However, I’m always surprised when I visit the many “Green” this and “Green” that sites to find photos of container homes draped in wood from top to bottom. What’s green about all the trees cut down to make that happen? It reminds me of the “Lovable Loo” that I don’t find lovable at all. Mass producing wooden boxes with a removable bucket… you mean you killed all those trees to make a shit box? That’s unacceptable.

Many years ago, I read about making shipping containers into homes. I thought it was a great idea for many reasons. However, I didn’t really feel like it was something I really wanted to do at the time. However, upon further review and in light of my recent personal growth, *Smile*, I have decided it is something I’d really like to try.

My feelings are such that I have been steadily working towards being debt free and definitely more self sufficient as a human being. I don’t want to go back to the stone ages as I feel like that’s really not our path. I just feel like we are using what we’ve learned so far about the natural world childishly and improperly. We can have many, if not all, of the luxuries we’ve come to love and depend on in a way that does not kill and harm the natural world around us upon which our survival is truly dependent. Other animals and insects, etc. use what would be equivalent to technology to improve the quality and success of their life cycles without destroying everything around them. We could very well do the same.

So, I would like to structure my life in such a way that I can enjoy total comfort and contribute as little as possible to making a negative impact on the environment if at all. So I have many thoughts and plans in mind. I’ll certainly have tons of fun doing it as well.

First on the agenda is my plan to build a house using shipping containers (second being to convert my current car or a PT Cruiser into an electric vehicle). I will admit this is partly motivated by some of the amazing do-it-yourself projects over at instructables.com I’m dying to try. *Smile* I’ll also say instructables.com is one of the largest contributors of my new found motivation to be self sufficient. I can’t believe some of the knowledge freely available on that site.

I’ll point out some reasons why I would like to build a container home:
1. Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! Yes these containers are plentiful and cheap.
2. I’ve come to accept I’m a nomadic person. These are shipping containers… for a nomadic person, you can’t get any better than that.
3. I love open spaces. Being able to design my own affordable home with lots of open space is fantastic
4. They are made out of steel, will survive most natural disasters and are built to last.

Lets get started on two of the four reasons (#3 & #4 are self explanatory).

Let’s talk about how cheap these things are. I could throw out all kinds of numbers but I’m sure someone will make a comment like “actually, your container costs are slightly off because … blah blah blah, some such foolishness”. *Smile* But I’ll just say this. I have seen 40′ containers for sale for less than $1100 and the most expensive I’ve seen so far has been about $3500. I was on the website of a company who makes prefabbed modular units with all the fixins. Even their deluxe 40′ with the works (full bathroom, fully finished walls, electrical, doors, windows, painted, everything.) was only $6800. I mean come on! I paid over $100K for my current house which is 100+ years old. I paid about $1 for every year this house has existed. There is something very wrong about that. There is something very wrong with not being able to pay off a home in a reasonable amount of time. 30 years is unreasonable.

Let’s say I paid $4000 per container (which includes having it moved to my build site), the home I want uses only 4 containers and to be honest I could very easily be satisfied with a two container home but since it’s affordable and they are ever so stack-able, I can use four. I’m off to a great start. Now, we are getting into the innards; making it livable. I don’t anticipate spending to be to ridiculous in that area as well because there is just so much value in using recycled items. A creative person can make a shipping container look like a fantastic home!

My current home is about 2600 sq ft and is in fact a two family home consisting of two 3-bedroom apartments, each 1300 sq ft. It occurred to me some time ago that I rarely use the back half of my apartment (I rent out the other unit). It really made me think about how much space I actually need. It is an incredible waste of space for me to live in such a big place. In a container home, by design, I can start small and should I start a family, easily add new containers. Sweet huh?

The second reason is, again, that I’m a very nomadic person. It took me a long time to accept that. I think a small part of me felt like I should “want” to live in one place forever but the reality is, I don’t have to and I don’t want to. If I’m someplace that’s really awesome, I probably won’t want to move. But if where I’m at does not provide the environment in which I can be the best I can be, then I’m gone.

I wrote a post a little while ago about my plans to move to another country in this awesome, big, wide world we live in. Having a home made out of shipping containers is perfect! Of course this means making sure you can use this home in whatever country I move to. Luckily enough, it seems like the rest of the world has been using shipping containers for buildings of all kinds for ages!

