Black Friday

I think I failed at Buy Nothing Day. Not only did I purchase three shirts and a pair of socks (one of my largest purchases this year in terms of number of items), I also bought a $12,000 CD.

At least I didn't end up "doing" Black Friday this year. I was a reluctant first-time participant last year, and NEVER AGAIN. I still have flashbacks whenever I go into a big box store.

My next goal is to actually figure out what to do with my taxable savings. This is way overdue--I think I was already holding too much cash at this time last year. I have about $46,000 in cash (savings accounts and CDs). I keep hanging onto it with the half-assed idea that I might buy real estate sometime soon. There is that nice first-time buyer tax credit, but in reality even in the best-case scenario it would take me 5-7 years to break even on a real-estate purchase, and at 28 I don't think my life situation is stable enough to tie up my money like that for so long. What if I get fed up with my job and quit? What if we decide we really want to live in a small town? What if DH and I break up (hideous idea, but possible)? Since I left my parents' house, the longest I've lived in one apartment was 2 1/2 years, and given the living situation that was 1 1/2 years too long. Maybe if we can more or less happily manage four or five years in this place it'll be time to start thinking about buying.

A Couple of Frugal Tools

I've been using Swagbucks for the last few months. This tool gives you "Swagbucks" for searching. They can be redeemed for a lot of different things, but the best value for most people is the Amazon $5 gift card for 45 Swagbucks. I get about one a month, so it's not a fantasic payout, but it's so easy it's practically passive income.

I use Swagbucks mostly to "search" for sites I go to every day (like Worldcat), since the search function isn't nearly as good as Google. One trick I've learned is that you "win" at least once in your first five or so searches each day, so by doing about five searches on both my work and home computers every day I almost always get at least two or three Swagbucks. If you're interested, please consider signing up using my referral link.

Think Beyond the Bottle is a new resource I just found out about this morning through Fake Plastic Fish. This site tracks water fountains and other sources of free water. It's just getting started, but it's really easy to add sites, and I added a couple. I can see this being very useful--I hate buying bottle water or otherwise spending money just to quench my thirst. I often remember to bring a refillable water bottle, but if I'm out for a while, I need more water than my bottle holds.

Time and To Do Lists

I still halfway believe that someday I will finish everything on my to-do list.

To be honest, I have a lot of to-do lists. And I don't really think I'll ever finish the crazy lists, like clearing out my Netflix queue or decimating my reading list.

But the everyday things, the chores, the errands, the work tasks, the letters to respond to--that I kind of think I might be able to finish. It's like this oasis shining in the distance, a magical time when I might go to bed every night with a clear head and wake up every morning to make a completely new list of tasks, because I've finished everything from the day before.

Right now, I might be closer to that ideal than almost any other time in my life. For the past month or so, I've been consistently productive at work, knocking out not only the routine stuff but that nasty stack of crap-I've-been-putting off, with the result that on Friday I actually COMPLETED EVERYTHING. My email box was empty. My folders of miscellaneous tasks were empty. I had no outstanding issues with the people who work for me or with my boss. My to do list for today basically consists of "check email occasionally" and "try not to fall asleep."

Over the weekend, I went through all the stuff on my desk and basically took care of my personal to-do list, too. Sure, there's a couple things left--an item to return, a trip to the DMV--but nothing I couldn't take care of in a single day of average productivity. Yesterday by 3:00 I found myself actually kind of searching for things to do. I made a pie and kept fixing little things in my novel because even though I'd "put in my hours" for the day already there wasn't really anything else that I felt compelled to do instead.

The funny thing is, having an almost clean slate doesn't really make me feel any more relaxed. I have to conclude that stress is not really a function of what I have to do, but of what's going on in my head.

Minimizing

I now officially own less than 100 books.

OK, 99. But several of them will be Paperback Swapped as soon as I'm done reading them. (And I'm not counting my collection of a series from my childhood. I consider that one item, cause I wouldn't get rid of any of them without getting rid of all of them.) This is down from something like 350 about a year ago.

According to the inventory I made when we moved a couple of months ago, I personally have 444 things. Not too bad, I don't think. Especially when you consider things like "bobby pins, about 20" are listed. (Come to think of it, why am I hanging on to those bobby pins?)

I still have this strong desire to minimize further. But I'm not sure how much more I can do. Books and wardrobe make up most of my stuff, and though I don't have a huge wardrobe, I do like fashion and can't see myself doing a Leo Baubata and bringing it down to seven outfits or so. In fact, right now I want MORE clothes.

I'm sure part of my desire to minimize and simplify is because my personal life is fairly complicated right now. If I simplify my material life, my emotional life will get easier too, right?

It's not like that. But by getting rid of one more thing, I feel a little bit more in control.

Now where did I put those bobby pins?

Welcome to 1932

In 1932, the phone never stops ringing. Everyone is reaching into the depths of their rolodexes trying to find new business. You hear the notes of desperation in their voices. "I'm not gonna lie," they say. "Things are slow right now."

In 1932, you've stopped picking up. You don't have any business to give and you're so tired of trying to say no in the face of dogged persistence.

In 1932, no one returns your calls, either. They have 25% budget cuts, too, and there's not enough money to go around.

