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I pay cash for everything. Thailand is pretty much a “cash” country, so it fits my lifestyle. I got back to paying cash for everything on my motorcycle travels. Before that, I was a typical American using cards for everything.There are about 1 dozen Thai national banks, and they operate all over the country. They have ATM machines all over Thailand, as well as bank branches in all the bigger towns.All ATM’s allow for cash transfers from bank to bank for paying bills or transferring to someone’s personal account. Last year, the banks eliminated all fees for such transfers. I can make same transfers from my PC or phone using the bank’s app, so immediate, no fee online banking from wherever you have cell service. You’ll find stores that will let you do the transfers to their account, so nobody gets dinged on charges, and again, its immediate.I do have a debit card with my Thai bank, but almost never use it except to withdraw cash at an ATM. (Thai business are allowed to tack on extra on purchases to cover bank fees).That being said about my banking lifestyle:I gave up worrying about my credit score and credit ratings. I gave up worrying whether my credit score would affect my car insurance rates, or being denied an apartment rental because of a bad rating. I gave up worrying about bad information on my credit report.I gave up receiving unsolicited credit card applications and other junk mail solicitations.Of course, I gave up buying from Amazon. Amazon prices are still the same - its the shipping that’ll kill you, and god help you if customs tacks on duty.I gave up paying for overpriced health insurance, worrying about paying out-of-network prices, worrying about co-pays and deductibles and god forbid, denial for coverage of pre-existing conditions. I now go into the hospital and get almost immediate attention to my problem. I get charged the same price whether I have insurance or not.I have a Thai wife. I paid to build a house on the land she owns a few years ago. We don’t pay rent, we don’t pay taxes on the land. My water bill is less than $3 a month. My electric in hot season (Air-Conditioning) is less than $70 for 6 months of the year, less then $40 for the other 6 months. My 50Mb wifi is less than $25.My family Netflix account adds another $10 a month. I’m sure the neighbors would think I have an extravagant lifestyle.So my living expenses are less than $1000 for the year. Not bad!Gas is expensive here (compared to the U.S. - probably not expensive in most of the rest of the world). Its roughly $1 per liter right now. I get 50km to the liter on my 110cc Honda scooter.I gave up clothes. OK, not wearing them, but I wear shorts and t-shirts 365 days a year with sandals on the feet. To dress up, I put on a polo shirt. I gave up fashions, and changing with the season. I own 2 jackets; a light fleece I wear on the couple dozen cold mornings in November to February, and a rain/wind breaker to wear over the top when I’m using the scooter on the real cool mornings. Otherwise, I gave up mittens and stocking caps and parkas and long pants and other cold weather gear.My wife buys her clothes from the 2nd hand stores, buying all them unsold goods they ship from the Thrift Shops in America. She has a good eye for that stuff; her clothing costs about $10 a month.I just bought about $400 USD in new clothes. I hadn’t spent anything for over 2 years. And this stuff will last about 2 years. Shoes and sandals are about my only recurring major clothing expenses. For rain wear, I buy cheap ponchos, sold everywhere. The expensive hi-tech rain gear from America disintegrates in the heat and humidity - all the seam welding/taping and water proofing goes to hell in a couple years.I generally find help wherever I’m at for language issues. If I’m in a store looking for something, I use my phone to show the clerk am image of what I’m looking for. Or I use an English-Thai dictionary app to show them a Thai word (usually a noun). No problem understanding their response.I could go on and on. For me, life is good. One day, the wife will collect my ashes from the neighborhood crematorium and scatter them around the yard (or whatever - up to her to decide).

The old cartridges are fun. Yes, modern cartridges can cut a playing card in half at a thousand yards, and yadda yadda yadda. You know what takes real skill? Putting 10 hand cast slugs from a 100+ year old cartridge through a 2″ hole at 200 yards.That takes dedication. Practice. Experimentation. It takes knowing the firearm frontwards and backwards, like one of your children. It takes knowing the cartridge that well too. How fast can you push it, how heavy or light can you go, how do you balance all those variables to reliably hit the gong at distance? You can't do that until you've spent years casting and loading that cartridge for that firearm.People don't shoot old cartridges because they're the best cartridge available for a particular application. They do it because the journey is the destination.I have a modern Kimber 1911. So why do I still painstakingly hand cast .45 Colt slugs from wheel weights…Why do I custom make lubricant out of beeswax from the bees on my own property…Why do I pan lube them the old-fashioned way, instead of using modern equipment…Why do I meticulously hand load them in small batches…Because, the result is awesome.You can't buy that. I made it, specifically for me, and for my revolver.With that combination I can make a nice, neat hole in a target at 25 yards out of 6 rounds. It's taken a lot of time, effort, trial and error, and practice to get there. But it's all me. I didn't buy it off the shelf, I earned it, the hard wayWhy do I shoot antique cartridges? Because I can. Can you?

From about age 7. I started putting small change away in an account, so by the time he was 7 there were a few hundred dollars in there. Subsequently we went to the bank whenever he had birthday money, we decided together how much he wanted to keep, and what he wanted to save.Meanwhile we played Monopoly a lot, and the game Payday. He commented at one point, 'boy, the money sure goes fast'. He realized the peril of tying up all your cash in non-liquid assets, that you couldn't take advantage of later deals, or you could be hit by expenses that costs more when you don't have cash on hand.At age 10, he commented that we get paid for working, but he doesn't get paid for school. I asked how much he thinks he should get paid, and worked out a budget, that 'coincidentally' took up all his 'income' to cover costs like room, board, transportation etc. Leaving him with - surprise! - the exact pocket money he was getting. He figured out what I did there, but the lesson wasn't lost. I showed him what some of the real costs of life were (groceries, rent, utilities).At age 11, I asked him if he wanted to do some jobs around the house, for which I'd otherwise have hired a cleaner. He said he would clean bathrooms and mow the lawn (with a push mower, not gas or electric). After learning these jobs, I paid him $5 per bathroom, and $10 for the lawn (we have a pretty small yard). Neighbours saw him mowing, and asked if he wanted to mow theirs. They paid him more so suddenly I was outbid on my own lawn job!At age 14, he attended a financial literacy session in school, and came home and told me his "money wasn't working" for him. So, I took him to meet my broker, and we set up some money in a dividend fund (still in my name, but withdrawn from his account). I give him the statements every month.At age 15, he wanted to buy games and computer parts online. Tired of having to key in my credit card every time, I set up a low-limit credit card (in my name) and gave it to him to buy stuff. The deal is, he gives me the cash when he makes the purchase. So far this is working out fine, if he runs up debt that he can't afford I can cancel the card. It's not at a level that I can't afford, and better to get used to this method than being inundated with card applications during his first week of university, and then using the card to pay tabs for buying rounds at bars, which I've seen happen to quite a few young people.That's where we are right now. YMMV.