Houseless Living

No Hurry or How I Came To Live in a Motorhome

2012-02-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

No Hurry

or

How I Came To Live in a Motorhome

May 9, 2006 started like any other day. It was warmer and wetter than usual, seeing that a hurricane was currently trapped in the Gulf of Maine and spending the week flooding rivers, washing out sand dunes, and uprooting trees. May 9th was the first day of no rain in more than a week. My first chance to go out in the garden and examine the damage. I had no idea that when I stepped outside of the house that day, I would never step inside it ever again. The house was in one corner of the farm, and the garden was in the opposite corner, over a steep hill and across a dangerously swollen brook. The farm being boarded by beach on one side and swamp on the other, with a brook crossing though it, meant even without the hurricane we live in a very wet area. The swamp could no longer be seen, as the flood waters had risen over the top of the grass, making it look like a small lake had surrounded us. I had been examining the damage in the garden less than 3 minutes when my 14 year old brother came running down the hill and across the bridge, his eyes wild with terror as he said: “There’s something wrong with Daddy and the house is full of water!” The rest of the day was a blur of police, EMTs, and ambulances. Daddy was in a coma and the house which had stood there only minutes ago, was a pile of rumble, crushed by a flash flood which had came and went in only seconds.

What we did not know was Daddy had taken out a “reversed mortgage” on the house, which stipulated, he could live there until he died or was unable to take care of it. Daddy had only been in a coma a few days when the bank came to us and told us the farm was theirs, by being in the hospital over a certain amount of days my dad had forfeited the loan, and me, my mom, my 3 teenaged brothers, 2 dogs, 3 birds, and 9 cats suddenly found ourselves not only houseless, but now landless as well.

It would be another 2 months before Daddy would be pulled off life support, because his medical insurance said they refused to pay another day of the $13,000 a day machine my dad was hooked up to. We were not given a choice, we were simple told one day by the doctors: “We took him off life support last night, because his insurance was cut.” By some miracle he continued breathing on his own, and would be in the hospital another 6 months. Nearly a year after the flood, he was sent home and found out what had happened. Now disabled, barely able to talk or walk, my dad, a life long poultry farmer, suddenly found himself crippled and living in his car.

Meanwhile, my mom had gotten a divorce, remarried and left taking my 3 little brothers with her. Me? I have Autism. I was 30 years old. I had never been to school, never driven a car, never really had contact with humans outside of my family, and had barely spoken a word most of those years. I had been removed from school at age 8, told I was too retarded to be worth teaching anything to, told I would never amount to anything, never drive a car, never have a job, and college was out of the question. No one attempted to teach me any of those things and my childhood, teen and young adult years, had been spent gardening, and rescuing animals.

Fortunately we still owned part of the land, as my dad had divided it up before taking out a mortgage. Here stood the last remaining barn and enough land for me to pitch a tent, only I had no money and no idea how to get any. The concept of a job had never been taught to me. I built a tent out of a 8x6 tarp, and that is where I would live for the next 6 years, including through 3 blizzards and 5 more hurricanes. I was alone for the first time in my life. My dad was in the hospital and who knows where my mom had run off to. By October 2006 I had my first job, at age 31. By December I had my car, a $900 1992 Volvo 240GL, which I have since found out was so cheap because it has a bad habit of falling apart, usually while driving down the road. Though I had the car, I was not yet able to drive it, but it was a place to live in on days it was too cold or wet to stay under the tarp.

I discovered that if I had a college degree, I could get a better job, so college became my next goal, though to jump from Grade 3 to college 27 years later, with no schooling since I was 8 years old, meant I had a huge challenge to hurdle here. Math was than and still is, my biggest challenge, but I finally received my GED in December 2010 and my driver’s licence August 2011. September 2011 I started my first semester of college at YCCC. I transferred to SMCC in the Spring 2012. I had now completed nearly everything the psychologists had said someone with my kind of Autism would never do: I had a job, I had and was driving a car, and I was in college. The last step was to be able to live on my own, in a place of my own, without the help of shelters, soup kitchens, and food pantries. I had to move out from under the tarp and find a place to live. This has troubled me for the past 6 years. See, while I can work, my Autism limits what I am able to do, and also limits who is willing to hire me. The result is I make $7.75 a hour for only 14 hours a week, which barely pays the $40 a week gas I need to get to college, not to mention the constant repairs needed to keep my car running. Thankfully I can eat at the college for only $5 a meal, otherwise I’d still be eating only 1 or 2 skimpy meals a week at soup kitchens. I can barely afford to eat and drive to college, how can I afford an apartment when prices are more per week than my income is per month? After searching high and low for a solution, a solution presented itself one day when visiting a relative and watching Robin Williams (than) latest movie: “RV”. My tarp-tent is pitched on the boarder of The Powderhorn Campground. I spend each summer surrounded by thousands of RVs in all shapes and sizes, but I never once thought of them as anything but vacation vehicles. I had never been inside one, and I had no idea that nearly 20 million Americans live in them full time. I could not afford a house. I could not afford an apartment. I could however, if I saved enough money, eventually afford an old motorhome. It took me three years to do it, but I finally saved up $4,000 and set out to find myself a motorhome.

Yesterday, February 21, 2012 was a very big day for me. A milestone. Yesterday I bought a 22 foot 1975 Dodge Sportsman F40 Class C Motorhome. Her previous owner, a race car driver, had used her as a rally car, and painted her to match his race car, a Sublime Green 1970 Dodge Charger. He called her “No Hurry” because she moved so slow and never seemed in a hurry to get any place. She is bright fluorescent, metallic lime green, with flat black racing stripes, and covered sides and back with race car sponsor stickers. Inside she has NASCAR decor and a 2 inch thick shag carpet. And now for the first time, I am at school today, as a person who is no longer homeless. My house may be small, just 22 ft long by 9 ft wide, and it may be on wheels, but it’s a house, none the less. Once again I have a bed and a toilet, a full kitchen, a dinning room, there’s even a bath tub (a rare thing to find in an RV), a bright 1970’s mustard yellow bath tub surrounded by green shag carpet, but a bathtub never the less. A place to wash, a place to eat, a place to sleep, and for the first time since I started college, I can do my homework at home, no more coming to college early and staying late, trying to get all my homework done all in one day! And more importantly it’s warm and dry. Everything is small of course and being 40 years old it has it’s problems, but still, it’s a house and for the first time in 6 years, I can finally say, I am no longer homeless.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK's Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

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FAQs About Travel Writing: What is the best way to become a travel writer? Where do you begin if you....

2011-09-04T18:08:00.001-04:00

FAQs About Travel Writing: What is the best way to become a travel writer? Where do you begin if you want to become a travel writer and you don't have any writing experience or industry connections? Any suggestions? Is it best to take classes in writing or is this something that can be learned on your own? How competitive is the travel writing market? What is the difference between a travel writer, a travel blogger, and a travel journalist? which are you? Are there different types of travel writers? Which type should I start out as? How does on earn an income from travel writing? How do you earn your income as a travel writer? Will I make enough money from writing to fund my travels? Do you?

Now, I admit, I don't do much travel writing, but I do enough of it from time to time, to be sent questions asking about it. Thus why I now find myself answering your list of questions. A lot of questions here. I'll break them up and answer them in turn.

What is the difference between a travel writer, a travel blogger, and a travel journalist? which are you?

A Travel Writer = One who writes about traveling. Includes bloggers, journalists, and freelancers.

A Travel Blogger = A Travel Writer who has a blog, often a freelancer, rarely a journalist.

A Freelance Travel Writer = One who travels, whenever and where ever they chose, writes about said travels, than searches for ways to publish said writing. They have more freedom, but at a lower pay. Any one can do it, no college degrees or experience is required.

A Travel Journalist = A Travel Writer who is employed by a newspaper, magazine, or TV station and gets paid per assignment to travel when and where their employer tells them to. They go where they are told to go, when they are told to go, and write ONLY the assignments assigned to them by their employer, as they are under contract and will lose their job with the company should they try to sell travel writing to the company's competitors. They have higher pay, but forfeit freedom to get it. College degrees are generally required, often Masters degrees in English/Journalism are preferred.

Which am I?I suppose I fall somewhere between Freelance Travel Writer and Travel Blogger. Definitely NOT a Travel Journalist! But as I said, I'm not a travel writer per se, or at least I'm not your standard average travel writer, seeing how I don't write pieces about places. I'm more of what you could call a Life writer, I just write about events in my life, and travel happens to be one f those events from time to time.

What is the best way to become a travel writer?

Okay, so I guess you could say, I'm sort of a travel writer, more of a hobbiest travel writer than a professional travel writer, at the moment, which is kind of odd considering my career: I have written 30+ books, 200+ short stories, 2,000+ articles, a few plays, a couple of comic books, and I'm almost finished work on my first cookbook. See, I'm a writer by trade and a somewhat famous writer, famous enough so I get sent loads and loads of questions asking for writing advice, and my habit of answering every one of those questions on my various blogs and websites, results in even more folks asking even more questions - including to ask questions in fields of writing I am not familiar with, but that's another story.

And than there's the fact I live in a motorhome. Which means I SHOULD in theory be a travel writer.

I guess I am more of a traveling writer rather than a travel writer! LOL! I write as I travel, but I don't necessarily write about traveling.

How exactly did I get here? I just write about everything I see going on around me. How would I recommend you start? Just start writing about everything.

That said, travel writing is something I plan to expand upon, and hope to do more of in the future. At the moment I'm working on setting up a "How To" blog for RV travel and plan to expand that into a web site. (And if you are reading this article on Houseless Living, the blog or the website, than you already know this.)

How does one earn an income from travel writing? How do you earn your income as a travel writer?

I will tell you, that you can't make a good income writing online, with just one site. I've been building websites since 1997, but I didn't figure out how to build money-making web sites until 2005! One day it occurred to me - they are making money for hosting my sites, why can't I make the money instead? I didn't start making money online until 2007, when my first pay check was for a whopping .37c.

Today I have over 75 websites, 34 blogs, 500+ Squidoo pages, 200+ Associated Content pages, and a lot of written content across all of them, and finally in 2010 I was able to say for the first time that I am making money full time 100% online via my writing. It didn't happen over night. It took a lot of years and a lot of hard work and a lot of writing.

And when I say a lot of writing, I mean A LOT. I write no less than 750 words a day and on a high yield day I often am writing 12,000 to 15,000 words a day. Most days, on average, I write about 2,000 words a day. EVERY DAY. Seven days a week. Since 1978. That's 31 years x 365 days x 2,000 words = a minimum of 22,630,000 words, but keeping in mind I often with 12,000 words a day on weekends adds another 38,688,000 words to that total. And this is only my "work" writing, it doesn't include my personal writing on MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, forums, etc. Did I mention I write A LOT?

Mostly I write fiction (sci-fi & horror) and how-tos for self publishers and pet owners. But I also write about lots of "niche" topics too, including travel writing aimed specifically for people who travel in New England in their motorhomes. I think if I had stuck with just one or two topics or only one or two web sites, it'd be hard to earn a good income. You have to be flexible and write about EVERYTHING that interests you, be it travel or cats or cooking or whatever.

I've found over the years that I can make more money online than I can from magazines. Keep in mind I am primarily a self publisher and am not paid by any traditional publishing methods.

Will I make enough money from writing to fund my travels? Do you?

How much money do you NEED to live on? How much money do you NEED to travel? How much money do you THINK a writer makes?

*“I don’t have the money to _________.”* (travel, write, insert whatever you want in the blank!

Yep, I hear that one. A lot. People say this to me. Okay maybe their other reasons are valid, but money? Oh pleeease!

Never let lack of money stop you from living your life. You want to travel? Travel! Don't wait for *enough* money. There is NEVER *enough* money. No matter how much money you have, you will always find reasons why you can't travel until you have more money. So forget money and just start traveling. You don't need money to travel. You have feet don't you? Well use them! It doesn't cost money to start walking, and you wouldn't be the first person to walk across the globe.

Never let lack of money stop you from living your life. You want to write? Write! Don't wait for *enough* money. There is NEVER *enough* money. No matter how much money you have, you will always find reasons why you can't write until you have more money. So forget money and just start writing. You don't need money to write. You have hands don't you? Well use them! It doesn't cost money to pick up a pen and start writing, and you wouldn't be the first person to write without an income.

Money is just an excuse. If it wasn't money, you'd find a different reason not to write now, not to travel today.

Will you make enough money from writing to fund your travels? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on a lot of factors. Where will you travel too? How will you get there? What will you eat? What will you do? What will you buy? How will you get back home?

When people ask me, "Well how much do you make?" (Thinking, it'll be a really high figure) I tell them quite simply: $2,000

"A month?" they shriek, "That's way more than I make!"

No. A year. I make $164 a month.

"Wait, a year? That's like $5 a day. You're joking. How can you survive on that?"

No, that's $5.47 a day to be exact. And look at how I live: a motorhome, a tent, a car, no electricity, no toilet, no running water (in other words no utility bills), no rent, no mortage, I get up with the sun, sleep with the stars (thus no need for lights), I cook over a fire, I do more walking than driving, I travel in a small area (rarely leaving Maine, never leaving New England), I spend a large space of my time on the beach or hiking in the forest, the only thing I ever buy is food for me, food for my cats, and gas for the car and motorhome, the motorhome is parked most of the year, most travel is down in my car, and once I get where I'm going I park the car and walk everywhere. Uhm...please explain to me why it is I NEED more than $2,000 a year to travel?

They just stand there flabergasted and speechless. (Thank goodness! I was getting sick of listening to them whining about money.)

Now granted if I was driving more and walking less, or going overseas (thus needing air fare) or eating at resturants or buying things, yes, I'd need more money to live on, but the fact is, those things are NOT a part of my life, so I don't need more money than $5 to travel.

Staying in a small local like I do, means I've seen more of the area than any tourists or locals do. I've been in every city/town in Maine, I've seen ever cove, every beach, every mountain, etc. I've visited most of the town museums, been to all the "tourist attractions", attended tons of fairs and festivals. Sure I'm not "seeing the world", but than again, that's not what I wanted to do, I wanted to see every single inch of the State of Maine.

I think when people think they want to travel, often times they are not motivated because they are not really sure where it is they want to go or what they want to see, or they think they HAVE to go every where and see everything, either way it fizzles their motivation so they look for excuses why they can't go - like money. If it's too hard to take a trip across the ocean, why not start small and take a trip across the town? Work your way up to farther away places a little at a time. No one said you had to start out big.

Likewise no one said you had to travel 4,000 miles away to get started travel writing. Somebody, somewhere, some day is going to want to travel to your home town. Why not get started travel writing BEFORE you start traveling, by writing about your home town? Write reviews of local attractions, places to eat, plays, museums, etc. Maybe it's not travel to you, after all, you live there, but who better to write a travel guide about your town, than some one who lives there? Some one like you. Don't wait for an out of town traveler to write travel spots about your town - write them yourself, right now, today.

I believe that starting out writing about "local travel" is the best way to find out if you really want to be a travel writer. Why? Simple. For most people travel is exciting. Travel is fun. Writing is boring. Writing is dull. Travel writing is dull. Travel writing is boring. Travel can be expensive. A good paying writing gig is rarely going to pay more than $20,000 a year, and that's a writer who is wealthy, and well, do the math, because that's not even minimum wage pay. Yeah. Writer's pay sucks. Most writers have a full time job to supplement their writing career. Rare is the writer of ANY field who earns more than $5,000 a year from their writing.

Think about it.

Think long and hard about it.

Ask yourself how much writing do you do? Do you write letters to friends or do you call them on the phone? Do you write 60 page emails or do you have a hard time getting more than 2 sentences out? Can you sit down and write about what you ate at McDonald's today? Can you write a review about the local school play? If you answered "No" to any of these, than give up now. Turn back before you start. Do not try your hand at travel writing.

Now you are probally saying right now: "But I'm not going to write reviews about McDonald's or school plays, I'm going to write reviews about Paris cafes and Broadway and Mt Fiji and a boat trip up the Nile River and..."

Hold on a second! Stop and THINK about it. If you don't like writing this than you won't like writing that. Why? Because writing is NOT fun, writing is NOT exciting, writing IS dull, writing IS boring, writing has you sitting ALONE 4 or 5 hours a day.

