Challenge #10, April 2012: TIDYING UP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will focus on organizing, de-cluttering, and fixing up our household.

 

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."  -William Morris

Background

“It’s time to finally get this household in order!”  How many times have you said that to yourself?  I certainly have, a boatload of times over the almost 15 (wow) years I have lived in this apartment.  The longer you, me, or most people live in one place the more stuff we acquire and squirrel away into whatever space is still available, until it turns into stuff and eventually STUFF!  Ahhhhh - this buildup problem was the main motivation this month - and that gradually building feeling that I just don’t need it, and I REALLY want to get rid of it.  Fortunately the size of our apartment automatically restricts accumulation somewhat, but our garage has become overflowing with stuff, and the clutter inside the house was creeping up too.  So I broke down this overall household improvement goal into a list of specific projects that I wanted to accomplish by the end of the to make it less daunting and easier to get started on.

The Projects, and how they went

·      Tackled an easy one first – the refrigerator magnets!  Over more than 25 (wow again) years, I have became quite a collector.  Any place I traveled, I got one with the name of the place on it, or some kind of artsy representation.  This collection grew to probably over 200 or so, and filled the entire front and top of one side of the fridge.  Friends would give me magnets once they knew I collected them – even after some years ago when I personally stopped buying any more.  Many were dusty, faded and simply not very meaningful to me anymore.  I dumped the vast majority of them, and it felt really good.   There are still several on the freezer that I curated from the collection, and also a peaceful artful compilation of ocean related pictures and real shells on the side, visible from the living room. This project has made me actually feel calmer and happier in the kitchen by not having the clutter display staring me in the face, yippee!

·      The corkboard.   Another fairly easy one – just glue gun, corks, and an old but nice wooden frame.  A somewhat creative project to carefully fit all those corks I have been saving for the past few years together into the frame - and realize that it is going to take about 10+ more bottles to finish it.  This is something I have wanted to put up above my desk to pin (a limited amount, it’s only 11”x14”) important to do items and inspirations.  Will be continued, with a definite completion target – anyone want to share a bottle of pinot noir? J

·      The décor.  Our walls all over the house have ocean related art and photos on them.  We didn’t want the theme to change, but it was time for some new stuff to look at.  So I went to Aaron Brothers, spent less than $50 for some mattes and we framed some of the wonderful underwater photos by Paul Humann that I have had for a while.  They reinforce and remind me of my passion for the ocean and scuba diving and are a great addition to our home.

·      The garden. My other half took the lead on this, and created a space for our new sun splashed mini-garden, all I did was move a plant out of the way and buy some soil.  He planted radishes, tomatoes, peas, zucchini and poppies - and I can’t wait to see how they all come up.  He was also sooooooooo helpful with cleaning out the garage, and his papers in the bedroom closet, so we shared this month, thank you!

·      And climactically, THE GARAGE.  We made a date and just started digging into to all the boxes. Why was I hanging on to files from previous jobs and magazines and “future craft projects” that I was 99% not likely to ever look at again - why do we do this?  It was so liberating to attack and separate it into three piles:  Trash/Recycling (Papers, things that didn’t work anymore, packaging), Give Away (old beach chairs, tennis rackets, books), and Keep (Most photos, yearbooks, travel gear we use).  A simple system that served us well and took only a few hours total.  The STUFF was reduced by at two-thirds, and it looked a lot tidier indeed – yay for a big step further toward minimalism.

·      And finally the project I didn’t actually get to – a Complete Emergency Kit. I know we should have this, we live in earthquake country and anything could happen anytime.  I have some items that have been collected for a start on this, but didn’t get around to organizing and completing it into a Home-Away-From-Home-For-Few-Days-If-Home-Is-Destroyed package.  I postponed this project – gotta schedule it.

Overall Reflections

·      Going through a lot of papers in dusty boxes made me truly realize I don’t need to save (except for taxes) so many of them – if it’s important I likely have a already digital copy, or can easily get one, and that’s all I really need and would ever realistically look at again.  Get that stuff recycled and turned into newspapers – better yet don’t print it in the first place!

·      The give away pile reminded me not to collect or save things we aren’t going to use in the first place, but maybe someone else will – our neighbors upstairs were grateful for the pair of tennis rackets we were never going to use.  Let the stuff be useful for someone else if it can be.

