View Full Version : What brought you to the forums?
fidgiegirl
12-13-11, 9:29pm
For me, it was an intense need to find some people who would SUPPORT my interest in YMOYL and seeking to get out of debt. The message I was getting loud and clear from everyone IRL was to not worry so much about it and that debt is a fact of life. Up until our new house purchase we were debt free for 3 years. (We did finance our appliances on 0% for 2 years, but I'm not thrilled about that. All the rest of our remodel has been cash.)
I found that here. How about you? What drew you into this community?
I was considering retiring and wondered what to consider. Got lots of help and advice so made the leap in Dec 2003 with no regrets ever.
I have lived the YMOYL example and been debt free for many years. However my friends, family and past co-workers don't understand and have no interest in living a simple lifestyle. Soooo.... I come here (mostly to read) to feel a part of what I consider an important form of support.
I think I read an article somewhere that mentioned the forums. Vegetarian Times maybe? It was a long time ago. I was seriously considering bailing on my fledgling IT career and about to move from a really expensive apartment to a semi-communal artist's warehouse in Northeast. The kind of place with shared bathrooms (the only tub was in someone's kitchen area) and no real kitchen, but an in-house band and an art gallery. I was pretty sure everyone I knew was going to think I was nuts (because I am never happy unless people are questioning my sanity :) ) and this was the only place I found where madness like that is encouraged. You people are game for anything. I love it.
gimmethesimplelife
12-14-11, 1:44am
For me it was a variety of things. Some of them being - the shallowness of my relationships at the time (mostly work based) - the fact that I finally figured out spending more than I earned was not making me happy but instead causing me stress and causing me to live on a treadmill - the fact that the American work ethic has never really appealed to me - the fact that employers can chew you up and spit you out and this is perfectly acceptable in society - the speed of the life I was living no longer worked for me - so many things. Disgust with living on soda and fast food to keep moving fast, the fact that what matters most in most people's lives is not how things really are but rather how they appear to be (that's a big one for me), and learning more about how the life most Americans live is really really really bad for the planet. I could go on, there's more, but you'all get the drift I'm sure. Rob
I read YMOYL while DH and I were finishing up our dissertations (I think after Joe and Vicki were on Oprah and she did that whole "Read this book -- it will CHANGE YOUR LIFE" thing) and I got to thinking pretty seriously about what our options were. We were finishing up academic degrees in the same field, having worked under the same advisor, on very closely related topics -- pretty much dual career suicide. At the very best, we probably would have ended up with one of us getting a tenure track position and the other one having to do the whole trailing spouse/adjunct thing. We would have been applying for all the same positions. To be honest, I don't think our marriage would have survived the stress of that. As luck would have it, we ended up applying for a non-profit position -- one position was advertised and we asked if we could both apply, and let them know we were interested in discussing option, including a possible job share (thinking that way we could at least continue our research/teaching on the side, maybe). Ultimately they ended up hiring BOTH of us. So then we had two newly minted Ph.Ds., decent management-type jobs, and a totally different way of looking at the world. I had found this community probably around late 1997 or early 1998, but wasn't quite as active posting here (I think I lurked a lot in those early years). Got more active around 1999-2001. Then, when we moved to China in 2002 this place really became a central part of my life. This is the community I find so difficult to find in real life. there aren't many people in the expat world who share our lifestyle/ethos. We make decent money and live very comfortably, so that makes it a little awkward sometimes to hang with the real NGO types -- one look at our apartment and they know we make decent salaries. But yet we do NOT fit in with the typical expat-on-a-package types. There is an organic group here where I have found a few friends, but that group seems so much more holier than thou and judgemental than you guys are. Working moms are mostly too busy. I don't have much in common with typical SAHMs (STella, you are not typical -- I have a lot in common with you!). I've always been a bit of an oddball and a loner, so I'm kind of used to it. But if it weren't for you all I probably would have lost it a long time ago. This community was a real lifeline for me during some very, very dark days a few years ago. And you all were a big part of the reason I had the courage to stand up for myself and make a change -- which has turned out incredibly! So. That is a long way of saying that what brought me here -- and keeps me here -- is that it feels like home. And that means a lot when family/friends are an ocean away.
lhamo
I was on a mailing list in the mid 90's (called Maxlife) that did a book study on Your Money or Your Life. Not only was the book tranformational, I found I really liked having the support. I'm kind of a loner type, although I do have friends, I tend to work on issues more in my head. After a couple of years, the interest in the mailing list waned so I started looking around for other avenues and have been here since almost the very beginning. Mostly as a lurker at first, more active since we switched over to this new board because of nudging from Mrs M - she made me feel a little guilty that I didn't contribute more. :laff:
I needed someplace safe to talk simple lifestyle because my husband isn't on board yet.
