How to: thin your wallet

As a general statement, we tend to collect things. We tuck a receipt or two away in our wallet, perhaps with the intent of recording it in a budget. We put a wrapper or two in our pockets or purse to throw away later.

It doesn’t take too much time for us to accumulate quite a bit of “stuff.” (Think of George Castanza’s wallet.)

I actually had a friend who had so much stuff in his wallet it made him tilt to one side when he sat down, aggravating a serious back problem. When I questioned him about it, insisted he needed everything in his wallet. (He’s a great friend, but stubborn as a mule.)

Finally I convinced him to empty his entire wallet on the table. Together we went through and despite his earlier protests, found quite a few things he could get rid of – expired coupons, old receipts and scraps of paper.

After we threw away the obvious stuff, we went through the rest. Did he really need to carry around a frequent buyer card to a restaurant he hadn’t eaten at in six months? Do you need three credit cards with you at all times? (The answer to that is no – for more than one reason.)

When all was said and done he’d cut his wallet width in half. He knew where things were inside it and wasn’t carrying around a lot of useless things.

Best of all, his butt wasn’t lopsided and his back started feeling better.

Try simplifying your wallet. What’s the oldest, or most useless thing you found? Leave word in the comment and the winner will get a prize.

(I don’t know what the prize is yet, but I’ll mail you something that isn’t completely useless. Tell your friends.)

LivSimpl

We’ve moved!

We’ve moved to a new hosted site with our very own URL. I’ve done my best to redirect traffic, including those who have RSS and e-mail subscriptions but if something has happened and you’re getting this message, please do the following:

E-mail me and let me know – LivSimpl at gmail dot com.

Change your bookmark to www.LivSimpl.com

You may need to resubscribe. Please delete your current feed and click on the blue RSS button in the right panel for the current feed address and/or re-enter your e-mail address to have tips and articles mailed to you.

I appreciate your patience during the transition! Please feel free to e-mail me with any comments or suggestions you may have.

Thanks,

Dave

LivSimpl

Service: the key to a fulfilling life

Everyone has slumps. Bad days, weeks and sometimes months. There’s too much going on, everything that can go wrong does and you just can’t seem to get a break. It’s easy to feel helpless and even depressed.

There is a way to get out of the rut. It may seem counterintuitive at first but I can promise, from my own experiences, that it works.

When problems start mounting up, focus on other people’s needs and not your own: serve.

Call it Karma, the Golden Rule, call it blessings from on high, but when we put other’s needs before our own we will see our own lives improved. It’s not that your problems or challenges will disappear (although they may), but they will be put in perspective and seem more manageable.

There are plenty of opportunities to serve all around us. From something as simple as buying lunch for a homeless person to volunteering time at a hospital to visit with children who are there for long-term treatment.

Service puts life in focus. As we look outside ourselves and our own troubles and act, what’s really important in life floats to the top and the small things that were bothering us seem to disappear.

Do you have any service experiences you’d be willing to share? Were you on the giving or receiving end? Leave word in the comments.

LivSimpl

As Grandma used to say…

Use it up,

wear it out,

make it due,

or do without.

I’m sure we’ve all heard it before, but that little saying is quite profound when you think about simplifying life.

Not to mention older, well worn and loved objects tend to have a lot more personality and style. (But more on that later.)

How do you think you could apply that saying to simplifying your own life?

LivSimpl

Coming soon: New design!

I’m switching over to a self-hosted site and a new blogging app, so come Monday things are (hopefully) going to look quite a bit different.

As for today’s tip: pace yourself. For example, don’t stress over coming up with a tip for the day when you’re revamping your entire site over the course of 24 hours.

LivSimpl

Free up time with TiVo

Try totaling the amount of time you spend watching TV each week. It may surprise you – it surprised me. After I thought about it, I realized a lot of the time I spent in front of the TV wasn’t spent watching shows I actually liked.

I really only care about three shows: The Office, 30 Rock and Studio 60. That brings my, “I actually want to watch these TV shows” total to two hours per week.

