Oh, I'm not saying that owning property is an Investment, it's absolutely a liability in pretty much every way (even when paid off, and that's the last place I want my money sitting). But when comparing the total loss liability of renting to the partial loss liability of owning, it's the lesser of 2 evils.

Honestly? White Sulphur Springs, Montana. Actually, 15 miles north of that small town, on the 5 acres of land my folks own that holds their dream/retirement home and a "cabin". There's no cell service, no TV (well, my folks have TV but we stay in the cabin with no TV), no internet (again, folks have about a 1mbps…

As has been stated, a home is not "a lot more expensive" than renting. I'm on my 3rd house since 2006. The house I'm living in right now was a rental fetching $850/month immediately prior to my purchase... my mortgage+tax is $350/month. All other utilities would be equal, that's $6000/year I'm not putting in…

My parents like in the middle of nowhere Montana (seriously ~ http://goo.gl/maps/Icsga ), there's a small town of about 1,000 folks 15 miles away, otherwise they're about 80 miles from the closest bigger population center. By some odd stroke of luck, the local Telco ran fiber down the highway they live on so now they…

My phone (a basic unit, $9/month service) is more often than not left sitting in a bowl at home. That should easily answer the question on my behalf, I'm still rocking the pen and paper option.

Weight training, my basement in the room right next to my bedroom.

Gotta say, even 10 years after my wedding day I don't regret a thing we did. Oh, I should qualify this by saying that our wedding cost $500 (venue, photographer, outfits, flowers, etc... all included). Granted, we piggy-backed it on a trip that my wifes family had already planned since my wife was graduating with…

Lets add a 3rd voice and a 3rd iteration...

My diesel fuel costs (2 year average) is only $3.48, mostly thanks to a local price that's historically cheaper than the national average (Georgia), and cost savings through my local grocery store. Ditto with insurance, we pay by the year and skip collision (if I crash the car, I'll pay to fix it) so it's only…

Lets see... in the last 2 years, divide by 2 (for an average) my total vehicle costs have been $1664 (fuel, maintenance, reg, insurance, etc...), and we've driven the 15k/year average. That's 4 vehicles mind you (car, truck, 2 motorcycles), and the car is what we use better than 90% of the time ~ that's $1164 of the…

Lol, you're not alone. I'm right there with you... Can't even begin to count the number of people I met online first, then later in person who said "Wow, you're WAY nicer/more pleasant than I though you'd be".

31816 ~ very rural GA... and my 3bed/2 bath house cost a whopping $65k. The taxes here are Terrible compared to Denver (city and county) and rural Wyoming (82520), easily 1/3rd more for a lower appraised value home. I also didn't add insurance because homeowners vs renters seems to cost us the same when we had…

After owning 3 homes in 7 years (ugh, yes) here's what we've learned:

Patagonia MLC (Maximum Legal Carryon) ~ I bought 2 of them back in 2004~5 along with packing cubes for my wife and I to use. Fits under a seat and is soft so it'll fit into overhead bins that have tons of room leftover from those roller bags that never seem to fit very well. Couple handles, shoulder sling or…

Hrm, guess it's a good thing I've never read one "tweet", abhor facebook/instgram and pretty much avoid all that anti-social networking junk.

I really don't remember, that was roughly 2002 and I went from ~290 to ~260 with no other Major changes. Near as I recall, no one made any mention about my losing weight. I'm built fairly sturdy at 6'4" and would weight in at 205lbs with zero percent body fat, most people are completely shocked that I'm 250lbs.

Umm..

I'm not whinging but no way you dropped 1o pounds a week by just changing your diet.

Are they? I've had 7 jobs in the IT field with 2 rather major gaps (where I opted to do something else for awhile) and Zero formal education. Last position was the head of the technology division of a mid-sized company. The number of times I heard back from a company that was hiring is about the same as what my…

I hated college, it was (if possible) worse than High School ~ regardless, it occupied one of the 2 slots for "worst experiences ever" with HS. That's including breaking my leg (ugh, 3 times), as we as a few other bones.