Yurts – Shall We Live Below Our Means?
We are not the complaining type, but when your downstairs neighbours are smoking funny things and keeping late party hours, you start to wonder if there is anywhere else to live. Here in Lloydminster Saskatchewan, housing is very hard to find. As newlyweds, we are not ready to buy a place. Our roots are not ready to go deep. Anthony has a good job and is apprenticed to be a plumber, but we would kind of like to see some of our money go into savings instead of being dumped down the rental drain. So back to yurts. What is a yurt? It’s a round tent-like dwelling specifically known has a Ger or Yurt from Mongolian culture. The Mongols live in yurts as their houses, and as you may already know it is very cold in Mongolia. Well, it’s cold here in Lloyd too. Please note: If you want to see pictures, simply go to google and type in “yurt” and a lot of good websites will turn up with pictures and details. My main focus here is to show you why a yurt would be a viable option for our short term situation, (not necessarily to show you what one is) so feel free to research it all you want.
So how would we do this? First off we would have to purchase or build a Yurt. Anthony is handy with wood and such, and we both like the idea of building one so we’ll assume this is our chosen route. The costs involved could vary a little bit, but with some searching around and salvaging materials we think we could easily build an 18 ft Yurt for right about a thousand dollars. That’s how much we pay in rent every month! Ok, so we still have to find a place to set it up and live. Some ideas include – pitch it at the in-laws or some friend’s house. (these would have to be temporary). We could set it up in a national forest, but these usually require movement every 2 weeks: this would work in theory, but it wouldn’t be very convenient. My preference would be to find a farmer who has a field corner he wouldn’t mind renting to us for cheap and set up there. This would probably be easiest during the non-farming season.
Now what about electricity and heat? There are a number of options. For one, we will have a wood stove, in the center of our yurt home. It will radiate heat throughout the circle easily. With the house being small and having good air movement, we will not waste a lot of heat on unused corners etc. For lights, we might use a generator or simply go with candles. Our conventional appliances would have to go – the fridge, oven and washer and dryer. It would be a camping experience for sure, but a fun one and a good chance to save up for our dreams.
One of my ideas for cold storage is based on a simple invention being used today in India. A clay pot was placed inside of a larger clay pot and cold sand was poured into the gap between them. It created a cold environment for things such as vegetables which made them last for up to a week longer. Of course in the winter we should have no problem keeping things cold in a box outside our door, but for summer living it would be easy to set up something like that. Yes, our life would be primitive, but what an adventure! I love cooking over camp fires and waking up so close to the outdoors. Anthony and I spent four days at a camp ground on our way home from honeymooning (due to car problems) and we absolutely enjoyed it. Just watch us do it on purpose.
So, the yurt is cheap to build and portable, though it is temporary it may serve us in order to start a savings. If we could live in it for a period of a few months without bothering anyone, it would be a lot of fun. It could be a life changing experience for both of us, learning to live below our means. That brings me to a quick thought about living below our means – Dave Ramsey, radio host and author of Money Makeover says “If you will live like no one else does, you will live like no one else can later” meaning, if you will live like you are poor for a season, you will have the means later to live like you want too without debt. Financial freedom is our goal and we will do whatever we can do to stay out of debt and enjoy our life here.
I still don’t know what we will do for a toilet!