Think about it.

Can you sit along in a room, for 4 to 5 hours a day? Can you spend 4 or 5 hours a day, doing nothing but typing words? Put a timer on, right now, set it for 4 hours. Sit down and type. Type: "I am not going to stop typing for 4 hours" Type it over and over again, for 4 hours. NOW ask yourself, do you STILL want to be a writer? ANY kind of writer? Travel writer or otherwise? Because writer's write and travel writers spend more hours writing than they do traveling.

So let's think back to local travel writing. Go out around town and do a few activities you don't normally do. Eat at a few places you don't normally eat. Shop at places tourists shop at. Pretend you are a tourist and have never seen this town before. Than go home and write about it. Write as though you were a world traveler and this was one of your destinations. Write about the things you plan to write about in France or Japan or Africa. Forget that you are doing local writing. Forget that this is your home town. Just write, write, and write some more. Pretend you are a world famous travel writer writing a travel piece for National Geographic. DO NOT start traveling and travel writing, until you have done this test first.

After spending a month or more doing local travel pieces step back and look at how you did. Did you enjoy writing these pieces or was it a drudgery? Here's the thing: if you don't like writing about local travel, local news, local sports, local weather, local museums, local restaurants, local plays, local beaches, local parks, and local people, what makes you think you are going to like writing about distant travel, distant news, distant sports, distant, weather, distant museums, distant restaurants, distant plays, distant beaches , distant parks, and distant people?

Do you see my point?

If you don't like writing local travel, you are not going to like writing "true" travel. Why? Because writing is writing. No matter where you live, where you go, what you do, or what you see, the writing part is always going to remain the same. It doesn't matter what or where you are writing - writing is always writing and if you don't like writing at home, what makes you think you will like writing some place else?

Many travel writers fail because they dream of traveling, but they do not dream of writing. If you want to travel, fine. Travel. If you want to get paid to travel, find a job doing something you enjoy doing. If you enjoy travel, but you don't enjoy writing, you won't enjoy travel writing and you'll soon hate traveling as well.

So where does that bring us? Well, before you can become a travel writer, you must first be a writer. You must love the physical act of writing with every fiber of your soul. (You must also love to travel!) If you love to write, but you hate to travel, you'll never make it as a travel writer. Find something else to write about. If you love to travel, but you hate to write, you''ll never make it as a travel writer. Find another job you can do on the road. If you love to write and you love to travel, than yay you, you'll make a great travel writer!

Don't be a travel writer because you love to travel - that's the worst thing you could do. Be a travel writer because you love to write. Anyone can travel, but not every one loves to write.

Simple fact of the matter is this: to make money as a travel writer, you must like writing and you must write A LOT. Keep in mind I have over 2,000 articles online and my income is lower per year than the average person's is per month. This will put into clear perspective the kind of income you can expect. Keep in mind also that only a small fraction of my income comes from writing: 75% of my income comes from sales of my paintings. Puts the lens on a writer's income clearly in focus.

Did you know that Harlequin Books is one of the top book publishers in the world, selling over 5 million books each month, and that their authors have to write 5 books per year just to earn a minimum wage income of $20,000? Of all the writing careers in the world - fiction and non-fiction, Harlequin is considered the crown of a writer's career, because their writers are among the highest paid writers in any genre in the world. $20,000 is considered poverty level to most Americans, and yet to writers this is as good as it gets. Now consider the fact that travel writers are known far and wide for being among the lowest paid writers. If Harlequins tiny $20,000 is considered high, you can imagine how low the low pay writers pay can go.

The average writer CAN NOT live on his writing income alone. The average writer earns less than $5,000 per book written. That's not $5,000 per year, that's $5,000 over his entire life time, thus why many authors try to write no less than one book per month. The only exception to this rule is self help books, self-help books (esp get-rich-quick books) being the only genre that outsells Harlequin.

Now let's get back to your question...

Will I make enough money from writing to fund my travels? Do you?

How much money do you NEED to live on? How much money do you NEED to travel? How much money do you THINK a writer makes? You saw the figures I just listed. If you start writing in 2011, you can safely assume you will not see a penny of pay before 2013 if you self publish and 2015 if you go with a publisher.

If you travel for a week, than come home and spend a week writing articles, you can than plan on 6 months wait between the time you submit to a publisher until you get a rejection. Than it's time to resubmit, wait another 6 month, be rejected again, and so one. Plan on each article being rejected no less than 10 times. Some writers say to plan on 50 rejections per article, before it gets accepted. I wouldn't wait that long before I self published it myself. Once accepted, wait another 3 to 4 months to get paid, and another 6 months after that before it goes to print, IF it goes to print.

By now 3 years have passed since your week long trip and you have just FINALLY received a check for $25. (Standard fee for a travel article from an unknown writer).

Now ask yourself did the $25 pay for your week trip, the food you ate, the places you visited, the things you bought? Will $25 pay for your next trip?

Remember that for every article that gets accepted, several thousands of other articles were rejected. competition is fierce in the travel writing field.

Freelance travel writers get the least pay and have the least job satisfaction.

The most successful travel writers (money wise) are Travel Journalists: staff writers for magazines like National Geographic. They work on assignment, with a full crew and camera team, all expenses paid and get $1,000 per article, an article they wrote in their cubicle in their 131st floor office, back home...not "in the field". They do not pick their destinations, and while they get to travel, it's business travel with no free time for seeing sights and doing things most travel writers dreamed of doing while traveling.

The most successful writers (happiness wise) are the Travel Bloggers. They go where they want, when they want, write about anything that pops into their heads, and tend to be free spirited globe trotters, enjoying long stays at each place they visit. They also rely almost 100% on Google ads for their pay, and depending on blog traffic this could be anywhere from a few pennies per year to $10,000 a day, though for most bloggers $100 a month is considered average..

So what you need to do, is figure out will this kind of job support the lifestyle you wish to maintain? How much money do you NEED to live on? How much money do you NEED to travel? How much money do you THINK you can realistically make as a writer? To help you figure that out, let's take a look at my expenses:

Living the way I do, it is not uncommon for people to ask me: "Can 2 people live on $1,500 a month and still travel?"

I am debt free. I pay cash for everything, no credit cards. I live in a motorhome, no rent or mortgage. I boondock, no electricity, no running water, no sewer, no utility bills. Me and my 12 cats are surviving on $2,000 PER YEAR. (approximately $150 per month). Surviving is the key word. Surviving is not thriving. Surviving is staying alive until something better comes along. I have Autism and thus am NOT ELIGIBLE for disability OR health/medical insurance, nor am I allowed to work (business will not hire Autistic folks like me...400+ job applications/interviews in 5 years and I'm still unemployed. *frustrating*). For the moment my income comes from sales of my art on Zazzle.com, and it's enough to keep us going, but not quite enough to keep us going well.

Anyways I figured it up and for myself and the 12 cats to live comfortably, I need an income of $500 per month ($6,000 PER YEAR). If it were just me and not the cats, $200 a month ($2,400 PER YEAR) would be MORE than plenty. (Cat food is astronomically high priced. You don't notice it with 1 cat, but what you would buy for 1 cat per year, I buy for 12 cats, meaning I pay the average cat owners YEARLY cat food bill EVERY MONTH!)

These figures are taking into consideration that I own my own land and that I'm a fulltimer, because my house left in a flood, not because I had any plans to travel. I am pretty much parked for a lifetime, so not much wear and tear on the RV. So these figures also neglect to include such things as campground rent or gas in the motorhome, as a tank of gas pretty much lasts me the whole year. Please keep these things in mind when looking at the fact I am living on such a very low income - my expenses are very low, basically with me only buying my food and cat food, and paying property taxes and registering the vehicles, and pretty much nothing else.

So, when they ask can 2 people live on $1,500 a month, well, this 1 person lives on that a year, so, yeah, you can but ONLY if your expenses are low. I once talked to a guy who lives in a van and survives on $500 a year. I don't know how he does it, but he does. I think it's all about personal choices, budget management, and lifestyle. Every person is different. I look at that guy and think there is no way I could live on $500 a year, but than I know a lot of people look at me and say they could not survive on my $2,000 a year. It's all about how you live your life, what you spend money on, and how much you "NEED" to get by. With your $1,500 a month (a whopping, gigantically huge amount an almost unimaginably high figure of $18,000 a year) I could live like a king. But for most people that is a low income, so you really have to look at what you spend money on, what you will be spending money on after RVing, and what sort of lifestyle you plan to maintain. Everyone has different needs and different ideas about what they need to survive, so everyone is going to have a different answer.

My advice: write a list of everything you spend money on RIGHT NOW.

Make a second list of everything you THINK you will spend money on while in the RV.

Compare those lists. For each item, ask yourself: Do I REALLY NEED this or do I simply WANT this?

Take all the items you NEED and put them on a third list. (Food, water, gas, medications, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and almost NOTHING else, will be on this list.)

Take all the items you WANT and put them on a fourth list. (Hair salon, makeup, movies, snacks, hobbies, recreation, etc, will be on this list)

Make a list of POSSIBLE EMERGENCY expenses: accidents, medical, auto, break downs, blow outs, etc.

Tally your totals from lists #3, 4, & 5. Add all three totals together. Do they total $1,500 or less? If so, than you'll be all set on $1,500 per month. If they total more than $1,500, head to the WANT list and start crossing off non-essentials, until your total is under $1,500. If you cross off everything on the want list, you CAN move on to the EMERGENCY list and start crossing things off, but this is not recommended.

If you have to start crossing things off the NEED list, than something is VERY wrong...there should be nothing but the barest essentials on this list: food, water, gas, medication. If there is more than this on your need list, you need to rethink the RV lifestyle. Why? because it's a minimalist lifestyle. Even with the highest income and the biggest rig, you still are living in a very small space and can not afford to keep buying things, otherwise you'll have no room to live in your RV!

But anyways, if you plan ahead and budget your spending, yeah, I think you 2 should do fine with $1,500 per month, esp if you plan to do a lot of boondocking. Boondocking cuts costs down A LOT!

I am a full time boondocker. I live 100% without hookups, full time. No electricity. No running water. No toilet. I have yet to park in a campground (partly due to money constraints and partly due to I have 12 cats and few campgrounds allow more than 4 pets, nearly all have "quantity limits". Even ones without limits, balk at 12 cats. My parking spaces thus far have consisted of: land I own, land owned by relatives, rest stops, and WalMart. For the most part stay on the land where my house once sat, and don't move the RV at all. My toad is a 1992 Volvo 240GL, as a general rule, when I travel I leave the RV parked and travel in the Volvo.

Having no electric hookups, (not even solar) I either eat no-cook foods (sandwiches, fresh fruit/veggies, etc), eat out (SubWay, pizza shops, cafes, etc), cook outside over a fire pit, or I drive the Volvo to a relative's house and cook dinner there. I get my internet from libraries or take my computer to a relative's house. I have no need for lights as I get up with the sunrise and go to bed with the sunset. What rare light I need a flashlight is plenty for.

Having no water hook-ups, I bath in the ocean, fully clothes, without soap/etc, using the mineral rich sand to wash my skin and hair. I live on the beach, obviously. I drink bottled water now, after a misshapes (major medical crisis) caused by drinking natural brook water.

Having no sewer hook ups, I know where every public toilet is and am walking distance to a dozen or so. And use trees and "cat holes" at night when businesses are closed.

Neighbors? There is a house to either side of me, and a 400 lot RV resort behind me, a 725 lot campground on the other side of one neighbor and a 200 lot "hideaway" park on the other side of my other neighbor. So yeah, I've got a lot of neighbors, most of them speaking only French and me speaking only English (I'm just south of Quebec). On my list if things to do: learn French so I can talk to the neighbors. The local WalMart has 10, 20, 30 or more RVs out there every night. So yeah, it depends on where you are parked. You could have tons of neighbors, a few neighbors, or really be way out in the boonies with no neighbors at all!

Most of the year, I live outside in a tent. On clear warm nights, I don't even use that, sleeping instead in a sleeping bag under the stars. I'm a person very much at one with nature and being indoors doesn't sit well with me. I basically am only in the RV if it's raining or if there is snow on the ground.

Now granted I am a bit more extreme than the average person. I'm fully content to life a fully "off the grid" living off the land lifestyle, but most people are not as in touch with their feral wild child as I am, so most people are going to want more "luxuries" than I afford myself. It's all about choice. You can boondock a little or boondock a lot. You can boondock full time or part time, with no hookups at all, or with semi-hookups such as solar panels and composting toilets. It just depends on how much you want, how much you need, and how comfortable you want to be.

A thing to keep in mind: the more wild and less comforts there are in you boondocking - the harder you are going to have to work physical labor to maintain your boondocking. I haul water in 5-gallon pails from a near by brook (on my land). I have a garden and fruit trees on my land, but I till the 1/8 acre of soil with a shovel, not a garden tiller! I chop wood and haul kindling (no gas or charcoal grilling for mee!) I like the hard labor of working and living off the land. But most people would rather not have to live the way I do. The more comforts you have, the less hard manual labor you are going to have to do. How much boondocking is too much boondocking? Only you can answer that, as every person has different ideas about what they want and how they choose to boondock. There's a BIG difference between boondocking on your own land with no hook-ups at all, to boondocking at WalMart with self contained "hook ups", to boondocking at a small campground with "semi-hook-ups" to boondocking miles from nowhere in the middle of a dense forest all by yourself, just you and the bears. You just have to look at all your options and decide what is right for you.

What is the best way to become a travel writer? Where do you begin if you want to become a travel writer and you don't have any writing experience or industry connections? Any suggestions?

Start local. Write about local travel. Write for tourists who visit your town. Go on camping trips, backpacking hikes, cultural events, etc. Write about everything you do and every place you go. Get as much practice writing about "local travel" as you can, that way you'll have your style and voice well hones out before you set off to your "real" travels.

I had no experience in the writing industry. I just knew I loved writing, so I wrote about every thing. I had written my first book, long before I was a teenager, and has started writing non-fiction advice columns in my preteens. By the time I was 16 I had already self published 4 books, several novellas, and dozens or how-to articles. By the time I was 20 I had written more books than my age, was raking up stacks of articles, hundreds of them. What did I write about? Everything. Absolutely everything. I wrote about cars I liked, jobs I hoped to have when I grew up, flowers in my garden, my cats, my dogs, family vacations, I just wrote and wrote and wrote. I was addicted to writing. Today at 36 years old I have written 30+ books, a few novellas, 200+ short stories, 2,000+ articles, a couple dozen plays, a few comic books, 75+ websites, 34 blogs, 500+ Squidoo lenses, 200+ AC pages, have won 7 of 13 writing contests, head the local writer's group, I a publishing house, and am working on my first cookbook.

What is required to get started? Only one thing: the desire to write. The will to write. The motivation to write. The love of the act of writing.

Is it best to take classes in writing or is this something that can be learned on your own?

I did not go to school. When people hear that they think I mean college. No. I have Autism. I DID NOT GO TO SCHOOL. *period* I went to Kindergarten - Grade 3. I was pulled out of school at age 8.

I did not go to school, high school, or college. I was 35 years old the first time I heard of GEDs. I took the test and passed and broke a national scoring record, 6 months later. They made me take several college entrance exams and on each of those I passed, breaking state and national records each time. They made me take the MENSA test, I passed that too, and am now told I have one of the highest IQs in recorded history at 217, far above and beyond Einstein's 160. When they finally determined I had not cheated on the GED and asked how some one with Autism and with ZERO education broke the national test scores? My answer floored them. When I was taken out of school I got a library card. I proceeded to read all 12,000 books in that library, and when that library ran out of books I got another library card. Today 30 years, 5 libraries and many hundreds of thousands of books later I am working my way through the state library's 2 million book collection. Turns out that because I DID NOT go to school, I got the best education of all. They also tell me someone without Autism would not have been so driven as to read every book in 5 libraries. ReallY? What do I know of what "normal" people would do, after all, I'm just the retarded kid with Autism who was too stupid to attend school, remember? Of course Einstein and Bill Gates both had/have Autism too, schooling was not a thing in their past either.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need college to succeed. If you want to succeed, you need a brain that can think for itself, not a piece of paper hanging on your wall. Sure college will help, I'm not saying don't go, (I would like to go myself one day), I'm just saying...go to learn something useful, don't go just because someone else did.

