Rein it in...

Well, I haven't written in a month of Sundays, which reflects both laziness and lack of effort to consciously consume. After moving 10,000 miles away and needing to replace virtually everything in the house, I found myself continuing to shop for other things--clothes, boots, books (the usual suspects). Now, I need to rein it in so we can save for up for some trips. So, I'm back on the wagon and my efforts are rejuvenated.

A True Oxymoron: Frugal Cyclist

The difficulty of maintaining my original goals with careful consuming is mounting now that racing season is upon us. I think I mentioned my husband races bicycles and last year we started a local cycling team with his business being the lead sponsor. This being our second year and with no women on the team, I thought I have to race in order to encourage women to join the team. So I have done that and now we have six women racing for us. Very cool except I am one of them! I have never done anything remotely this competitive in my life nor have I ever trained seriously for any sport. I am not sure this is the wisest idea I've come up at age 45 but I am enjoying it. I consider this endeavor to be an exercise in changing how I spend my time and energy, thus part of my careful consuming. Getting outside and riding a bike either competitively or leisurely with friends is a much better way to spend my energy and time than what I was doing before I started riding more.

However, cycling is not a sport for the faint of heart nor light of wallet! It demands commitment to both and trying to watch our spending while participating in this hobby is quite a challenge. I participated in my first race 2 weeks ago which required a 3 hour road trip and an overnight in a hotel. Mike raced as well and since we are promoting his business we can deduct some of the expenses. However, the costs of racing total up very fast. There is the cost of gas, hotel, food, supplies, registration fees and racing license fees. Some of these expenses are covered by his business but it comes out of the same place, our pockets.

I saved some money for racing season and along with the money I raised by selling some things on Craig's List I hope to stay on budget. I have set a limit of $500.00 for races and this includes my registration and license fees along with gear I might need. I am hoping to race 4-5 times this year but I am not sure this is manageable with my budget. There is not much you can buy in the cycling world for less than $50.00 and now that I am racing I need more supplies. I am going to sell my older bike which could bring in a couple hundred dollars. I never ride it, so why not? Also, I am going to try again and sell some stuff on Craig's List so hopefully that nets some more cash. I know I won't save money cycling but I am just trying to break even. While that sounds like a reasonable expectation, this might be the loftiest goal I have tried to accomplish yet!

Lighter Load

Since my last post, trying to maintain the original limits I outlined continues to be a struggle but I am more in sync with them than I was in March. In fact, I am only one month away from paying off a second credit card so I must be doing fairly well. But as I write about that accomplishment, I know I don't want to make this year long experiment solely about money. I am focused on improving the quality of how I spend my time and energy as well.

My energy and time consumption have improved somewhat circumstantially now that I am racing my bicycle and am training more than I have in past years. I simply don't have the time to watch all the useless TV that I once had. Don't get me wrong, I still make time to watch some very bad TV but I have given up Judge Judy; well all the judge shows, most episodes of Hoarders, tosh.o, Celebrity Rehab, just to name a few. However, I might have to add My Strange Addiction to the list of must sees! I still like to watch American Idol, Ghost Hunters and Deadliest Catch, mainly because Mike and I somehow got hooked on these and enjoy watching them together. This is not quality TV but mindless entertainment after a long hard day. We need that.

After four months into this, I am much more selective with what I watch and when. Same goes for what I choose to buy. I haven't bought much other than food, household supplies and toiletries. Although, I did have to buy some bicycling gear but I used a gift certificate and money I had already saved. Food is our biggest expense and I have a hard time staying on my grocery budget of $125.00 every 2 weeks. I think I need to increase this to $140.00 since that seems to be what I spend despite careful consuming with sales, using coupons and making lists. Maybe I need to watch that new show about super coupon users!

I have sold some stuff on Craig's list which was very exciting for some reason. I loved doing that. I am using that money for the bike races registration fees. It feels great to get rid of some things that I don't use and get a little money in return. Since we aren't watching much TV, I cut back on our Netflix and paid TV channels. I thought I couldn't give up HBO but really I don't miss it st all.

It has been harder to completely cut out eating out to once a month, mainly due to having so many business meetings that involve meals. Initially, I was not eating during them but it became very difficult to manage this so I gave myself permission to eat at every other meeting. It isn't perfect but does cut down on the spending and eating out. So many of our family functions also center on eating out; birthdays, holidays and general get togethers. I haven't figured out how to handle that well. We don't eat at all of them but it does feel strange when we don't. Any ideas?

So overall I am a little lighter, with less stuff, less mindless TV, less junk food and less debt. I must admit the lighter load does feel good.

Success in failing

As of late, I have been failing miserably at being a conscious consumer; however, this failing is actually been quite successful for me. While I haven't adhered to my budgetary restrictions (namely shopping), I am still feeling quite successful in my endeavors. Specifically, while I am spending money that has not been budgeted, approved (by me), or even applied toward something that is absolutely "needed," I have been more consciously aware of what I've been doing, and to me, that seems like a positive step forward in a long process.

