Our Missouri Life

(from Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy)

An $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers has been extended to cover contracts signed by April 30, 2010. A real estate professor writes that those seemingly free dollars might not save you any actual cash, however.

Joseph Gyourko, chairman of the real estate department at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, runs the numbers on five myths of home ownership, including the standard “buying is always better than renting” argument that we’ve previously posted about (and considered as a calculator). About the tax credit that’s regularly in the headlines, Gyourko suggests the savings may vanish quickly if you’re buying in an area with a moderately competitive market:

Just because you got an $8,000 tax credit toward the purchase of a home doesn’t mean that you actually saved $8,000. In areas where there is strong demand for housing and the supply of new housing is limited — including the Washington metro region — tax credits may result in the bidding up of home prices. In other words, the program has probably led to higher prices in these areas than we would be seeing without it. This means that some of the benefit of the tax credit is being passed on from homebuyers to home sellers.

Has the new buyer credit made you think twice about buying a home? Do you still consider home ownership a solid, if not exactly profitable, investment? Trade your takes in the comments.
5 myths about homeownership[WashingtonPost.com]

This has been an argument I’ve long maintained and has been backed up by friends in the financial industry. In particular with the market now, it makes absolutely no sense to buy a home. As you read above (following the links as well) you truly are better off renting or investing that money as opposed to buying a home. True enough, you don’t get the peace and quiet necessarily (a huge issue for me). But searching around may yield a rental that provides it.

It makes sense to downsize, lower your expectations of what a home “IS” and build a smaller home that you can actually afford.

Doing most of the construction (heavy lifting, stacking of blocks, driving nails and etc) you earn the so called “sweat equity” and lower your costs.

By downsizing your home (you DO NOT need a 3000 square foot home!), you’ve already lowered the initial cost.

By building with simpler materials and simpler methods you’ve lowered the cost of materials. You don’t really need that 10′ plastered wall with the arched ceiling…

Reading a book or two (or more) can show you the basic skills you need to build your home. Start using the books to learn the basics of household maintenance… Hiring out help is easy enough to do, and cheap enough when you don’t hire the first “Joe” you find.

With even the most basic skills, a good set of plans, and knowledgeable help you can build your own home.

Our current home plan calls for the following work to be hired out:

Slab – Concrete work.
Walls – mason to set initial course, mid-course set true and parge the walls when finished.
Roof – only needs to be hired out if we do standing seam metal roof.
Electrical – final connections only.
Plumbing – final connections only. Includes any propane lines that are run.

As you can see, it’s not a whole lot of work to be hired out. I chose a method of construction I know I can do. Concrete block – every kid in this country can stack blocks. I will only need a Mason 3 times for the entire home. Just that alone has reduced the cost of home construction by roughly 40%.

I often get asked what type of things do I read. What do I read as far as articles for work, articles for our property, ideas for the home and land, gardening, cooking and etc.

It dawned on me that since I use Google Reader I can actually share them with anyone who’s interested.

So now you can click here: Articles Rick Shared and see what I’ve tagged for future reading or to save.

So I made my choice a few years ago. I left NYC for Truth or Consequences, NM, a tiny desert town that was never fully dependent on the national economy. Folks here have skills: welding, sewing, woodworking, canning, growing etc. The domestic economy is vibrant, in fact barter is more respected than the dollar which says so little of one’s character. When a developer came here with big plans to “help us” I realized that he could not see that poverty is being redefined. While one in four American homes are empty, here in T or C we have a nearly full occupancy. He sees trailers and mobiles, “poor folks!” I see balance, living within one’s means. This is wealth! This is a place that skirted through the great depression of the 1920’s and 30’s. Here locals grew food and stocked the supermarket for those who could not grow. That supermarket is still here.

The things that make us believe in an independent life! I love the description of the contractors skewed view on life and the active level of the community in the local community instead of trucking out their goods.

I think that a community like this is more able to survive fluctuations and failures in the much larger economy of the U.S. Communities with more macro/micro economies are less effected on the larger scale failures like are currently happening in the greedy world of the lenders which now, we the average citizen have to bail out. Nothing like having a society geared more towards welfare for the wealthy…

Read more of this article here.

If you’re lucky enough to have an Aldi in your area, you can save some serious coin!

We’ve switched to doing a majority of our commercial grocery shopping at Aldi and are probably saving an additional 30% off the grocery bill.

There’s a few people that dislike Aldi because you have to bag your own groceries and they say the food is not as good.

As to the first part, it makes sense to bag your own stuff. It saves money and allows easy use of the reusable bags that are so in “fashion” now. As to the second I’ve found the goods to be as good or better than the big chain stores and in fact Aldi guarantees the food quality with a “Double” guarantee on all food products.

Jules Dervaes gives a lecture at UCLA earlier this year on Sustainable Food.

One quote of his that I find totally intriguing:

In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can – and will – overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world – we change ourselves. ~ Jules Dervaes ~

The rest of the lecture is in the extended entry.
(more…)

Biofuels are the culprit according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Did you know that “in 1996, U.S. sweet corn growers harvested about 119,400 acres of sweet corn. Growers raised 117,900 acres of sweet corn in 1995 and 123,400 acres in 1994. By comparison, the amount of land dedicated to dent corn production is much larger. U.S. corn growers plant about 71 million acres of field corn each year”. Source:NCGA Information Bin