Another simple frugal board I was on got very depressing, I was almost afraid to check in daily. This one has been more upbeat and encouraging.
catherine
12-14-11, 8:07am
I don't really know...the best I can do is trace it back to about 1999-2000 when there are a bunch of entries in my journal about my quest for simple living. The internet of course at that time was somewhat of a new tool, and I had gone exploring in search of a simple life on my computer: I have references in those "millenium" entries of Peace Pilgrim (who I NEVER would have known about without the computer), St. Francis, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh--and also it seems I had read YMOYL by then because I have a letter talking about books being my "gazingus pin"
So, I suspect it was a google search that got me here. But I was certainly on a quest to learn.
I found "YMOYL" while living in Ireland and implemented the tracking-every-penny strategy immediately, and made a wall chart. I think I found this forum a year or so later, when I moved back to America. I, too, was going against the grain of the prevailing ethos of the time: debt is not only the natural state of things, but the only way to achieve true wealth is to get leveraged up to your butt using other peoples' money. I came back to America wanting to become a real estate maven, conquer the world, etc., and instead got myself deep into debt and in a series of HSSJs. I now own the grand total of one upside-down house in the black hole of real estate known as the state of Nevada, with flighty tenants and negative equity of about $50K. Oy!
But thanks to these forums and my own hard, tedious, boring choices to NOT spend anymore, I am out of debt-except-for-the-house. We just sold our last car and will be moving to Israel in two weeks, leaving no debt behind us, enough savings to last us until we can learn Hebrew and find work, and have paid three month's rent in advance on our apartment there. What a GREAT feeling! I have done an amazing turn on attachment to "stuff," and there is a great freedom in being able to appreciate things but not covet them anymore.
goldensmom
12-14-11, 9:06am
I am pretty much the only one of my kind (simple lifestyle/frugal) that I know and when a friend called me 'cheap' I thought there must be those out there who share my philosophy positively so I started to search for support and here I am.
I was looking for success stories to inspire me.
Originally posted by Herbgeek.
Mostly as a lurker at first, more active since we switched over to this new board because of nudging from Mrs M - she made me feel a little guilty that I didn't contribute more.LMAO! So glad you are a regular. :)
I read YMOYL in 2004 and went to work paying off my debt, which took a little over a year (except the mortgage, which was paid off in 2007). Along the way I started looking for information online and stumbled on the forums. I was really intimidated initially, but have gotten more active in posting because this is like a giant support group for me. I quasi-retired in 2010 at the age of 36 and despite the fact that we've been in a recessionary period people keep offering me more work than I know what to do with. I think most people IRL are convinced that I must desperately be seeking a job because doesn't everyone in their late-thirties need a full-time job with benefits? But people on this forum understand and so I come here to read and post almost every day.
I happened upon the old site strictly by accident, and wasted not a minute in signing up. Our last born wasn't even four, yet, and being a stay-at-home mom with strong simple and frugal tendencies, the site fast became my daily bread. When mornings came, I couldn't wait to pour myself a cup of coffee, light a cigarette, then sit down to the forum and chat away.
IshbelRobertson
12-14-11, 10:35am
You smoke, MrsM?
I would never have believed it!
Originally posted by IshbelRobertson.
You smoke, MrsM?I used to, but not any more. Thankfully, I was able to see my way to successfully quitting a few years back, much to the approval of my family, and, to the betterment and happiness of me! :)
An internal desire to simplify a little bit. I was raised in a frugal and very independent home, but kind of got away from that for a while as an adult. Just wanted to have some folks with similar feelings to bounce ideas off of. A decade or so later here we are!
treehugger
12-14-11, 11:21am
I'm pretty sure it was from reading YMOYL, but I can't for the life of me remember where I heard about that book (certainly not from anyone IRL, so it must have been somewhere online) or when I first came to the Simple Living Forums.
Kara
Mighty Frugal
12-14-11, 11:38am
Back in 2000 I was on another board and it had a frugality thread on it.
Tradd was there and linked the Simple Living site and I wandered through the worm hole and voila-I never looked back!
I've always been interested in frugality and 'penny pinching' and LOVE discussing budgets (all my friends point and laugh) so I loved the boards. I lurked for years before I began to post. Came in.. oh I guess 2001?
pinkytoe
12-14-11, 11:55am
Living the consumer lifestyle as most of us are trained to do never felt right to me.
My interest was piqued by first reading the Tightwad Gazette books and from there I was hooked. Always seeking like minds, I started by going to simplicity circles in my city long ago but those fell apart eventually. I think the first website I visited concerning this topic was called Frugal Moms or something like that. I stopped visiting when they started charging a fee. Shortly after that, I found these boards. Knowing that the only constant is change, I expect these to morph yet again as time passes but am grateful to have found the like minds I was looking for.
