How To Live A Simple Yet Happy Life

All of us know that there is nothing simple in life, or is there?  I have learned over the past two years that less is more and I will continue to live life thinking and acting that way.  I always knew that saying , but never put it into action in my own life.

How to live a simple yet happy life is really up to each and everyone of us, and if that is the lifestyle you wish to live by.  For many of people they wish to live high on the hog, as they say, but living this way and knowing you may not be able to afford this type of lifestyle, could very well put you in a financial situation that maybe very difficult to get out of.  I know this because a time in my life I was in that same boat and was drowning in debt.

I wanted things and bought things that I thought I could afford, but knew deep down that I couldn't.  This never stopped me from getting what I wanted.  The banks make it so easy to get loans as long as you were willing to pay the high interest rates in which I didn't care about because I wanted what I wanted and never thought of the consequences to pay the loans back.

At that time I also had one other problem and that was, I was addicted to alcohol in which made me make poor decisions and made me think irrational.

When you make poor decisions in life they will indeed catch up to you and make your life very miserable because those thoughts and decisions you made before.  These poor decisions need to be dealt with and corrected in order to be happy again and get your life back on track. 

After I surrendered to my addiction to alcohol I started to think better and make better decisions in my life and one of those decisions were to get out of debt and live a happy life again and not worry about where the money was going to come from to pay for all those stupid purchases I did years before.

Once I got clean and sober I was then able to start to plan this huge change in my life, with of course, the help of my wife that stuck by my side through all the ups and downs in our marriage all do to my addiction.  I praise her for standing by my side through these tough times.

Now it was up to me to make things better. The way they should of been all those years in the past.

IDEAS FOR YOU TO LIVE A SIMPLE LIFE

• Remember that less is more is most cases, although many people may argue with that statement. It is my thoughts and the way I now live my life, and it has worked out perfect.
• Get rid of all the things you really don't need and start cleaning and throwing away.
• Think if you can do without different things to make life simpler.
• Start paying down extra on your bills to get them paid in full sooner.
• As far as transportation, do you really need that expensive car or truck?  I bought a car cash, because after all I only need it to get from point A to point B. 
• Think of things while grocery shopping that really are not necessary to buy.
• All these things I mentioned save money and when you save money by cutting down you can live more simple (and don't need to break your back working for the rest of your life to pay those bills for the fun and the prestige for things I really didn't need to be happy in my life.)
• Many people reading may think I'm nuts, BUT I have done all of this and I am a stone throw away from being debt free, and that is a wonderful feeling.  So call me nuts, but I have no financial worries anymore.  I live simple and I am happier than I have ever been.  I now realize that material things mean nothing, although they are is a sign of prestige for many, but not me anymore.
• As I said in other articles, I sold my home and downsized big time to a manufactured home in a 55+ community minutes from the Ocean with the Bay right down the street.  It was my life long dream to live by the sea and with my addiction to alcohol and the way I lived in the past it would never be possible to have what I have now and the best part is, everything is paid in full and now I can relax and enjoy my life with no more worries of paying or having things I really never needed, just to impress others.

So if you would like to live a simple life and still be happy it is very possible.  I never thought I would be living so simple and yet still be happy, but I am, and the change in my life by quitting drinking alcohol and downsizing my life is certainly the best thing I could ever have done.  The only thing you need is to have the willingness, the desire and the guts to make that change and believe me it can happen if you truly want it to.

How To Retire By Living Low Key

Everyone in the world would love to have the best of everything in life, and some people may achieve that, and then there are those that struggle throughout their entire lives.

I am going to tell you what I have come up with.  I call it my Master Plan. I will tell you my logic and my life on "how to retire by living low key."

I always had rich taste my entire life, but knew what I wanted in my life was too difficult to achieve with what I had to work with, such as lack of education and the lack of knowledge to being rich.  I raise my hat to all those that have achieved success in their lives and wish them all the best and more to come for them.  As far as my life and wanting to retire, I needed to come up with a plan that would able me to retire early in life and to be able to enjoy my life while still being healthy.

I first had to get rid of something that had been in my life for many years and that was my addiction to alcohol.  Once I surrendered to my addiction, now two years sober, I started to think of what I could do to be able to live a simple yet happy life.

My first thing, and the biggest thing of all was to downsize my home and get rid of that huge mortgage payment I was making for the next 20 some years.  My dream in life was to always live by the sea, and where I was brought up as child during the summers each year.  I knew that living on the water, whether it be the Ocean or the Bay was way out of my reach, so I needed to think what I could do to get very close to those two bodies of water without spending a fortune, which I didn't have anyway.  My wife came up with an idea to look into mobile home parks in the Shore areas and see what they were like.  Most of them were 55 + community which was great because when we started looking I was only 6 months from the age of 55.   We found a beautiful place less than a mile from the open bay and about 6-8 minutes from the ocean. 

Now the question was, "would we be happy in a home much smaller and living in a mobile home
community?" The place that we found was a modular home (double wide) just like a rancher, but   needed lots of work to get it in living order.  We purchased it and paid cash and totally re-modeled
it from the inside and out.  Now we have a brand new home that was paid in full.  The only bill we
would then have regarding the home would be our utilities and HOA fees of $455.00 per month, which included, Taxes, water, sewer, trash, snow removal, pool and clubhouse.

