- Introduction: Celebrating Our 12th Anniversary
- New Resources & Specials: Books, CDs, T-Shirts, Bumper Stickers & More!
- Going Back To The Basics: Regaining Simplicity
- The Valentine's Day Challenge: A Fun Way To Celebrate
- The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches: An Excerpt
- The Gray Zone Of Discretionary Spending: Avoiding Buyer's Remorse
- Coupon Club Basics: How To Cut Your Grocery Bill With Others
- Gems Of The Discussion Forums: New Year's Resolutions & Winter Reading
- The Natural Competitive Advantage Of Bioregions: GreenMoney Journal
- The Story Of Stuff: Exploring The Materials Economy
- Money/Life Balance In The New Millennium: Valuing Your Life Energy — Work & Income
Happy New Year!
Welcome to the 12th Anniversary issue of our free, on-line Newsletter! We are quite proud of this milestone and want to share some of our accomplishments with you. . . .
Our goals are simple and we have remained true to them from the very beginning:
- We have worked hard to craft relationships with a wide variety of authors, organizations and businesses in the "simple living" field to create one central location on the internet where you can find out just about anything you want to know about living the simple life.
- We have always operated our business in the financial black, never taking on debt or attempting to grow faster than resources will allow.
- We don't have a fancy office or a lot of unnecessary equipment. We are a home based business operating out of the spare bedroom (and living room and storage shed and kitchen counter and...) of my house.
- We handle all of our day-to-day operations in-house (literally) — from web design and programming to 100% of our order fulfillment — and hire local folks at a living wage.
- We do not rely on advertising revenue for support. In fact, you will not find any paid advertising on our web site.
- We never send junk e-mail or snail mail, do not use telemarketing and never, ever share our customers' names, e-mail addresses, physical addresses or phone numbers with anyone.
- We rely on word of mouth as our main advertising vehicle.
- We are virtually paperless — no printed catalogs, newsletters or promotional materials — the exception is the receipt and one-page "Tools For Simple Living" sheet we include with all resource orders shipped from our "warehouse."
- We aren't trying to get rich. We're just doing what we believe should be done. As long as there is food on the table and the bills are paid, we are happy with "enough." To tell the truth, we don't make enough money selling books and CDs, etc., to pay all of the bills. Rather, we trust that good folks like you appreciate what we are doing and enjoy our free services enough to make small CyberAngel contributions. We don't charge subscription or membership fees. We leave it up to you to decide what this web site is worth and how fast it will grow.
Which brings me to the most important part of our 12th Anniversary celebration....
Thank You CyberAngels
I didn't think it would happen, but on December 29, 2007 we actually surpassed our 2007 CyberAngel goal. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you to each and every person who made a contribution, large or small, to help us meet the expenses of providing this free, on-line Newsletter, our Discussion Forums, SimpleRadio, Study Group Database, and meet the hefty bandwidth expenses of operating our server. We would not be here without you! Keep up the good work, gang. Your continued CyberAngel contributions will help us meet our 2008 goals. (We anticipate that expenses in 2008 will be a bit higher due to increased bandwidth charges and new software and equipment needs. As such, we're aiming high and setting a goal of $20,000 for 2008.)
Thank You Volunteers
I must also send out a great big thank you to all of the volunteers who put in countless hours each year to produce this Newsletter and keep the Discussion Forums running smoothly.
Thanks to Fred Ecks and Ann Haebig who have volunteered their time and wisdom to put together this exceptional Newsletter.
Thanks to Jonathan, Crystal, "24prins," "Aspen," "Bisbee," "Ihamo," Linnea" and "Stanny," (please forgive me if I missed someone), for serving tirelessly as moderators in the Discussion Forums.
Where Do We Go From Here?
We don't believe we have all the answers. However, given current trends — increasing personal debt, negative savings rates, lack of job security, the home mortgage crisis, failing health care, looming recession, war, peak oil, global warming and the like — we do believe that one solution is to learn how to use less stuff, use less energy and learn how to live a more simple lifestyle.
We are not talking about depriving ourselves of a few creature comforts or possessions that we already enjoy. We are talking about learning to live with "enough" while enjoying life as much or more than we already do!
The lifestyle choice of living simply, voluntary simplicity, living lightly on the earth, doing more with less, (whatever you choose to call it), is one of never-ending learning, self-discovery, joy and fulfillment. Though the path isn't always easy to follow, it is truly rewarding. When you choose to live simply you can honestly wake up each morning refreshed in the knowledge that you are doing your part to help make the world a better place.
Here at The Simple Living Network we will continue to work hard in 2008 and beyond to assist our web site visitors in crafting lifestyles that are unique, joyful, rewarding, simple and restorative. We believe that unchecked consumption in the 21st century is no longer cool. In fact, it is downright irresponsible. If this planet is to survive the rough times ahead, we believe the new cool and sexy thing we must all embrace is living more simply and learning to do more with less!
Please join us. Together we are creating a central location on the internet where likeminded individuals are coming together to reinvent the world.
For the earth,
Dave Wampler
Founder
The Simple Living Network
NOTEWORTHY POSTSCRIPT: An Inconvenient Truth aside, I recently watched one of the most paradigm-shifting documentaries I have ever seen, A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash. In short, this is a must see! If ever there was an argument for learning to live more simply, this is it.
Produced by award-winning filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, this documentary examines the world's dependence on oil and the impending chaos that is sure to follow when the resource is depleted. Straight from the headlines, this hot-button topic may represent the world's most dire crisis. Through expert interviews, the film spells out in startling detail the challenge we all face and underscores our desperate need for alternative energy and using fewer resources.
I am trying to find a source from which to order this DVD so we can distribute it, at cost, through The Simple Living Network. Until then, please check with your local library and request that they obtain a copy.
Copyright © The Simple Living Network. All Rights Reserved.
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12th Anniversary 40% Off Sale! Save 40% or more on a wide variety of simple living and do it yourself resources.
Click here for a complete list of sale items! |
New Books & Audio Book CDs
- Hot Off The Press! Highly Recommended!
The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches:
A Practical (& Fun) Guide To Enjoying Life More By Spending Less
- It's Easy Being Green: A Handbook For Earth-Friendly Living
- Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook For Living Lightly On The Earth
- We Know What You Want: The Secret Tactics That Influence What You Buy, Think & Believe
- 31 Words To Create An Organized Life: Simple Strategies & Expert Advice To Win The Battle Against Chaos & Clutter
- Making A Living While Making A Difference: Conscious Careers For An Era Of Interdependence
Revised Edition! - Get Satisfied: How Twenty People Like You Found The Satisfaction Of Enough
20% Discount Through January 31, 2008!
New T-Shirts
- I'm already against the next war.
- Be the change you wish to see in the world.
- Break The Chains: Shop At Independent Stores.
