The point about not budgeting is that there would be no reason to go that route unless the site itself turned out to be a money-making proposition, and then the measure of that would be the income it produced, which would then feed its growth. (This is like a non-profit where the “profits” feed back into the enterprise itself, thereby making it non-profit, but with better advertising, logos, office equipment and staff, perhaps.)

One ‘philosophical’ question then on to the ‘practical’: the bit that begins with “if I had my druthers …”, how does that relate to your new A. thru’ F list (above)? If they are different, which one would you actually prefer and when? Only one of these can be your “Lees List” (unless you can find a way to combine, or they are already combined?)?

Now for the ‘practical’: (E) I think it’s a good idea to budget the $20k unless you’re sure you can do it on the cheap (and, you always have the ‘free’ option up your sleeve, as you said) … but, other readers may be able to satisfy you that it can be safely outsourced (at the quality you require) for less. Anyone have any experience with this?

@ Lee – I’ll get my lawyers on to this and get them to slap a subpoena on you … don’t answer your door-bell for a couple of days

BTW: it’s OK to recommend [relevant] products/etc. as you have done; it’s just NOT ok to PROFIT from the recommendation …

… for example, I now sell an eBook, but give it away to everybody who reads my blogs (incl. this one), or else I wouldn’t even mention it.

For those who don’t yet know what I am talking about, the selling of the eBook is part of an associated ‘experiment’ that I am writing about here: http://findoutifyoucanmakemoneyonline.wordpress.com/

While it does not focus on financial stuff as 7m7y does it might be just the thing to help us put things in perspective.

@AJC – I realilze that my recommendation probably breaks “Golden Rule #3″ but I believe it to be a good resource.

(A & B (B is for A)) Travel costs for 6 months overseas living, researching and writing, with no other visible source of income: $55,000
(to enable A & B) Living expenses: $90,000
(C) not enabling any programs or specializing in donating
(D) Vehicle within the states: $15,000 annually, with maintenance/insurance
(E) I’ll use a blog – free to me and readers – to gage and increase readership and interest, but not to the extent that I would detract from the “real” writing – no cost, tho perhaps might want to set up a LLC and a webpage professionally eventually – say $20,000 upfront (assuming I hire expensive designers to do it for me and then to run it) and $5k per year thereafter. Right now, Barry has one and it is about $20 per year and he updates it himself. So, I’ve been figuring this is negligible for us. IF the money from the writing allows it, then we do it. If not, we stay “free”
(F) Researching and writing and living like this IS the stress-free vacation – going home to visit them is a lot more stressful  and is considered part of the travel costs anyway (the direction that is backwards) for when it is necessary or desireable, hopefully the latter, but my parents are in their mid-70s and this will be when they are near or into their 80s, so I would expect some travel back to the states from time to time.
But…$6,000 for yard/garden – this is a big stress reliever as well.

SO, back to Jeff’s comment that I haven’t got a purpose yet. it is always the first part “to thine own self be true” and I am not often that. I am mostly scared of everything and if I were to die tomorrow would say ‘what a waste (of time and space and energy matter).’

Somewhere in all of the musings in the Front Porch Swing speech, I said that I wanted to open up possibilities for other people. I think sometimes we need to do things for ourselves before we can do them for other people. It’s easy to say “this” is how to do it, but easier to say it if you haven’t done it perhaps than to actually do it.

A lot of people have to deal with a lot of emotional issues. I learned this more and more as I went thru my weight loss last year. I used an on-line pay-as-you-go group and this allowed people across the US and Canada to open up personally about issues that were affecting them and their daily choices – daily choices that affected their physical health, and subsequently their mental health in a catch-22 kind-of-way.

If I had my druthers, I’d leave work today and say “goodbye” and leave my dog with someone who could take care of him very well while I was gone, leave enough money so that they would not feel a burden by this in anyway (the dog’s a job, paying for him isn’t always), and buy a one-way ticket to the Guernsey Islands, with enough cash to live and move around and down thru France, researching my family heritage, and writing about ONE family who is not upper-class royalty and the like, and how they did – like all families coming to America did – what was needed to make it, their dreams, happen. I guess I’d like to give people hope, and I’d like to start by giving myself some hope.

