Actually, the OP asked for stories of how people did it, not advice on how he, in his unique situation, is supposed to accomplish his specific goals. You are a wonderful nitpicker, and great at killing enjoyable discussions, but dude, chill.

ANd yeah, we DO live simply. and we ARE NOT rich. Thanks for the veiled accusation and derogatory tone, but as it happened, we moved out, house sat for a whileand then moved onto a boat.

I could leave it at that and bait you, but I won't. The boat cost $5000, so we ARE NOT some retired riche, okay? got it? And the rent for the slip was $300 a month, so it was a nice, simple, inexpensive lifestyle. So sorry that grates on you.

Now, since then we've lived in a simply furnished cottage (furnished with used and free furniture for under $500), an RV ($2100) and now share a house with another family trying to pare down the materialist lifestyle. We've spend..... $75 on furniture for this one.

Now, are you satisfied, yet? Do you have any other petty qualms with who I am? If not, I can get back to the OP question of HOW we manage our lifestyle.

Again, the only thing a car is used for at this point is travel where my wife isn't yet comfortable with baby in a car seat in a trailer. Unfortunately for some persons, I've been giving in to that while I research the data further, but I think that since the chariot sling thing for the trailer does get used in the UK for transporting infants in trailer mode, we might try that once we can afford it.

Apologies to others.