- God bless the whole world. No exceptions.
- I believe in God, I just spell it Nature.
- Peace Monger
New Bumper Stickers
- I'm already against the next war.
- An economy based on the consumption of fixed resources will consume itself.
- We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
- Growing the economy is shrinking the ecosystem.
- Mall-Wart. Your source for cheap, plastic crap.
- God bless the whole world. No exceptions.
- Peace begins when the hungry are fed.
- Peacemonger
- When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
- Will Work For Peace.
- Click here to see ALL Bumper Stickers...
New Posters, Buttons, Magnets, Static Clings, etc.
- Be the change you wish to see in the world. - Canvas Bag
- Be the change you wish to see in the world. - Poster
- Be the change you wish to see in the world. - Static Cling
- Coexist - Button
- Coexist - Magnet
- Coexist - Static Cling
- God bless the whole world. No exceptions. - Static Cling
- I believe in God, I just spell it Nature. - Static Cling
Copyright © 2007
I remember as a child thinking how incredible it would be to time travel to the past. The movies and books related to that theme had me enthralled. Little did I realize that I would experience this in my lifetime. In moving to a remote property in central Queensland, I have had the opportunity to experience a lifestyle that is more simple and in tune with Nature. This morning, I got up and greeted the day by walking through our veggie garden. This has become almost a daily ritual for me: looking to see what's growing, what needs watering or caring for, what's ready for harvesting and what's struggling and needing bird protection. When you grow your own food, it becomes very important to keep on top of things like that. Being so closely linked to producing what we eat feels like stepping back into the past.
Lately, we have had fairly regular rains so I haven't had to do much watering and everything has been growing really well. We've already been eating produce from the garden for a month now: radishes, leafy greens, parsley and the odd strawberry. During the past few months, we have eaten potatoes and pumpkin stored from last year. Frozen tomatoes and other vegetables from last year have fed us as well as home produced chutney and pickled vegetables. We had a guest over for dinner a week ago and we ate a homegrown meal: meat from the property and vegetables from the garden. Even the bread was homemade. If we had been able to grow the wheat and produce the milk products, it could have been completely locally produced.
There is something wonderful about growing and making your own food and drink. Beer tastes better. Ginger beer is more refreshing. Baked goods are more special. The flavours of fruit and vegetables are much tastier. Producing your own meat products is not only interesting, but feels healthier as well. Part of the appeal in all this, I believe, is in knowing exactly what you are consuming. You don't have to wonder about nasty additives since they aren't there unless you add them yourself.
I think that it must also be the knowledge of the effort and energy that has gone into producing your own food and drink that helps to make it that much more special. Not only are you enjoying the consumption part of it, but you are also able to congratulate yourself for doing it in the first place. It's a sort of double compliment: to your taste buds and to your self worth. I think this is something that modern society has overlooked. In trying to free up our time through having everything so readily available and "instant", the sense of pride in producing something ourselves has been overlooked.
This journey back into the past has felt very personal to me. As a child growing up on a small farm, I was involved in many activities related to producing our own food. When I think back to that time, my memories related to that aspect of my childhood are mostly positive — of good times working together as a family to survive. It's not necessarily the vacations or the "nonessentials" that bring the fondest memories, but doing the basics together: tending the garden, picking fruit, milking the cow, making butter, yoghurt and ice cream, preserving fruit and vegetables. Many of these types of things are simply not done much in modern society. It seems like we don't have the time to personally take care of our basic needs anymore. Or perhaps we don't see the value in that and feel as if we have progressed beyond mere survival. Our free time is spent in doing more "fun" things that have to do with amusing ourselves in other ways.
Yet, in coming back to the past, as I have this year, I am discovering that there is a real joy and satisfaction in being responsible for my basic needs. Even though it may mean that I have less time available to do other things, I am finding that my work in growing and producing my own food and drink can feel like leisure activity at times. It's a kind of blending of work and play that has the added bonus of ensuring my survival.
I know that at the moment I am very fortunate to be in a place where I have the time and space to grow and produce much of my own food and drink. Many of the things I have been doing here I have not done since I left home after finishing high school. Having moved around a lot in my life, I simply haven't been able to have a garden in many cases. However, I also know that there were many times in my former life when I could have been more involved in taking care of my basic needs if I had made it a priority. This comes back to values. If I had valued the process of taking care of my basic needs, then I would have found a way to make it happen more.
In a year's time, I will be moving from this place where going back to the basics and living simply is relatively easy for me. Leaving here, I will quite possibly return to "normal" modern society with all the demands of career and social responsibilities. However, I feel as if I have awakened to the incredible benefits of living more simply and I don't think this is something I will easily forget. It may mean letting go of other nonessential things that occupy my time, but if I hold onto the memories of the satisfaction I've discovered in my current lifestyle, I will be able to make it happen. As for anything I place value on, I will find ways to integrate it into a more complicated life situation.
Postscript:
One of my ways of simplifying my life lately has also been to sort through all the clutter I've gathered over the years and to get rid of what I no longer need. All that paperwork that I have been carrying around with me in the hopes that one day I would sort through it has become burdensome as I continue to move from place to place. Now, I have finally taken the time to minimize it and have discovered many things I have been unnecessarily holding on to for so many years. I have discovered valuable things as well, such as the following short piece of writing I did in March 2003. It outlines how busy and complicated my life used to be and how all I wanted to do was to simplify. Yet I didn't know how to do it, as I felt stuck in the rat race somehow. I find it very curious that here I am, only three years later, living the kind of lifestyle I could only dream about before. I believe that the strong desire and intention to simplify my life could well have put things in motion for it to happen, but that's the subject of a much longer article.
Simpler Times
I wonder what happened to those simpler times when all that mattered was working to make a living, spending quality time with friends and family, eating well and enjoying yourself during your time off? When did life get so complicated such that there really is no "time off" at all, but every minute of every day seems to have to count for something? When did life itself lose its meaning and the only thing worthwhile become the pursuit of money and material things?
I'm a product of this crazy society that has changed life to become so complicated. Inside me there is a constantly ticking clock that reminds me of time running out. Time is going by and I have this frantic feeling that I must snatch at opportunities or else they will be gone forever. It's also like I have this sort of tabulation mechanism inside that seems to constantly be measuring my accomplishments and my actions. Contentment seems to be a rather elusive feeling that I catch fleeting glimpses of now and then. Instead, there is this perpetual improvement/accomplishment slave driver within that always whispers: "Do. Do. Do."
I'd like to go back to those simple days: Where it was enough to work and then to relax. Where life was there to enjoy and just to live. Where deeper meaning and breathing were synonymous. Where I could come home, collapse on the couch, have a nap, do some reading and relax for the rest of the evening and feel good about myself. Where simply living was enough!
