But
in this blog, I want to discuss some other items of interest that allow us to
live on our golden shoestring, such as “DIY”, discounts, dependents, etc.
DIY
– DO IT YOURSELF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_it_yourself: “Do it yourself (DIY) is the
method of building, modifying, or repairing something without the aid of
experts or professionals. DIY behavior can be triggered by various motivations
previously categorized as marketplace motivations (economic benefits, lack of
product availability, lack of product quality, need for customization), and
identity enhancement (craftsmanship, empowerment, community seeking,
uniqueness)[2”
DIY
clearly has economic benefits…usually. If one has a skill set in whatever is being
built, modified, repaired or created, it’s a major WIN-WIN… Economic benefits
as well as personal benefits; satisfaction gained from doing something. In the big picture of things and stuff, we
clearly gotten away from using our brain and our community to do for ourselves.
Yes,
yes, yes – there are times when it’s best to ‘leave it to the experts’. But it’s my opinion that we’ve given up
everything to the experts. Tinkering has
gone by the wayside and is done by funny old men who talk to themselves.
DISCOUNTS
This
is a no-brainer. Discounts are to be
taken advantage of. Discounts are
similar to coupons, but without having to cut or scan the coupon. There are so many ways to look for discounts
and it is worthwhile to take some time to look for them before making your
purchase.
There
are discounts for airfares, for hotels and cruises and other vacation
packages. There are discounts for
electronics, for clothing and just about anything else you desire. For this topic, I would LOVE to get feedback
on your favorite places to find discounts on whatever.
Here
are a couple of mine:
For
airfares: I generally start with
CheapTickets. I also look at Expedia,
Orbitz and Mobissimo. What are your
favorites?
For
hotels: Well..I love to use CouchSurfing
and Airbnb and will usually start there, but if I need a hotel, I might try Hotwire,
or CheapHotels. What do you use?
Cruises/Vacation
Packages: Well, I generally don’t go,
but if I did – I’ll give a plug to my good friend, Liz Clark who has a new
travel business called “Odyssey Tours by Liz”
DEPENDENTS
I
know this seems like an odd thing to put in.
But here’s the thing. When you
have dependents, it shapes how you live and how you earn and how and what you
spend and every other decision you make in life.
When
you create your financial budget, you not only consider your earnings and
expenditures, but you must consider all the people in your household, or in
your “circle of life” for whom you are financially tied to, as you make your
decisions. Again, this seems to be a
no-brainer, but I don’t think it is something we are conscience about. You may need to project out some years, in
order to get to where you need or want to be.
One
prime example is that of college funding.
Right now, this is the bane of my existence. It’s not that we didn’t plan for college
(well…we’ve probably not planned as we should have, but we couldn’t), it’s that
the college funding and planning mechanism is an absolute failure. Individual families are left with sorting it
out for themselves, hoping they’ve set aside adequate funding, hoping a
grandparent has set up a college fund, hoping the son or daughter makes the
grade and does everything right to get the scholarship…and then whatever is
left the poor (literally) college student has the burden of college loans.
DREAMING
Never
forget about dreaming. It’s good for the
soul. I’m an incessant dreamer. Sometimes it takes me to far away places and
then I try to figure how to actually get there.
Dreaming helps us not only escape from reality, but provides the impetus
for change.
So,
in the spirit of dreaming, I want to share a website that I stumbled across a
few months back. I admit that I haven’t
spent much time looking at A Center for a New American Dream,
but I love what I read and so I want to share it with you.
Here is their mission: “The Center for a New American
Dream helps Americans to reduce and shift their consumption to improve quality
of life, protect the environment, and promote social justice.”
This
speaks to my heart and soul and if I could find a way to work in such a
capacity, this is EXACTLY what I would be doing with the rest of my life. I’m on a mission to figure out how and where
to begin. I’m hoping that this blog is
one small piece of it.
That’s
enough for the letter “D”…unless you want to know that as I’ve got my first
routine colonoscopy coming up tomorrow morning and there’s a “D” I’d rather not
talk about…
What
about the letter “E”. The one thing I’ve
thought about is “ELIMINATE DEBT”. What
else comes to mind?
It's time for a
disclaimer:
I’m not a financial
planner, nor am I a business guru. What I am is a very practical person with
(as my mother always said) “a good head on her shoulders”. I have good common
sense and am old enough to trust my inner core and follow my instincts. 
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