Weird Confession on Abundance

Please read this somewhat tongue in cheek, but I think I manage myself better in lean times than I do in times of abundance. Remember two weeks ago when I was down to my last $29 in my grocery budget and had done a careful inventory and a aster list of meal options? I was so successful at that, I want to keep it going to keep our grocery budget on track.  However, DD2 and I went grocery shopping on Monday night, intending to only shop for two weeks, but $169 later in groceries, I am bursting at the seems and now over whelmed with what to cook, what to pack in lunches, and what to snack on. I am pushing fresh fruit and vegetables on everyone-can't let any of it go bad. Yesterday I brought three pieces of fruit for my lunch. No one gets to eat any canned goods until all the fresh is eaten up. 

I need to keep purging my closet. When I gave it a good clean, I thought how simple it would be to put back only five t-shirts, exactly five outfits for work, two pairs of jeans, etc. and not be bogged down with choice. A simple rotation would keep me from perpetually losing or misplacing the one blouse I want to wear as I look through 10 I don't. I look at each area of my life, and think if I had to ration, I would be in so much more control.

Anyone else remember your high school and college days when with your friends, you'd collectively pool your odd change and maybe a dollar or two, to figure out what you could do on a Friday night? Sometimes it was barely enough to put a little gas in some one's car and gather with others in a park-until kicked out at 10:00, or hang out in some one's basement with a two liter of pop and some chips. In college, it was figuring out how many beers could be bought before 9:00 on quarter beer night, knowing you'd be drinking warm beer later on. Decisions were easy, because not much fit the budget. 

I hope I don't come across as making light of poverty, not my intent at all. As many times as I have been really skint in my life, I never experienced true poverty and there was the ever stretched safety net of family I was blessed to have been born into. It's just now I notice the difference between needing to be careful with money and resources because both were may be  limited, and the overwhelming feeling abundance causes me. Enforcing my self prescribed austerity is liberating in a way. We have so much taken out of our checks before we even see them, that makes deciding what to do with the balance much easier because we've already taken care of long term savings, life insurance, and medical expenses. Still, we have additional goals in the savings area, and with today being pay day for us both,  I'm trying to take those targets off the top as well as paying the regular bills, leaving very little wiggle room left in cash for flexible spending. More than just living below our means, I'm trying to live at a spending level, and resources on hand level, that adds calm and order. Does anyone else have these odd mental view point of abundance? Who's got tips for absorbing the minimalist mentality?

Must List-To the Trash and a New Start

In mid July, I made some pretty ambitious declarations of how I must do certain things if I was going to make progress, let alone achieve success in various areas of my life. If your curious to the old post, here it is. On Friday I thought perhaps I should go through that list and assess what I did to embrace as "musts" and where reality kicked me back to earth. It doesn't take more than a glance to see where I faltered-health, organization and social connectedness. I think "must' does not work for me, so after an assessment, this list can be in the trash bin, and I can move on. 

Health
1.  Must walk pup every morning before going to work. He did get out to piddle and sniff for rabbits, but no walk each morning.
2.  Must pack lunch that includes fruit and vegetable daily. Moderately successful-when I actually packed a lunch.  I eat out very little, unless as part of a work meeting, or special planned ahead occasion.  I still relied on my drawer of instant soups and tuna salad kits-good for money savings, not good for heart. 
3.  Must do core and strengthening exercises 4 days per week. Not so much-perhaps 2 days.
4.   Must fill and drink my water bottle twice at work (this is an easy one) and drink equivalent amount of water at home (not an easy one) One I can cross off, and keep doing. 

Organization
 5.  Must tackle part or all of a room a night for decluttering. Fail on so many levels
6.  Must stay on top of daily household tasks-dishes, laundry, bathroom Work in progress

Time Management
7.  Must limit TV/Netflix/YouTube (unless for research) to not more than 2 hours per day (this is probably still excessive) Not counting weekend binges that were planned as part of my unwind, I've gotten better at the nightly viewing. 
8.  Must read 3 times per week for fun  While I'm not getting books read again, I am reading articles in magazines, short stories, and Internet stories that are for personal interest.

Money Management
9.  Must set up E-Bay and  Pay-Pal account (why not try and make some money when I declutter) Accounts set up but nothing done with them.