About The Author
Originally from Canada, Elizabeth Lescheid currently lives and works on a remote nature reserve in central Queensland, Australia. For several years, simplifying her life has been a major goal for her. Improving her expertise as a freelance writer has also been a pursuit; she has had several articles published during the past few years. Elizabeth can be reached at elescheid@yahoo.com.
Related Resources
Copyright © 2007
Does Valentine's Day have to be expensive? Not at all. Let me tell you a story of how my husband and I had one of the best Valentine's Day celebrations ever by limiting ourselves to spending $10 or less.
About ten years ago, my husband Michael and I both left good jobs to begin a home-based business. Within a matter of weeks, we went from two comfortable salaries to one sporadic stream of income from our fledgling business. On the first Valentine's Day after we became self-employed, we both knew we shouldn't spend much on our February 14th celebration. We agreed to try something different. We decided to set a $5 spending limit per person for our Valentine's Day gifts.
To a spendthrift, a $5 spending limit on Valentine's Day would have been like the kiss of death: "What can I possibly buy for only five dollars?" For us, it became a game: "What kind of cool stuff we can come up with for less than five bucks?" Both of us enjoyed the challenge of searching out items that would fit the bill.
Michael is a woodworker, so for him it was easy. He used his time and only a little money to make me a beautiful oval frame for a wall mirror I already had. He used wood that was salvaged from discarded packing crates, 25-cent paint from a yard sale, and plans he drew up on his computer. The only thing he had to go out and buy was a dowel for putting the frame together, which cost only 76 cents at the hardware store. The end result was a beautiful mirror that hung proudly in our bedroom for many years.
For Michael, I found a desk calendar that had a different quote about love for each day. Because it was February, the calendar was on clearance for $4. I also found a woodworking book at a library discard sale for 50 cents. In addition, I made him a homemade card and a plate of his favorite cookies. When you add the cost of the cookie ingredients I already had on hand, I actually went over my limit just a little but he was delighted nonetheless. In fact, we both enjoyed our gifts and the thrill of the hunt so much that we instituted the five-dollar rule for other gift-giving occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries that year as well.
Are you and your loved one going through a tough time financially? Even if you're not, is the thought of saving money more attractive to you than spending a small fortune on Valentine's Day gifts? If so, I encourage you to try something different this year. Take the Valentine's Day Challenge: Set a small spending limit like $5, $10 or whatever fits your budget, and agree with your spouse to give gifts that are low in cost but high in creativity.
Use any special talents you have to create a keepsake. Put your cooking skills to work to whip up an inexpensive-yet-irresistible treat in the kitchen. Shop the clearance racks to find some special something your sweetie would enjoy. Visit the second-hand stores to find a gently-used book by a favorite author or CD by a favorite artist. Use your budgeted amount to buy a gift card to the ice cream shop, coffee shop or movie rental store.
Think outside the proverbial box. Make it a game to see how you can use your creativity to give your sweetheart the most Valentine's Day fun for the least amount of money.
About The Author
Nancy Twigg is a speaker and author who loves inspiring others to live more simply. This article was adapted from Nancy's newly revised book, Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions. Visit Nancy online at www.countingthecost.com.
Related Resources
- Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions
- The Complete Tightwad Gazette
- The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches
Note: The following is an excerpt from the new book, The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches, published January 1, 2008, by Jeff Yeager. It is reprinted here with permission from Broadway Books.
Introduction: The Money Step
I always stay at the cheapest hotel, so I was surprised to find a mint on my pillow in the evening. Turns out it fell out of the mouth of the guy who slept there the night before.— Jeff Yeager, The Ultimate CheapskateRule No. 1: Groceries do not count as Christmas gifts, even if you gift wrap them
— Denise Yeager, pooooor wife of The Ultimate Cheapskate,
giving Jeff the annual holiday gift buying lectureMan, money may not be the root of all evil, but it's a seed that can sprout some pretty nasty s#?@.
— anonymous barroom philosopher I met in The Bar, Williston, North Dakota,
summer 1977, while I was on a cross-country bicycle trip.
He was bemoaning the recent breakup with his "old lady,"
a rift that grew out of the couple's winning one thousand dollars in the lottery.
Keep that memory at the very top of your mind as we travel in the pages ahead down some of life's major byways, byways filled with intersections, with choices. Not just choices about money and how to spend it, but decisions about what you want out of life, what's important in life, and what money does — or doesn't — have to do with any of it.
I'll bet that your earliest thoughts and memories of money are still influencing some of the financial decisions you make today. As you keep barreling down the Road to Riches, convinced, as most of us are, that the intersection with the Highway to Happiness is just around the next bend, it's worth spending a moment to think about how you got to this point. Like consulting a road map when you're already hopelessly lost, you might be surprised to find out where you really are and that the course you are on is leading you away from your intended destination.
In my case, my earliest memory of money is, ironically, of found money, of a shiny silver dime, probably dated around 1963, when I was five. I found it while playing in our front yard on Summerfield Road in Sylvania, Ohio.
In my case, my first taste of money truly was a taste. By the time my mom sprinted across the yard to see what I was playing with, it was too late. I had already swallowed it. In addition to the spellbinding shine of the coin, I remember the metallic flavor as it traveled awkwardly down my tiny throat. Somehow, through the marvels of the human body and mind, I still get a slight, almost undetectable taste of metal in my mouth at the end of every day when I empty out my pocket change.
Money On The Brain
Like it or not, money is part of our very being. We worry more about money than anything else. We fight with our spouses and families more about money than anything else. We spend more of our waking hours earning and spending money than doing anything else.
In fact I read about a research study a few years ago that showed that people think about money an average of fifty-five times a day. That immediately caught my attention, as I also remembered reading about another study that showed that people (or, rather, men) think about sex an average of every fifteen minutes throughout the day.
When you combine the results of these two studies and subtract out of a twenty-four-hour period the number of hours spent sleeping and the hours spent thinking about nothing at all, if I've done the math correctly, you discover something startling. Not only do most people think only about money and sex, but a good deal of the time men are thinking about money and sex simultaneously. On second thought, I guess I don't find it that surprising.
So with thoughts of money dominating your every waking hour and encroaching on every aspect of your life, you pick up a book about — what else? — money.
But unlike most personal finance books, this book is not about how to make more money. This book is about how to make less money, but how to be happier than if you made more. It's about how to make money less a part of your life by spending less, so that you can enjoy life more. And it's not so much about finding the best values in things — although it provides some good advice in that regard — as about valuing the best things, which usually come without price tags.
Most of all, this book is about choices, not about sacrifices, as my moniker, the Ultimate Cheapskate, might make you think. It's about the choices we make every day about earning and spending money and the priorities we set for ourselves on the basis of those choices.
The Money Step
Ultimately each of the choices we're going to look at in this book — whether it's what kind of house you should buy or whether you have enough roughage in your diet — is a choice involving the Money Step.
