Edward H. Romney - Living Well on Practically Nothing: Revised & Updated

To my dear wife, Sara.

Living Well on Practically Nothing: Revised and Updated Edition
by Edward H. Romney

Copyright 2001 by Edward H. Romney

ISBN 13: 978-1-58160-969-1
ePub ISBN: 9781610047371
Print ISBN: 9781581602821

Printed in the United States of America

Published by Paladin Press, a division of
Paladin Enterprises, Inc.
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Acknowledgments

Many people helped me in this work. Anita Girard Allen made the drawings. Darius Robinson critiqued it and supplied valuable information about houseboats, his fathers antiques business, and Depression lifestyles. He also took the boat pictures. Bill Kallio helped a lot with the housing chapter and on painting contracting. Charles Swimmer showed how to convert a bookmobile into a rugged motor home. Much of the outdoor information in the book is taken from Francis H. Buzzacotts Sportsmans Encyclopedia of 1905. My dear wife Saras contribution to the food and clothing section was great. She was willing to pose for the pictures wearing flea-market clothing, which many women would not do. She is most tolerant of the sacrifices and the ups and downs that come with my being self-employed. Kathy Wirtes and the people at Paladin Press edited the manuscript and did the layout work and book design. It was a pleasure working with them.

Whatever defects the work has are mine and whatever merit it has is a gift from the God who created me.

This book is for people who need to live on a lot less money. If you have lost your job or expect to, or had to take a much lower -paying job, or if you have ever wondered how you would survive if you were poor, this book is for you. It is based upon the experiences of real people known to the author who live on small incomesand do very well at it. Teachers, preachers, retired members of the military, widows, people on small inheritances, country people, old people who survived the Great Depression, farmers, writers, artistsall have contributed their know-how in economical living.

Poverty is more a state of mind than an economic condition. If you have the will to survive you will live quite well, no matter what the economic conditions. This book gives you the skills you need. The author comes from a whole family of penny-pinching New Englanders whose unique and sometimes droll lifestyle is detailed in this book. He remembers the 1930s Depression as a small boy. In later years his father never let him forget it. As a freelance writer, salesman, antiques trader, former teacher in technical schools and colleges, and survivor of a messy divorce, he has learned to count the pennies with the best of themand enjoy doing it. He has used the methods described in this book and been successful enough so that he is no longer poor.

This 2001 revised edition contains much new information on making money or learning new things using computers and the Internet; starting new businesses; investing and saving; converting motor homes and school busesand much more. All the information in the original 1992 edition has been carefully checked and brought up to date.

This book will help you if you have been fired, demoted, retired, divorced, widowed, bankrupted, or swindled. If you want to live on the interest from money gained from the sale of your house, if you hate your present job or hate where you have to live in order to work, or if you just want to be ready if disaster strikes, this book is for you. Many families today would like to learn to live on less money so the wife could quit her job and be a full-time homemaker and perhaps home-school the kids. This book is for them, too.

Living Well on Practically Nothing: Revised and Updated, will show you how to save $12,000 a year or moreeven how to live on $12,000 a year. And one chapter tells you how to vanish into the woods and live on no money at all! The book tells you about nice, low-crime places to live where rents are $300 a month and houses are $40,000 or less, where you can walk everywhere and seldom need a car. It tells how to get along with country people and make them your friends. It shows how to buy good cars for less than $1,500, dress a husband and wife for $600 a year, buy secondhand appliances, eliminate heat, light, and telephone bills, and even educate and entertain yourself at low cost in your leisure time. This book tells you how to use government benefits without letting the government use you and drag you into hopeless poverty. It tells about new careers and profitable small businesses you can enter with only a few thousand dollars invested. It is an inspiring book. Most people who cut their living costs way down and change their lifestyles will be happier than ever before. It is all in the book. Go to it and good luck!