I am totally self taught, never taken any classes. I am highly self motivated, though, so don't let that stop you from taking classes yourself. It can't hurt to learn everything you can.

How competitive is the travel writing market?

Very, if you are talking about magazines and newspapers. It's very hard to break into either. Nearly as hard to get a book proposal accepted. Your best bet is to start out with a travel blog and a travel web site and build a "name brand" reputation for yourself.

Any suggestions?

Find your muse. If writing is your muse, than run with it. If travel is your muse, fly with it. If you want to write about travel, write about travel. Don't let any one or any thing stop you. Do it because you want to do it. Write about the things you enjoy. If travel is the thing you enjoy, than write about it.

Have you ever read the book "The 4-Hour Workweek"? If not, check it out at the library and read it. Very inspiring book. It's not a travel writing book or a book on travel or a book on writing. Basically what the story is - this guy, decided he wanted to travel and see the world but he was stuck in the same old same old life, but he had an idea for a product, ran with his idea, got his product on an infomercial and was a millionaire a month later, and now works 4 hours a week getting paid $20,000 a month, and now travels all over the world, while living off what he terms an "automated income". The book goes into a lot of detail (step by step stuff) about how he did what he did, how he downsized clutter and needless activities and replaced them with stuff that brought income while he was away from home. There's a lot of great info to give you ideas to get started. Now granted not everyone who follows his advice is going to become and over night millionaire, he had a product that got gobbled up by infomercial buyings and that did make everything else a lot easier for him, but still you can take the advice he gives and the "exercises" he outlines and apply them to any type of home or online business and still see results from it. I know this, because I tried it. I figured, well if he could do this, than I can do it too. I didn't use a lot of the steps he wrote about, in fact, I didn't use much of his advice at all! LOL! But I was so inspired by the story of his success that I took his "muse theory" and ran with my own muse.

He says everyone has a muse and everyone can become successful if they find their muse and find a way to make money at it. This is the point that really inspired me. Most "Money Making" books I've read, they tell you "I did it THIS way and so you have to do it EXACTLY the same way I did. Do the same steps, sell the same products, invest in the same stocks, whatever." This guy though, he wasn't saying "Create a product and sell it on TV, because that's what I did". No, he was saying, "Look inside yourself, find your muse, find your passion, find the thing you are going to do in your life wither it makes money or not, and than find a way to make that passion bring in an income". Well this just plain made sense to me, so I tried it.

Now I've wanted to be self employed in the past, you can figure that, or otherwise why would I have been reading this book right? Well, here's the thing: Just getting minimum wage job is hard for me, and every time I mentioned starting a business people would laugh at me. See, I did not go to school. When people hear that they think I mean college. No. I have Autism. I DID NOT GO TO SCHOOL. *period* I went to Kindergarten - Grade 3. I was pulled out of school at age 8. I have Autism = people don't WANT to hire me. Jobs get passed on to some one who is "not retarded". I never went to school = people don't hire me thinking "she's too stupid for school, than she's too stupid for work."

I did not go to school, high school, or college. I was 35 years old the first time I heard of GEDs. I took the test and passed and broke a national scoring record, 6 months later. They made me take several college entrance exams and on each of those I passed, breaking state and national records each time. They made me take the MENSA test, I passed that too, and am now told I have one of the highest IQs in recorded history at 217, far above and beyond Einstein's 160. When they finally determined I had not cheated on the GED and asked how some one with Autism and with ZERO education broke the national test scores? My answer floored them. When I was taken out of school I got a library card. I proceeded to read all 12,000 books in that library, and when that library ran out of books I got another library card. Today 30 years, 5 libraries and many hundreds of thousands of books later I am working my way through the state library's 2 million book collection. Turns out that because I DID NOT go to school, I got the best education of all. They also tell me someone without Autism would not have been so driven as to read every book in 5 libraries. Really? What do I know of what "normal" people would do, after all, I'm just the retarded kid with Autism who was too stupid to attend school, remember? Of course Einstein and Bill Gates both had/have Autism too, schooling was not a thing in their past either.

But anyways, that's how I found this 4HWW book. I just sat down and read it. Took about 4 hours cover to cover. I didn't get it out to read for the sake of implementing it. I had just reached that point of the Dewy Decimal System at the McAurther Library. This was a year after the flood. I had lost my home, my job, everything I owned. I read all of the "home business" books before and after 4HWW in the DDS and this one stood out to me as different. It was one of the few written by someone who was ACTUALLY LIVING what he was preaching. I decided to read it a few more times, really take in what it said. It struck a cord with me and I just kept rereading it, and started doing what it said to do.

I didn't do the activities and such, in the 4HWW , because it was focusing on making money and making money has never been something I strive for. I find the topic of money and the pursuit of money quiet boring actually. Probably because I never learned math. Money requires math and counting and I can count enough to get by, I can do a little bit of addition and some subtraction, but the rest is lost on me. I find numbers incredibly confusing and pointless and money just plain annoying. It's only paper. It means nothing to me. (I did not pass the math part of the GED, or the college tests, or the MENSA tests, they made me take, btw. Everything else I had a perfect score on.) So for me looking at the 4HWW is vastly different than, well, I guess every one else on this forum, because every one else seems to be driven to use the 4HWW to get more money and me I was driven to use it as a way to change my lifestyle, from one of confining work hours to the freedom to not have to work at all.

One of the points he made in the book, was getting rid of "stuff" and how the less stuff you have the more productive you become. I used to have a lot of stuff. A LOT. Autism and OCD = collector of everything, massive hoarder. The flood cured that for me, it just took everything house and all. Today I live in a motorhome - less than 150 square feet of living space - no room for "stuff" = liberation & elimination at it's fullest. I will say that "stuff" and "clutter" was hampering my productivity. I can look back and see that now. I'm am far more productive today and I own next to nothing, than I was before the flood, when I owned some of everything. I don't record my productivity, I don't need to, it's painfully obvious, the difference between my sluggish unproductive past self and my very efficient productive self of today. Just get rid of everything. Don't even think about it. Toss it all. You'll see a vast improvement in every area of your life - including income.

In 2006 I lost everything to a flood, including to lose my job. I became instantly and unexpectedly homeless and jobless. I lived for a while in a tent, than a car, than a motorhome. My lifestyle was changed dramatically from an average well off normal house dwelling girl, to a "homeless bum" barely able to find enough food to stay alive.

I found the 4HWW in 2007. I do not say it is the reason I got out of homelessness and got my own business started, but it certainly helped to give me ideas on how to get started. It was one of only many books I had read at that time, on building your own income, but it did stand out from the rest and it was the one I have referenced back to many times in the past 5 years.

Now in 2011, I am back "on my feet", no longer homeless, and while I'm not rich and my income is still much lower than it was before the flood, I am making enough to take care of myself and my family and i am working for myself "full time", with my own online business. And, I have seen a steady increase of income each month for the past 3 years. granted it's only a small increase, but still, it's a steady increase and has no signs of going down.

The biggest bonus of all: I'm only working 8 hours a week and have plenty of free time for family, hobbies, and activities; and if I need more income, it's a simple matter of increasing my work hours for a few weeks. Plus I did this all myself without any help from anyone, no loans, no start up costs, nothing. I just used what I already had; pen, paper, canvas, paint, brushes, and the deep rooted love of writing sci-fi and painting pictures of my cats.

Before the flood painting and sewing and cooking and writing sci-fi were things I did "for fun", things I did in my spare time, things I did after school/work, things I did because I was just driven to do them and got great pleasure out of doing them.

Today? I write articles for a living. I write short stories for a living. I write books for a living. I sew dolls for a living. I paint for a living. Soon, I'll be finished writing my first cook book, and in the summer of 2012 I'll be starting the filming of my "YouTube Cooking Show". I live in an RV and travel where ever I want, whenever I want. Why? Because I finally realized what my muse was: writing, painting, cooking, and sewing; and I took my muse and turned it into an income. It was a long hard road. It didn't happen over night. It took 3 years before I saw a steady income. It took 5 years before I could say I can live off my online writing/painting/sewing/cooking income. I'm not wealthy YET, but my income has increased at a steady rate for 3 years now and being wealthy is certainly the direction this path is taking so long as I stick with it.

I worked retail before the flood: cashier, sales assistant, sales representative, fitting room attendant, etc. It was okay work. I liked what I did. It made okay money. But it stifled my freedom, it kept me tied down to one place all the time, and it took away 38 hours a week that I would rather have spent writing and painting.

For me the 4HWW is more about gaining FREEDOM to do things you enjoy, rather than gaining lots of money. Most folks see it as a way to makes lots and lots of money, but I see it as a way to make lots and lots of free time to do things I'd rather do. So when I started putting the 4HWW into action, I did not focus on money and wealth, I focused on freedom and more hours a week doing things I enjoyed. My approach and goal and outlook was different and I think that's why I succeeded when so many others have failed at the 4HWW system.

My income is 100% online. My top payer is Zazzle.com, and my #2 payer is Squidoo.com. Other places I get a (very) small income from include Lulu.com, Spoonflower.com, Etsy, Amazon.com, Associated Content, Keen.com, Commision Junction, and RedGage.

If you don't know those websites, than I'll explain what it is I do...

I am a writer (non-fiction), author (fiction), painter (acrylic & pastel), photographer (nature & flowers), dollmaker, quilter, and online psychic.

I write articles for places such as Squidoo and AC and they pay me for that. Since 2007 I have written over 2,000 articles some I got paid for up front, but most all of them are now an "automated income" as I get paid by how many times people read/click on those articles. Once I have written the article and submitted it, there is no more work to do and one article can generate a steady income for the rest of my life...granted each article only generates pennies a day, but pennies a day, for lots of articles does add up, and if you keep writing a few articles a week, it can add up to a lot over time. Right now my 2,000+ articles is bringing in $30 to $200 per month, depending on traffic and clicks.

I self publish books via Lulu and Amazon and get paid for that. (I planning to expand to include ebooks for Kindel this fall). So far I have written (and illustrated) 30+ books/novels, 200+ short stories, about 2 dozen plays, a couple of cookbooks, and a few comic books. Again this is an automated income, because as long as the books are in print I get paid for sales, and being self published, I get to decide how long they stay in print. This brings in the lowest income for me (the reason being I write sci-fi erotica, which has only a small readership; if I wrote a more popular genre I would have more sales), but I make on average .99c per ebook up to $7.50 per hardcover book sold.

I sell prints, postage stamps, notecards, and t-shirts of my art & photography for a 48% commision on Zazzle and a 10% commision on CafePress. I do acrylic/watercolor/pastel paintings of birds and cats and photography of flowers and nature. This is my largest source of income bringing in $75 to $600 per month.

I sell quilting fabric I designed for the fabric manufacturer Spoonflower. I make a commission on sale of fabric I designed for them, but it is only a few hundred dollars a year, so this is a very low income generator at the moment, but I've only done it less than 2 years and their company is new. I know the guy who owns the company, thus how I got started with them as a beta tester.

I sell dolls and quilts and other items I sew on Etsy. (I plan to expand to include canvas paintings this fall.) This is my third highest income generator, but it is the one which requires the most work and the longest hours. It can take several days to hand sew a doll or a quilt and the costs of materials is often higher than the cost people are willing to pay for the end product. This is something I do because I like sewing and is not something I recommend as a way to bring in a "good income".

I do psychic card readings for people off my "Psychic Hotline" account with Keen. I'm only doing this a few hours per month, however I know a few people who do his several hours a day, several days a week and are making $200 - $700 a week doing nothing else, so I could easily triple my monthly income if I increased the hours I was available to answer calls. If you have a talent for reading tarot cards this actually is a very good way to make a lot of money fast - but there is stiff competition in this field and you got to be really, really, really good at it otherwise you'll get crushed by the other psychics. This is a hard business to get going in if you are not very well versed in card reading.

CJ, Google Ads, and RedGage are affilate linkshareing pay-per-click companies that pay me a commision for placing their adds/links on my blog. So far this brings in under $200 per year, but I'm not doing any marketing or promotion of my blog. I just write posts a few times a week and leave it at that. Granted my blog was started in 2003 and has over 5,500 posts on it today, and does have hundreds of subscribers, has had over 183,000 unique hits since 2007, gets over 1,000 hits a day, and is often reviews by other blogs who often attribute me as their "inspiration". (If you Google me you'll find out that I am a little bit, somewhat, very famous and have thousands of fans. One of the books I wrote did get rather popular a few years back. So do take this into consideration before you look to blogging as a source of income.). I could probably turn my blog into a huge income source if I took the time to market and promote it.

How much I earn each month depends on varying factors (such as if and how many new articles I submit, how many hours my "Psychic Hotline" is "online", etc.) I can easily increase my income by writing more articles, staying online longer hours, or listing more items on Etsy, but at the moment, I don't really have the need to, as my income - though low - is plenty for my current expenses.

I have a plan to start selling my craft items and paintings from a booth at fairs, I plan to start that in 2013.

I also plan to start a mini "Dungeon Master's booth" to set up at RV Parks, as part of being an activities host (which I also plan to start doing in 2013), seeing how I'm a Dungeon Master and have a massive collection of Rpg and board games and casino games, which I could easily convert into a traveling gaming booth for campers. (And added note here, my expenses are low because I live in an RV fulltime, I do not live in a house). Though I'm not sure that I'd be doing this for money...no idea how to turn such a thing into a money making venture. LOL!

But there you have it. I took my muse and ran with it and have been successful. I'm not wealthy or anything, but I am working very barest minimum hours (rarely more than 8 hours a week) and earning enough income to be considered sort of well off. (I know people see my income as low - but I have what I need.) If I made more effort and worked more hours, I could easily increase my income, but for the moment I have no real need to do so, my needs and expenses are met and that was, after all my goal.

I am living in an RV fulltime, I set my own hours, I work for myself, I do the things I love doing, I found ways to get paid to do things I would be doing anyways (I'm going to write, paint, and sew wither I get paid to do it or not, so I just found a way to get paid for doing what I love to do.), I get to travel when I want to where ever I want. Me? I'm a beach bum. I love the beach. I grew up on a beach. I still live on a beach. With an RV and can drive from beach to beach to beach and live on any beach I want to whenever I want to. I can chase hurricanes and blizzards all over the place. Plant me on a cold North Atlantic beach, tell me there's a hurricane or blizzard heading straight for me, and I'm happy. I love extreme weather camping. I love digging my tent out from under 9 feet of snow. I love standing in the surf with 100MPH winds lashing all around me. I love writing sci-fi. I love painting pictures of birds and cats. I love living in an RV. I love sewing dolls. I love sewing quilts. I love having 12 cats. I love collecting tarot cards and reading them for people. I love writing about events in my life, things I do, and places I go. I love that I can do these things and get paid to do them. I love my life. Do I need to be wealthy? No. Why? Because I've reached contentment and found a lifestyle that I love living. I may not have reached wealth, but I did reach personal fullfillment and success and to me, that's worth more than all the money in the world. My life may seem wild and hectic and not appeal to other folks, and that's fine, my lifestyle is not for everyone, but for me, it is perfect.

So, my advice to you, is find is YOUR muse. Take it. Grab it. Go with it. Explore it. Feast on it. Run with it. Don't ask questions. Don't second guess yourself. Think about what you like doing and find a way to get paid to do it. Where there is a will there is a way. Learn all you can about your muse, than find a way to make money with it. You can do it. You will succeed, because it is the thing you WANT to do.

Basically what it all boils down to is YOU. Do what YOU want to do, when YOU want to do it, how YOU want it done. I know my advice is unconventional and probably not what you was looking for, but I am a big believer in self sufficiency and ingenuity and looking inside of yourself and finding your own unique way of getting things done. I'm not a follow the leader type person. I don't follow instructions well, nor to give instructions to others well. What do, do well, is write the rules of my life and follow them in my own way.

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FaceBook Status to Repost and Pass on to Friends...

