John, I hope you do more than lurk, ecause I feel your ideas are worthwhile. For you as a person, whether you decide to lead a simple life, or a carfree life, is not the most important thing. It's far more important that you have decided to live YOUR OWN life.

Socrates (IIRC) said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." It always makes me happy to meet somebody like you who has figured out that little lesson!

:)

I rent a room.old laptop and no cars, sometimes go to work on foot or by bus.
Simple life make it easy.


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Welcome to LCF, lphin1983.

I've been looking into alternative Linux operating systems and there are some that make really old computers run as fast as newer ones with fast chips and plenty of RAM. One of them is www.Bodhilinux.com.

There are some Youtube videos showing old hardware operating like fast new computers. Since Bodhi has such a small footprint on the hard drive and is designed to use very little resources, it really makes old computers seem like new ones. If anybody just needs simple word processing, web surfing, and the usual home computing stuff, Bodhi Linux should work great. It will save you the money you might have spent getting a new faster computer.

Bodhi can be downloaded free or you can buy one of their 4GB USB flash drives for $15 with it already installed. That price includes world wide shipping.

Not buying more stuff is part of simple living. Making old things work better fits into my idea of saving the environment. I just thought lphin1983 might like to know about it in case the old laptop was becoming a drag to use (this is only true of Windows OS machines). Old Macs don't really get slow.

Biggest problem with using an old laptop is lack of parts availability. I have and old 1998? Compaq Pressario, it was a Win98 machine when it was new. I switched it over to linux several years ago, mother board has finally crapped out and I cannot find any replacements...oh well somethings don't last forever.

Aaron :)

what is " 1940's clothes plunger",can u post a pic?

Probably looks something like this one....my grandmother had one. Still available today, there are also plastic modern reincarnations of it.

Aaron :)

http://image.lehmans.com/lehmans/Ima...large/66rw.jpg

One point I often make is about the difference between a financial offence and a financial defence. The offence — earning or acquiring more money — is a difficult task and most of us will not see a substantial increase in pay by switching jobs. The defence — controlling how the money is used — provides an easy way to live more comfortably.

Very well put - simply put! I will use this often.

thanx

I have my bike, macbook(for school), iPhone(for work), a small house with a friend. My diet consists of egg omelets, PB&J, protein bars, the occasional backyard barbecue, and water. No cable, no car, no video games, bootleg movies, and $50 electric bills.

Simple living sometimes involves vegetables. ;)

Yeah, otherwise sounds like constipation could be a factor. I'm not sure what that would do to simplify life.

Well, you'd have plenty of time to sit and philosophize.

I don't own a car, I read more then I do anything else, I use old computers with Linux to keep them modern longer (my current laptop is an IBM Thinkpad T21 running Vector Linux) ..and I don't do cable TV.. there are other little things I am sure... but I can't think of them

I use ubuntu on a twelve years old laptop :D

I use Linus Mint on a 6 year old desktop machine. It's great. Driver support has improved enormously over the years. It still isn't as easy to update drivers and such as Windows, but it's getting close. But Mint has a great setup and right out of the box, it has about 95% of what you'd need to get going. My only complaint is that the web cam I installed last year was a real nuisance. But everything else -- camera, printer, network -- installed flawlessly.

I've got a 2002 Gateway desktop computer that I don't use because it has a cooling problem. It could be fixed for $100. My newest one is a desktop dual booted with Vista and Ubuntu. My laptop is a Mac Book. I don't use the desktop computers unless I need to do a separate job at the same time the Mac Book is running. They both use over 250 watts of power whereas the Mac Book uses a maximum of 65 watts.

Perhaps this summer I'll sell the desktops and buy another laptop that has a Thunderbolt connector. I'll mostly use Linux on it and keep Windows 8 for Netflix. Once that is working I'll sell the Mac Book and buy a used netbook as my spare (just in case) computer. I prefer hooking up my large monitor to the computer instead of using the small laptop screen. Doing this saves energy because the screen uses only 33 watts.

Having two small laptop computers would take up so little space that I'll be able to keep them in a desk drawer or safe when I go out.

This Article is a pretty good read on how minimalism or, even broader, how simplicity i not about Counting things but it is on getting rid of the unnecessary.

I love the Linux Ubuntu operating system and I use it for my netbook. It does what I need and so far, I have found just one shortcoming. There are a few pieces of software which do not exist for Ubuntu. Microsoft Word is one. Apple's iTunes is another. There are workarounds for both, but those are not as good as the products they replace.

For some writing, I need to have it saved in Word format. I'm not happy about this, but it's the format I need to follow. OpenOffice (which is in many ways just as good if not better) does not follow all Word's protocols and structures. I have had times where I have written something in Open Office on my netbook and then converted it to Word on my desktop computer.