Social Connectedness
 10. Must meet a friend at least one time per week. This has been more like two times per month. While I've seen people because of holiday and birthday get togethers, I've not connected with some really good friends on a regular basis, and am disappointed in that. 
 11. Must schedule planned extended family time on both sides of family monthly I did well here.  Busy 6 months with family-perhaps too much family at times.

Advancing my skills/growth
 12. Must blog at least 4 times per week Perhaps my readers wish I would take a break.
 13.  Must continue the Writers Closet monthly short story I did each of the five posted, and yeah, Natalia at In the Writers Closet is starting it again for January and I am in. 
 14.  Must research and work on my book 10 hours minimally per week. Have you seen my book?  Neither have I.  It is coming along in dribs and drabs.  Did not meet September 1 for first draft for editing, nor my second date of November 25th.  Shall I say February 29th?  Leap year seems like a good year to launch a book. 
 15.  Must keep building my business brand (new venture) and web platform I am puttering away at this and even attended a bloggers conference in November.

My final word on this is to tell myself, I must not do anything.  If I should want to, best to put full energy into it and do it wisely.

da Vinci Code... Simplicity

Minimalist Militants

I joined a Face Book group for minimalists in the Twin Cities. I was hoping it might be a source of ideas and inspirations of how folks in my own community are figuring out how to have more life with less stuff.  It is a newish group so not a lot of postings.  They do have a monthly meeting with speakers and networking, though this is new as well so in the forming stages.  I am trying to decide if I want to go on Monday, the first offering since joining the group. I wrote yesterday about my need to spend every spare moment this week cleaning and decluttering at least to the point that DD#2 can host a room full of friends and take over my kitchen. I also feel though like I need to take advantage of opportunities to learn realistic and practical ideas from others in my same boat. 

I was sharing my quandary with a friend, who by the way, thinks she is a clutter bug, as well. However, she is married to the most meticulous man I've known, so her definition and mine of clutter are far apart on the Webster scale. Her take is that should I go, I will leave with a big pile of shame and guilt about my consumer ways. She laughed at the thought of a Minimalist Meet-up and gave the group the title, Minimalist Militants. She described them all as probably using multiple light rail and bus passes to make their journey from the far corners of the metro, and for the parts of their trek without public transportation, they would be carrying a bicycle over a shoulder with an army surplus bag draped over the other with their entire belongings. 

Even with knowing her extreme stereotyping was for a good laugh, I do wonder though if I am ready for that level of minimalism. The Face Book group leader seems fairly laid back and posted for the January meeting, "In honor of the New Year, we'll discuss keeping resolutions to live a simpler life." It sounds to me like this might be group that has the same internal and external angst I have about wanting to live simpler, but understanding the challenge. I've got another day to decide to attend or not. Today though, my cleaning continues. 

Minimalist Journey Days 13 and 14

Minimalism is quite hard.  The not buying part has been a breeze, but the decluttering stage, has been quite rocky.  It is hard to undo 28 years of accumulation of unnecessary stuff, Yesterday was for selling, and today is for digitizing documents, photos, kids art work, or anything else that we may need or want to keep, but doesn't have to occupy physical space.  I have two actions to share.  First, I did set up an E-Bay account.  I have no clue how to use it, but at least it is created so as I do find things that might have enough value monetarily, but not enough to warrant space in my home, I could try and sell it.  

Second, I bought a couple (yes I know these were new to my home but pretty tiny) flash drives. After we complete purging old paper work that we really do not need to be holding onto, the next step will be to slowly scan the documents we do want to reference, but do not need originals.  At last count, we had 16 bankers boxes of old papers.  I think most is beyond the years of needing to keep records at all, and another 4 boxes worth could be scanned. 


At present we are in the it has to get worse before it can get better stage of attacking minimalism. I say we, because if this is going to work in the short run, and continue to be a lifestyle, I need my partners who helped do the crime in the first place to be on board and stay there. I don't live alone as did Ryan in the Minimalist blog, and I was holding onto a whole families worth of stuff.  Still, any progress is  progress and I need to tell myself that. 

