I think this might be my new theme for the foreseeable future. Think about this, the more stuff you have the harder it is to keep up with. I agree that there are certain things that you have to have, well maybe I don't agree but I want to play nice today. However, have you ever considered that there is a direct relationship to the amount of widgets in your life and the lack of quality of the same?
So what am I driving at here. Not much really so take it for what it is worth but I have found that the fewer things I posses or require in my life the happier I am. As of this writing I only have to pay around $300 a month in fixed bills. These will even change as I pay off my student loans (what a waste of money) and complete my cell phone contract (drop from 2 lines to 1). This may not be optimal for most people with families but ask yourself if you really need everything that you have? Here are a few examples.
Cable- Do you really need it? Is it improving your life or is it not only sucking money out of your wallet but also sucking the brain cells out of your head. You might be better served to read a book or interact with nature or your loved ones. The few people that I interact with work a disgusting amount of hours and therefore only get to be home very little. The cable bill can be in excess of $100 a month and then most time is spent watching one or two channels. This is beyond my understanding. I suggest turning the cable off and saving that money.
Cell phones- I have one too, but it is stripped down to just basic calling service with as few minutes as possible. This means I have to be responsible with my day time calling and can't text smiley faces to everybody in my contacts but the up side is that it isn't very expensive. I have a good service with AT&T and only pay about $70/month and that will drop to under $50 after August. I wonder sometimes how we became so dependent on these things. In my childhood years my friends and I would be out all day and it was ok. No one cared or worried about us and not a single one of us had a cell phone, we did spend most of our time doing things like swimming, hiking, hunting, and playing pick up sports games and I know those activities are frowned upon by most youth today.
Multiple vehicles are another huge waste of income and or resources in my honest opinion. As I write this post I am staying on the south side of the Houston metroplex. If there is a need to go anywhere it requires a person to have a vehicle because the distances are to great between things for any other kind of transportation. So my solution is to make sure I live in a place where a vehicle is a secondary necessity. I personally do not own a vehicle and I doubt that I ever will again but I do have access to them if I have an urgent need. Just think about the cost of these things and then think about how much time you have to labor to pay for them. A vehicle is good but multiple ones I don't know.
The last thing that I want to mention in this post is eating out. How crazy expensive is it to eat out? If you do not have time to cook at home and therefore have to eat out all the time I think it's time to find the disconnect. In the last year I can honestly say I have gone to a restaurant 10 times and every time I go I am put off by the cost of not only my food but how much a glass of tea costs. Then to top it off you have to throw a tip down for your server. The last time we ate at Luby's I believe we were just under $30 for two people and as I told the manager then, I will tell you know, I will not eat there again. If I am on the road I eat out of the deli at HEB or I prepare a little and take some food with me. I can be in and out of the store faster than it takes to sit through a drive through, my food costs less, tastes better, and doesn't make me sick. Eating out all the time is not something to be proud of nor is it fun, learning to cook is easy and inexpensive but more importantly it is the biggest thing that you can do to improve your health.
The hardest part is letting go and trusting that you will be ok. It may seem weird to not have cable or an iPhone but think about how much these items are costing you in resources. The whole point I am driving at here is that I want you to have to produce less so you can relax more. If your lifestyle is forcing you to make $3000 a month to finance it you may have no choice but to work all the time. However, if you can make a few small changes and survive the detox phase then you can work less and have more freedom to do the things you want to do. I'm just saying.
If you want to make some more changes read my post 5 Things That Can Change Your Life In 30 Days.
Thanks for reading my short post. Post some of the changes you have made to do more with less.
Learning to give things up is like learning to walk on your hands. It takes time and practice but the benefits are worth it.
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