2011-09-03T21:40:00.000-04:00

I recently reset my status privacy to everyone so I could maximize my offending potential & offend as many humans as possible with my hippy dippy tree hugging granola eating anti-war left wing liberal anti-christian minority kissing bi-sexual propaganda! :) Repost if you are sick of narrow minded far right wing extremists posting negative comments on your status updates.

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Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don't have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don't miss out on hundreds of Free eBooks from Amazon's Kindle Store.

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FAQs: How many cats does Maine's Crazy Cat Woman have?

2011-09-02T11:03:00.000-04:00

To answer the question: "How many cats has Maine's Crazy Cat Woman had?"...

The answer: I've had 68 cats.

The most at one time was 24 cats.

I currently have 12 cats.

And it costs me $70 a week to feed them, $200 a month for flea collars, $40 a week for flea pills, $300 per cat for spay/neuter, and over $5,000 a year for vet visits. All of the fees are paid for by sales of my art via The Pidgie Fund.

THIS for those who don't know, is The Pidgie Fund. 100% of profits from this store go directly to supporting the Pidgie Fund Cats (all rescued former feral cats). Left over profits are used to supply food donations to the local animal shelter in West Kennebunk. The Pidgie Fund Cats are fully self supported via sales of art from The Pidgie Fund and often have money left over to help other cats.

The Pidgie Fund Saving the World One Pet at a Time: Home: Zazzle.com Store

www.zazzle.com

WELCOME TO THE PIDGIE FUND! The Pidgie fund was started December 2005 by Wendy C. Allen. We are a non-profit group saving the world one pet at a time. All earnings from these products are used to buy food and supplies for pets in need and shelter animals in the Southern Maine area. To date The...

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Thought of the Day: Learning From Native Americans

2011-08-30T23:39:00.000-04:00

You want to know how to be like Indians?
Live close to the earth.
Get rid of some of your things.
Help each other.
Talk to the Creator.
Be quiet more.
Listen to the earth instead of building things on it all the time.
Don't blame other people for your troubles.
Don't try to make people into something they're not.

~Kent Newborn

The Earth Does Not Belong to Us, We Belong To The Earth. ~ Chief Seattle

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Thought of the Day: Where will you be 20 years from now? What will you think of what you did today?

2011-08-29T23:40:00.004-04:00

Twenty years from now
you will be more disappointed
by the things that you didn't do
than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.

~Mark Twain

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Thought of the Day: Are you gathering rosebuds of today or do they wilt while you wait for tomorrow?

2011-08-28T23:44:00.004-04:00

One of the most tragic things
I know about human nature
is that all of us tend to put off living.
We are all dreaming of some
magical rose garden over the horizon
instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming
outside our windows today.

~Dale Carnegie

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Happy Hurricane Day!

2011-08-28T19:12:00.000-04:00

It's here! We've been waiting all week for this! The Hurricane Irene has touched down on Old orchard Beach! YAY!

Nothing better than aqua jogging on the beach, during a hurricane :) Had to cut my daily 2 miles down to a 1/4 mile though the waves were getting taller than me and the wind got to the point I couldn't walk against them any more. Happily I'm not the only insane person on the beach today - it's as busy as July 4th down there - only instead of swimming every one is down there video taping the storm! LOL!

Oh and if you are really, really really crazy, the Brunswick Hotel (Old Orchard Beach, Maine) is hosting a Hurricane Party on the beach tonight at high tide - 11:11PM...

Weird - half the businesses are boarded up and stacked with sand bags, while the rest are hosting beach parties. Half the town is evacuated and the rest of us are standing on the beach going "Oooooh look at that wave going over that house..."

There's a lot of people gathered around "The Hurricane House" this is the first hurricane since they built it...it's some sort of high tech revolutionary hurricane proof house, the theory being that even if the ocean lifts it off it's foundation and tosses it out to sea, it will remain intact. There's a crowd of people gathered praying the flood waters will go high enough to drag the house off it's foundation, just to see if it falls apart or not.

Watching nature at it's worst. This is better than going to the movies. We must be the coastal versions of Tornado chasers.

THIS is how I got the nickname "The Sea Witch of Old Orchard Beach"...In 20 years I've never missed standing on the shore during a hurricane.

And uhm... the police are on stand by with body bags...that's always encouraging... LOL!

Did I ever mention my favorite weather is hurricanes?

No kites down there tonight - I think the wind would shread them in an instant! it's going over 70MPH right now.

Hurricanes - the whole reason I live on a beach :)

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Thought of the Day: Are you truly living your life?

2011-08-27T23:55:00.001-04:00

We must remember the chemical
connections between our cells
and the stars, between the
beginning and now. We must
remember and reactivate the
primal consciousness of oneness
between all living things. We
must return to that time, in our
genetic memory, in our dreams,
when we were one species born
to live together on Earth as her
magic children.

`Barbara Mor

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Thought of the Day: Did you stop and smell the roses today?

2011-08-26T23:59:00.001-04:00

Next time a sunrise steals
your breath or a meadow
of flowers leave you
speechless, remain that
way. Say nothing, and
listen as heaven whispers,
"Do you like it? I did it just
for you".

~Max Lucado

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Thought of the Day: Possessions - Do you possess them? Or do they possess you?

2011-08-25T00:03:00.001-04:00

My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions,
but in the fewness of my wants.

~J. Brotherton

In our rich consumers' civilization
we spin cocoons around ourselves
and get possessed by our possessions.

~Max Lerner

It is preoccupation with possessions,
more than anything else,
that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

~Bertrand Russell

Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens.
If you have them, you have to take care of them!
There is great freedom in simplicity of living.
It is those who have enough but not too much who
are the happiest.

~Peace Pilgrim

Everything we possess
that is not necessary for life or happiness
becomes a burden, and scarcely a day passes
that we do not add to it.

~Robert Brault

To find the universal elements enough;
to find the air and the water exhilarating;
to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening
saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night;
to be elated over a bird's nest
or a wildflower in spring
- these are some of the rewards of the simple life.

~John Burroughs

The ability to simplify means
to eliminate the unnecessary
so that the necessary may speak.

~Hans Hofmann

I like to walk about among
the beautiful things that adorn the world;
but private wealth I should decline,
or any sort of personal possessions,
because they would take away my liberty.

~George Santayana

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RV Fultiming "Winter Camping" Questions

2011-08-11T11:57:00.000-04:00

I'm not new to "winter camping" or 24/7 year round boondocking. I live in an area that gets 5 to 7 months of snow (more on a "cold" year), and usually spends 2 of those months at temps of -20F to -48F before wind chill factors (and living on the coast, we get a lot of high winds all year long). I lived fulltime in a tent since 2006 (no electricity, no running water, etc), during that time we had 3 blizzards (one which buried my tent under 9 feet of snow), 2 ice storms, and 5 hurricanes. So, extreme winter camping is a lifestyle for me. I love the cold and snow, I avoid the heat and hot climates.

I'm upgrading. I'm moving out of the tent and into a motorhome. I have not bought it yet, but the one I'm planning to buy is a 1988 Class A 31' Georgie Boy TravelMaster. (Which has already been customized for fulltime boondocking, thus why I'm trying for this one first.) If they sell it before I come up with the cash to pay for it, I've got a few "back-up RVs" on my list, all are 1980s Class As. (After spending 2 years going in and out of every new and used RV, MH, TT, 5Th in the state I came to the conclusion I prefer the Class As of the '80s.)

So, here's the thing. I've never lived in a motorhome before. This is going to be a totally new thing for me (as well as being the LARGEST living space I've had in 36 years - I lived in a 16'x9' beach cabin before the tent.). And me, living in the types of places I like to live I'm going to have to make sure it gets winterized for some heavy duty super cold regions. (Once in the motorhome I plan to spend a lot of time boondocking between Maine, Quebec, Yukon, Alaska, Colorado, etc, exploring the coldest iciest parts of North America - it'll likely never see a warm day again once I own it!).

So my question is: what the heck do I need to do to my motorhome to winterize it? Does anyone have any advice on "RV Boondocking" in extreme cold regions

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Woo-Hoo! or Losing weight too fast?

2011-08-10T23:25:00.000-04:00

On June 28, I weighed myself for the first time in 5 years and found I had gone from 132 to 182 during those 5 years. I joined SparkPeople and started trying to lose weight later the same week.

I spent the first week tracking my diet and found that for meals (not including drinks or snacks) I was eating 2,300 - 3,500 calories a day!!! And for my height/weight I should be eating 1,200 calories a day. This did not include the fact that I drank 4 to 6 cans of soda a day. I was only drinking 2 - 3 glasses of water a day.

The entire month of July I did not drink any soda, I walked 1 mile a day, I made sure to drink 4 - 6 glasses of water a day, and I was careful to eat no more than 1,900 calories a day.

I decided not to weigh myself for a month to save on stress. On August 3, I weighed myself a second time and was 176. That's a lose of about 1/2lb a week, which is not great but pretty good. It was an improvement, but I read that we should try to lose 2lbs per week, so I changed things a bit.

For 7 days, I walked 2 miles per day, replaced one meal with a Slim Fast Shake, drank 8 - 12 glasses of water a day, and was careful not to eat over 1,200 calories a day.

Today, August 10, I just weighed myself to see if I had increased my weight lose to 2lbs per week and was shocked when the scale read: 167lbs, for a loss of 9lbs in one week!

Part of me wants to run around screaming Woo-Hoo and part of me wants to go: OMG! That's way too much too fast it's not healthy!

Uhm...any thoughts on this? Should I keep going like I did this past week? Or should I go back to what I was doing last month? I mean, I like that I've lost nearly 10lbs in 1 week, but I'm worried that it's not safe to lose it that fast.

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Answers To Your FullTime RV Living Questions: Where is your legal residence? If you travel fulltime, where do you renew your drivers license and what state to you file taxes in? Do you still need to own property somewhere to be a resident?

2011-08-10T16:29:00.000-04:00

Where is your legal residence? If you travel fulltime, where do you renew your drivers license and what state to you file taxes in? Do you still need to own property somewhere to be a resident?

You've got several questions rolled in one here, let's answer each separately, okay?

Where is your legal residence?

Maine.

Why? Easy. I like Maine. I was born in Maine, raised in Maine, no plans to ever leave Maine. When I do travel (which is rare) I travel with-in Maine, sometimes New Hampshire, a few times Vermont, but mostly just Maine. I've been in every town in Maine at one time or another, but I stick to the coast pretty much 24/7, I'm on the beach almost every day, jogging hip deep in the waves 3 hours a day, and for the most part I stay in one place months at a time.

I didn't become a full-timer to travel. I initially did not become a fulltimer by choice. The lifestyle was thrown on me when a flood took everything I owned, including my house. (Remember what I said about me liking to live on the coast, well, my front door was practically in the ocean.) I was homeless for 5 years, spent that time with the goal of getting back into a house. But than one day that goal just melted away.

I lost everything to a flood. Was quite happy living in a house, had no plans to stop doing so, (well, happy enough, I didn't really like the tiny 700 square foot house, it was the location I loved) but than one day there was no house. Lots of water. Lots of rubble. Lots of mud. But no house. I lived in a "home made tent" (a 8x6 tarp thrown over a woodpile) for the next few years. Eventually got a car and lived in that instead, while still also living under the tarp-tent-thing. The whole 5 years I was working towards getting back in a house. Than, after 5 years of "homelessness", I moved into an apartment, and HATED being indoors. OMG! I had spent those 5 years with one goal: to get back inside a house, only to reach that goal and realize, I really, really, really HATED living indoors! So it was back to the land (which I still owned, but still had no house on it, where the tent-thing still stands to this very day) to try to figure out what to do next.

In my 5 years of "homelessness" I had learned to love living without a house. I had boondocked the whole time: no electricity, no running water, no toilet, pretty much it was like a 5 year camp out - a cold blizzards filled camp out, but a camp out none the less. I learned to love cooking over a campfire. I learned to get up with the sun and sleep under the stars. I got used to my radio station being the ocean waves and the screaming seagulls and the singing songbirds. I had even learned to love living without electricity, without running water, and without a toilet! I couldn't believe it - I got back into a house and I could not adjust to HAVING these things! All I wanted to do was escape the indoors and rush back outside to be out in nature. I even got use to dealing with thunderstorms, hurricanes, and blizzards with only a 8x6 tarp for protection! Weird, I know, but that's what happened. The whole time I was wanting to get back in a house, but I got so used to living off the land, that when I did get back in a house, I couldn't fathom going back to house living which now feels like a confining prison to me. I had never lived a normal life, and my house lost to a flood, was a 700 square foot 1 bedroom summer cabin, which I had rarely spent much time in to begin with seeing how I was always too busy being outdoors. I basically only slept in the thing. I think I only really lived in a house to begin with, because I felt it was the thing "normal" people did and I was "supposed" to do it. Going into an apartment, showed me just how much I REALLY detested being indoors.

Logic told me I needed a house of some sort, at least to have a dry/warm place to sleep during Maine's endless rain and snow seasons. And than it hit me: what I needed was a motorhome! It allows me to have a warm dry place during rain and snow and still have the option to live at one with nature. The other advantage of a motorhome is, when the next hurricane, nor`easter, blizzard, or thunderstorm comes ripping up the coast (and one or the other arrives every month of the year) it's a simple matter of starting the engine and driving my home inland to sit out the storm, than drive back to the ocean once the storm passes. No more worries of floods taking out the house! LOL!

And so I became a fulltimer/boondocker, with no goal of ever traveling at all. Now granted my fulltiming is not the norm, most fulltimers, got their motorhome with a goal of traveling, me, I'm content to stay in one spot most of the time, I don't move around to much. I don't particularly NEED a house, it's just me and my cats, and there's plenty of room for us in a motorhome. A House has all sorts of expenses, that a motorhome doesn't have. And with a motorhome, I don't have to stay just on one beach all the time, I can go from one beach to the next and take my "house" with me. Living in a motorhome just plain made more sense to me, than living in a house.

Thus my "Domicile" is as it always was: Maine, because I love Maine, I love Maine beaches, I love Maine coastlines, I love Maine forests. I just plain love Maine. With a house only one tiny lot in Maine could be my home, now with a motorhome, the ENTIRE STATE of Maine is my home. I still have the land where the house used to be and I'm parked there much of the time. My mail comes there, I vote in that town, I attend that's towns counsel meetings, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's where I grew up, it belonged to my parents, my grandparents, my great grand parents...there are no buildings on the land anymore, it's basically an empty lot, turned into a parking space and garden. I have a garden here, roses, vegetables, fruit trees, it's only about an 1/8 of an acre...So even when I'm elsewhere, that address remains my "home address" and very likly will remain so the rest of my life.

While reading lots of RV stuff in prep for my motorhome, I noted money (taxes, insurances, etc) to be a major deciding factor for most RVers when choosing a place of residency. I found this quite interesting, because money has never been a deciding factor for me in any of my decisions, RVing or otherwise. But I thought I'd comment on this myself, as it may be of interest to those deciding their own domicile.

Fact #1: Maine is in the Top 10 for being a state with the HIGHEST taxes in the nation.

Fact #2: Old Orchard Beach (my Domicile city) has the SECOND HIGHEST taxes in the state and is among the highest of any town in New England.

Fact #3: My father's grandfather founded and settled this town over 200 years ago and for most of that time my family pretty much ran every business and government seat in the town.

Fact #4: I have Autism. I was removed from school at age 8. Did not talk for most of my life. Never had any education of job training. I can barely count, let alone to math, so talk of money is generally lost on me. You tell me what I own you and I can count enough to count out the cash I hand you. That's pretty much my limit of money ability. I require adult supervision and have a difficult time with most things.

Fact #5: The flood that left me homeless, also left me alone. It didn't just take the house - it took everything and every one, leaving death and destruction all around me. I was 29 years old and both alone and without adult supervision for the first time in my life. I have had to teach myself EVERYTHING since than. I was 34 when I got my GED, and 36 when I got my driver's license. My next goal is learning how to get a job.

Fact #6: My current income is $2,000 PER YEAR, made from selling my art online via Zazzle.com. I pay my taxes, I register/insure/put-gas-in my vehicles (I also have a Volvo and a 1964 Dodge), I buy food for myself, I buy food for my 12 cats. I have no other expenses.

