Little Black Guidebook

I’m sure my husband read this subject line and went, “Heh, this won’t last as he glances at the J.Crew box I still need to return.” Well keep reading dear.

One of my inspirational reads is the Man vs. Debt blog. He writes about his world travels with under 2-year old daughter and wife in tow and how getting his finances in order has allowed him to be location independent. I read for the travel inspiration, but ocassionally some of the financial points stick too. The author Adam also writes for Untemplater and recently posted this 30-day “No Spend” Challenge.

Now my finances are probably in more order than 90% of people my age, but I like forcing myself into challenges just to see if I can do them, if the outcome of that challenge would be important to me.  Given the nice change I saw in cash-flow during my no-spend day I figure a 30-day challenge will have  a big impact in the travel fund.

My version of the challenge:

NO SPENDING on anything non-essential. Things like:

• clothes/accessories
• electronics
• lunches/dinners out
• online purchases
• “good deals”

Allowed discretionary spending

• investments
• Auto-paid items (Netflix, cellphone, Weight Watchers)
• shared non-lazy experiences

A note on shared non-lazy experiences: Just like a diet, the whole family isn’t going to suffer. I will make an exception to the challenge, for instance dining out, if my husband suggests it (he rarely does, its always me) and its because he genuinely wants to treat us and not because we are being lazy, ie. we haven’t thawed anything to cook that night.

Challenge starts now and runs until the 7 April. Anybody want to join in? What are you cutting back for?

Books of a Wannabe Mad Scientist, originally uploaded by xtacocorex is watching curling.

This post: “Selling Back Really Old Textbooks Online” is a good description of a way to make money selling old books online for money. I’m all about that right now, given that every spare penny goes in the travel fund and that I am very anti-clutter at the moment. But this method is way too labor intensive for me. I’ve been to the post office dozens of times because of “ship by” dates when selling things on Amazon and eBay and its no fun, not to mention a waste of gas.

A slightly less profitable, but far less labor intensive method would be to setup an Amazon seller account. Ship Amazon all your books and let them ship them to each buyer and deposit the profits into your account directly. Ship once and forget. You set the price you’re willing to accept. This also lets people get Super Saver Shipping on your items. Sure you’re stuck with Amazon and might not get highest price, but you’re also not stuck running to the post office.

Add $409 over the last 2 months to the travel fund.

Constant Comment Tea Tag (Back), originally uploaded by Alien Spouse.

Ok, saving for Europe spending challenge #2 was to get through our most routine money spending event “grocery shopping” without spending unnecessarily. Results were mixed.

I love tea and usually splurge on loose leaf good stuff, but I did manage to settle for some Bigelow Tea Constant Comment this week. I also made a menu and a list and I stuck to it where food was concerned.

But then I got to the personal products aisle. My favorite shampoo/conditioner, which I can actually feel the difference after I use it was on sale. Ahem, it was $7 instead of $10 for beautiful, organic, makes my hair lay straight and smell like heaven shampoo. I could have bought Dove for $2 per bottle and been fine, but I had been so good with my food purchases and it was 30% off so it snuck its way home with me. Deduct $10 from Europe trip savings.

I find saving money to be like dieting for me, it just doesn’t work if I feel like I am depriving myself. I come up with justifications, cheats, and can turn a bad day into a bad week/month/etc and suddenly I’m having a garage sale and wondering “Where did all this stuff come from?”.

Dieting is something I have given up. I have dieted and lost the same 40 lbs twice in my life. But I have also lost 25 lbs the right way, slowly over the last two years, where it was not a diet, but truly a lifestyle change and I know how good it feels to not be lecturing myself, but to be thinking about things in the context of taking care of my body.

If I approach money with more of the attitude that I now approach food with I may be healthier overall. So I’m going to change all my self lecturing over my shampoo to a quality vs. price decision. It is just worth it to me and I’ll find another creative way to replace the $10 in the Europe fund.

Uploaded by ajburgess

The saying: “If you fail to plan you plan to fail.” usually holds true for me. I did get lucky and my failure to plan worked out. My work provided lunch at a meeting, which avoided the choice of buying something or going hungr. I totally missed that today was no spending day and didn’t pack anything. Oh well, chalk that exercise up as a try again later.

Amount saved $16.00 for lunch and gas at lunchtime. ($8×2 for me and hubby as he also forgot lunch and got my leftovers) = 11.6 Euros or the price of 1 ten pack (un carnet) of Paris metro tickets, which I know we will go through this fall.