I am having a great time working out the design of my container home that will allow me to get the most out of the new living space and maintain the function of the containers so they can still be shipped.

So there you have my motivation and thoughts about using shipping containers for a home. I won’t over think it too much. I just see it as a great opportunity to recycle these containers which litter our ports and experiment with self sufficiency!

I’ll keep you posted with updates. I anticipate I will not be able to buy my first container until the end of the year or early next year. This will give me time to really perfect my plans. Also do not be alarmed if there is a long pause in my progress. I’m very much an Aries and my energy is on a very predictable cycle. I may loose interest but if it’s a project that will make my life more fulfilling in any way, I always come back to it and finish it. I already went a round with this and I came back to it. That’s a good sign! *Smile*

I’ve seen tons of container building projects online and while they are amazing, none of them are as valuable to me than this rain-forest research facility HERE. This one is more representative of the do-it-yourself-er.

I can’t help but get the feeling there is a growing push to “get rich” off of making prefab container homes once the “fad” gets more fire. I think this will ultimately drive container prices way up. Sad. It’s almost like an automatic self destruct program or something. Any way, this build was simple, and certainly gave me more inspiration than the elaborate builds which were reporting build costs too near what a conventional home would cost. What’s the point in that?

Also, Global Portable Buildings, Inc. is the company with the deluxe prefab for $6800. I love what this company is doing with their prefabs. I would go with them if I didn’t feel like taking on the challenge myself.

UPDATE - I’ve been informed that you can get shipping containers for free if you 1. do a decent search for companies most likely to be using them and unable to get rid of them and 2. you haul them yourself. A friend’s daughter and son-in-law did get a free container from such a company (she couldn’t remember the name of the company but it’s in Tennessee). The son-in-law is a truck driver and was able to haul the container to their wooded property to be made into a cabin.

So how does rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) work? Simple. As a buyer, you sign up for a new account, post a bid request which offers details about your project and service providers place bids on the project. There are all sorts of terms and options you can choose from to make sure your project goes as smoothly as possible. There are also help documents throughout the site on what to do to help your project along and what your options are if something goes wrong. Sound good? Well, what no one tells you up front is that all of this is irrelevant once you have accepted a coder’s bid and have put your hard earned money into rentacoder.com’s escrow system (a system they put in place because they were robbed).

When something does in fact go wrong with your project, the “arbitrator”, some non-technical individual (arbitrator confirmed they are a non-technical arbitrator), gives you two options. The first option is simply a time waster that will no doubt cause you to loose the arbitration and your money (i.e. lets spend weeks going over what the coder has done so far, just to have us decide they’ve done alright in our eyes because we can’t do what they can do). The second option which seems to be the true standard with rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) is the “wait until the coder fails” option. This option forces you to continue with a coder even if they tell you they can not do what you are asking them to do or if it’s very clear that the coder doesn’t understand a word you are saying. What that translates into to me is that there is no arbitration. When you pick a coder, you are stuck with them. It doesn’t matter what it says on their website. When you pick a coder at rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder), you are STUCK with them!

Alarm bells should be ringing in your ears right now. If the obvious is evident when you start the arbitration and it is ignored by the arbitrator or deemed “O.K.”, how will they make the best decision for everyone when the deadline comes? To make this a little more clear… if you see a gaping hole in the road and no way around it but to take another road, how can you trust the navigator to do the right thing when they tell you to keep going on the road with the crater until you fall in?

In addition, the website pumps buyers up, telling them to make sure they are diligent in making sure their project is going the way it should. The rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) site throws around phrases like “It’s your project”, but in the end, it’s the coder’s project in the eyes of rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder). If you ask the coder to give you an “accurate” mock-up (a requirement for the project that you choose when you set it up) and the coder fails to deliver this mock-up, “So, What?” says rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder). If you ask the programmer to confirm understanding on various important aspects of your project (the rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) site strongly suggest buyers do this to make sure they get what they expect from their programmer) and they do not do this at any time , “So, What?” screams rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder). If you ask the coder “Hey can you add this link to the front page?” and their answer to that is “I like apples on Tuesdays with cheese and crackers.” because they don’t understand a word you said, “Pay them!” says rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder)!