The issue with iTunes is, at this point, an annoyance. None of the other pieces of software have the same ease of functionality as iTunes. And they do not work with an iPod the way iTunes does.

There are a few other examples of software which have been designed for Windows and Mac, but have no Linux equivalent.

Apple and Microsoft both have software formatted for each other's platforms. It would be good if they could do the same for Linux.

They don't want the competition. Libre Office is supposed to be an improvement over Open Office.

I've seen music players out there that operate with different formats that work work with Linux. To this day I haven't bought an MP3 player because I don't like the low quality of digital audio so far. Even 320 bits per second isn't that great.

A month ago I came across a video of Neil Young (famous musician) being interviewed by Walt Mossberg. He does tech reviews for the Wall Street Journal. Neil said that the data recorded on digital recordings of music is equal to only five percent of the information on an analog vinyl record. He has been pushing the industry to create a codec that would capture all of the musical information that would equal analog recordings. Neil said that he spoke to Steve Jobs about it and he was interested in developing it, but it hadn't really taken off. Now that Steve is dead Neil doesn't know if it will ever be developed.

The equivalent analog recording in digital form would take thirty minutes per song to download with a high speed connection. I think the music industry should create such a format. It would give them the excuse to resell all of their libraries again at a higher price. The computer industry could make tons of money selling people numerous terabyte drives just to store the songs.

To keep iron.wren's line of thought going, I have an example of why counting things isn't the primary objective in Living Simply. I own a hair clipper so I can cut my own hair and save money in the process. I do have one more thing in my inventory (which I never wrote down, not a fan of lists either lol), but it saves me from having to go to the hair dresser. Just like having pots and pans would help you save money on food by cooking yourself. :D

Wow, very good point. I'm not a fan of the list method either. For one thing, I would have to own a pencil and paper just to make the list--and that's two more things right there! ;)

I used to live really simple. Like third world simple. No running water, no electric, in a shack built out of what ever free stuff I could find. I bought 5 acres of swamp for 8 grand when I was 21. Sold just about everything I owned (which wasn't much) to come up with a down payment.

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The shack. I lived in it for a couple of months. The roof leaked, the critters came in, and one could hear everything going on outside. I remember hearing deer outside eating grass 5 feet away from the shack. Also there used to be this little owl that used to hang out by my window. He'd hoot all the time waking me up. Since the shack was built very poorly there were plenty of holes for critters. First I had a real mouse problem. Once I was taking a nap when a mouse got on a rafter and took a whiz which landed on my face :eek: Then the mice disappeared replaced by snakes. I used to have to shake out the blankets on my cot to make sure snakes weren't hanging out. I sat on one once, it wasn't cool. I only had kerosene lamps for light.

Then I got word of a free mobile home. I pulled it myself using a borrowed tractor (it was a 45x14 feet). It was way better than the shack. Still no power. I then bought a power inverter and ran it off my car battery. I did that for a year. During the winter it would get quite cold inside. I could keep frozen items in the house which was heated with a mix of wood and kerosene. During the winter I'd melt snow for water for the cat and washing. The next year my uncle died leaving me his very modest off-grid setup. It was a big improvement. Most of the time I had electric lights although still had kerosene for back-up. Lived like that for another couple of years. I then sorta got forced out by the DNR after they changed the definition of a wetland :mad: Sold the place for almost double what I paid for it and used it for a down payment on the house I have now.

It was abandoned and really cheap, but had a good well and septic. The first year I had no running water. I now have running water, electric, and teh internetz :D Still no sink though. It makes washing dishes a pain. I live on less simply because I don't make much. I figure I can work 10-20 hours a week and still live better than 80 percent world's population. I like to take trips and generally do what ever I feel like. The place I have now still looks like a shack, but what can I say I hardly stuck any money into it.

I think I still live pretty simple compared to most although I do have a lot more stuff (which was almost all freebies) than I used to. I heat with wood 100 percent which is a lot of work. It also means going car free is not practical at all (not to mention I have to 45 miles one way for work).

I also tend to collect what other people throw out. I got a big stack of wood and tin I've collected from over the years. I put it to use this last summer to build a shed. I think I have 10 bucks into it.

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Now I got a nice shed to store my bikes and tools built out of stuff that would been thrown out. Heck even the nails were used although I did buy new gasketed ones for the roof. I repair stuff instead of throwing it out and stuff that can't be repaired is taken apart so I can use it to fix other stuff. I feel that too much of the emphasis today is on replacing things and throwing them out. Even a lot of going green emphasizes throwing perfectly good things out to replace them with more efficient stuff. I like to take what is there already and improve it if I can.

Great post. When I was about 25 or so, I built a small house (about 800 sq ft.)... much of it from scrounged lumber. I learned a lot about resourcefulness.

Nice photos too. You'll probably look back at your snake house with fond memories some day .