Next challenge, get through the grocery store without anything not on the list and not absolutely necessary. Somehow my cabinets are full and yet we both looked at the fridge yesterday and said there was nothing to eat except for frozen pizza. Clearly we need to evaluate what we have and then make a list around a meal plan and cook some of these staples or donate them to the food bank if we aren’t going to use them.

I saw these clips of Oprah in Denmark (happiest citizens on Earth) over the weekend and was struck once again  with how less things can lead to more life. I’m no minimalist yet  trust me, but I have been trying to eliminate things that get in the way of living, wether by taking up my time to maintain/clean them or mentally cluttering my life. I have made over $400 on Amazon selling used books, videos, video games, etc. over the last two months and cleaned out a lot of our unused media in the process.

Now I’m up for a new challenge, not bringing new stuff in the house. This attempt to save money and space will result in extra savings to put towards our Europe trip this fall. First challenge is not spending money for ONE day.  I don’t mean this literally as in dumpster-diving for dinner, but I won’t spend money that day. I will plan ahead and pack lunch, etc. so some may consider me to be front-loading my expenses. Trust me, this will save money over my average day.

Flickr Photo by striped-socks on 6 Mar 09.

Rolf Potts posed a dilemma today. What do you do when a place really captures your heart and you want to go back? Do you keep going back or keep seeing the world? My initial reaction was, come on people stop going to the same place, see the world. It annoys me when people who go to Florida on vacation every year and love it, but then they hear I’m going to Europe and say nostalgically to me, “I wish I could go to Europe, but I don’t have the time/money/courage.” Maybe take a year off from Florida, save your money and go?

Then I think of Paris. I love Paris and could go back over and over again. Paris is my Disneyland. But even though I am flying into Paris on my next trip I am really only transiting there. No right answer of course, but I’m thinking that you shouldn’t feel guilty about going anywhere you love because its all about the experiences you are adding to your life not some arbitrary definition of what travel should be.

You could tick every country in the world off your list and not have half as good a time as going somewhere you truly love. I’ll try not to judge those people who love Florida so much, except when they tell me they can’t go to Europe because they can’t afford it, but they can afford a week at Disney. That’s just crazy talk.

Ironic to be posting an article on carry-on ettiquette after so many people are hassled out of carrying on lately. CNN, you’re timing is great.

Toting carry-on bags? Etiquette will take you a long way

Want to hear something you might consider grody? I haven’t changed my socks in three days. I was so behind on life and laundry that I got to the bottom of the sock drawer and then went to my stash of travel clothes to find socks. This shoebox size tupperware contains my Exofficio underwear and Smart Wool socks. Now the Exofficio underwear belong in the travel box because they are admittedly quite ugly and should really only be used under circumstances where you need quick dry hotel sink friendly clothes, but why oh why have I left these socks in there that long? They are awesome. And while they are overnight dryable after sink washing, they are also WAY oder resistant, and they are plain comfy walking socks. If I don’t need fancy slack socks these would easily replace 3-4 pairs of my normal everyday jeans/casual wear socks and they last forever.

So, I’m now going through my drawer of yoga socks, running socks, hiking socks, life socks, etc. and ruthlessly purging all discolored, holey, or otherwise subpar socks and pulling my Smartwool socks permanently out of storage.

They come in a variety of styles, but my all time favorites is the Smartwool Adrenaline Light Mini Crew Sock which is the perfect combination workout/light-hiking/travel/casual sock. $16 so not cheap, but really does last and really does wick moisture and not stink.

I ran into Pauline Frommer’s blog “Traveling Light” on WeightWatchers.com of all places. Its all about how travel took its toll on her waistline (something I can empathize with). I didn’t know who she ways and then it hit me, duh, Frommers, like the guidebook. A quick google later and I stumbled upon this free book, “Spend Less, See More.” Its a 15 page pdf. I especially liked the tips dealing with contract of carriage as its a problem I’ve run into and not known how to deal with when I’m delayed and frustrated.

I looked at my Tripit.com account and was pleased to note that I already am starting to have quite a list of adventures ahead for 2010. I already have flights and reservations for 4 out of the next 7 months. Mostly just short little trips so far, but I used a good chunk of my Christmas bonus to buy 40 hrs of leave so I’m hoping to add a few more adventures in. Its so hard to be a world nomad and hold down a full-time job.

January 22-24 Miami, Florida

March 4-7 Nashville, Tennessee

May 19-23 West Point, NY; Philadelphia, PA

July 21-August 22 Paris, France; Brussels & Leuven, Belgium; Munich & Passau, Germany