, I have six or so that I shoot a bunch, at least once a month each, and I load for most of them so that keeps the cost down.
I can convince my self that I need another gun, it's easy to do, but with the price of things these days and the costs associated withmy new kid, I really can't afford it. So I just tell myself "self, instead of worrying about that new fancy boomstick, why don't you just go shoot your browning 92, you're getting good with that and if you get better, you'll beat the socks off those oldtimers at the match later this month!

So, I guess that's just a long winded way of saying, go shot what you have and save your scratch for food.

I hope that was coherent.
Good luck! Let us know if you find the way.
 
I think the 2 bits of advice I ever received growing up was, never buy anything you can't pay cash for, and every dollar you "save", you're losing money if you don't actively do anything with it. The buying power of every $ diminishes over time.

Firearm purchases, that got solved real quick for me when OR SB941 went into affect. Near every time the "Ohhh, I want that" bug bites on a firearm I realize... "I don't want it THAT bad." ;)


On edit: On second thought... I might be lying to myself. After 941 I dove head first into builds... and THAT certainly hasn't been cheap.

Ya caught me!
:s0140:
 
Last Edited:
I wish I had a solution to share with you, as I'm in a similar boat. I make about the same as you, and daydream about spending less time at work and more time in the world.

As an outside observer, reading this post, it seems like you're aware that you spend too much on firearms and associated stuff.
This may resonate with you: I've gotten to a point in my firearm hobby where I've found, mostly, all the guns I can reasonably shoot. I know, crazy, right?
There's a bunch I just don't use, so instead of buying more that I might want, usually because I can convince myself that it'll help me shot better, I've been getting a lot of time in behind the ones I'm really good with and I'm considering selling the ones i don't use.
So, I have six or so that I shoot a bunch, at least once a month each, and I load for most of them so that keeps the cost down.
I can convince my self that I need another gun, it's easy to do, but with the price of things these days and the costs associated withmy new kid, I really can't afford it. So I just tell myself "self, instead of worrying about that new fancy boomstick, why don't you just go shoot your browning 92, you're getting good with that and if you get better, you'll beat the socks off those oldtimers at the match later this month!

So, I guess that's just a long winded way of saying, go shot what you have and save your scratch for food.

I hope that was coherent.
Good luck! Let us know if you find the way.
We are in the same boat. I have firearms, I bought years ago and still haven't put one round down the barrel yet. I wish I could get the same or more pleasure investing my money as I do spending it.
 
I woke up this evening with some different ideas on how I can feel like I am getting more time at the cabin property while continuing with full time work schedule.

A typical trip looks like this. I begin packing Wednesday and finishing packing Thursday. After I get off work Friday morning I swing back by the house and pack my cold food and ice jugs in cooler, then change into comfortable street clothes. Say my good byes to the wife and get on the road by 8am. Depending on how many stops I make and whether I have the trailer or not it, I usually arrive by midafternoon. First thing on arrival is to enter cabin and take care of any dead rodents and move traps out of the way. Then wipe down counters and table tops. After that I unpack the car, make my bed and crack open a beer. Set up the camp stove, inverter for lights, radio, etc. Once the cabin is ready for business I will walk the property, unlock the shed and maybe take a short walk in the forest. By the time this is all done I am starting to run out of juice so the rest of the evening is spent drinking, dining, showering than crashing out (usually by 7pm).

The day before departing I usually work on stuff until early afternoon then start preparing to leave early the next the morning. If I only get two nights down there then I only get part of Saturday to actually work on projects. I likely spend more time driving there and back than I spend working on stuff.

My new idea to make a "two" night trip more worthwhile is to request 4hrs of PTO for Thursday night. So I might start early at 10pm and only work until 2am. The 4hrs of PTO would cover the other 4hrs of my shift. I could bring everything with me including cold food and skip stopping by the house. Traffic should be lighter driving down that early and I should be able to make it there by 8am. I could have the cabin set up and unpacked well before 10am. Then drink a cup of coffee instead of beer and I will be able to work until close to dinner time. That would give me at least another 6hrs to get stuff done.

If I can make the packing and unpacking easier I could wait until Sunday morning to pack up and be able to work longer on Saturday. That could gain me another couple of hours of work time.

By only using 4hrs of PTO time each trip, I could double the amount of trips I take down there, while still working full time.

The general PTO policy is that the time is used in full day increments so I will have to clear it with the boss first. If he doesn't allow using less than full days then I could ask about starting my shift 4 hours early. That would still allow me to get on the road around 2am as described in the above scenerio. I would be struggling with fatigue Friday afternoon but could do it.
 