The Money Step is the little dance of earning and spending we do pretty much every day of our life. It has three beats, like a waltz:
Earning money To spend money To get what you want
[ . . . or at least what you think you want]The Money Step has become the default setting for the world we live in today. It's now the rule, not the exception. We unconsciously, or consciously, take the Money Step when doing almost everything we do. The idea of getting what we really want by reducing or even entirely skipping the Money Step — a comfortable house without an uncomfortable mortgage, strong health without ever buying a gym membership, the ability to sleep nights knowing that we're debt free — is a concept so out of vogue in our society it's nearly extinct.
As we'll see, questioning the Money Step is as much about deciding what you truly want and need as about deciding how best to get it. By the end of this book I hope you'll start to question whether the Money Step should continue to be the default setting in your life. And throughout this book, as we look at different big-ticket items in the typical family budget, I encourage you to keep one key question in mind: Can you and your family skip, or at least limit, the Money Step and go straight to the real prize?
The Allegory Of The Ax & the Basketball
I first came to appreciate — indeed fixate on — the Money Step during my twenty-five-year career as a CEO and fundraiser in the nonprofit sector. Operating in an environment where money is always scarce and goals are rarely measured just in dollars, I spent my days finding creative ways to avoid, or at least mitigate as much possible, the Money Steps that stood between my organization and the mission it was created to serve.
You might say that my vocation as a nonprofit manager was achieving success without the use of money, or at least without a lot of it. "The nonprofit sector is fortunate to be immune from economic downturns," I used to tell my staff, "because in the nonprofit world, the economy always sucks." Much of what I learned during those years rubbed off on my personal life and finances, or maybe the other way around, making my transition to the Ultimate Cheapskate a natural one.
But looking back on it now, I guess I should have grasped the concept of the Money Step years before, as a result of a horrifically embarrassing incident in my youth. The symbolic significance of the episode was lost on me at the time, but I now understand and deeply appreciate the prophetic importance of what I call the Allegory of the Ax and the Basketball.
When I was at the age of sixteen, an age not associated with great wisdom, yet one at which you've presumably learned something about the basic laws of physics, my brother, Joel, and I were chopping firewood along the banks of the Maumee River in rural Ohio. The winter ice had just broken, and with the spring melt the water was running high. The driftwood was piling up along the shoreline faster than we could cut and split it.
If you've never witnessed an ice breakup on a river of any size, I can tell you it's a powerful event. Foot-thick chunks of ice churned down the riverbed, sounding like a crushed ice dispenser on the door of an expensive refrigerator. The ice flows packed so much speed and power that occasionally they'd pitch a live catfish or sucker out of the water and onto the shore. You couldn't live on a riverbank as we did and not mark the year by the day the ice breaks.
When the ice breaks up, it pushes anything and everything downstream — not just driftwood but flotsam and jetsam of all kinds. Growing up, we'd seen it all: pontoon boats, beer kegs, duck blinds, ice chests, furniture, oil drums, refrigerators, a travel trailer, and our most prized recovery, a store mannequin with lifelike breasts (or at least we thought so at that age). This particular day the pickings were a little slim, but a plump basketball eventually came along, just close enough to the shore that we could wade into the icy water and pull it in with a long stick.
Although my brother and I both are well over six feet tall, we are Yeagers and thus far too uncoordinated to actually play basketball. We had little use for the newfound treasure, despite the peril involved in rescuing it. We took turns hurling the ball at each other, bouncing it off some rocks and trees, and we'd all but lost interest in it when my brother had a proposition for me.
"Hey, Gook [his brotherly term of endearment for me], I'll give you five bucks if you can chop it in half with the ax," he said, pointing at the basketball. To reinforce his point, he produced a soggy five-dollar bill from the pocket of his blue jeans.
"What is he, crazy?" I thought. "Easy money!"
Without a second thought, I picked up the ax, swung it high above my head, and brought it down on the basketball with all my heft. I wasn't just going to chop it in half; I was going to obliterate that thing.
Frankly, it never — even for a nanosecond — occurred to me that the basketball might withstand the blow of the ax. All I was thinking about at the time was what I would do with the money and how good I'd feel pulling the five-spot out of my brother's hand. I was so focused on the money that the possible consequences of the endeavor never crossed my mind.
Gosh, telling the story now, I feel so stupid. Of course the ax didn't puncture the basketball, and since I'd swung it with such passion, the force of the ricochet redoubled off the taut ball. The ax rebounded instantaneously, the flat back hitting me squarely in the forehead, right between the eyes.
I staggered backward, my lanky teenage frame reeling. My vision blurred as if I were suddenly inside the lava lamp in my bedroom, looking out. The last thing I remember before I passed out and fell to the ground was the sight of my brother falling to the ground first, bent double in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
After I came to — well, actually, about thirty years after I came to — I realized three important things about this spectacularly stupid incident:
- I assumed that getting the money would be easy.
- The possible consequences of trying to get the money never crossed my mind.
- Because of No. 1 and No. 2, it never occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't try to get the money, that I should skip the Money Step.
Does any of that sound familiar? Maybe it even hits you right between the eyes?
But where does that leave us as we lead our lives in this era of abundance, with unlimited opportunities to chase after more money and a perennial search for genuine happiness? If more money and more stuff aren't the key to happiness, is it possible, as I learned when I brought that ax down on the basketball, that their pursuit might actually lead us to greater unhappiness?
The foregoing is excerpted from The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches by Jeff Yeager. © 2008. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Broadway Books.
Can You Put This Cheapskate Up For The Night?
Bike-Book Tours To Raise Funds For Local Libraries
Jeff Yeager, The Ultimate Cheapskate, will pedal his bicycle to peddle his new book in the Tour de Cheapskate, a series of book-tours-by-bicycle around the nation. The first two tours will be:
In addition to traveling by bicycle, Yeager hopes to economize even more by staying with fellow cheapskates along the way (only if he's invited, that is). Being a big-hearted cheapskate, Yeager will donate what he saves in expenses to local libraries along his route. For detailed itinearies and additional information, click here.
- San Diego, CA to Tucson, AZ (via Phoenix) - January 15-25, 2008
- South Florida - February 11-23, 2008
About The Author
Jeff Yeager spent 24 years working as a CEO and senior executive with national nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC before launching his career as a freelance writer, public speaker, and broadcast journalist in 2004. Specializing in an offbeat blend of original humor and practical advice for living a better life with less, Yeager was dubbed "The Ultimate Cheapskate" by the NBC TODAY Show, where he periodically appears as a guest correspondent.