Some success and flops this week, not strictly n the 21 Day plan, but important to my goals include:

Food and meals flop:

• Yuck, with working late a couple nights, dinner one night was takeout tacos and another was a bucket of chicken.  Then there was the infamous chicken sandwich.
• Joined the work group and went in on ordering Jimmy Johns one day.  I did make it vegetarian, and loaded with veggies for some consolation.
• Let 4 avocados go bad.  They were fine one day and when  went to use the next, they were moldy and inedible, that quick.

Food and meal success:

• Used all the leftovers from the weekend for lunches
• Turned  a handful of grape tomatoes about to go bad, and 1/3 of a can of diced tomatoes left from making guacamole ( I had planned on making more before the avocado fiasco), olive oil, and lots of seasoning into a tomato sauce for some leftover noodles. It essentially was a free lunch for DD#2 and I as all were such small quantities individually that many people would have just chucked aside. 
• Had a lovely steak dinner and wine of our own at home last night, with the meal prepared faster than we could have walked to the bar and grill. We capped dinner with a stroll as the full moon was coming out-quite storybook.

Household Success

• Saved a soccer bag, basketball bag, and back pack, all heavily used, soiled, and stinky by washing in a mix of laundry soap and baking soda, on delicate, and then letting them air dry.  all look practically brand new.  Each of these items new were over $50 each.  The sports bags have been used by DD# 2 since she was 8, and have years of life. While we bought new, it is a good reminder that buying good quality second hand things is smart as opposed to buying new cheaper made things that will need replacing. 

That is all I have this week, and am not all that pleased on the kitchen front, but the week ahead should be less chaotic. How do you manage the kitchen in weeks of chaos? As for paperwork, what are your methods for staying on top of it?  Besides legally required documents such as tax filings, and titles, how long do you keep things like utility bills?  For those of you with children, how long or how much do you save of your kids school days? 

Contemplation

Since starting the week trying to learn and follow the minimalist 21 days to change practice, I've had some good contemplation time.  I think I am on the right track in focusing on removing the clutter and junk, reducing purchases that are just mindless numbing and instant gratification, to elevate things of importance to higher status.  I'll always be a worrier-I can't help that any more than Dylan could help being a rolling stone. But, the worry doesn't solve problems and really just fuels the angst. Minimalism-frugalism-non-consumerism are pretty buzz wordy right now, but I don't think it is a fad.  There are plenty of folks still trying to keep up with the latest and greatest, or working harder and longer to try and move some mission forward. A mission that  will get them to the same place we all arrive to in the end.

A former colleague died today, unexpectedly, following a stroke.  A little over one year ago, she retired after decades of public service.  Her Facebook posts were filled this last year of weekends and week days with family and friends, parties of other new retirees, a European vacation, and a lovely cabin by a lake retreat. I hope she had a good and happy life.  I have no reason to think she didn't, I hope she travelled to the places she wanted to.  I hope she had no regrets in any relationships she has  left behind. It i sad, and I can't help feeling a bit angry at the unfairness of the timing.

I suppose the argument about  spending and saving, spend while you earn it and enjoying life to the max, or living frugally and saving for retirement, might come down to where a person thinks their ball will land on the life roulette wheel. Will I have twenty or more years past retirement age, or will I have a brief few years or even months to do the "some day" things? I don't want to get to the end of my life and have regrets that I didn't do more with my life, but I also want to make sure I don't become a financial burden on my family.  What is the right balance? 

My post this morning was much the same vein, but now I have this real concrete kick 14 hours later. Minimalism in terms of acquiring stuff-no dilemma there. I don't need or want stuff. Fancy restaurant meals out and luxury vacations? Nope, don't need them either. But I do want experiences, and time with my family, and within my control, good health to fully immerse myself in those experiences. I want to laugh with friends at  our local sports bar and enjoy our wine club nights. To do those, I'll pack a sandwich and brew my morning coffee at home most days. We will enjoy a movie out once in a while, but use Netflix, the library, and free TV for most of our film watching pleasure in order to make room for live theater tickets. We will budget for travel, but will research multiple configurations of travel and stay options.  While on the trip, ore even day trips, stock up on granola bars and pretzels, and keep our water bottles filled to ward off temptation to buy overpriced food court snacks. Balance will continue to be a worry for me.  I do mathematical exercises in my brain regularly trying -how do I get it right, and is there even such a thing as right?  