·      Finally, I didn’t travel (which I missed) anywhere this month, so I had more time to do these projects on the weekends and otherwise.  Plan accordingly if you take on a lot of projects like this…now what’s waiting for you to tackle around the house?

Challenge #9, March 2012: FINANCIALLY FITTING

I will address my finances and make specific changes to my budgeting, savings, and investment strategies - for the short, and especially for the long term.

“Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.”   

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Background

Focus, really focus, on money for a whole month – not fun, and definitely a challenge unless you are an accountant, right?   So this one was tough, but definitely rewarding by the end of it. I have never been too fond of facing money issues head on, but it was now time for some direct action and better planning than what I have been doing lately – not much.  I have long since worked my way out the student loan and credit card (yikes!) debt of my twenties, and abandoned my brief but dangerous hobby as a day trader in 1999, ha!  (What was I really thinking, and why didn’t I just hold onto that AMZN all this time!).  I just needed to sit down and face some general and specific organizing, allocating, and budgeting questions that have been increasingly nagging at me over the past few years.  I am by nature (or more likely by nurture) somewhat of a frugalist, which has served me well since working for myself for the past six years, with no pre-set paycheck to count on.  My income is directly related to how much time I put in, how well I serve my clients and meet their expectations, and how hard I work to pursue new ones.  These facts have been both daunting and liberating to me, and I really can’t imagine earning a living any other way now.  I wanted to get a better handle on my budget, savings, and investment plans, and thanks to some great resources I was able to do exactly that this month.

What I did and how it went

My goal was more overall for the month rather than “do something every day” as in most of my previous challenges.  So I set specific objectives to:

·      Read a good overall book about personal finances, for some general guidelines and input - thank you J.D. Roth!

·      Set up a detailed monthly budget plan, then tracking it for the next six months starting in April, to see if it is accurate as far as what I think I am spending, and where I might need to make adjustments.

·      Research and decide on some new investments for my Roth IRA and other long term savings accounts.  Most of the investments (socially responsible mutual funds) have done okay over the past several years, except a few small positions in stocks that have been disappointing to say the least.  So I wanted to simplify and be more conservative with my next bunch of cash that has been building up in the IRA, my biggest chunk of retirement planning funds.

·      Set annual goals for income, savings, tax strategies, giving to charity, etc goals.

I have been following a few personal finance blogs for months now and learned so much. I highly recommend Get Rich Slowly, Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, and Financial Samurai.   They all provide a wealth (sorry, couldn’t resist) of easy to understand and useful information on this subject, and I delved into some of their robust archives while researching this month.  When I finally did get started after about ten solid days of assorted procrastination strategies (I said this was a hard one), I got lucky and soon found my organizing savior in mint.com – hooray!  I did some extensive online homework about the site, read A LOT of reviews about privacy, security, etc and then signed up. Entering all the usernames and passwords from my various online accounts was a bit nerve-wracking, but once I got over it and realized the value of keeping everything in one accessible place, and the very cool budgeting tools they have, my nervousness turned into sheer gratitude.  I set up a reasonable budget and started tracking everything by spending categories – easy peasy!  I will work on adding in savings goals after I see how my planned budgeting goes for a few months. 

What I learned

May main takeaway was that it took something simple, straightforward and automated such as this - rather than trying to do it all myself on an excel spreadsheet, or learn a new program like Quicken - to really get into the swing of budgeting and proper financial oversight.  The reason I procrastinated so much to even start was that I thought it was going to take a lot of dull and dreary work to even look at it all in a highly efficient way – not the case I found.  I also learned that I have been somewhat on the right track so far as far as spending and long term planning goes, but paying a bit more attention and tracking these things will definitely help me sleep better at night and feel more confident about it all.  I know I will now also be able to address any major life changes as I move beyond my 40s with a good handle on what I have and what I need (financially speaking) using these new tools.  How about you – any financial issues that need attention, and how are you handling them?

Bonus accomplishment this month:  I slimmed down my RSS feed roll from well over 60 to just 30 – my new max.  There is just no way I can keep track of all that extra information, no matter how insightful and interesting it all seems to be.  I now have a manageable (so far!) amount of news and reading to pay attention to, rather than building up to hundreds of unopened items that weighed on me until I went through them.  I went on an Information Diet and my brain feels lighter indeed - more room for more important stuff now!