Put it all on red.
And that youtube couple has low overhead because screwing is cheap. Didn't click, went by thumbnail.
No, put it all on BLACK!!



Being quite active in the RV/fulltimer/boondocker/minimalist community, I can say that living on $315 a month doesn't come cheap. ;)

There is typically a lot of initial expenses that go into reaching that level of minimalist living accompanied by severe sacrifice of what most consider basic needs. Even then, her boast is only the very basic of "nut shell" expenses and does not actually include all incurred costs averaged on a montly basis. Just looking at that clip, there are a ton of reoccuring costs she isn't divulging. Like cooking fuel, waste dumping, BLM usage permit fees at the least, vehicle insurance, health insurance, routine vehicle and other systems maintanence, regular replacement expenses like tires, battery's, disposables like TP, cleaning supplies, laundry, cooking condiments, other stuff like clothing, grooming, and the list goes on.

Some of that can be mitigated. Like if you are using a composting toilet and dump your compost in the wild (typically illegal in their situation) or in trash bins (questionable practice and often illegal). Doing "cat hole" dumping. Very bad form and often illegal. Relying on public wifi. Blacktop camping in wally world parking lots. I can go on and on here too.

Some "off grid" setup can be quite costly, as I said though. Solar systems, compact 12v appliances, water treatment systems, portable generators, etc, etc.

IOW, I call B.S.! 😆

Much cheaper than renting an apartment or paying a mortage... yes! Living on pennies, legally, and no form of extra income... extremely difficult and not possible for most anyone.
I had a suspicion.. they have three dogs so their dog food and vet bills are over a few hundred a month.

In that video they're probably leaving out selling handjobs in parking lots for coffee & dog food money!
 
Last Edited:
We are in the same boat. I have firearms, I bought years ago and still haven't put one round down the barrel yet. I wish I could get the same or more pleasure investing my money as I do spending it.
I put my wife thru her last year of school selling everything but a pistol I traded for and my inherited guns…. I made money on every single sell but my hunting rifle I took a 10% hit on.

When buying said guns my wife would constantly say "I'd much rather you took that money and just put it in the safe".

My response was if I had a pile of cash it would be easy to just got get some whenever I thought I 'needed' it, and with the guns I would at least have to do some work to sell them. She didn't believe me until I was paying our bills by selling my toys.


I will say though that even though I'm not anywhere back to my old collection, my wife hasn't even said a peep about anything I buy gun related - except "are you ever going to shoot all that ammo?" Lol
 
Well now I'm glad I don't own a cabin…

I drive 45 min out to the forest, shoot, eat, walk backroads and enjoy.

Then I go home and have all I like around me and no work lol
 
...my wife hasn't even said a peep about anything I buy gun related - except "are you ever going to shoot all that ammo?" Lol
It's not something most people know before entering into marriage, but anyone with a successful and happy marriage for any length of time well knowns.... hush money, sparklies, vacations, flowers, chocolate... WORKS! In times of desperation, doing the dishes, laundry, making the bed and vaccuming are acceptable hail mary's.
 
It's not something most people know before entering into marriage, but anyone with a successful and happy marriage for any length of time well knowns.... hush money, sparklies, vacations, flowers, chocolate... WORKS! In times of desperation, doing the dishes, laundry, making the bed and vaccuming are acceptable hail mary's.
28 years and counting but I'm doing better now that I'm wiser ha
 
The wife and I have different outlooks on retirement. She's 5 yrs younger than me. Neither of us have a path to retire rich but my route should be livable if I retire at 62. House not paid off but reasonable. Just had a conversation with a coworker who said he was 65, I didn't know that, and he plans to work 2 more years adding that he likes it. That's a huge difference.

Quality of life is a real thing. Our future is on shakey ground at the moment so it's hard to make a solid plan.
 
If you are physically able to work and the only reason to stop is out of "wants", I would recommend continuing to work FT and better yourself and your family.
 
My goal is to retire with sufficient income I don't end up dining on Alpo Beef Stew Dinners…. Hoping to remain gainfully employed with my current employer for the next 8-10 years, as I put my youngest through college. That'll let me retire at 72, if the health holds out I should be just fine.

That should bring me to about $6,500/month in retirement…. Think I should be able to make ends meet on that. Unless Brandon totally trashed the economy, a la Jimmy Carter…
 

Upcoming Events

Oregon Arms Collectors March Gun Show
Portland, OR
Tillamook Gun & Knife Show
Tillamook, OR
"The Original" Kalispell Gun Show
Kalispell, MT
Teen Rifle 1 Class
Springfield, OR
Kids Firearm Safety 2 Class
Springfield, OR

New Resource Reviews

Back Top