If you are young and single just getting by on minimum wage, there are not many avenues open to you. And if you are lucky enough to be looking in the market for your own home, many of the structures in your price range are substandard in areas that are simply not safe - hence fire sale prices being offered. A lot of people in a similar circumstance will roll over and play dead. Not a good thing. Most likely, someone in that circumstance is forced to live in a crime-ridden neighborhood hoping to survive the night - one day at a time. Its not a pretty picture. Trying to have a family - forget it, utilities will eat you alive over a winter. Bringing up an old place to code? Not on minimum wage.

So new home ownership for most low-income single individuals is out of the question... Or is it?

The answer is how you tackle the challenge. Realize it takes a lot of research and planning. Buying the right house design software and thinking about your individual needs now and into future. For instance, you may someday want a family, if you don't already have one. Another is like it or not, if you live long enough, you are going to grow old. So the house you design needs to take these considerations in mind. Lets spell it out. Whatever layout you have in mind, eventually you may want to expand on it. While a two bedroom home is initially built, you and your family may require three or four bedrooms. Another is growing older. Chances are you may find yourself in a wheelchair. Having a house means unless you plan ahead, you may have a very expensive renovation to contend with to make your home adaptable, or worse, be forced to sell and move someplace you don't want to...or heaven forbid, find yourself in a nursing home. You may consider this negative thinking on the surface - but the reality is you want to have as many options as possible when aging - and we all age from the moment of birth. Keep in mind, that every time you move, you lose equity. The only winners are the banks and the realtors. So pick the best location possible. Myself, I like more of a rural or an edge of a suburban location. The reason is even the best urban neighborhood will someday come face-to-face with squalor and the crime that goes with it.

We live at certain comfort levels, and we'd like to maintain them, or better yet improve them. By now you've heard your parents complain about the electric or natural gas bill...if you now pay them, then you feel their pain when a bill shows up. In bad times it can be catastrophic. No doubt, you've lived through a power outage for an hour up to a few days. Everything almost comes to a stop. That's why I'm very high on energy self-sufficiency. Not depending on outside factors to control your own personal world. Ergo, if you can incorporate alternative energy sources and energy-saving devices into your home design, you will be the better for it.

These are some of the things I cover and incorporated into House & Cottage.

Now lets talk money. When you borrow, you pay a certain percentage over the amount of money you initially received. Bankers and other creditors make their money through issuing loans, and they stack the deck against the borrower - especially where it concerns credit cards. If we allow ourselves to tread debt for any amount of time, we end up drowning in a sea of debt, unable to get out...its a very miserable way to live and to die. Therefore, I encourage you to find a safe place to store building material that you can pay for with cash than delve into buying things on credit. Owning a home with no mortgage to burn twenty to forty years later is true freedom, allowing you to sleep at night with few serious worries. Also realize if you plan to buy land, few banks will grant a loan with no buildings over it. Therefore, you need to save there as well.

Gaining working experience is the only way to make sure you have a personal expanse of knowledge to do the project right. Spend some of your time by working on a Habitat For Humanity home, actually a few of them. You may never get a grant of your own from them, however, you'll know what's involved in the building process to achieve the best degree of success in your own building project. The more you know, the better your results.

I wish you nothing but good luck my children and offspring to come...