I found these boards during the Y2K whoopla when I was searching for self sufficiency ideas. I perused many many sites during that time but this is the only on that has stood the test of time for me. I love it here!
I read YMOYL while planning my Great Escape, and that led me here.
loosechickens
12-14-11, 4:36pm
I just truly don't remember how I found this site......we were simple livers from WAY back, long before YMOYL was written, and pretty much lived it before it got into print.......with the first issues of the Mother Earth News, the Whole Earth Catalog, Possum Living, Jane Ranson Shortney's How to Live on Nothing, etc. I remember reading YMOYL when it came out, but how I happened to find these forums, I just don't remember. Probably linked from some other voluntary simplicity or frugality site, since I've always tended to come across or seek out those types of websites......
Once here, I really enjoyed it, it became my online community, and it is the only forum I participate in. For awhile there, when I sold books on Amazon, I participated in the Amazon online Sellers Board, and occasionally on the Early Retirement boards, but this place is my virtual, cyberhome, for sure. And glad I am that I found it. I've learned lots of stuff here, hope I've been able to contribute some to the site as well....it's a great place......
I think I started coming to the old boards about 7 or 8 years ago when my husband was about to retire. We lived quite frugally up to that point, so we knew we could swing his early retirement. He would work part-time. I planned to work until I was 65 since I loved my job teaching in a juvenile detention center.
Well life steps in and changes your plans. The county closed the detention center and I've been unable to find another position since then. My husband's part-time work has dried up with the bad economy.
We manage to cope. I retired also. My husband and I started collecting Social Security earlier than we had hoped or planned.
Now I try to pop in to the boards to keep me going down this even more frugal path.
Gardenarian
12-14-11, 7:25pm
I used to post a lot on Gardenweb but I found that my values were very different from most of the folks there. In fact, I don't think I realized how much I differed from the norm until I went on Gardenweb. I don't remember how I found this place, but I'm really happy I did.
I still remember posting on GW to find out how to wash my bed pillows, and a person responded that they bought new pillows every month. Boy was I in the wrong world!
Read a review of either YMOYL or the Tightwad Gazette in my local paper. Don't remember which, but read it and got a reference for the other. Those two books lead me to the Simple Living Network and once I got internet found these boards. They've been a tremendous help and support, especially when the going has gotten tough and the social norms of spend, spend, spend have threatened to overwhelm me.
I found "YMOYL" while living in Ireland and implemented the tracking-every-penny strategy immediately, and made a wall chart. ....
For me, it was an intense need to find some people who would SUPPORT my interest in YMOYL ...
I found that here. How about you? What drew you into this community?
...
My interest was piqued by first reading the Tightwad Gazette books and from there I was hooked. ... Knowing that the only constant is change, I expect these to morph yet again as time passes but am grateful to have found the like minds I was looking for.
Read... the Tightwad Gazette ...
I read the Tightwad Gazette first, which told me about YMOYL. I then read YMOYL back in 1999-2000 timeframe. It was during a time in my life that there was a bit of turmoil, switching jobs and being in the rat race. We (DH and I) were buying fools, had the whole shebang of suburbia living.
It was not until 2005 that I was able to get my DH to read YMOYL and get on board with the ideas. But I think I had found Simple Living Forums because of a mention in the YMOYL book. It might have just been the New Road Map Foundation and they had a link? I am not sure, but I have been with these forums for a while.
It was a long process to here, but I like these forums better than some of the others out there, like Frugal Village and others and that is why I stay. You all contribute and make living simply, simple and easy.
Thank You.
Well my reasons were totally technical - or lack there of in my case. I had quit my job several months before to take a long sabbatical to travel and do out door activities while travelling - oh and play lots of beach volleyball (yes, a noble reason to quit your job!!). I had just gotten back from my first long trip after quitting my job (2 months climbing in Washington and Oregon - and yes it rained, alot!) and had an old dial-up Web TV at home (no computer). The thing was beyond slow, and when I tried to find a web site that talked about frugal/alternative living the old SLN site came up. It was the only website that I could access fairly fast on the web tv. So, after reading Dave Wamplers newsletter and loving it, I journeyed over to the forums and lurked. Again, something I could do fairly fast on the Web TV compared to other frugal living websites. So I stayed there, read the posts, saw many ideas that I hadn't thought of and eventually quit lurking and joined the forums - the first forums I've ever joined. That site lead me to the conclusion that I coyuld turn my sabbatical into full time retirement and so I did!! If that darn webtv had been just a bit faster at other sites, or just as slow at the SLN boards, I would have by-passed them completely and probably would have been back slaving away 9 to 5 years ago. So, Jonathan Allen if you are reading this, no more making fun of my Web TV :-)!!