Challenge #8: EXPANDING HORIZONS

I will focus on my passion for travel by planning three trips this year, connecting with fellow travelers and organizations to explore new opportunities, AND I will “travel” and connect with like-minded folks online by posting on the blogs I read (rather than just reading them!)

 

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Mark Twain

Background

When did you start traveling?  My interest wasn’t really sparked until the ripe age of 29.  I went to Club Med on vacation, which opened my eyes to another way to live – how to be a “citizen of the planet,” (rather than just my hometown)…so many of the people working there were doing this with ease and grace – I wanted that!  I returned from an action- and culturally-packed trip, hatched a plan and signed up for French language and scuba diving lessons, and six months later flew to Club Med in the Dominican Republic, where I met, and still remain friends with, many fellow citizens of the planet.

Since then, and over the past few years especially, I have fallen in love with the fun of traveling to new places, either alone or with others.  I have concluded that there is no better way to learn about the world other than to just get out there as often as possible: soak in the atmosphere, the culture, and the environment.  To become a traveler not a tourist  (there is quite a difference) is a true joy, and has been quite a learning process.  I have actually traveled out of my little Southern California region an average of about once a month for the past three years, and have been leading scuba dive trips focused on fish surveying to the Caribbean over the past few years - combining both passions, along with the joy of meeting new travelers.  My goal is to do more of this (fun, adventurous, and educational) in new places, and beyond just mostly diving focused.  The amazing trip to the Grand Canyon last year showed me that there is much more to see than just the sea out there in this big beautiful world!

So, I am planning a few new trips, exploring the potential for more related experiences such as travel writing and adventure travel work opportunities, and also traveling online more purposefully by posting on other blogs (many of them travel related of course!).  I wanted to make a conscious effort to connect with people within the travel and online communities that I know I want to explore and pursue.

What I did, how it went, and what I learned:

·      I planned the challenge this month knowing that I had a lengthy 11 day trip during it - my annual volunteer pilgrimage to the serene isle of Little Cayman (full time human population 160), to witness and record the annual Nassau Grouper fish spawning aggregation (temporary population approximately 3500-4000 at the West End) during the winter’s fullest moon.  This trip again exceeded my expectations regarding natural beauty, suitability to my strengths, and sheer enjoyment!  The combination of people who made up this year’s Grouper Moon Project team is truly extraordinary combining scientists, artists, writers, educators, environmental and government staff, and more – all focused on saving this endangered species and Caribbean icon.  Watching the fireworks of thousands of fish congregate and spawn, 5 – 25 at a time in vertical rushes is truly one of the natural wonders of the undersea world, and I am privileged to view it firsthand.

·      Other related accomplishments and activities:

o   Successfully planned a trip to Portland in July and have made progress toward planning trips to Mexico and possibly the South Pacific (fingers crossed!) later this year – just putting these ideas actually into motion by acting (rather than just letting them roll around in my head), was gratifying.  And planning a trip to San Francisco (one of my favorite U.S. cities) popped up on the last day of the month too!

o   Opened two new credit cards with significant mileage bonuses – I’m not planning to play frequent traveler points and miles game to the hilt.  But why not get a few thousand miles here and there when they make it so darn easy?

o   Promoted the dive trip I am leading to the British Virgin Islands in November – the boat is half full – please join me!

o   Renewed my Gold status with American Airlines  - considering how often I travel with them, benefits such as priority access to seating, shorter lines, no baggage fees, etc, etc, etc are worth it.

o   Re-subscribed to two magazines:  Caribbean Travel & Life, and AFAR – I know both will continue to inspire me to pursue this passion in a significant way.  I would like to write and submit a story about the Grouper Moon project for one of these magazines (or another appropriate one) in the coming month.

o   Commented on 15 other blogs out there (rather than my goal of 29 - one for each day of the month) – not actually sure why I just wasn’t motivated enough, but I will continue doing this AND also start including this website to actually grow some traffic eventually…still learning at all this, hmmm.

Question:  What does traveling mean to you, and why do you go where you go?