Resources By This Author
- The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches: A Practical (& Fun) Guide To Enjoying Life More By Spending Less
The Gray Zone Of Discretionary SpendingAvoiding Buyer's RemorseBy Kathryn Benedicto
Copyright © 2007There they sit, on my shelf: the books I haven't even cracked open for a few weeks. They're the ones I bought a couple of months back, thinking, "Yes, these books will give me fulfillment in proportion to the life energy and money that I traded for them. I will truly get a lot of enjoyment out of them." And now, as I observe them starting to gather dust, I am having second thoughts. I've been practicing the simple living and Your Money Or Your Life philosophies for almost a decade — how is it that I'm still making purchases I regret?
Books on simple living and personal finance give us all kinds of criteria against which to evaluate prospective purchases. For example, there are the Three Questions from Your Money or Your Life, the first two being "Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction, and value in proportion to life energy spent?" and "Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose?" The answers are more straightforward to arrive at for purchases that meet basic needs, like being fed, housed, and clothed. But when it comes to discretionary spending on purchases that we make for pleasure, enjoyment, or to support hobbies or pastimes, the truth of the matter is that we enter a whole new gray area where we have to make judgment calls when answering these questions. Now, I don't claim to have all of the answers on decision-making for discretionary purchases. But I would like to share a few insights that may help in navigating the gray zone of discretionary spending.
Start by asking yourself some basic questions about the purchase. The Three Questions from Your Money or Your Life are good, and I also like the questions on the Wallet Buddy from the Center for a New American Dream. This helps screen out those boneheaded impulse purchases that make you want to kick yourself later.
Is the purchase related to a new activity or hobby? If so, avoid falling prey to the "new hobby" syndrome — the one where you've just taken up knitting and are all fired up with enthusiasm and good intentions and buy four pairs of knitting needles and fifteen skeins of yarn to knit sweaters for everyone in your family...and half a year later, the yarn is sitting in the back of your closet and you haven't picked up a knitting needle for months. Start small with new hobbies and don't over-invest. Another good question to ask for new hobby purchases and any other discretionary purchase is...
Can you try before you buy? Books and music are my greatest temptation for discretionary purchases, so I deal with that by borrowing them from the library first. If I check out a book more than three or four times (not counting renewals!), I know I'm getting enough value from it to consider buying it. If you're hankering for gear or equipment for a new hobby or activity, consider renting it from a store or borrowing it from a friend, local club, or a website like Neighborrow. If your friend starts getting annoyed because you keep borrowing it for extended time periods, it's a candidate for purchase.
Can you get the same benefit for free without making the purchase? As previously mentioned, libraries, renting, and borrowing are ways to do this, and with a little creativity and ingenuity, you may find other free resources at your disposal. For example, one of my most beloved pastimes is classical singing, and I could easily drop a load of cash on voice lessons, music books, and CDs. Instead, I did a little research, and now I take advantage of the large collections of free sheet music at various websites as well as at my local university's music library, and I also have free access to high-quality recordings of classical music through my city library's music database website. I still pay for lessons, but I've heard of students who barter for music lessons instead of paying cash.
Will you have the time to use your purchase? No, really...be honest. As much as I try to simplify, my schedule is still pretty full (though, thankfully, with rewarding activities that I enjoy). If I buy something that requires an investment of my time — like those books I have yet to read — realistically, I have to ask myself what activity I will give up or cut down on in order to carve out time for enjoying my new purchase. If my life is getting hectic, or if I'm already enjoying my current activities a lot, or if the new purchase requires a significant investment of time to use, it's very unlikely that I'll get around to using it, despite my best intentions.
How much time will it be in use, versus sitting on a shelf or in a closet/garage? We each only have 24 hours in a day, and the more possessions we own, the less time we can spend using and enjoying each one, and the more time they spend just sitting on a shelf somewhere. Part of my simplicity philosophy is that I like to see things get used and enjoyed to the greatest degree possible, and that "shelf-time" is wasteful. Consequently, my goal is to keep my collections of books, CDs, etc. down to a size where I can frequently and actively enjoy most of the items in my collection, and this is something I need to think about whenever I consider buying something to add to my collection. The "one in, one out" approach — where you get rid of one item for every new one you acquire — is good for maintaining this discipline because it forces your material surroundings to reflect the way you prioritize and spend time with your possessions.
Some purchases only have a finite lifetime of enjoyment. This is not necessarily a bad thing or a reason not to buy; it's just something to be aware of. There are some discretionary purchases that I made years ago where I've gotten use and enjoyment from them almost every day since then; with others, I've changed, my interests have evolved, and a few months or years down the road, I no longer get pleasure from them. So it's useful to think about how long you would get enjoyment from your purchase, taking into account your past history of exploring hobbies and sticking with interests, and factoring it into the value equation for discretionary spending. Personally, I'm satisfied if I get a few years of enjoyment out of a purchase of moderate cost, but it's up to you to make that judgment call for yourself.
Observe a cooling-off period before buying. Lots of simplicity and finance books offer this advice, but it's worth repeating because it's so effective. Any period from 24 hours to one month may be enough time to gain a new perspective on whether the purchase will truly give you fulfillment.
When getting rid of possessions, take a moment to reflect on past purchases. Whenever you de-clutter and collect trash bags of stuff to freecycle or give to Goodwill, try to remember the thought processes and factors that went into those purchases, and try to figure out whether they were valid and why the purchase did or didn't pan out. To borrow a page from Joe and Vicki, "no shame, no blame." This is not a time to beat yourself up with buyer's remorse; it's simply an exercise for learning from past purchasing decisions and gaining self-knowledge about what kinds of discretionary purchases really give you fulfillment.
As I've recently discovered with my new books, each purchase is a learning process. We buy things, we make mistakes along the way, but with each experience, we gain a greater self-awareness and sense of discernment. We come a little closer to being skillful traders of our money and life energy for purchases that truly give us satisfaction and enjoyment.
About The Author
Kathryn Benedicto is a corporate refugee from Silicon Valley who is downshifting for a year to make the leap into values-based work. She is a simplicity activist in the San Francisco Bay Area and runs the Simple Living SF South Bay/Peninsula group as well as the Resources for Sustainable Weddings website. She can be reached by email at kfben@yahoo.com.
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Coupon Club BasicsHow To Cut Your Grocery Bill With OthersBy Alina Bradford
Copyright © 2007Most people think that coupons are for tightwads and that they don't save that much money. Well, on a recent shopping trip, every single member of my coupon club saved half off their grocery bill. This isn't just a onetime fluke, either. Here are some examples of our savings:
By now you should be saying, "Wow! I want to join a coupon club and get savings like that!" Great! Let's get started.
- 5 bottles of Purell Hand Sanitizer for free.
- 3 boxes of Duncan Hines Brownie mix for 45 cents a box.
- Suave shampoo for 50 cents a bottle.
- 1 package of Healthy Ones lunchmeat for free.