In 1932, Linda's husband has been out of work for nine months. He used to do something related to research and IT. Now he thinks maybe he'll try being a personal trainer.

In 1932, you go to McDonald's and hear six people in a row order off the dollar menu. You are the only one ordering a "value" meal. Did it used to be like that?

In 1932, you forgot to sign a new lease several months ago but the landlord hasn't asked. Maybe as long as you keep paying rent he figures it's best not to rock the boat.

In 1932, R. is scared to ask for vacation. They'll say yes but what if they realize while he's gone that they don't need him? He's good at his job but he's only part time--easy to lay off.

In 1932, you print things up on the office printer. You make the copies yourself. You talk about new products to offer and you come up with ways to shave $50 off a $10,000 bill. You're letting all your professional memberships lapse. You try not to think about what will happen if everybody else does the same.

In 1932, your company is holding its annual meeting in Hawaii. It was planned 7 years ago, when it seemed more like 1925. Bad luck, that.

In 1932, you pray that no one will quit. If they quit they probably wouldn't be replaced and then you'd have to learn graphic design or how to sell ads. You especially hope the woman who sells ads won't quit. She works on commission. There's nothing you can do to help.

When you were little, one of your favorite things to play was to pretend that you were poor. In 1932, you pretend that harder than ever. You're still just pretending. It still isn't that bad. You read Material World and What the World Eats to remind yourself of how it could be. You ate oatmeal for breakfast and kasha for lunch and will have pumpkin pie and who-knows-what for dinner. There's chocolate in your bag and shoes in your desk drawer and clothes, so many clothes, in your closet. When you come home the bed is warm and your boyfriend is waiting for you. No, 1932 isn't bad at all.

100 Things

A small but well-publicized number of people have attempted to whittle down their personal possessions to 100 items. By personal items they mean that if you live with someone else, you don't include the things you both use, like living room furniture or kitchen items. Also, most people doing this don't include books or, sometimes, DVDs, and count, for instance, a week's worth of underwear as one item. Even with these exceptions, 100 things is a *very* short list--a very minimal closet might include 5 pairs of shoes (sneakers, work shoes, hiking boots, flip flops or sandals, dress shoes) and you're already at 1/20 of your total items.

I know full well I could never do this; while I'm pretty minimal compared to your average American, I like having a decent selection of clothes, accessories, and art supplies around.

Still, I was inspired by this idea to see how minimal I could potentially be, so for one day I tracked all the items I used and came up with only 67. It was a weekend and I didn't leave the house except to go to the mailbox, so I presumably used more items around the house than usual. And I included non-personal items like the treadmill and the items I used for cooking (measuring cup, pot, fork, etc.). I forgot to include the stuff I used while sleeping (bed, quilt, sheets), but I did include the blanket I wrapped up in while watching a movie.

This really surprised me. Only 67 items? And this was on a day when I read/browsed through several books (which I counted) and changed my shirt a couple of times based on fluctuating temperature.

One thing I noticed was that my computer serves many purposes. Before the personal computer era, I might have used several more items for activities that I did on my computer (red pen and multiple reference books for editing, DVD/VHS player and tapes for watching a movie that I viewed online, paper and envelopes for correspondence).

I spent most of the day in my office. At the end of the day I put everything that I hadn't used into the closet to see how long it would take me to actually need those things. This was a couple of weeks ago and so far I've only taken out a few things (stamps, scotch tape, crayons. Yes, crayons).

I also decided to start putting a slip of paper in books as I read or refer to them. I'm not planning on getting rid of the ones I don't use, at least not yet, but it will be interesting to see how many of my books I use in a given period of time. If it's ridiculously low I may have to consider doing another book collection purge.

In Which I Make Kasha Palatable

Tonight I tackled one of the biggest challenges on my weird foods list: kasha. I bought this one-pound bag of misery in the form of a grain product at my neighborhood Mexican/Polish/yuppie grocery store about a year and a half ago for reasons unknown.
Kasha is roasted buckwheat, which sounds innocent enough. I think I saw the word "buckwheat" and thought, "Hey, don't some people make buckwheat pancakes?" It probably sounded wholesome and vaguely Wild West-ish.

Well, for buckwheat pancakes you need buckwheat flour, not whole buckwheat groats, which were the type of kasha I bought. Still, Joy of Cooking called kasha "irresistible," so I tried one of the two recipes in the book, "Basic Cooked Kasha," which yielded something vaguely like brown rice only several times less appealing. I ate one serving and kept the rest of it in the fridge for a decent interval until I could justify throwing it out.

However, I still had half the bag of kasha left, and it lurked in the back of the cupboard like a portent of doom for over a year--until tonight.

The Joy of Cooking recipe used only beef stock and egg, leaving the essential flavor of the kasha basically pure and unadorned. Tonight I added a pound of ground beef, an entire onion, tomato sauce, and the strongest spices I could find that wouldn't clash terribly with the Slavic roastedness of the kasha. When it was finished, I sprinkled it with sharp cheddar to mask the taste even more.

It still tasted like brown rice, but it was good enough to save it from the trash heap. It made so much I'll be eating it for the next week.