Conclusion: I rarely use money, I barely understand money, I go for months at a time without money and without the need to spend it either, I make enough to pay for what few expenses I have, and otherwise have no reason to think about money. Thus money is not a deciding factor in choosing my domicile. For me the deciding factor is - I am at home in this town: I know the people, I know the town counsel, I know the businesses, the town is so small I can walk from one end to the other in less than an hour, I can walk on the beach every day, I can hike in the forest every day, there are fewer than 8,000 residents, I am one of less than a 1,000 year round residents, in the winter it's pretty much just me and the lobstermen.

In Short: this town is my own little Paradise. You can't put a price tag on that. I chose my place of residence based on the fact that I like this town and for no other reason.

If you travel fulltime, where do you renew your drivers license and what state to you file taxes in?

I am not the right person to be asking this question to.

First off, let me explain that there are two types of full-timers: Full-Time Travelers and Full-Time RVers.

Full-Time Travelers are on the road a lot. They rarely stay in one location more than 3 or 4 months, and most only stay at each stop for a week or less. They may or may not live in an RV. Some live in cars, some live in vans, some live in trailers, some live in motorhomes, some live in tiny pop-ups pulled by motorcycles, and I've meet a few who live out of their backpack while crossing the country on bikes. Some live in their cars during the day and sleep at motels or in tents during the night. They call no place their home and move from one place to the next, year after year.

Full-Time RVers may or may not be Full-Time Travelers. They live in a trailer or a motorhome full time. They may be "Snowbirds" living 6 months in the north and 6 months in the south always parking in the exact same location, which they may either rent or own outright. They may be "Homesteading Boondockers" living off the grid all year long never moving off their land at all. They may be "Part Time Travelers" living in the RV on their own land most of the year and traveling in the RV only a few weeks of the year.

Full-Time RV Travelers are when Full-Time Travelers are also Full-Time RVers.

Me? I am a Full-Time Boondocker, a Semi-Full Timer RVer, and only an occasional vacationing traveler. What this means is this: I live on my own land, without utility hook-ups (no electricity, no running water, no sewer/septic). On dry warm days I live in a tent and on cold, rainy, or snowy days I move into a motorhome. My traveling consists of monthly weekend visits to in-state tourist attractions, festivals, fair grounds, beaches, fishing villages, state parks, etc. I am a Scottish Traveller by birth, race, and culture (note the double "LL", but I am not a Traveler (single "L") by life style.

So to answer your question: have a Maine license and I file my taxes in Maine.

Do you still need to own property somewhere to be a resident?

In some towns, in order to vote, you are required to own property and live on it 6 months of the year. Where I live, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, they have this law, but as I live here year round it is not a problem for me.

I know that folks who are Full Time Travelers rarely own property and usually use a service via Good Sam's or Escappees or some other RV Club, which helps them provide "proof of residency", though I'm not sure on the specifics of such things and you would have to ask some one who actually uses these services.

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Answers To Your FullTime RV Living Questions: I want to start full-timing. Who is responsible for paying for stuff? What expenses am I responsible for?

2011-08-10T15:17:00.003-04:00

I'm sorry, but I have to say this seems like a pretty silly question and I'm not sure why it was even asked or if maybe not all of the question was written down? ???

Okay, so you want to go full-time living in an RV and you want to know who is responsible for your expenses? Uhm, hello! YOU ARE!

You want to go full-time living in an RV and you want to know which expenses you are responsible for? Uhm ... ALL OF THEM!

Okay, I'm thinking I only got part of the question. So I am going to analyze and deduce and adjust my resulting answers accordingly, to see if I can figure out what it is you meant to ask here.

I can see three scenarios that could result in this question:

Scenario #1) You are a teenager or young adult still living with your parents and getting ready to go off on your own or maybe go to college and are planning to move into an RV for however long. Not having any money of your own you feel it is your parents responsibility to pay for your RV expenses and they disagree with you and so you are now asking me what it is that you are supposed to be paying for on your own and what your parents are supposed to pitch in.

My answer to Scenario #1) : As a teenager or young adult just starting out, it is understandable that you may at first need some help to get by while you are first on your own. Now moving into an RV is a big step for anyone and even more so for someone just starting out on their own. What expenses should you pay for yourself? Ideally all of them. If you do not yet have a job, my first advice is to start looking for one, BEFORE you move out on your own, and than save every penny until you have enough saved up to be able to support your RV lifestyle for 3 months. Than move into the RV and continue to work, while using your savings to pay for the first few months expenses. After this point you should be settled down to a routine enough to know how much your expenses are and be able to live quite well on your income.

Okay, so maybe you do need your parents to pay for a few things to help you get started. But try to be reasonable about it. Think about the expenses you ACTUALLY NEED and do without the ones you SIMPLY WANT. You don't NEED $50 a month internet access when you can use free Wii-Fi at Starbucks or public libraries, at least not when you are starting out. You don't NEED $75 a month TV when you can watch free movie and TV show DVDs from your library - you can get by for the first few months without TV. You don't NEED to start out with a brand new $150,000 motorhome when you can get a 5 year old used one for a $1,000 off Craigeslist.

So you are just starting out, what do you need? The RV for one thing (including registering, insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc.). Food to eat. Water to drink. Gas to get from your parking spot to work. And a place to take a piss. That's it. Nothing else. Not one solitary thing. Everything else is a WANT, not a NEED. Those things cost me under $150 per month. I live quite well on my $2,000 per year income.

If you are working a regular job, than you are making no less than $7.50 per hour, which is $848 a month if you are working part time and $1,200 a month if you are working full time. And Honey, if you are living in an RV and your expenses are over $200 per month, than something is seriously wrong with your spending habits!

Now if you are still looking for a job, than you may have to ask your parents for help, yes. But don't just ask for them to pay your bills for you! No! Ask for a loan. Ask for a loan LESS THAN $3,000. You can live in an RV very well, for a year, with $3,000 and by the time that money is gone, you should have a job and be able to both support yourself AND have enough to pay that $3,000 back.

Now .......

Scenario #2) You are a couple about to leave in your RV and the wife is saying the husband must foot all the RV bills, while the husband is saying the wife should, or maybe one of you wants each to pay half and the other disagrees, or maybe one of you wants to pay for everything and is refusing to let the other help out, and so on and so forth. Unable to agree which of you should pay for what you are now asking what I think.

My answer to Scenario #2) : As a couple, this is harder to answer. Lots of factors are involved here. I know some men who absolutely refuse to allow their wives to hold jobs or spend money. I know some wives who are so "independent" that they refuse to allow their husbands to pay a penny for anything. There are couples that divid all bills in half equally. Others each pay for what they use, keeping everything separate. And for each of the above there are dozens of variations in between.

To answer your question requires you look at how you are handling money matters right now. Is your current set up working for you are a couple? If so than there is no reason to change it.

Personally I think it is best for each to pay his own way, and split the stuff you both use. or example, if you put $200 worth of gas in the RV, each of you should pay $100. If only one of you has a computer and uses the internet, than only that person should pay ALL of the computer and internet bills. This is the easiest and most fair solution.

Scenario #3) It could be that you were asking for a list of what expenses RVers have.

My answer to Scenario #3) : Depends on your personal situation and your location, the type of RV you own, how often you are parked, how far you travel, etc.

A quick list of your expected expenses includes:

Cost of the RV itself.

Cost of a tow vehicle, if needed.

Cost of the toad, if you have one.

Registrations, inspections, and insurance for each of the above. (Remember that an RV is a house and needs BOTH auto AND home owners insurance.)

Gas for each of the above.

Oil, batteries, and repairs for each of the above.

Power supply: electric hook-ups, solar panels, wind turbines, generator, propane, etc.

Water supply: tap hook-ups, self contained tank storage, etc.

Food.

TV, phone, and internet if you chose to have any of these.

Any health insurance and medical supplies you need.

Clothing, bedding, furnishings, etc.

If you have pets or children, anything they need.

These are you basic expenses which all RVers have. Anything over that is extras.

Tip:

While it may be tempting to start out in a new RV, keep in mind that a new trailer costs $35,000 - $150,000 and a new motorhome costs $75,000 - $300,000. It is also temping to rush out and get a loan so you can buy a new RV. Stop and think. You'll be paying for that new RV every month for the next 20 to 30 years. Do you REALLY think you'll still be living in that same RV 20 to 30 years from now? What about interest? Whatever the price tag is, you'll be paying nearly twice that amount if you pay via a loan, as a result of 20 to 30 years of interest (and possibly late fees). Think too about resale value. 30 years from now you'll have a hard time selling your $300,000 coach for $5,000, IF you can even get that much for it. Look around the used lots: those $5,000 motorhomes are only 5 to 10 years old. You can always buy a big/newer/better RV later when you are better able to afford to pay cash for it.

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Answers To Your FullTime RV Living Questions: What is RV Boondocking? How is it different from just plain Boondocking?

2011-08-10T12:29:00.000-04:00

Boondocking is a term that has been around for close to 200 years. It was only recently picked up and used by RVers in the last 15 years.

"To Boondock" by correct, proper, and true dictionary definition, means to live off the land, in an isolated location on the deep far outskirts of society, without electricity, without running/tap water, and without sewer/septic/toilets, and on an very abnormally low income at least 50-75% below the poverty line (generally considered to less than $5,000 per year, per person in the household).

Boondocking means "Living out in the Boonies" or "Living in the Sticks", or inother words to live outside of town, outside of the city limits, or deep in the woods and swamp regions where the average person does not live.

People "Living out in the Boonies" (a Southern term) or "Living in the Sticks" (a Northern term) are said to be "HillBillies" (in the South), "Hermits" (in the North), or "Mountain Men" (in New England and the Rockies).

Since the above terms are now considered to be culturally slanderous, degrading, hate names, or politically incorrect, the modern term used by the general public today is "Boondockers", "Hipsters", and "Hippies" whom are "Living Off the Grid" or "Living Off the Land" or "Living an Eco Friendly Green Lifestyle". In the 1960s and 1970's "Hipsters" and "Hippies" were the preferred terms, but since the 1990's the preferred term has been "Boondockers".

Terms which have always been considered degrading include: "Bums", "Tramps", and "Hobos".

Boondockers whom own there own land are referred to as "Homesteaders".

Boondockers whom camp out on publicly or privately owned lands without the permission of the land owners are referred to as "Squatters". Most states have laws regarding "Squatter's Rights" which allow the Squatters to camp out on government owned lands for a specified length of time (which varies from as little as 6 hours to as long as 4 months, depending on the local laws.)

In some regions it is a stereotyped myth to assume that all Gypsies, Irish Travellers, and Scottish Travellers are ALWAYS Boondockers.

Traditionally someone who lives "Out on the Boondocks" lives outside of the city limits, often on public land, usually in a densely wooded area where they can not be seen from the road. Often living in huts, shacks, tents, cabins, lean too, covered wagons, trailers, and shanties. If they had a house at all, it was usually abnormally small and often had only 1 room. Usually they lived this way because they were too poor to live in town. Many Boondockers had large families with 7, 8, 10, 12 or more kids, all sleeping in the same bedroom. Some begged for food, some worked in near by mills or mines or fisheries. In areas where several Boondocking families gathered together, became know as "Shanty Towns", "Hobo Cities", or "Tent Cities".

"To Boondock" by correct, proper, and true dictionary definition, means to live off the land, in an isolated location on the deep far outskirts of society, without electricity, without running/tap water, and without sewer/septic/toilets, and on an very abnormally low income at least 50-75% below the poverty line (generally considered to less than $5,000 per year, per person in the household).

And that is the way is has been ever since the late 1700's through the 1800's and on into the 1900's until the late 1980s/early 1990s when WalMart arrived on the scene and gave a whole new meaning to the word: Boondocking.

--------------------------------

Skip ahead to the 1990's and the arrival of WalMart.

WalMart realizing that RV travelers needed a place to stop and shop and stop and get a few hours sleep between driving, came up with a marketing screme to bring in more customers, by allowing RVers to camp out in their parking lots 100% for FREE. In the beginning, all WalMart's allowed RVs to park in their parking lots. Some WalMarts even offer hook-ups and dumping stations. All you do is drive out behind the WalMart to the designated RV parking spaces, park, head in to the service desk, give them your name and info (make of RV, plate number, etc) and tell them how many nights you need to stay. The only thing WalMart requires of you, is that you come into the store each day.

However, while ALL WalMarts allowed RV parking, not all cities give WalMart permission to do so! It is not uncommon in certain places, for the police to wake you up at night and tell you to clear out of WalMart, wither you have permission from WalMart or not. Cities started charging WalMart fines and many WalMarts were forced to tell RVers they could no longer park over night. Fortunatly cities banning WalMart parking were few, and there are still over 400 WalMarts across the country, which welcome RV overnight parking.

Originally there was no limit on how long you could stay in WalMart's parking lot. Need to park for a week? A month? Six months? A year? As long as you went inside and bought something every day, they did not care how long you parked. Entire caravans would park in WalMart, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 RVs traveling together. They'd pull out their slides, set up their tents and lawn chairs, set up a fir pit, and than every day go into WalMart and buy one .99c item. They'd lay out on beach towles and play loud music and annoy and disrupt WalMart's regular customers. When they left they often left piles of garbage in the parking lot. They almost ruined it for every one.

Times have changed.

Today, some WalMarts don't want to deal with the hassle and choose not to allow RVers at all. Most however, ask that you park, but don't "set up camp". (In other words - don't open your slides, don't pull out your awning, don't set up a tent, leave the lawn chairs indise, and don't cook on your grill or fire pit.) Many now have time limits varying from 1 night to 14 days, often only allowing employees to stay longer periods. Some disallow caravan groups. And if you only rush in and buy a single .99c item each day of your stay, rather than doing your regular shopping there, they may ask you to leave and not let you come back. And remember - if you break too many rules - they took down your name, RV make, and plate number - you could get banned from WalMart nation wide, not just the one you parked in.

Other stores now follow WalMart's lead and it is not too difficult now to find, shopping centers, malls, gas stations, truck stops, casinos, race tracks, and other commercial businesses which allow RV parking. Rarely will any allow more than a 3 nights stay.

But the result of all of this was a new breed of people who had begun to call themselves "Boondockers" or "RV Boondockers" or "WalMart Boondockers". Because they were dry camping (without hook ups) while at WalMart, these same folks began to call themselves "Boondockers" any time and every time they parked ANYWHERE without hook-ups. If they parked in an RV Resort and opted to dry camp no hook ups, they called themselves Boondockers, even though they had bumper to bumper people and amenities on all sides. If they are parked in WalMart without electrify, they call themselves Boondockers. In they are parked on the street in the middle of the city, surrounded by apartment buildings, they call themselves "Stealth Boondockers". If they are in a National or State Park, they call themselves Boondockers.

--------------------------------

And so what is the difference between Boondocking and RV Boondocking?

"To Boondock" by correct, proper, and true dictionary definition, means to live off the land, in an isolated location on the deep far outskirts of society, without electricity, without running/tap water, and without sewer/septic/toilets, and on an very abnormally low income at least 50-75% below the poverty line (generally considered to less than $5,000 per year, per person in the household).

"To RV Boondock" means to live in any location an RV without electricity, without running/tap water, and without sewer/septic/toilets, and gives no regard to income levels.

RV Boondocking, if you want to get technical about it, is not true Boondocking and is actually a slang term for Dry Camping. Dry Camping means to camp in a spot where you do not have access to electricity, running water, or flushing toilets. This covers everything from camping in your RV to the family fishing trip in the tent along side a river. If done only occasionally as a vacation it is considered "just a camping trip", but if down every day, all year long as a lifestyle than it becomes Boondocking.

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Answers To Your FullTime RV Living Questions: I can hardly wait to get started! I wish I could sell my house and go right now! Any advice?

2011-08-08T15:16:00.003-04:00

I have but one word to say to you:

Rosebud.

I will direct you to the name of my motorhome: Rosebud.

Ever watch the movie Citizen Kane? Yes? Than you know why I answered your question this way. No? Than rent the DVD and watch it today, learn the meaning of the most famous line in movie history:

"Rosebud"

No time to watch the movie? I'll make it easy on you and sum up what the word "Rosebud" means and why I named my motorhome Rosebud.