Starting Your Own Club
First, you have to have a club, right? Chances are you already have one. You already have friends, co-workers, and family. In fact, three or four people are all you need to enjoy the benefits of a coupon club. Why do you need other people to get great savings? For one, newspaper subscriptions are expensive. Several people subscribing to different Sunday papers (the best place to find coupons) spread the costs out. Also, when there are several people on the lookout for coupons you have more to go around. You can swap coupons that you won't use with ones you will use. Sharing coupons is a great way to maximize your savings.
Where to Find Coupons
My club, the Clip & Save, finds coupons in free sales papers that the stores give out (these coupons can be combined with other coupons on the same item), Sunday papers, restaurant fliers, and survey clubs; several plucky members even get coupons through the internet. Some good websites to find coupons on are manufacturer's websites, like Dove.com or BettyCrocker.com and www.valpak.com.
How to Maximize Savings
Our fearless leader, Jeania Watson, is a diehard coupon addict. She has taught everyone in the Clip & Save all of her tricks for saving big; now it's your turn to learn her secrets.
Her first rule is to clip every coupon, even if you don't think you will use it. You can always trade coupons with other people, but many times you can find the coupon will make the item cheaper than even generic items, or will make the item free. Don't you want free stuff you will use? Of course you do! Here is one example of how the club used a coupon to get free stuff:
See? I normally wouldn't have bought that item because I buy generic to save money. But I saved the coupon anyway and stocked up on a great deal! You can't get any better than that.
- We went to a store that triples coupons under 50 cents. This means that if you have a coupon that is marked as 50 cents or less the store will triple the value of the coupon. Store ads will usually tell if they triple, double, or single their coupons on the last page of their fliers.
- We then looked at the sale's paper to see what was on sale that we had coupons for. Also, we kept an eye out for unadvertised sales. (These are usually marked with bright colored tags.) One thing we found was Hunts Fire Roasted Tomatoes on sale for 75 cents.
- We found our coupons for this item. The coupon was for 25 cents off one can.
- Since the store will triple the value of the coupon, the savings was actually 75 cents, which was the price of the tomatoes so we got it free.
- I had five coupons that friends in the club had given me, so I wanted five cans. The store only allows you to triple coupons on three identical items so I got Watson to check out the other cans for me. I got all five for free!
The number one lesson the Clip & Save has learned is that finding savings with coupons takes work, but it's worth it. I hope you are inspired to start your own club and start saving.
About The Author
Alina Bradford has more than nine years experience in both writing and art. She has been published in over three dozen publications and was formerly an illustrator and the head of the Design Department for Coffee Cramp Magazine, Illustrator for Ore Mountain Publishing House, and Creative Consultant for KIC Magazine. Currently, she runs her own freelance writing and illustration business at www.alinabradford.com. To view her art feel free to visit www.gallery.alinasandor.com. She has also started a website: www.DefrazzledMom.com is a place for moms to de-stress, find answers to everyday problems, and more.
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Gems Of The Discussion ForumsNew Year's Resolutions & Winter ReadingBy Ann Haebig
Copyright © 2007
After the end of year get-togethers and gift-giving, some readers may be looking to save a little money or to find time to catch up on things. One person reported he finally cancelled the cable and others who've done similarly noted how much time they gained by doing so, in addition to saving money. Another person points us to an article that sparks discussion on figuring out where the money goes.
For our readers who find themselves with too much time on long winter nights, the Reviews forum contains two topics that might have suggestions: the best films you saw in 2007 and the best reads of 2007. There are also two discussions about recent media on consumerism, one on the Story of Stuff and another on NPR's recent Consumed series. These are both available online, so readers with home internet access don't even need to brave winter weather. Enjoy!
If you've never been to the Discussion Forums before,
CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE INTRODUCTION to our on-line community. Then join in the fun!
About The Author
Ann Haebig is a part-time geek, part-time bicycle advocate, and dedicated follower and promoter of the Your Money Or Your Life program. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her partner, cat and recently adopted banjo. Ann can be reached at ahaebig@pobox.com.
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The Natural Competitive Advantage Of BioregionsBy Spencer B. Beebe
Copyright © 2007. Reprinted here with special permission from GreenMoney JournalIn the decades ahead, in the face of global warming, increasing energy prices, and a growing global disparity between rich and poor, bioregions have a natural competitive advantage.
Everything is changing in the face of global warming. The industrial economy is an artifact of cheap oil. There will be a transition from an industrial to an ecological economy. It will either be very chaotic and destructive to human systems, especially the poorest of the poor, or it might be a social evolution to a healthier, more equitable and more reliably prosperous knowledge-based economy.
It is clear that in the years and decades ahead, those communities with a reliable water supply and with access to local, cheap building materials; those that encourage dense development within urban growth boundaries surrounded by open space, healthy forests and productive farms; those that develop diverse, locally distributed sources of energy: those communities are the ones that will flourish.
Why do the wiggly lines of bioregions have competitive advantages over nation-states organized by the straight lines of industry and politics?
The key is to find ways to release the energy of people in place. The only truly unlimited and untapped resource left in a world of increasing scarcity is the infinite creativity of the human imagination. Imagination, with even the slightest nod of encouragement and a little money, enables the even the least advantaged among us to improve their lives in the places they live.
- Bioregions are governed by nature. Nature is more powerful and long lasting than politics.
- Nature does a lot of useful things for free, like maintaining life support systems of air, water, soil, and climate. Replacing nature with technology, on the other hand, can be expensive, time-consuming and often self-defeating.
- Bioregions are a good scale at which to work. Cities, counties, even most states and watersheds are too small and the world is too big.
- The world already is self-organized by bioregions; we don't have to reorganize states and nations and counties around them. We just need to recognize bioregions, working with instead of against them, focusing in each bioregion on its very particular set of environmental and geographic characteristics. Then we must preserve, restore and maintain those qualities while building businesses and organizations based on those distinctive features.
That imagination is the catalytic, the metabolic process that will underlie a new economy of place. It is already underway in the largest social movement of history, the "movement with no name" that Paul Hawken writes about in his new book Blessed Unrest.
One more thing we need is a new mythology, or a deeper understanding of old mythologies, to drive things this way. Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth is timeless. David James Duncan, in his wonderful new book God Laughs & Plays, encourages us to develop a new cosmology. Societies do what societies think. Today, we are an orange society - fragmented into separate pieces. We need to become an apple society again, an integrated whole.
Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, talks about the extraordinary power of the slow food movement. Why not a local fisheries movement? Local forest, community banking, green building and local energy movements? Imagine the power when all these movements begin to connect! Networks of networks of local initiative, jujitsuing the power of the underlying forces of globalization to the advantage of the local, the true democratization of money, technology and information; this is the core of a development model for reliable prosperity.