The reason I looked for frugal/simple/alternative web sites was because I didn't know anyone other then my sister who shared the same ideology of wanting to spend our time engaged in recreational activities and exploration as personal challegenges rather then work-challeneges or earning money to buy stuff and live the American dream of a Mcmansion with a garage full of stuff and a couple of Beemer in the driveway. So looking for ideas came first, and finding like-minded folks kept me coming back. I read the books like YMOYL long after I had made the changes to allow me to stay off work permanently. I had always been a debt-free person who saved a large amount of my income - even when that income was low - and lived a very frugal and simple life.
ETA: It was actually one of Gary's posts (aka Simply GIB) and our following conversations that motivated me to continue with the old boards. He made a comment to the effect that on his weekends off he wanted to be off kayaking rather then spending his day working on his house with endless mind-numbing trips to Home Depo just to keep up with the Jones. He wanted his free time to be truely free and unencumbered by the traditional trappings of a "normal" house in suburbia and all the consumer stuff that went with it. So he had sold his house and moved onto a paid for houseboat, saved as much as he could and planned to retire when he hit 50. I was so impressed by that, that I wanted to do the same thing (sans houseboat, little cabin instead) and did.
I found the site through a web search, when I was looking for frugality tips in June 2007, right after my husband bought his new ski boat. >:( My husband has never quite been on board with spending less than we earn, and I was looking for a place where there were like minded people. I found the old Simple Living site, and I think I read every post on every thread. I was finally home! I tend to lurk more than post here, as I feel I still have so much to learn from all of you. You all are the greatest!
I found the forums in 1999, right after I left my husband and his farm with four children and a week's work of clothes. I had a job in middle managment, an hour commute (one way) and three kids in daycare.
It took every cent I made and every minute of the day to care for what I thought were just the basics. I barely knew how to turn on a computer, but my teenager showed me how to access his and I cast a broad net to find things that would help me dig out of the hole I was in.
The five of us lived in a two bedroom apartment (one for the teenager, the other for me and the toddlers and baby--we shared a mattress on the floor) so I learned quickly that not having stuff made my life easier.
The forums talked about YMOYL, I bought a copy and began tracking every cent and figured out I was spending money on things that were not essential.
And all the people here whoe were thinking out of the box, got me to rethink things...for example: Lindy aka She-Ra aka Spartana posted about eating a banana wrapped in a piece of whole wheat bread and the scales fell from my eyes! I didn't have to cook a four course meal every night. :treadmill: The youngsters were just as happy with a dinner of yogurt, sliced apples and carrot sticks. The teenager could make his own peanut butter and jelly sandwich! What freedom!
And for me, that is what the forums have been about..a path to freedom.
Originally posted by Fawn.
The five of us lived in a two bedroom apartment (one for the teenager, the other for me and the toddlers and babyI can't imagine... You would have made for such a great mentor and figure for me, back when I was settling in our two youngest. Compared to your situation, I had it good, yet I still found myself overwhelmed and at my saturation point.
I can't imagine... You would have made for such a great mentor and figure for me, back when I was settling in our two youngest. Compared to your situation, I had it good, yet I still found myself overwhelmed and at my saturation point.
I was pretty overwhelmed.
Things are much better now. :)
In 2002 I was in debt after finishing grad school. Depressed and feeling a little desperate, and using my computer that was not yet paid for, I searched for ways to get out of debt. I came across the Consumerism and the Media forum. It changed the way I viewed spending and gave me some hope and some tools to get started. Thanks to this board, and a lot of brown bag sandwiches, I was out of debt 13 months later. I wish I could remember whose post grabbed me and changed my life, because I would like to thank them. Unfortunately, I didn't realize at the time that it was a pivotal moment in my life.
I am loving these stories! Everyone here of us has described what this Forum means to them... this is the moment to ask all of us for a gift to the forum to keep it going. Every gift is a major gift, because every one supports the bottom line, and, as Fawn so beautifully out it, our way of continuing to provide a path to freedom for others.
I just made an online gift - please join me!
I cam to this fine community because there are many things I would like to discuss among the minds of simple living. Even something small like "My CFL looks different" takes on a whole knew meaning when discussed among people that think about CFLs like no other community would.
Is it frugal?
Is it cheap?
Is it simple?
Does it meet your life purpose?
Does it meet your life goal?
Does it meet your life passion?
What is the opportunity cost for focusing on this?
etc. etc. etc.
Anyone else, would not understand?
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