Secondly, I needed to get all the rest of our bills together and start paying them off one at a time.

I cut up all the credit cards, because now everything was going to be paid in cash with no more credit.

I only buy what I need, with nothing extra.

I cut down on many things that really was not necessary in my everyday living.

I needed to do this in order to live life simple and have my dream home by the sea.  If you are willing to give to get, like I was, your life can be so much easier if you take that chance.  Sure, I was very nervous and worried if everything would come out as I planned, but as of right now, I am writing at my shore home with no mortgage and bills that are getting paid in full one at a time, until I have no bills at all except my living expenses.

Anyone can do it like I did.  You need to have the guts to take that chance, and in my case it worked out just fine and I am happy and living like the rich with no bills and no worries anymore.


  

                

How To Live Sober And Be Happy

For many people that are addicted to alcohol, sobriety hasn't been in their lives for some time.  This statement also refers to myself.  Years have gone by and we the alcoholics forget what it feels like to be clean and sober and to wake up in the morning refreshed and happy.  We wake up with a huge headache and some may even go for the bottle first thing in the morning just to take that edge off and get back into the feeling they had when retiring to bed the night before.

Once that first drink of the day is drank, we are right back to that buzzed feeling again.  Some of us just have one or two drinks to start our day and then there are those that have the first drink and continue to drink the rest of their day.

Through my experiences drinking alcohol I would like to try and explain how to live sober and be happy.  I thought when I drank alcohol I was a happy person, in fact most alcoholics think they are happy, and they very well maybe, but the alcohol can play those head games with you.  My demons played many of games with my mind, such as making me think I was happy, but in fact I was very miserable on the inside and may of try to act happy to others, but I knew deep down the true feeling inside.

Living sober and being happy is in any one's life if you truly want to live and feel that way.  There are those that simply want to be miserable and unhappy and I truly think they don't know any better.  They have lived with their addiction for so many years they just think that it is the way of life.

Once I had decided to surrender to my addiction I then began my new quest of living life simple and began to try to be a bit more happy.  By living life simple I have realized that I didn't need all those fancy things in life to be happy.  In fact, I am the happiest I have ever been just living simple. 

I sold my home and downsized to a smaller one in a 55+ community where the only thing I have to pay for now is my land (HOA) fees.  Now sober I can appreciate even the smallest of things and really appreciate living so close to the Ocean and Bay and only minutes away.

You need to learn to live simple and to just enjoy what you have and stop wanting more and more out of life, because in my opinion it only brings misery when you get so far in debt that you have a hard time getting out of it.  I now have clean out, thrown out everything I don't need and just live with the simplest things and the things that are nessessary in my everyday living.

Sobriety and liviing life simple is my top priority along with my wife and family.  With all said, life is wonderful and stress free to say the least in which helps me to stay sober because I have no more worrries or stress in my life living it simple and being happy doing it.

Anyone, as I said, can do this if you are willing to give up a few things as I did by stopping drinking first and the rest came right into place.  If you are willing to change your life for the better than in the long run you will be happier and if you are an alcoholic and decide to get and stay sober you will see just how great life is living it sober, and living it happy.

How To Live A Simple And Happy Life

Simplicity is a great thing for some people, but not all.  Many of us tend to overdue many things in life and wind up over their heads in debt.  How to live a simple and happy life is all in your hands.

Many want the best of everything including huge homes that come with a huge price tag.  Sure anyone would love that big house, but can you really afford it and are you buying this home just for a status thing?  Do you really need to have a home so large that you get lost in it, because after all you are only in one room at a time and some rooms may not ever be used. 

I wanted my whole life to have such a home, but the older I got and the way our economy is today it simply isn't worth it, in my mind of course.  Others may think differently than I do.

I have found that less is more and that's what I'm living like now.  In four days from now, October 27, 2011 will be 2 years clean and sober for me and I have to say, I have done so much to improve my life in those two years that I even surprised myself.

Yes, I had a addiction to alcohol and I am not a shamed to say so.  I know I was doing wrong, but the demons inside me seemed to have more power over me than I thought.  I changed my way of living and surrendered to the addiction that help me back from doing what I wanted, but nor anymore.  The demons are in the past and I now live a simple and happy life with my wife down at the Jersey Shore where I have wanted to live for the past 30 years and finally made it.

I sold my home and downsized to a Manufactured home in a 55+ community.  I had to sell of give away most of my things because of space at the new home.  You have to give a little to get you know.  I have no more two car garage to store things, so I cleaned the garage out and only keep what I really needed and the rest went into a self storage 2 tenths of a mile from my home.  When I need something I just go and get it, such as our holiday decorations etc.

Life is what you make it and I was willing to sacrifice many things so that I could live my dream at the Jersey Shore.  Once I quit drinking alcohol everything began to take shape in my life and I couldn't be happier and my wife that stuck by my side through years of drinking is thrilled of my new sober life and our new home.

If you want something in life, just go for it.  You will never know unless you at least try.

• Think of what you truly want out of your life.
• If you think you can be happy with less then try downsizing.
• Do you want piece of mind or look what I own?
• Do you Prestige or Happiness?
• Think of all the money you would save by living simple.

There are so many things you can think of to make your life and your families a simpler and happier life only if that is the way you wish to live being simple, but happy.  That is what I choose and I couldn't be happier.