What are the distinctive environmental conditions in my home, the greater Pacific Northwest? What are the natural flows of energy and most powerful networks of relationships that connect us? This is the place where wild Pacific Salmon live. That means this bioregion, if we follow the fish, is the whole north Pacific. It includes parts of China, the Russian far east, Japan, Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California: the Pacific north of roughly a 14 degree isotherm to the Arctic. This is what Terry Glavin called the "last great sea," a sea of incredible abundance. This is a place defined by abundant water, by coastlines, estuaries, mountains and forests, by streams, rivers and lakes, by grasslands and high desert — a rich biodiversity with a 10-15,000 year history of supporting relatively dense populations of hunter gatherers with extraordinary art, culture and mythologies of place. On its eastern shores are found the largest temperate rain forests of the world, from the redwoods of California to the hemlock, spruce, cedar and fir of Southeast Alaska.
We could invent a lot of different, iconic names for this bioregion. But in the words of biologist and author Jim Lichatowich, places are defined as much by events as by geography. The event that has defined this place, for thousands of years, was the return of the salmon: millions and millions of salmon. People and salmon co-evolved here in the streams that followed the last glacial retreat, together with the forests and grasslands that developed in the glacial till. Salmon connect us. When salmon decline it tells us that our farming, fishing, forestry, road building, transportation, energy systems and cities are eroding ecosystems into rivers and the sea. When 15-30,000 bright big beautiful healthy Fall Chinook Salmon die within days of entering the Klamath River, as they did three years ago, we know our governance, our economy, and our politics are failing. Politicians may deny it, but salmon don't lie.
So, why not, for mythology's sake, call this greater North Pacific bioregion Salmon Nation? Why not imagine who will write its declaration of interdependence and organize its constitutional assembly? Where is its flag, its passport? Who are its leaders? What is expected of its citizens? By what rules should we play? What goods and services does it produce better than the next best place and for whom? What institutions and institutional arrangements help its citizens to prosper reliably? What will be its stories, its myths? To what spirits do we pray? What do the people who prospered here for such a long time tell us about how to live well and honorably in this place?
Salmon Nation. It's just an idea
This bioregion has a culture of extraordinary entrepreneurial creativity; think Silicon Valley in California, Silicon Forest in Redmond, Washington. Think Intel, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Electronic Arts, Ebay and Google; they all spawn in salmon watersheds. A networked, knowledge economy is much more like an ecosystem than the command and control, straight lines of the industrial model.
Salmon Nation even has some oil and gas, but we could slow its development. Remember what the Russian Governor of Kamchatka said in The New York Times last year; oil comes and goes, but the salmon, if you take care of them will just keep coming. There are few places in the world with more water falling further downhill, with more productive farmlands and forests, with the quality of life of San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, BC, nor more strategic geographic relations and potential trade partners with existing and emerging economies of Japan, China, Russia, Canada and the US.
I am often reminded of what Dave Foreman, the Founder of Earth First, said to a college student who asked what the single most important thing she could do for the environment; "STAY HOME!" said Foreman. That is what native people do. What is home then? What are its critical characteristics? What are the concentric circles of social, environmental and economic relationships that sustain us, and how do we leave home a little better than we found it?
At the launch of a big international conservation strategy conference many years ago in Australia, an aboriginal woman said, "if you have come here to save me, you can go home now. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival, maybe, maybe, we can work together." This is the critical issue in the years ahead.
My struggle is to put flesh on the bones of a bioregional narrative, to a story we call Salmon Nation. We need help to figure out how to better support and be supported by those people, organizations, businesses and governments, especially First Nations, who see their self-interest as part of a larger bioregional movement to improve social, environmental and economic conditions at home.
About The Author
Spencer B. Beebe is the President of Ecotrust. For more information, go to http://www.ecotrust.org/. This article was adapted from a plenary speech given at the Bioneers conference in October 2006. To get a copy of the speech, go to http://www.bioneers.org/search/node/spencer+beebe
This article was originally published in the GreenMoney Journal's special 15th Anniversary Winter 2007/08 issue. For more information, go to http://www.greenmoney.com/.
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The Story Of StuffExploring The Materials EconomyBy Annie Leonard
Copyright © 2007. Reprinted here with permission from the author.Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Annie Leonard's weblog at www.storyofstuff.com.
A number of people have asked me how I got on this path of exploring the materials economy. It started in grade school and crystallized on a spring afternoon on Staten Island.
I grew up in Seattle, at that time a green and luscious city. My family would go camping every summer. Since this was in the days before DVDs in the back seats of family cars numbed young passengers, I'd look out the window, studying the landscape, for the whole drive. Each year, I noticed that the stores reached a bit further and the forests started a bit later than the previous year. I wondered where all those forests were going. I wondered how I could stop them from going away entirely.
It turned out to be fortuitous that I went to college in New York City, even though at the time it seemed an odd place to go for environmental studies. My college campus was on 116th street and my dorm room was on 110th street. Every morning I would groggily walk those 6 blocks, staring at the piles of garbage that line NYC's street's every dawn. Ten hours later, I'd walk back to my dorm, staring at the empty sidewalks.
I became increasingly intrigued with this microcosm of materials flow. I started looking into the trash each morning to see what was in those never-ending piles. It was mostly paper. Paper! That is where my beloved forests were ending up. In the U.S., 42 percent of industrial wood harvest is used to make paper. And about 40 percent of the stuff in municipal garbage is paper, all of which is recyclable or compostable if it hasn't been treated with too many toxic chemicals. By simply recycling, rather than trashing, this paper, we could reduce our garbage by 40 percent, which would also drastically reduce pressure to cut forests and help with climate change, and that doesn't even get into the massive benefits of reducing paper use.
Once I realized that those morning trash piles were nearly half paper — were once forests — I was determined to find out where they were going. So I took a trip to the infamous Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. Covering 4.6 square miles (12 square km), Fresh Kills is one of the largest dumps in the world. When it was officially closed in 2001, some say its volume was greater than that of the Great Wall of China, its peaks 25 meters taller than the Statue of Liberty. I had never seen anything like it. I stood at its edge in absolute awe. As far as I could see in every direction were couches, refrigerators, boxes, apple cores, used clothes, stuff. You know how a gory car crash scene makes us want to turn away and stare at the same time? That is what it was like. I just couldn't comprehend this massive mountain of materials, reduced to muck by some system obviously out of control. I knew this was terribly wrong. I didn't understand it back then, 20 years ago, but I vowed to figure it out. And I did. It's the Story of Stuff.
About The Author
Annie Leonard is an expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues, with more than 20 years of experience investigating factories and dumps around the world. Coordinator of the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, a funder collaborative working for a sustainable and just world, Annie communicates worldwide about the impact of consumerism and materialism on global economies and international health. Annie's most recent project, the Story of Stuff, explores the global materials economy and its impact on economy, environment and health.
