All in Alternative Lifestyle
"If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”
My husband and I just closed on a condo a few weeks ago. After a few calculations and looking at the prices in the market and towns we wanted to be in, we came with a number that we were comfortable with. When we first started the process, we met with a mortgage loan officer and provided our financials. His first statement to us was “you know you could afford more,” but we stuck to our guns and kept our original budget in place.
Someday. It's a code word for "never."
Someday, I will start saving. Someday, I will open that retirement account. Someday, I will take control of my finances. Someday...the most dangerous word in personal finance. As the old adage says, "Don't put off what you can do today!"
Here’s the kicker when it comes to the waste we produce: this is also money.
We may not realize it right away, but each item we buy not only costs us money, but costs us time. We have to start thinking about the consequences of our consumption. It is actually our consumption that is depleting our natural resources. There is an excess demand for extra stuff. This results in more being made and manufactured. The outcome is not only waste byproducts, but also wasted materials. The lifestyle of product is so short nowadays that it essentially goes from the store to our hands to the trash in a matter of days or even minutes.
“When you invest, you are buying a day that you don’t have to work.”
There's many reasons why I wanted to start this site. You can find that here. After reading many personal finance books for women, written by women (and men), I don't think these five reasons are addressed enough. While I am all for equal gender pay, there are still some areas where men and women differ and these reasons are why we need to be addressing women's personal finances differently.
A library is infinity under a roof.
Today, I want to talk about the library. I know, for most adults, the library was probably a thing of the past. For many of us, we probably stopped going to the library after middle school or after college. With everything available on the internet, it's easy to rely on Google or Amazon for all of our information needs. I want to challenge that thinking and encourage you to get your library card and take advantage of what your local library has to offer. I think the library is one of the most underutilized resources out there. For anyone starting the FIRE journey (Financial Independence/Retire Early), don't discount the library as a tool for your journey.
"Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle."
One of the things that we talk about a lot here and in the FIRE community is the concept of living an alternative lifestyle that focuses less on consumption. An average American will spend their day working and then consuming what they just earned without thinking about the consequences. Today, I want to bring up the Zero Waste Lifestyle.