I'll start with a quote from another movie: The Dead Poet's Society. (When you get done watching Citizen Kane, watch the Dead Poet's Society, you'll see the meaning of my answer if you watch both movies back to back.

" Carpe Diem - Seize The Day - Gather Ye Rosebuds while ye may."

The story of Citizen Kane is this:

On his death bed, a very wealthy, very hated, very old miser, sat starring into a snowglobe than mustered every last ounce of strength he had to say to his nurse: "Rosebud". Than he feel down dead.

Having no will and no known heirs, his lawyers were convinced that Rosebud must be the person Kane intended to leave his worldly goods to. And so begins the movie as these men dissect every aspect of Kane's life in search for the girl, the secret wife, the hidden lover, the daughter, the maid, the nurse, someone ANYONE who ever entered Kane's life, whom was named Rosebud. In doing so they find his diary, and begin reading...the rest of the movie is in flashback, detailing Kane's life from the day he was born until the day he died and the story goes as thus:

Kane was happy boy, oblivious to the hardships of the world around him: an abusive father and mother who cared only about money.

WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE. (4 minute clip)

Time moves on. The boy grows up. In a few short years he is a millionaire. He owns every thing and every one. The more money he gets the more powerful he becomes. Soon Kane is the evilest, wickest, greediest, cruelest, miser in the land - poor people are shattered and crushed in his path as he builds his giant empire of possessions, houses, and wealth.

Late in life Kane is hated by every one. He never married. He has no family. Money and wealth have made him miserable. The more he owned the more unhappy he became. Now he sits alone, sick and dieing and his masion. Unloved. Uncared for. Looking back on a life fill with regret: regret that the young man never carried out his dreams, never did the things he wanted to do as a boy, never had time to find a woman to love, turned his back on everything in pursuit of wealth, and was no sick, alone, and dieing... holding a snowglobe and remembering the only time in his life he was ever happy, his time spent with the mysterious elusive Rosebud.

And so the lawyers come to the end of Kane's diary, no closer than they were at the beginning of the movie, to find out who this Rosebud was.

Having no heirs, Kane's vast estates are taken over by the government, and everything considered "junk" is sent to an incinerator to be burned...

I'm not going to tell you the end of the movie, and who Rosebud is, instead...here is the last 3 minutes of the movie, you can watch it for yourself and see who Rosebud was, and why she was so important to this man's happiness:

WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP ON YOUTUBE (3 minute clip)

Go back and watch the first one again...now the second one...did you see her? Look close and you'll see Rosebud in both clips.

Okay, so now that you've watched those 2 video clips and know who Rosebud is, did you figure out yet WHY it is my answer to your question?

No? Let's move on to The Dead Poet's Society than...

John Keating: Mr. Pitts, would you open your hymnal to page 542 and read the first stanza of the poem you find there.

Pitts: [reading the poem title] "To the Virgins To Make Much of Time"?

John Keating: Yes, that's the one. Somewhat appropriate, isn't it?

Pitts: GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying : And this same flower that smiles to-day; To-morrow will be dying.

Keating: "Seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." Why does the writer use these lines?

Charlie: Because he's in a hurry.

John Keating: No. Ding! Thank you for playing anyway. Because we are food for worms, lads. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die.

...(points to 100 year old photos of school boys)...

John Keating: They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

==========================

And that is my answer, my advice to you:

Rosebud.

Carpe Diem.

Seize the day.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

Make your life extraordinary.

Do it now. Do it today.

Do not put off till tomorrow what you should have done today.

You say (about fulltimeing and living in a motorhome): "I can hardly wait to get started! I wish I could sell my house and go right now! Any advice?"

I ask you in turn: Why are you waiting? Seize the day. You want to sell your house? Than sell it! You want to live in a motorhome? Than get off your ass and go live in a motorhome! What's stopping you? Money? You can get a $1,000 motorhome off Craigeslist and be on the road in less than a month. Don't wait til you have $150,000 to buy a new one, start living your life now in a used one, you can move up to a new one after the sale of your house goes through.

Look around at the hopes and dreams and goals you watch fade and die like withered rosebuds every time you put off your dreams and stash them away in your "someday" pile. Don't let your rosebuds wither and die. Gather them up today while they are still alive and fresh.

How many rosebuds have you gathered today?

Or how about thinking on it this way:

When you are on your deathbed: How many rosebuds will you be wishing you had not let pass you by?

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Answers To Your FullTime RV Living Questions: Don't you worry about not having health insurance? What will happen to you if (God forbid!) you're in a bad accident or come down with some awful illness?

2011-08-08T13:57:00.000-04:00

Yes. All the time. But I have Autism, so what can I do? This is not an issue of money, it's an issue of discrimination. Certain illnesses such as Autism and Cancer bar you from being allowed to buy medical insurance. You have to be in good health BEFORE you apply for insurance and if you were born with one of the disqualifying illnesses, than your parents can't even get health care coverage for you in your infancy or childhood. Hard fact of the matter is, that in the United States of America children and adults with Autism do not get the medical care they need because both government and privately owned insurance programs refuse to allow them the option to get health insurance. This is why 35% of America's 2billion homeless adults have Autism...in most cases they became homeless after becoming sick and not being able to afford to pay cash for their medical bills, so hospital collection agencies took everything they own and left them alone to die on the streets.

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Answers To Your FullTime RV Living Questions: Do you use Coolworks to submit your applications for these jobs? How long does it usually take for responses to your applications? Do you usually apply in more than one place and then choose from what is being offered to you?

2011-08-08T13:12:00.000-04:00

Do you use Coolworks to submit your applications for these jobs? How long does it usually take for responses to your applications? Do you usually apply in more than one place and then choose from what is being offered to you?

I was asked this question twice.

Hmmmm.... interesting.... Coolworks you say? Never heard of them. I shall go Google them and find out what they are than get back to you with a better answer, but for the moment, my answer is:

No.

No idea, never used it.

Ditto on the last answer.

What I said for the first 3 questions.

For now I'll give you a quickie answer on how I DO make money...

I make my income 100% online via writing articles for Squidoo & Associated Content + selling my art/paintings/photography on Zazzle & CafePress + doing online psychic/card readings + I sell crafts/dolls/quilts on Etsy. I make $30 - $600 per month, with the average being $90 - $150 per month. If it was just me alone that income would be more than enough but with pets I need more so I'm trying to get my income up to $300 - $800 per month.

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If You could ask a full-timer anything, what would you want to know? Questions To Ask Yourself Before Moving Into an RV & FAQ About Full-Time Living in an RV.... Your Questions Wanted....

2011-08-08T12:27:00.002-04:00

As you know this blog is still new and far from being "ready for readers" and has a long way to go before it catches up with my most popular blog "EK's Star Log" which as of today has 5,483 posts (since 2003), 183,000+ unique visitors, hundreds of subscribers and 7,000+ regular readers. Star Log is where I do my random anything-goes yapping, as it is my "personal" blog, and unlike my other 34 blogs does not have a specific topic.

However, unlike Star Log, Houseless Living is a blog with a focus and a single topic: Houseless Living, with subtopics including such things as homelessness, workamping, boondocking, full-timing, camping, living in tents, cars, vans, trailers, boats, or motorhomes, etc. I'm still working on the bugs in the layout, as there is a glich somewhere causing the blog to load slow and not load certain posts. Seems to be an html error which can take a while to fix as it required reading the code itself.

ANYWAYS...while I'm doing that, I thought I'd get ready to get the "on topic" posts started, and do so by sending out a request to my Star Log readers and asking you to ask me questions on the following topics:

Questions To Ask Yourself Before Moving Into an RV

FAQ About Full-Time Living in an RV

Answers To Your Motorhome Questions

Answers To Your FullTime RV Living Questions

Answers To Your FullTiming Questions

Answers To Your Boondocking Questions

If You could ask a full-timer anything what would you want to know?

A few I thought up so far include:

Would I Be Happy Living In An RV For An Extended Period Of Time?

How do you pay for this lifestyle? What type of work do you do?

How do you survive cold New England winters in a motorhome?

How can you survive in such a small space?

So, leave a comment here (or elsewhere on one of my many social network accounts) and tell me what questions you have, and I'll try to answer as many as I can by using them over the next few months as topics for my blog posts.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK's Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

Answers To Your Motorhome Questions, FAQ About Full-Time Living in an RV, Questions To Ask Yourself Before Moving Into an RV, Full-timing, Fulltimer, Motorhomes, Living in an RV, Living in a Motorhome, RV Living, RV Lifestyle

Answers To Your Motorhome Questions, FAQ About Full-Time Living in an RV, Questions To Ask Yourself Before Moving Into an RV, Full-timing, Fulltimer, Living in an RV, Living in a Motorhome,

Some Thoughts On Living in Small Spaces...

2011-08-07T13:46:00.000-04:00

I grew up in a beach cabin. 7 people. 8 dogs. 9 cats. 3 birds. In a 1 bedroom beach cabin 16 feet long by 9 feet. This sort of thing is not unusual in my town, which is a tiny Maine beach resort with 8,000 residents. More than half the houses in town are under 1,000 square feet, many under 300 square feet. Ours was one of the larger houses. Behind our land is an RV resort with 400 lots, beside them is a "hide a way" campground with 225 lots. Across the street and down away is the largest of our towns 30 RV parks, which has 725 lots. Many people in these parks are fulltimers. So, I grew up with the "small living lifestyle" and growing up in this town, I was well into my 30s before I realized that the year round residents of our town were sort of considered as freaks to the rest of society, seeing how the entire community was made up of families living in homes smaller than the average family's bedroom! In fact I was shocked to learn that people ACTUALLY LIVED in houses that were bigger. (You can tell I had never been outside of this town. Also I have Autism, so I'm not prone to thinking about what other people do much.)

Anyways. May 9, 2006, a flood came home and took the house with it. I was surrounded by death and destruction and found myself alone. Just me, 2 dogs, and 9 cats. Me with Autism and having no idea how to do pretty much ANYTHING.

I stayed on the land, but having no house, I lived the first few years under a 8x6 tarp. I eventually got a Volvo and lived in that for the next couple of years. I am currently in the process of buying a motorhome, and should be moving into it this fall. A 31' Class A from the 1980s, it'll be my BIGGEST home yet - at 31'x9 ' it is almost twice as big as the 16'x9' house I grew up in, and it'll be just me and the cats, in the house I had been one of 7 people.

When I tell people about my motorhome I'm buying (for $3,000) and how it's like moving into a mansion for me, they respond wit: "That tiny thing? You call that a mansion? What the heck did you live in before?". Than they laugh and tease me about it. Well, I don't care what they say. I'm glad I'm getting this motorhome. Having all that living space available for me and the cats is going to make HUGE improvements in my life. I can't wait to move in.

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Why I no longer read/watch the news...

2011-08-07T12:28:00.001-04:00

I used to read/watch the news. Than in around 1983 my dad got a new job - at the local newspaper. Suddenly the news was EVERYTHING. We had months worth of free newspapers stacked all over the house (research?). All the local newspapers were stacked on the table, on the chairs, on the floor, in the car. I was a teenager at the time.

Well, before this point, my reading newspapers was as such: I started with the comics, went on to the advice columns, checked out the book/movie/theater/restaurant reviews, read the obituaries, than scanned the headlines to see if any news of interest caught my attention (stuff involving pets, nature, animals, local businesses, etc). Wars, sports, stocks, earthquakes, death, shootings, those things bored me, so I avoided them. (I was a kid, what did I care about that "adult" stuff?)

Skipping ahead. My dad worked for the newspaper for 21 years. In that time my life became filled with the darkest side of mankind - murder, war, illness, starvation, shootings, drug raids, more murder, this group hates that group, riots, death, violence, bloodshed...and all because every day the only conversation any one in the house had was, "Let's see what's going on in the news today."..."What article will be in the paper tomorrow?" Etc, etc, etc. News, crime, war, hate, death, became the only topics discussed over dinner, around the tv, in the garden, on the beach...in short news, esp really bad news, became the only thing the family cared about, all day, every day. There was no break from it.

Granted it was understandable, I mean it was my dad's job and all, but I just plain got sick of it. I found the whole thing morbid and depressing. News seemed to focus only on the bad things, glamorizing and glorifying hate and bloodshed. It made me sick. It made me depressed. It made me hate the news.

Today, many years later, as an adult, I do not read the newspapers or watch the news reports. I do read the tiny community papers still, you know the type which give updates and reviews on local businesses and the results of last week's town counsel meeting and who planted what in their garden last week, how many lobster old George brought in last night, that sort of thing, but world news? BAH! World news can drop off a cliff for all I care. It's too depressing for my tastes. I have better things to do with my time than focus on morbid world events.

I became homeless after a flood in 2006. I have not had a TV since. Life without TV = freedom. More time to do more things.

Life without TV News = antidepressant. Less worry about what is happening to people in places I've never heard of, less worry about the US economy. I remember when I first heard about the 9-11 attack...what really, it did? When? Than there was the Iraq War... what, when did we go to war again? That many years ago? Huh. First I heard of it.

It's weird, but these BIG events that people worry and fret about (and years ago, I too worried and fret about), I now find out about them 4 or 5 years after they happened, and I can look back on them and think...boy am I glad I didn't know about that, it certainly didn't effect my life and I would have been so depressed with worry had I known about it.

My life has been much better (emotional health wise) since both news and TV have been removed from it.

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A questionnaire for those who have experienced homelessness

2011-07-30T10:33:00.002-04:00

I found this today, thought I'd answer it:

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04-10-2008, 07:31 PM

t kitchingman

Junior Member

Join Date: Feb 2008

Posts: 5

A questionnaire for those who have experienced homelessness,I'd really appreciate it!

Questionnaire for those who have experienced homelessness
Before filling this questionnaire in…
Thank you very much for indicating you are interested in helping me in my endeavour to complete a school assessment on homelessness by filling out this questionnaire. I'm a female student in year 12 at an Australian High School and I'm having trouble finding homeless people in my area to interview. I really appreciate your time. Thanks again.
1. Age?
2. Gender?
3. What age were you when you first became homeless?
4. How long did you spend in homelessness?
5. What factors contributed to you becoming homeless?
6. Was this your own decision, or was it inevitable? Why?
7. Due to your experience of homelessness, do you feel your social
well-being has been affected? How so? (I define social well-being
to be ‘feeling like a part of the community you belong to, and being
content in relating to and interacting with others.’)
8. Do you feel your physical well-being was affected? Please specify.
(I define physical well-being as ‘having a satisfactory health,
absent form diseases or other unwanted conditions.’
9. Do you feel you emotional well-being was affected? Please outline
how. (I define emotional well-being as “being emotionally healthy –
being happy and content.’)
10. Did you experience any effect on you spiritual well-being? (I define
spiritual well-being as ‘having a faith in a higher power, or yourself,
which helps you to cope with problems you may encounter in life.’)
11. What resources did you access during your period of homelessness?
12. Did you ever experience the community “looking down on you”
according to your homelessness? If so, how did you cope with this?
13. During the period you were homeless, did you access any resources
which helped you (eg. Emergency accommodation, counselling, drop
in centres, churches). If so, did this have any effect on your well-
being (physical, social, emotional or spiritual)?
14. Is there any other information you think is important for me to note
about your experience?

1. Age?

35

2. Gender?

female

3. What age were you when you first became homeless?

30

4. How long did you spend in homelessness?

5 years going on 6 years

5. What factors contributed to you becoming homeless?

Hate crimes. On May 9, 2006, vandals cut the water main pipes resulting in a massive and instant flood. (We live below sea level, just 100 yards off the Atlantic Ocean). We spent the summer rebuilding and on October 21, 2006 the vandals returned and burned everything that had survived the flood. What very little survived was put into storage, but on April 17, 2007 the same vandals broke into the storage unit and took a sledge hammer to everything inside, leaving nothing but shattered debris.