This is the bottom line rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder)! When people post projects on rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) and pay their money for that project, it is absolutely unacceptable to force them to use a coder who clearly can not do the job. It is also unacceptable to make buyers waste time and wait for the coder to fail especially when you have an arbitration system in place. Currently at rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) as a buyer, you have no control over your project once you choose a programmer and the only thing you can count on is your time will be wasted with a high probability of your money being stolen from you (Yes, if you force me to pay for a box of coal when I’ve asked for a box of diamonds and the money I’ve given you is in fact the appropriate amount for a box of diamonds, then you have stolen from me).

*Note* A similar site is scritplance.com. They do the exact same thing only they don’t make you wait until the coder fails, they just make you wait and wait and wait. Deadlines don’t matter at all at scriptlance.com. Eventually they do give you your money back but they make sure they punish you sufficiently first.

Update:
In light of some of the hostile comments and mail being left about views expressed in this article, I felt it necessary to add a little more. There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Some seem to think I have reading and comprehension problems or that I have not tried the magic formula that would have surely made my experience better. However, these are mere misunderstandings. I do not have reading and comprehension problems and did in fact read all of the help documents provided by the site before getting started. There is so much to choose from while setting up a bid request you have no choice but to jump over to the help pages to make sure you are choosing the best option for your project. Also because I was coming from a rather insane experience on scriptlance.com, I was definitely all over the information about how the site works and the mediation/arbitration feature. It all made sense and sounded good as written. However, Rent-A-Coder is not following their own documentation.

As for this magic formula…. it made me laugh. The magic formula is: Look at the programmer’s reviews, at their portfolio, how many jobs they’ve completed or didn’t complete, the details of any disputes they may have already had, etc. This is very helpful and one would be a fool not to do this. However, it is not the magic formula to success. Project success relies on all involved. There are many ways to create programmer accounts with all of these in order and still not be a the best programmer or the best programmer for every job applied or bid on. Some issues come not from deception or incompetence but from poor judgment. It seems many programmers want to do the projects they bid on, but for whatever reason, bid with completion times they can not meet, unreasonable rates (too low for the amount of work they have to do) or just become “yes” men/women and later after they’ve accepted a job, realize it is more than they can handle.

However, this article wasn’t directed at programmers or buyers, although it seems those who are angry about this article are programmers or those who provide outsourcing who use Rent-A-Coder. So because they rely heavily on it, or it works for them, how dare I talk about it not working for me. *Smile* There are less than honest programmers out there, just like there are less than honest buyers or buyers who don’t know what they want or who haven’t read the site documents. There is no arguing that. However, you can’t assume that everyone who has a complaint did not understand what they were getting into or did not use the magic formula.

Let me restate the issue. Rentacoder.com does not follow it’s own documentation. Rentacoder.com has a faulty and useless arbitration system. Both of which makes their services not worth using.

Update: 2
Rentacoder.com chooses to be the robber instead of doing the right thing. I’ve been forced to pay the cancellation fee because the programmer doesn’t have any money in his account (he lost the arbitration). How convenient! So any lousy programmer can open an account, never keep money in it and fail to deliver what they agreed and never have to pay for it. And if they want, they can go ahead and open a new account under a different name (yes I had a person message me and say he works with two different accounts on Rentacoder.com. It doesn’t matter if they say it’s not allowed they need to have a way to keep it from happening). Rentacoder.com could easily make the programmer’s account negative or even be smart like odesk and require everyone to have a registered form of payment and make these deductions when the arbitration is lost. It is just unacceptable to make the winning party of an arbitration pay a cancellation fee because the loosing party doesn’t have the money in their account (especially if nothing is in place to make sure Rentacoder.com can get their fees in such a situation). What a pathetic business this has turned out to be.

Why should you become self-aware?
Imagine turning 70 or 80 years old and realizing that you haven’t done with your life what you would have liked to have done. Imagine feeling the years fly by and you are still stuck in the same cycle; a cycle you aren’t happy with. Realities such as these are often due to a person spending the majority of their lives not being self-aware. They spend year after year doing what they think they are “supposed” to do, engaging in activities that are counterproductive to their life goals, or they never develop or contemplate life goals for a variety of reasons. It’s not their fault. We live in a society where self-awareness is not cultivated from birth. We put diapers on our infants when they are completely capable of learning to control their waste functions much earlier than we allow them to. We send our children to schools to be trained to learn, think, dress, behave, and judge a certain way. We fight our teenagers for thinking for themselves, which we wouldn’t have to do if we were confident that we taught them to be good thinkers to begin with. We send our young adults to colleges or to work and assure them they can “be whatever they want to be” as long as it means working for someone else and never mention anything about choosing the right option for themselves no matter what the circumstances are. So where is the self-awareness?