I don’t want to “write and be heard” tho I believe all of us like to be heard, and am sure I am one of the guilty ones in that. I want to help other people be a bit happier about what they’re dealing with in life, by being a bit happier with themselves and their opportunities, and to help them see what opportunities may exist for them personally, and to help them find ways for those opportunities to be realities, not just “oh, you could be anything you want to be.”

What is it that is said? It’s not money that buys you happiness, but being satified with what you have – that is what brings happiness.

I don’t have a concrete plan for that – but it will begin with my writing, and my finding my way thru my writing (learning curve applied here, begin with what you know), and eventually figuring out how to get that feeling across to a reader using words as the transmitting device.

But I can’t say that life has a purpose, and by the same token, any purpose I profess (as my life’s purpose) is simply something I am assigning myself in order to delude myself into thinking that I am more than a grain of sand in the whole realm of the space-time continuum, and I am not sure that is a true statement. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t act as tho I am more than a grain of sand.

And personally, I am not sure writing is the correct medium either as more and more people do not read anything longer than a laundry list in the U.S. – and while the US might be the target audience initially, it may be that other parts of the world are more appropriate for the medium and so, I can flip that way.

I’ll stop here before I get too philosophical (it may be too late, haha ha).

1. The cost of the ‘creative TIME’ that’s needed (do you HAVE to give up work? Hire a nanny/valet/pa? etc.)

2. The cost of the ‘creative ENVIRONMENT’ that’s needed (do you NEED an apartment on the Upper West Side overlooking Central Park in order to do you writing ‘justice’? Or, have a second home in Costa Rica for this purpose?).

3. The houses, lifestyle, and things that you reasonably WANT wrapped around all of this.

BTW: Di posted her Life’s Purpose as:

” To be True to myself;

To Dare to live what few men have dared to dream;

To Scare Myself into living the life I crave

To Dream Big;

To not give in; To not give up. ”

… often, this ‘solidifies’ into something simpler or just one of these (or another thing entirely) ‘pops out’ as THE most important. Di?

@Di – Thanks for the thougths on ways to start small and build.

On a separate topic Di, I think the piece that is missing here is what is your life’s purpose? I haven’t seen you post your short purpose statement. As I read your rear deck speech what came to me was “Di’s purpose in life is to write and be heard.” I think the point of Lee’s List is to identify those things that you have to BE, DO, and HAVE to accomplish that life’s purpose.

Assuming I’m even close to interpreting what your life purpose is (big assumption, I know) then maybe all you really need is a lifetime supply of paper, pencils and an electric pencil sharpener.

It seems to me you may need to ask yourself two questions:
1. What is my life’s purpose?
2. What resources do I need to accomplish it?

I hope that helps.
-Jeff
Learn to manage money at Minding My Own Business

BTW: Jet funding is usually a 3-party deal (jet owner; airline operator; jet financier); in the sale, the lease will probably be able to be assigned if Jeff’s credit-ability is good.

Now, “higher-than-thou kind of motivation”? LOL – I think so … but, a better term would be ‘EXACTLY as high as Thine’ (where ‘thine’ is ‘Di’)

You need to find YOUR level of motivation; just remember, it has to be strong enough to lift you to the top of your own Mt Everest. And, if you don’t think getting from here to there, financially, is of that order of difficulty …

You get my point.

@AJC Well, then I don’t get the point of the exercise at all. Am I supposed to have some higher-than-thou kind of motivation in order to BE motivated? I thought the point was just to BE motivated. Lee’s List looked like a bunch of “what I would do with the money” to me, along the lines of his personal desires. So did Scott’s. So, if I haven’t somehow in all those writings already said what I’m doing with the money, then it’s just not coming thru clearly.