Minimizing not Marginalizing

I've decided I hate stuff. I know how George Carlin felt as I try little by little to purge the stuff from my home.  Because unfortunately in recent years my home hasn't felt that way.  It has felt like a storage shed, one in which I just move the stuff amongst the shelving units and floor space. I have gotten on the frugality and simplicity bandwagon, at least philosophically, if not quite there physically. I am starting action, and vow I will not get despondent at slow progress.  

For when I close my eyes, I can see cozy uncluttered rooms on the horizon.  I see an organized kitchen with the just the pots, pans, appliance, and utensils I use. I see a closet with clothes that I truly love and feel comfortable and confident in, even if I rotate relatively few items. I see a retirement at least 1/2 a decade earlier than my peers, not because I struck it rich, but because I was planful and intentional with where my money went. I see a calendar only with experiences and with people that bring me joy, including volunteering to organizations that forward causes and actions I believe in. I don't see my kind of frugality as doing more with less, but doing more because of less. It's a nice vision. 

I've made my Must List this week, and so far so good in implementation, though it has only been a couple days. A few successes include:

• Cooking and planning meals ahead for the week, including extra's to pack for lunch with the vegetable servings
• Two small bags of clothing items that never fit me well, so I rarely wore them, bagged to be dropped off
• Formalized outline on book, plus short list of blog topics
• Scheduled walking date with friend V and friend L on two different nights, so double tick
• Cleaned both bathrooms to the grout
• Resisted binge watch of Grace and Frankie on Netflix even though I really wanted to

Check out any YouTube video for a taste of Mr. Carlin's take on "stuff." Warning, some versions, this one included, are a little saltier than others, and apologies in advance. For those that don't appreciate the "sh" word, cover your ears.  I find it a very appropriate replacement to the word "stuff.". 

Minimalism: The Must List

While I know I would be an utter failure at total minimalism, I am quite impressed with the efforts others have done at downsizing their possessions, homes, and lifestyle in order to gain more freedom of time, flexibility, and peace of mind. I am exploring some of the  steps to becoming a minimalist.  The Minimalists bloggers Josh and Ryan have a strategy that would take 21 days to redo a lifetime of  consumerism.  I can buy into some of it, particularly day 1 and creating a Must List.  A must list , as the writers say, puts concrete validation to the lists of shoulds humans have in their head.  I should walk more.  No, I must walk more if I am to keep my knees healthy, and have more energy in my overall day.  I should spend less time watching show after show on Netflx.  No, I must watch fewer hours of Netflix and any other video or television device, if I am to have enough time in a day to accomplish things that will give me greater satisfaction.   So here is my Must List. I have broke down into areas of concentration for more focus.These are all highly doable.

Health
1.  Must walk pup every morning before going to work
2.  Must pack lunch that includes fruit and vegetable daily
3.  Must do core and strengthening exercises 4 days per week
4.   Must fill and drink my water bottle twice at work (this is an easy one) and drink equivalent amount of water at home (not an easy one)

Organization
 5.  Must tackle part or all of a room a night for decluttering
6.  Must stay on top of daily household tasks-dishes, laundry, bathroom
Time Management
7.  Must limit TV/Netflix/YouTube (unless for research) to not more than 2 hours per day (this is probably still excessive)
8.  Must read 3 times per week for fun

Money Management
9.  Must set up E-Bay and  Pay-Pal account (why not try and make some money when I declutter)

Social Connectedness
 10. Must meet a friend at least one time per week
 11. Must schedule planned extended family time on both sides of family monthly





Advancing my skills/growth
 12. Must blog at least 4 times per week
 13.  Must continue the Writers Closet monthly short story
 14.  Must research and work on my book 10 hours minimally per week 
 15.  Must keep building my business brand (new venture) and web platform

Ah, ha.  I snuck something new in there.  I have been working on a new side project-a new venture with a few family, friends and former colleagues, that is so new in start-up, we can't even call it infancy stage. The goal is to launch by my 50th birthday the end of November. The thought of doing this would not have even been possible had I not made the job change 5 months ago. While slow to build, it is exactly the kind of small enterprise that will fit in well with a focus on simplicity, and all the categories above. I'm a little too full of teasers right now, so will say no more until it is ready to go.