Per WEEK.

Then why am I (sometimes – more often than I’d like) spending two or three hours a day watching TV? Talk about a waste of time! Not only am I watching more TV than I thought, but I’m watching shows I don’t even care about.

Enter TiVo.

You can set TiVo (and some other DVR systems) to record specific shows and play them back at your convenience. That, in and of itself could simplify and de-stress life a bit. But the real advantage comes from only watching shows you determine you want to watch in advance. May people I’ve spoken to say they spend less time watching TV after they’ve bought their TiVos because they’re only watching the shows they care about and not aimlessly channel surfing.

Total up the amount of time you spend watching TV. How many of those shows do you really care about? TiVo them and ignore the rest.

LivSimpl

Simplify your inbox, part two

As good as some SPAM filters are, you’re still going to get the occasional offering for a quick and easy college education, find the perfect match for you or get a cheap Rolex.

There are ways to help your mail program be a little better at keeping those pesky messages out of your new, squeaky-clean inbox. Since a lot of spam apparently sneaks through using misspellings, I created a custom filter in my Gmail account (the same thing can be accomplished using “Rules” in most mail programs).

Copy and paste something like this into a new rule/filter:

erectile OR rx viagra OR cheeap OR rolex OR meds OR erecti0n OR softwares OR medicati0n

(I edited down the list to a PG-13 version. The filter I actually use contains words I never use and wouldn’t feel comfortable typing in a family-friendly blog, and their common misspellings.) Then set your filter/rule to automatically skip your inbox and delete.

Since I’ve done this with my main e-mail account I thin I’ve had maybe a total dozen spam messages in the last year, and only two of those have actually made it to my inbox.

Try applying the filter and get creative with some of the common “words” you see in your junk mail. (If you’re not sure how to go about it, ask a tech-savvy friend.)

LivSimpl

Simplify your inbox, part one

If you don’t have one already, set up a junk e-mail account. Think of it as a P.O. box for all your junk mail – you can check it whenever you want and ignore it the rest of the time.

But before you set one up, analyze your current e-mail address. Is it constantly overrun with spam and annoying forwards? Maybe it’s time to cut your losses, designate it for junk mail and create a fresh account for personal use.

Or, if your current address is under control, use a free web-based e-mail account (I prefer Gmail, even for my junk mail) and create a new account.

Now, use your newly created (or designated) junk mail account any time you have to give out your e-mail address to a corporation, website/online registration, or the occasional family member/friend/coworker who is “Forward Friendly”. It will gather unwanted mail while you enjoy a cleaner, simpler inbox.

LivSimpl

Online bill pay

Last week I wrote about contacting your credit card, utility and other companies about switching to paperless billing. Now it’s your turn to go paperless. Use your bank’s online bill pay.

Online bill pay means the bank will pay your bills for you: either electronically or by printing out a check and mailing it on your behalf.

For example, set up your electric company as one of your online bill pay accounts (enter the company name, address, your account number, etc.). From that point on, just enter how much you owe and click send. The bank will take care of the rest.

It’s faster than writing out checks by hand, you don’t have to worry about buying stamps, and if the funds can be transferred electronically, you’re doing a little something to help Mother Nature as well.

Note: some banks charge for this service, and others offer it free based on the type of accounts you have with them. Check with your financial institution for the details.

LivSimpl

Switch to paperless billing.

Recently I saw a video on the Internet got me thinking about the number of bills we get in the mail every month.

Many companies (credit cards, wireless carriers, etc.) offer an option for paperless billing. Instead of sending out an envelope full of a bunch of junk you don’t need along with a bill, they’ll simply notify you via e-mail when your bill is ready to view online.

We switched to paperless billing for most of our bills and it’s been fantastic. It’s one less thing to open and keep track of, only to throw it away (or recycle) a week or two later.

A quick phone call to a few companies can reduce your flow of mail, help the environment and declutter your desk. Give it a try.

LivSimpl