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Money/Life Balance In The New MillenniumValuing Your Life Energy — Work & IncomeBy Fred Ecks
Copyright © 2007This is the seventh article in a series discussing Your Money Or Your Life from a modern, personal perspective. The most recent article in the November-December edition of this Newsletter reviewed Step 6: Valuing Your Life Income - Minimizing Spending. That step led us through contemplation of what we really need to feel fulfilled in our lives; along the way, we discovered that paring our financial spending down to a frugal level makes Financial Independence realistically attainable in a reasonable timeframe. Now in Step 7 we'll discuss how to maximize our income, enabling us to spend a minimal portion of our lifespan in the pursuit of money.
As we begin studying Step 7, we can easily come away with the feeling that this step is simply about maximizing our income. That sounds pretty harsh, and perhaps even inhuman. We're people, not machines. We have values and integrity to uphold in our lives. As such, let's review the summary of Step 7: Increase your income by valuing the life energy you invest in your job, exchanging it for the highest pay consistent with your health and integrity. Aha! We are staying within the bounds of health and integrity. Sure enough, we're not simply seeking the highest income possible. With that in mind, we're brought to contemplate how we'll maintain our health and integrity as we maximize our income.
"So, what do you do for a living?"
I recently read Po Bronson's book, What Should I Do With My Life? At one point in the book, he expresses his frustration with what he calls The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question: "So, what do you do for a living?" As he says,
"I used to think that The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question was a scourge on our society. But I'm starting to see that it is really about freedom to choose. A status system has evolved that values being unique and true even more than it values being financially successful. In other words, if you don't like The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question, maybe it's partly because you don't like your answer."In essence, what's being asked by this question isn't really "What do you do?" Rather, the underlying question is "Who are you?" The point is, the answers don't have to be the same. Your Money Or Your Life discusses separating "do" from "be". What we do to earn money may be completely unrelated to who we are. A wonderful example of this is an acquaintance of mine, Connie. Connie works full-time as a project manager for a technology non-profit. Connie's passion, though, is the rock opera she's writing. She's been working on it for quite some time now, and the results are beginning to show. Connie's paid work is pleasant enough and pays well enough for a comfortable life, but her identity is in her passion, the rock opera.
Avoiding the Endless Search for Job Charming
When I was younger, I hopped from one job to the next, believing that I would find that one perfect position, my dream job. In my dream job, I would be proud of my work, do good for the world, be respected as a high-status professional, and be paid handsomely. I often moved from one position to the next within a year or two, jumping whenever the grass appeared greener elsewhere. This constant dissatisfaction took its toll on me, leaving me always wanting more, always changing colleagues, and eventually becoming lonely and disconnected in my work. Because of this disconnect, my results weren't what they could have been. I might have found myself in a better position by developing my career without continually shifting between jobs.
In contrast, my friend Jeff tends to stay put. He's been in his current position for years; the result is that he's become trusted and respected by his colleagues and management. He's comfortable and performs well. His management has promoted him and given him significant raises and bonuses to the point where even he is surprised at how well he's treated by the company.
Jeff as a person is not his job. He maintains a varied and interesting life outside of work, which gives him the ability to find personal satisfaction in other areas of life beyond paid work. His ability to separate who he is from what he does has resulted in a healthy level of savings, and a future of Financial Independence.
The Tortoise and the Hare
The way Your Money Or Your Life is often presented, it appears to advocate maximizing income to get our working/saving years over with as fast as possible. However, some people find that this way of working interferes with their health or integrity. Ann made the choice about five years ago to work for a non-profit with people who share her values, rather than continue in the corporate world. Another few years later, she then reduced her schedule to work half-time. Both of these choices substantially lengthened the amount of time she would need to reach Financial Independence. She accepted that cost in exchange for enjoying her life more along the way, remaining physically and mentally healthy in the meantime.
What Is Retirement?
We've all known folks who retire from their jobs when they turn 65 only to become lost and bored. When they retire, they lose the social environment they had at work, and they also lose some of their own identity. I watched my father go through this; he never did find his own direction in life afterward.
Retirement is a myth we share in our culture. It's the myth of total relaxation, the freedom to do whatever we like, the freedom to finally be ourselves all the time. However, after many decades of doing what we're told and not developing our own direction in life, the swift cut from the workforce to the emptiness of retirement is a difficult adjustment. If we are our jobs, then who are we without a job?
Financial Independence isn't necessarily the ability to pay all of our expenses from investment income alone. Rather, Financial Independence may continue to mean we generate an income, yet have the savings to give us independence in the face of disruptions of that income. In the same way that many retirees eventually move into new careers of part-time work, we too can choose to continue working for money without being totally dependent upon it. Financial Independence can give us the ability to choose to do what we enjoy, rather than continuing on the paycheck-to-paycheck treadmill. Income opportunities have a way of falling into our laps when we're doing what we love. Repeatedly as I've helped other people with fun projects, I've been offered paid work. If I run short of funds, I'll accept!
Conclusion
Step 7 is about maximizing our income by separating who we are from what we do, within reason. We want to receive the optimum amount of money for the life energy we spend working for pay. We don't want to be our jobs, yet we still need to retain our values, health, and integrity. It's a balance that leads some of us to work hard and fast at the highest-income job available, while others enjoy the ability to work fewer hours or with like-minded people. Regardless of which path we choose, we're intentionally creating the future we desire.
Next time, we'll discuss Step 8: The Crossover Point. We're not going to merely talk about that dream of Financial Independence at some hazy time in our hopeful future; we're going to calculate when it will happen, and make it real! It's a wonderful experience to see the future unfold. Until then, spend some time figuring out what Step 7 means for you. What a fine topic for contemplation in the New Year!
About The Author
Fred Ecks is the volunteer Newsletter Editor for The Simple Living Network. He's a dedicated follower of the 9-step program detailed in Your Money Or Your Life. He uses the time freed up in his life for writing, volunteering, sailing, and ultramarathon trail running. He can be reached at fredx@pobox.com.
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- Your Money Or Your Life
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- My Job Sucks & I Can't Take It Anymore! Help!
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What Is An On-Line Study Group?
OnLine Study Groups were created by The Simple Living Network (SLN) in cooperation with The New Road Map Foundation (NRM). Our purpose is to provide hosted, interactive, on-line classes for those following the nine-step program in the best selling book Your Money Or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.
Your Money Or Your Life presents a simple, nine-step plan that will transform the way you think about, earn and spend money. This plan, a whole systems approach based on simple record keeping and your own unique life situation, works for anyone who earns or spends money. Singles and couples (with and without children), retirees and students, big earners and those below the poverty line have all been successful in doing the program.
We have created this OnLine Study Group venue because we recognize that group study is very helpful for those following the nine-steps. However, we also recognize that there are many folks out there who...
- do not have access to a local Study Group,
- find it difficult to attend face-to-face meetings on a regular basis, or
- wish to maintain the anonymity provided by the Internet.