My family joined the ranks of what I am told are now called "The Working Homeless" on May 9, 2006. For us it was a flood. The flood left my dad in a coma for 2 months and in rehab for 6 months, he returned "home" to his car 8 months after the flood disabled, unable to work, and barely able to survive on disability checks. My mom ran off with another man. My 3 teenaged brothers got shipped off to relatives. I have Autism and was left as the only one "able" to work, yet no one will hire someone with Autism and in spite of the "EVERYONE" being required to have health insurance, I am not eligible for medical insurance or disability, due to the fact I have Autism. Multi-million dollars in medical bills due to the $30,000 a day cost of keeping my dad on life support while in the coma, resulted in my dad loosing his grandparent's' farm WHILE he was still in the coma in the hospital, and no hope in sight of ever having a way to live in a house again.

After the flood that left my family homeless in May 2006, there were several reasons why we did not go to a shelter:

#1) my dad was a senior citizen - no one over 65 allowed

#2) both my dad and my mom was disabled - no one disabled allowed

#3) at the time we had 2 dogs and 9 cats - no pets allowed

#4) my 3 brothers were all under 18 years old - no children allowed

#5) I have Autism - no one with mental handicap allowed

#6) the nearest shelter to us was 45 minute drive 4 towns away and was a drug rehab shelter - meaning if you was NOT a drug addict you were not admitted

#7) the next closest shelter was a 2 hour drive from our farm, but was an "endangered woman only" shelter - no men, children, or pets allowed

#8) there was no shelter close enough to allow us to take care of the farm animals during the day and have a place to sleep during the night

the nearest shelter we could go to, was a 2 hour drive from our farm - it takes 4 hours a day to operate the farm, plus I worked at Macy's 6 hours a day - there was no time to spend 4 hours a day driving to and from the shelter

the flood left my dad in a coma, my mom already had a spine disease that leaves her nearly helpless

In the end, our family of 7, which included 3 children, 3 disabled adults, and me with a seveere social/mental handicap, we spent 2 years with our family living divided up between 2 cars and a "tent" built out of a tarp and a woodpile. It was, in a word: hell.

The funny thing is - before the flood, we had friends and family/relatives, tons of them. You know people to talk to, go out with, spend time with, etc. After the flood not a one of them would have anything to do with us. Most of them were super "Christian" and said that we were homeless because we must have committed some huge terrible sin, and God punished us with a flood, just like he had done Noah!!! OMG! Thing is, the flood was not a natural disaster - it was someone broke into our house and cut the water main pipes off and in less than a minute we had 2 feet of water on the floor and rising fast. We had planned on rebuilding after the flood, but an arsine fire in October 2006 took what remained of the house.

I see people talk of homelessness and I've see some folks talk bad at folks who live full time in cars and motorhomes out of nessesacty. I ask those folks: what if it was you? You don't know what tomorrow holds. We had everything we wanted, everything we needed, and than in the space of under 3 minutes it all vanished under a tidal wave. Everything we owned: gone without warning in the blink of an eye. We didn't plan a fulltimer lifestyle. It was thrown on us. we didn't have a choice. We boondock, not by choice, but because we have too. If we could afford to stay in RV Parks we could afford to stay in an apartment.

I see a lot of folks here blaming Pres O. and saying if he'd do his job there would not be any homeless. But in 2006 when it happened to us, no one had ever heard of him. Back than, we were far from alone - yes, there are a lot of homeless out there, but ask them HOW LONG they've been homeless - most of the homeless I've met so far, lost their homes in the 1990s and earlier.

It's not a recent thing this surge of homeless it's just that it's been going on so long now, that the numbers are starting to add up, because nothing has been done to get housing prices down or higher paying jobs available...all the way back before Pres. O, and B. all the way back to Clinton!

Now granted I have Autism and I don't understand how Pres jobs work and all, but when I'm out there looking for a job, it's not the Pres who is standing there telling me they can't hire some one with Autism, it's the business owners. It's not the Pres telling my dad he can't get a loan to rebuild his house because he's disabled: it's the bank owners. Maybe the Pres is at fault too, but he's not the one saying "No" to use folks trying to get jobs.

My income since the flood in 2006, is $2,000 per year, (yes, I'm living on $100 - $150 per month) I make that by selling photography on Zazzle.com and I continue to look for a job, but 5 years and 400+ job applications later, I am still being told "We don't hire people with Autism".

6. Was this your own decision, or was it inevitable? Why?

See answer #5. I did not choose to become homeless. I can tell you that for the first several years my goal was to get back into a house. It is not any more. See, my dad who was also made homeless at the same time, was living in his car, a 1994 Chevy Malabu with no inspection sticker and no registration because it was so much of a piece of junk and breaking down all the time that it would not pass any inspections. He has diabetes, needs dialysis for a kidney disorder, and has angina, and as a result of the coma could not walk for well over a year. He tried to get housing, HUD, Avesta, section 8, etc, etc, etc. He finally got put on a waiting list for a HUD housing voucher, and there were 600 other homeless families ahead of him on the list. Than came the coldest winter on record in Maine, with 3 blizzards back to back (totaling over 9 feet of snow) and the following ice storm, followed by a deep freeze which plummeted to -48F. I was still in the tent-thing and my dad was in his car a few blocks away, he ended up in the hospital again. The hospital assigned a social worker, who interviewed him, than me, and than every place we had applied to for help. The next day my dad was in an apartment, given a disability check, and on foodstamps. My dad remains there to this day: a farmer trapped in a tiny apartment in the inner city slums, next door to a bar room, were 2 rival gangs have weekly fights and shoot outs - he hates it, but he has no choice.

Me, because of my Autism and the fact that I'm a single female without children, I am still 5 years later told I am not eligible for any help, so I'm not even on a waiting list. The same social worker who helped my dad, signed me up for everything she could find: over 300 different programs both government and privately run. I was not eligible for any of them. If I'd been under 18, over 65, pregnant, a smoker, a drinker, on drugs, an unwed mother, a battered wife, or not had Autism, I would have been eligible for several of the programs.

But anyways, after 5 years being homeless, though I did not choose to become homeless, I have chosen to remain homeless, a rather recent decision on my part, because you see, while I spent these years with the goal of going back into a house, and most of that time I spent living under a tarp, the last couple of years were spent living in a car, a Volvo, which a few months ago was vandalized are ended us in the shop for 4 months, while being repaired...this during yet another of Maine's sub-zero winters, and due to it being -18F in February of 2011, I went to spend those 4 carless months at my dad's apartment.

Those few months in an apartment, waiting out the cold and waiting for my car to get put back together, I learned a very important thing about myself: I HATE being indoors. I HATE being in a house. I spent 5 years trying to get back into a house, and in those 5 years I had learned to LOVE not being in a house. The irony of it quite startled me.

Let me tell you a story...

My income is $2,000 per year, (yes, I'm living on $100 - $150 per month) I make that by selling photography on Zazzle.com. People ask me often, how I am able to survive. They also ask me often why I do not strive to be successful. Successful? I ask what they mean, and they say, "Well, don't you want more money?" Since when does more money = success? I have enough money to feed myself and my 12 cats. My clothes are the same ones I've worn for 20+ years. I have one pair of shoes and I only replace them when they wear out and that's only once every 3 or 4 years. I read books and watch DVDs (on my computer) that I get free from Inter-Library-Loan. All I buy is food and I don't buy much of that, so all I really buy is catfood and that's only $75 a month, so tell me WHY do I NEED more money than I make now?

I grew up here on this beach. In a house. Every year we'd sit by the road and watch the RVs (motorhomes) go by...row after row of dozens upon dozens of them. They say we get 2 million tourists here in Old Orchard Beach every year, with about half of them coming in RVs. I have seen A LOT of RVs in my life. My land is bordered on 3 sides by RV parks, one with 200 lots, one with 400 lots, and one with a whopping 725 lots. I spent 27 years of my life living with RV people all around me every day, all year long, but never once even considered the thought of myself become one of the RV folks that filled so much of my life. But than life happened.

As I mentioned earlier, I lost everything to a flood, than a fire, than a break-in, all 3 events man made and done by vandals. I was quite happy living in a house, or happy enough to not think of an option to it, so I had no plans to stop doing so, than one day there was no house. Lots of water. Lots of rubble. Lots of mud. But no house.

I lived in a "home made tent" (a 8x6 tarp thrown over a woodpile) for the next few years. Eventually got a car and lived in that instead, while still also living under the tarp-tent-thing. After 5 years of "homelessness", I moved into an apartment, and HATED being indoors. OMG! I had spent those 5 years with one goal: to get back inside a house, only to reach that goal and realize, I really, really, really HATED living indoors! So it was back to the land (which I still owned, but still had no house on it, where the tent-thing still stands to this very day) to try to figure out what to do next.

In my 5 years of "homelessness" I had learned to love living without a house. I learned to love cooking over a campfire. I learned to get up with the sun and sleep under the stars. I got used to my radio station being the ocean waves and the screaming seagulls and the singing songbirds. I had learned to love living without electricity, without running water, and without a toilet. I even got use to dealing with thunderstorms, hurricanes, and blizzards with only a 8x6 tarp for protection! Weird, I know, but that's what happened. I got so used to living off the land, that I couldn't fathom going back to house living which now feels like a confining prison to me.

I had never lived a normal life, and my house lost to a flood, was a 700 square foot 1 bedroom summer cabin, with 7 people, 2 dogs, 4 birds, and 9 cats, living inside of it and in which I had rarely spent much time in to begin with seeing how I was always too busy being outdoors, on the beach, hiking the near by forest, exploring the near by swamps, or in my garden. I basically only slept in the thing at night and not on good nights as sleeping outside in a sleeping bag, was a common habit of mine since early childhood. I guess looking back, I was living an almost homeless lifestyle even when I was living in a house, but I never realized it before. Becoming homeless actually was not very difficult for me, as we still had the land to live on, just no house to live in. Going into an apartment, showed me just how much I REALLY detested being indoors.

Logic told me I needed a house of some sort, at least to have a dry/warm place to sleep during Maine's endless rain and snow seasons. And than it hit me: what I needed was a motorhome! It allows me to have a warm dry place during rain and snow and still have the option to live at one with nature, and so I became a fulltimer/boondocker, with no goal of ever traveling at all. I had started thinking about motorhomes, RVs, and travel trailers a few years ago, but I had initially thought of them as a temporary thing until I could get back in a house. After my experience living in an apartment, I looked at RVs as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I was no longer looking for a motorhome to stay in until I got a house, I was now looking at a motorhome as the house I would spend the rest of my life living in.

I spent 2 years looking at motorhomes, big, small, wide, skinny, long, short, old, new, ancient. I came to the conclusion that there was no real difference between the $300,000 motorhomes on the dealer's lots and the $1,000 ones in someone's driveway. When I say no real difference, I mean, no advantage worth the price. My needs are few and simple. I cook over an open fire-pit, no need for stove/oven/microwave. I get up with the sun, sleep with the sun, no need for lights. I sleep outside in a sleeping bag unless it's raining or snow, so no need for a bed. I do have 7,000+ comic books, and 12 cats, so all I really needed was lots of shelves, a toilet, space for a sleeping bag when it's raining, and a cat jungle gym. I opted for a $1,000 motorhome off Craigslist. The big classy rig would be pointless for me, I wouldn't use half the stuff that came with it.

I move infrequently, and only back and forth between 3 neighboring towns. If I go on a trip, I do so in my Volvo not my RV. I do have a few travel plans for the future, maybe next year, maybe the year after, not sure. I want to take a trip to the Klondike, specifically the Yukon, exactly Dawson City. Why? "King of the Klondike" by Don Rosa is my favorite book ever written and that's where it is set, and I would like to see in person the town which inspired the book. Also I have several friends from Quebec and I'd like to spend some time there. But other than that, no plans to do much traveling ever, other than locally in Maine. I'm pretty content to stay in one place.

Thing is, I live right on the ocean...I mean, I open the door and I fall in the salt water. I love where I live. I didn't particularly like the house I lived in, though I did live in it for 27 years, because as I said: it's the location I love. I have enough land to grow a vegetable garden, a rose garden, and fruit trees. But I'm all about the ocean. Every night I'm out in tide, jogging the surf waist deep in the waves. Aqua-aerobics keeps me healthy. I'm a major beach bum. But not just any beach suits me. I love the craggy rocked shore, the dense rolling fog, the spooky coves, the gun toting lobstermen, the -48F winters, the howling winds, the screaming gulls - for me this place is absolute heaven. I literally live in the ocean. It's no wonder a flood took my house away, I'm surprised it didn't go sooner. The advantage of a motorhome is, when the next hurricane, nor`easter, blizzard, or thunderstorm comes ripping up the coast (and one or the other arrives every month of the year) it's a simple matter of starting the engine and driving my home inland to sit out the storm, than drive back to the ocean once the storm passes. No more worries of floods taking out the house! LOL!

The big RVs are great for the folks who want them, but they are not my thing. I wouldn't be happy with one. The are too house-like for my tastes, and as I now know, my tastes dislike houses. So, my style full-time RVing is markedly different from most, as it involves no travel at all, and uses a smaller and really old beat up RV instead of a big flashy new one, but it suits me and I'm happy with it, and in the end, that's all that really matters right?

Being "rich" is a frame of mind. It has nothing to do with money. If you are safe, happy, well feed, warm and dry...you are rich, regardless of anything else. Every morning that you wake up is a good day, be thankful for it.

7. Due to your experience of homelessness, do you feel your social
well-being has been affected? How so? (I define social well-being
to be ‘feeling like a part of the community you belong to, and being
content in relating to and interacting with others.’)

Being that I was born of the "Gypsy" race, I have never been accepted by others, homelessness only made it worse. Local witchcraft superstitions run hire in this area. Because of my culture, I am accused of being a witch and consorting with demons, by many of the more religion crazed locals. Becoming homeless left me at easier access to being beaten, harassed, and bullied as it left me unprotected and out in the open.

I was already being stereotyped and shoved into a judging seat because of my culture, the stereotyping got doubly worse when I became homeless.

8. Do you feel your physical well-being was affected? Please specify.
(I define physical well-being as ‘having a satisfactory health,
absent form diseases or other unwanted conditions.’

Yes, actually, as a result of drinking water from a brook for 3 years, my teeth/gums developed a horrendous infection requiring surgery, 2 root canals, 2 teeth pulled/replaced, and a 6 month long weekly "teeth scraping" to remove the corroded plaque. This from someone who spent their whole life with perfect teeth and not a single cavity. It cost over $4,000 to repair my teeth (my own cash, as I have Autism and am not eligible for medical insurance). I now drink bottled water.

9. Do you feel you emotional well-being was affected? Please outline
how. (I define emotional well-being as “being emotionally healthy –
being happy and content.’)

Yes, strangely I am much happier now than I was before becoming homeless. I know this sound weird. Before the flood we were a somewhat wealthy family. The flood put my dad in a coma and thus put an end to the family's only income. We had money. We had things. Lots of them. We had waaaaay too many material things. My parents seemed to have put a lot of time, effort, money, and worry into material things, and it stressed them out, made them fight, made them unhappy, and made the whole family unhappy. But the flood took that all away.

Now I'm not saying it was easy. No, far from it. The first 3 years after the flood were the most trying and stressful years of my life. There were many days of not knowing how I'd survive. Lots of fear. Lots of terror. Lots of physical pain. Lots of emotional pain. Lots of mental anguish. Lots of hopelessness. Lots of hunger. Lots of cold days and freezing nights. Most days I was lucky to find a few scraps to eat, rare was a day that I got to eat an entire meal. The longest I went without for was 12 days in a row, and during that time I became terrified to sleep, out of the fear I'd die from starvation in my sleep. You don't know the true meaning of hunger pains until you go 12 days in a row without a crumb to eat.

I learned a lot those years. I learned who my true friends were. For it seems that to have friends, one requires money and material possessions. I lost all 3 at the same time, because without wealth or possessions, my friends had no use or time for me.

You find out quickly who your REAL friends are when one day you have a "normal" life and the next day you lose everything to a flood. People love you because of what you own, not because of who you are - once you become homeless you become friendless - without your possessions to attract people to you, you are on your own and all alone with not a single friend to talk to or turn to for help - that is the biggest lesson I learned during my time being homeless. When you have money and wealth and lots of material goods people flock to your side hoping to be your friend, but take those things away and those same people throw rocks at you, shoot you with paint ball guns, beat you up, break your hip, kill your pets, and make up horrible lies to ell about you to their friends. I know this because this is what happened to me. My friends, my family, my church, they were people I knew and trusted, some of them people I had known 20 or 30 years, they quickly turned into the worst back stabbing bastards, far worse than anything I could ever have imagined. Out of over 750 people I knew and trusted, only 1 remained by my side as a true friend through thick and thin: ONLY ONE PERSON OUT OF OVER SEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE! This was the biggest lesson I learned while being homeless: You don't know how truly friendless you are until you lose all your material wealth.