I think of self-awareness as a time saver. When you are self-aware you save time. You don’t waste as much time with trial and error when you are self-aware and know what you were already capable of doing. I also like to use examples. For example, think about how much time you would save if you knew you were capable of a certain skill and you acted upon an opportunity to put that skill to use. I know people who have had a great skill, such as cooking, who never realized it was a skill they could do for a living. Think of how much heartache you could spare if in knowing you want children, you choose a partner who also wants children. Romantic and personal relationships in this country are in dire shape due to self-awareness problems. Remember self-awareness doesn’t just mean knowing about yourself, it also includes acting upon what you know about yourself.

In Addition, you may find what you know about yourself has changed. People learn and grow all the time and your understanding of yourself may also change over time. So be pre-paried to re-evaluate yourself from time to time and apply that new data to your current life. For instance, if 5 years ago you were not capable of effectively marketing a business you should have hired someone who was skilled in that area. However, if now you have learned some marketing skills and tricks you should be actively applying them on your own; saving you money. If your weren’t ready for marriage or a committed relationship when you were 19 or 20 years old but now at 30 or 35 years old you are, then it is in your best interest to seek a partner who is also interested in marriage or a committed relationship. It would go against your self-awareness to accept a partner who is not interested in marriage or a committed relationship.  

Here are five ways you can become more self aware:

1. Look at yourself in the mirror for 5-10 minutes everyday for 30 days and write down how you feel about yourself when you do.Write a list of the things you like about yourself and the things you don’t like about yourself. Then go down this list and figure out where the negative thoughts come from if there are any. For instance, if you don’t like your size think about where you got that negative message from. Before you get hung up on what is supposed to be “healthy” think about your real and actual health. Despite what is “said” to be healthy, have you been a physically healthy person? For example, I know several overweight people who rarely get so much as a cold and several thin people who are sick all the time. The point is not to have you be overweight, but for you to 1. think for yourself, and 2. get you in the habit of viewing your life through your self-awareness not someone else’s.

Your self-esteem plays such an enormous role in your life you simply can not overlook this suggestion. How you feel about yourself influences the decisions you make, the relationships you choose to engage in, the professions you allow yourself to apply for, the way you relate to your kids, family, loved ones, your mood, etc.

2. Take some time to write down all of your accomplishments and all of your regrets and/or mistakes up to this point in your life. Really give it some thought. When you have a list, go over each item and write down the actions you took or decisions you’ve made that lead to the accomplishments, regrets and/or mistakes. See any patterns?

For the accomplishments, try to find specific behaviors or motivations that helped you make good decisions and see if you can apply those behaviors and motivations in the future. Then try to come up with some reasons for making the decisions you may have made that lead up to mistakes or regrets. This isn’t an opportunity for you to beat up on yourself. We all make mistakes. They are learning tools. Problems arise in our lives when we keep making the same mistakes over and over and ignoring patterns we can control that help us make the mistakes. For instance if you realize that when you are upset or lonely you become impulsive and buy something you don’t need. That is a pattern/behavior that needs to be addressed.

3. For 30 days write down your daily activities. This also includes everything you purchase and your moods. This isn’t an attempt to get you to journal, it’s an attempt to get you to recognize your patterns. Patterns you can analyze. Once you have collected this information, take a good look at it. Some questions to ask yourself:

What were you feeling at the time you made all purchases within the 30 days?
Why did you feel you needed to make the purchases?
Did you put off paying a bill to purchase something that could have waited?
What are activities do you spend most of your time on?
How much time do you spend watching TV?
Do you give up real human interaction to watch TV?
How many people did you interact with during the 30 days?
Were they positive interactions?
Which moods are most prevalent during the 30 days?

4. Write down EVERYTHING you think you are good at. This should include tasks that are regular everyday things like cleaning, cooking, being a good listener to your loved ones and friends. Once you have this list, write down the tasks from the list that you LOVE doing. Some questions to consider:

Is what you LOVE doing what you are doing for a living?
Why not?
What can you do to make what you LOVE doing a career?

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