But oddly, in the end of it all, looking back, I can see this as a very good learning experience. Before becoming homeless, I never gave homelessness and homeless people a second thought. I didn't avoid them or hate them, I simply just did not even think about them. When you don't need help; you just assume that there is help out there for people that need it. But than you become one of those people that need help, and it's a real eye opener, about just how little help there really is out there for them. It really amazed me, just how little help their really is for homeless people, and it took becoming homeless myself for me to learn that.

People tell me how I should feel. They say I should be sad, I should be infuriated, I should be bitter, I should want revenge, I should seek justice...some people go so far as to tell others that I DO feel those ways. But the fact is, I feel none of those emotions. I feel only peace. It's like I have reached some sort of point of enlightenment where I can just relax now and not worry about anything because I know deep down in side, that no matter what happens, everything is okay. I don't know how you describe it, it's not happiness or joy, it's beyond that. It's just complete total inner, emotional, spiritual peace.

10. Did you experience any effect on you spiritual well-being? (I define
spiritual well-being as ‘having a faith in a higher power, or yourself,
which helps you to cope with problems you may encounter in life.’)

Oh yes, very much. I learned that the church I grew up in, the church I loved and devoted 90% of my life too, was nothing but lies. A place filled with arrogant pompous people who talk a good talk and brag and boast of charity and helping others, but when faced with helping one of their own, they turned into a violent mob.

This I think was the biggest shock, the biggest eye opener of my becoming homeless.

It was not strangers who cut the water main pipes which flooded my home and made me homeless: it was members of my church.

It was not strangers who set fire my home and made me homeless: it was members of my church.

It was not strangers who destroyed my items in storage: it was members of my church.

It was not strangers who cut the head off one of my cats and left it on the front porch: it was members of my church.

It was not strangers who shot at me with paint ball guns: it was members of my church.

It was not strangers who threw rocks at me: it was members of my church.

It was not strangers who broke my hip: it was members of my church.

It was not strangers who stole my car and cut it in half: it was members of my church.

Everything they did, after they did it, they said it was okay for them to do it because "God told them too".

Shall I go on?

Yes, let's go on... let's talk about how these vicious vindictive, violent, hate filled warmongers went so far as to make up lies and rumors, building websites and writing 64 page letters and emails, telling how I was "a witch", how I "consorted with demons", how I was "a dog murderer", how I "sacrificed animals and babies", how I "put curses" on them, how I "killed a boy via casting a death spell"....the list goes on and on...

The end result, was that after a sum total of 260+ people (all of them members of my church and many of them relatives) sent these 20,000+ emails, and 4,000+ letters to 3,000 other church members, 16 bishops, 3 stake presidents, 70 quorum leaders, 12 apostles, and the prophet himself, I was excommunicated from my church, excommunicated on false charges of "witchcraft and apostasy".

Has my being homeless effected my spiritual outlook, you ask? Oh yes. It has thrown the blinders off and my eyes are now wide open to the reality of what it REALLY means to be a Christian and I want no part of it.

I'm not mean enough to be a Christian.

I'm not cruel enough to be a Christian.

I'm not bitter enough to be a Christian.

I'm not hate filled enough to be a Christian.

I'm not vindictive enough to be a Christian.

I don't believe in violence enough to be a Christian.

My God is NOT the hate filled, blood lusting, vindictive, evil, satanic God Christians follow. My God is NOT the God who tells Christians to hurt others.

My God is the God of love and peace, whom Jesus worshiped, not the God of hate and war, whom the Christians worship.

Today as a result of homelessness, I am the ordained minister of a non-denominational anti-church. It is a ministry. It is not a religion. It is not a church. It is a way of life. Like Jesus I am homeless, I have no building or congregation, and I preach not through preaching but through simply doing what Jesus would have done: helping those in need. I have become as Jesus described himself: A lily of the field.

11. What resources did you access during your period of homelessness?

None. Absolutely not a single one.

If you do not have a home address you are not eligible for ANY government help.

I have Autism, therefor I am not eligible for medical/health insurance, either government or private, and this includes free clinics and volunteer clinics with sliding scales... even if I did not have Autism, they all REQUIRE a home mailing address and it CAN NOT be a P.O.Box.

I do not have a home address or P.O.Box, though P.O.Boxes are not accepted anyways, therefor I am not eligible for: TANF, Welfare, SSI, WIC, FoodStamps, or ANY other government program.

I am a single woman, but because I am a Mormon I am also I am not pregnant, not an unwed mother, I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I don't use drugs and therefor I am not eligible for any of the homeless shelters in the state of Maine, because they are all run as rehab facilities for drunks and drug addicts.

My own church told me I was not eligible for help, because they said that after checking my records I had not paid enough tithing over the course of my having paid a 30% tithe to them for 27 years and therefor they could not waste valuable funds to help someone like me who did not give back enough to the church.

The only way any local church would help me was if I changed my religion from Mormonism to whatever religion they were.

Because I am homeless and thus have no utility bills (water, electric, or cable TV) I am not eligible for meals at local soup kitchens or food from local food panties.

Because of my Autism and the fact that I'm a single female without children, I am still 5 years later told I am not eligible for any help, so I'm not even on a waiting list. The same social worker who helped my dad, signed me up for everything she could find: over 300 different programs both government and privately run. I was not eligible for any of them. If I'd been under 18, over 65, pregnant, a smoker, a drinker, on drugs, an unwed mother, a battered wife, or not had Autism, I would have been eligible for several of the programs.

My income is too low for section 8 housing. I'm not eligible for either the Welfare Program or the Food Stamp Program. I'm not eligible for either the Medicare or the Medicaid. I'm not eligible for either the WIC (Women-Infants-Children Act) or TANIF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). I'm not eligible for either SSI or SSD. I applied for all of those things.

The Human Services woman who came to the tent, told me where to go and what to apply for, because I didn't know those thing existed until she told me. I never was one to ask for help or to think of going out looking for help, because it goes against everything I believe about self sufficiency, but the Human Services woman wasn't going to leave until I agreed to apply for these things, so I did. Fat lot of good it did me to spend all that time filling out applications though. Turned out to be nothing but a big waste of my time. I have applied for every single one of those things, but I was denied every single one of them. All for the same reason: my income is too low.

The government programs have a scale which determines who is eligible for help, and who is not.

Me, being a single, white, childless, drug-free, non-alcoholic, female, US citizen in my 30's, with an income of under $2,000 per year, means I don't qualify for any of the government programs.

I would qualify, if I was under 18, over 65, of a minority race, an immigrant with out US citizenship, a single mother of a child under 3 years old, have a paper from a doctor saying I'm disabled, could find a doctor who would say I was mentally ill, or if I had an income with a minimum of $700 per month. I had to qualify on at least one of those counts, and I didn't qualify on any of them, so I was sent away with a "We would like to help, but sorry, you don't fall into any of our guidelines."

One woman asked if I drank alcohol or ever used drugs, because she said the only programs available for people in my income bracket were only available through drinking or drug use rehab programs. But, seeing how I was raised Mormon and taught that my body is a temple never to be polluted by using such vile things, I therefore was not eligible for the only programs the government did have for people in my income bracket.

Another question I was asked was, if I was pregnant or thought I might be pregnant, I could get help. My answer stunned her. I said: "I'm not married." She asked: "What's that have to do with it?" I told her, "Sex outside of marriage was as great a sin as murder." She looked like she was about to fall out of her seat. Yep. I was raised Mormon, alright. Non-Mormons have a hard time wrapping their minds around being a virgin at my age.

Until I went looking for help, I had no idea, you could be so far below the poverty line that you could not be eligible for help, but that is what happened. I'm too poor to receive government help. I'm too young, too old, too white, too childless, too drug free, too American, too sane, too healthy, too virgin, and too sober to be eligible for any of the programs. Pitiful when you stop and think about it, because it seems to me, that the government programs are only out there to help immoral sinners.

People ask me again and again: "But why don't you just go to a shelter?"

There were a few reasons. One being that the closest shelter was a drug rehab shelter, and they only provided beds for people who took a drug screening and failed it, and were than willing to join their drug rehab program. They provided you with a cot to sleep on while you were taking their rehab program. Well, me, never having used drugs before, I was not eligible for that shelter, which although it was the closest one, was 5 towns away.

The next closest shelter was a two hour drive by car, but me not having a car that ran, meant no way to get there, But as it turned out, they would not have been able to help me either, seeing as I later found out they only took single mothers with small children. Me with my high moral standards, means that no marriage = no sex = no children = no shelter where I was eligible to stay in.

Of course than there was the problem of the animals. At the beginning of all of this, there were 2 dogs, 9 cats, 3 birds, and 75+ (pet) roosters, and well, I wasn't going to any shelter that wouldn't take them in too. But, even without the animals, the only way I was eligible to stay in a shelter would be if I was a drug addict or a single mother.

It was a case of when you don't need help; you just assume that there is help out there for people that need it. But than you become one of those people that need help, and it's a real eye opener, about just how little help there really is out there for them. It really amazed me, just how little help their really is for homeless people.

Life in a house is no longer a goal I strive for. I have accepted the fact that a person with Autism is unloved, unwanted, and will never be given a chance to prove themselves, because narrow minded discrimination against people with Autism is so great that no business owner will give them a chance to even try. Until I can find a job I have nothing to hope for but continued homelessness.

12. Did you ever experience the community “looking down on you”
according to your homelessness? If so, how did you cope with this?

Yes. I've had rocks thrown at me, been shot at with paint ball guns, had my hip broken, my arm twisted, punched in the back, and all but the paint balling occurred in church and was done to me by church members. A church I had attended for 34 years. See my answer to #10.

13. During the period you were homeless, did you access any resources
which helped you (eg. Emergency accommodation, counselling, drop
in centres, churches). If so, did this have any effect on your well-
being (physical, social, emotional or spiritual)?

No. See my answer for #11.

14. Is there any other information you think is important for me to note
about your experience?

No, I think I covered everything in my answers above.

Before becoming homeless, I never gave homelessness and homeless people a second thought. I didn't avoid them or hate them, I simply just did not even think about them. When you don't need help; you just assume that there is help out there for people that need it. But than you become one of those people that need help, and it's a real eye opener, about just how little help there really is out there for them. It really amazed me, just how little help their really is for homeless people.

I can see now that I was very ignorant of how hard it is for homeless people, and it took becoming homeless myself to see that. I hate to say it but I think this is true for most people, if they aren't homelesss they don't think about homeless people and if they do, they assume there is help out there for them, and until something happens to make them homeless, they'll never realize how wrong they are.

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Misconceptions about Homelessness: The government or charitable organizations will help them if they only ask.

2011-07-29T10:06:00.003-04:00

MYTH: The government or charitable organizations will help them if they only ask.

FACT: If you do not have a home address you are not eligible for ANY government help.

I do not have a home address or P.O.Box, though P.O.Boxes are not accepted anyways, therefor I am not eligible for: TANF, Welfare, SSI, WIC, FoodStamps, or ANY other government program.

The only way any local church would help me was if I changed my religion from Mormonism to whatever religion they were.

Because I am homeless and thus have no utility bills (water, electric, or cable TV) I am not eligible for meals at local soup kitchens or food from local food panties.

I have been homeless for over 5 years at the time of my writing this and to date, I have yet to receive financial, material, emotional, or spiritual help from any one, government, charity, church, family, or friend. I have asked. I did ask. I have now stopped asking. My income since the flood in 2006, is $2,000 per year, (yes, I'm living on $100 - $150 per month) I make that by selling photography on Zazzle.com and I continue to look for a job, but 5 years and 400+ job applications later, I am still being told "We don't hire people with Autism". Life in a house is no longer a goal I strive for. I have accepted the fact that a person with Autism is unloved, unwanted, and will never be given a chance to prove themselves, because narrow minded discrimination against people with Autism is so great that no business owner will give them a chance to even try. Until I can find a job I have nothing to hope for but continued homelessness.

My family joined the ranks of what I am told are now called "The Working Homeless" on May 9, 2006. For us it was a flood, not a foreclosure that did it. The flood left my dad in a coma for 2 months and in rehab for 6 months, he returned "home" to his car 8 months after the flood disabled, unable to work, and barely able to survive on disability checks. My mom ran off with another man. My 3 teenaged brothers got shipped off to relatives. I have Autism and was left as the only one "able" to work, yet no one will hire someone with Autism and in spite of the "EVERYONE" being required to have health insurance, I am not eligible for medical insurance or disability, due to the fact I have Autism. Multi-million dollars in medical bills due to the $30,000 a day cost of keeping my dad on life support while in the coma, resulted in my dad loosing his grandparent's' farm WHILE he was still in the coma in the hospital, and no hope in sight of ever having a way to live in a house again.

This is how I came to live in a motorhome.

I see people talk of RV vacations and I've see some folks talk bad at folks who full time out of nessesacty. I ask those folks: what if it was you? You don't know what tomorrow holds. We had everything we wanted, everything we needed, and than in the space of under 3 minutes it all vanished under a tidal wave. Everything we owned: gone without warning in the blink of an eye. We didn't plan a fulltimer lifestyle. It was thrown on us. we didn't have a choice. We boondock, not by choice, but because we have too. If we could afford to stay in RV Parks we could afford to stay in an apartment.

I see a lot of folks here blaming Pres O. But in 2006 when it happened to us, no one had ever heard of him. Back than, we were far from alone - yes, there are a lot of homeless out there, but ask them HOW LONG they've been homeless - most of the homeless I've met so far, lost their homes in the 1990s and earlier.

It's not a recent thing this surge of homeless living in RVs...it's just that it's been going on so long now, that the numbers are starting to add up, because nothing has been done to get housing prices down or higher paying jobs available...all the way back before Pres. O, and B. all the way back to Clinton!

Now granted I have Autism and I don't understand how Pres jobs work and all, but when I'm out there looking for a job, it's not the Pres who is standing there telling me they can't hire some one with Autism, it's the business owners. It's not the Pres telling my dad he can't get a loan to rebuild his house because he's disabled: it's the bank owners. Maybe the Pres is at fault too, but he's not the one saying "No" to use folks trying to get jobs.

My income since the flood in 2006, is $2,000 per year, (yes, I'm living on $100 - $150 per month) I make that by selling photography on Zazzle.com and I continue to look for a job, but 5 years and 400+ job applications later, I am still being told "We don't hire people with Autism".

As for is it everywhere? In the Greater Portland Area of Maine (5 towns including Portland), there are estimated to be 32,000 homeless living on the streets, in their cars/trucks, or in motorhomes, and yet Portland itself, Maine's largest city, has a population of 64,000 people. Those aren't very good odds, when you consider the second largest toen in the area has 20,000 and the third has 12,000.

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Misconceptions about the homeless: Panhandlers are homeless.

2011-07-28T17:30:00.002-04:00

MYTH: Panhandlers are homeless.

FACT: The most frequent panhandlers are not homeless. For many it's just an easy way to get money, often for drugs. They pretend to be homeless, often begging only a few blocks from their apartment building, thus why so many panhandlers are seen in big cities.

I myself have never panhandled and none of the other homeless people I have ever meet have ever panhandled either.

One local guy who panhandles in front of a motel here in Old Orchard Beach, is actually the owner of the motel, and the owner of more than a dozen other motels in town, as well as being a lawyer, and the owner of the biggest real estate agency in the state of Maine. He doesn't do it for the money, he does it to see how people staying at his motel will treat him, and uses this info to accept or deny tenants!

Another local panhandler here in Old Orchard Beach, has a permit for his job and is a licensed street musician. When he started out in the 1950's he was a WWII veteran and homeless. Today he owns the apartment building he lives in here in Old Orchard and makes $800 a week playing the violin on street corners dressed in the same uniform he wore 60 years ago.

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