This blog should begin with a personal disclosure that is likely essential to the context of my entry. I'm moving to Australia in about two months. I got a new job and we are off to explore new lands. My conscious consuming has been geared toward saving money for the transition as well as a deep desire to rid myself of a large chunk of the crap that I've accumulated over the years. These goals have been coupled with the shared perspective of my fellow bloggers that far too much of our time, energy, and money are freely given to junk TV, mindless drivel, and stuff that we don’t really even want. In fact, the process of getting rid of stuff has been so great--I just ask myself, "Is it worth it to drag this thing 20,000 miles away?" Typically, the answer is a resounding “no.” I find posing a similar question to my TV viewing equally as helpful: “Do I really care about this?” While I haven’t set any parameters on the amount of TV that I watch, I have been more considerate in what I do watch and think about other things that I could be doing instead (like clearing more closets!).

I have been on a clothes and book buying hiatus as I really don't need any more of either at the moment. Nonetheless, I found myself shopping for clothes, and I made a decision to not totally deny myself some new things, but instead to put some guidelines on the buying. First, I am only allowing myself to purchase items that can be worn to work. I have lots and lots of play clothes and far less dress-up. Second, I only buy something if it's on sale. This has worked out well since I'll be leaving for Australia soon and it'll be winter there when I arrive (which on a side note--hardly seems fair or right; it's the winter of my discontent) and all the winter merchandise here is drastically reduced. All of this is to say that I am trying to think through what I really could use (or maybe even need if we are defining that term very broadly) and that pleases me (once I process the guilt of shopping). Nonetheless, I have now basically reinstated the no buying rule here; several new outfits are sufficient to get me started at my new job (plus the clothes over there might be excellent!).

Buying books has always been a personal weakness. I buy books when I have plenty of books that are unread. I go to the bookshelf of unread material and I think, "I don't feel like reading any of these books." Then when it's time to move again (like once a year), I review the bookshelf, and I think, "I don't want to get rid of this book; I want to read it." So, I had been reading my shelves of books--I call it visiting the library--and doing quite well. If I couldn't get into the book, then it was going straight to the donate pile. Then, I heard a little tidbit from a friend who was just on a whirlwind excursion in Australia--she said that copyright does not transfer, and all books have to be republished there making American works quite expensive--even in paperback. Well, you had me at hello. So, I've treated myself to 8 new works of fiction which can be added to the "library." I still consider this quite successful on two levels. First, I'm ultimately saving myself in the long run because I love to read and new authors are especially fun (this is pure rationalization, by the way). Second, all of the books were purchased on Amazon through the used sellers so I didn't buy anything new :)

So I as I take positive reframing of failure to the next phase, I hope to continue to be successful. As we make our way down under, purchases will need to be made to establish ourselves but at least we are more prepared for them, both financially as well as cognitively.

Falling off the wagon

So it has been a while since I blogged and there is good reason. I have totally fallen off the wagon and I didn't want to admit it. But now I am coming clean. Making amends and getting back up there. Over the past few weeks several things have made my careful consuming difficult to maintain. I am going to write about these difficulties, not in an effort to make excuses for myself, but in hopes I can get back track after admitting what has led me astray.

It all began about four weeks ago when my schedule began to get very busy at work. I was also scheduled to give two presentations in one week and my good friend (she is one of the other bloggers)came in town for a few days. My life got very busy very quickly and I simply lost it.

Trying to maintain the rules I set in place for myself takes a fair amount of planning and time. It seems when my time gets limited and the stress level rises the first thing that goes is cooking. I do the majority of the cooking and during this time I was working 10 plus hours a day so cooking wasn't on my radar. Of course cooking involves shopping (my least favorite thing to do) and we were just scraping by. We were trying to avoid eating out but convenience won out. We tried to use gift certificates and did so but we also began bending the rules. If our businesses bought dinner, it didn't count! Rationalizing crap like that began to become the norm. When my friend came to visit, we totally blew it and ate out whenever we wanted. I also traveled to Indianapolis whiout meant I was going to eat out.

We also blew it with TV. I am not sure what really happened there, other than when we are tired we just want to sit and vege out in front of the tube. Not surprisingly, it actually makes us more tired because we stay up later watching bad TV but we don't have to think. We still tried to limit it but we went over our allotted amount for each week. At one point, I think we just said screw it, we are so far gone let's just give in to being totally careless. I must admit, it felt gotarbell careless for a while!

Does this situation feel familiar to anyone? I know Mike and I aren't alone in trying to maintain a change in behavior but instead face numerous obstacles. I see it happen all the time in my practice. Changing a behavior is hard. I know it is hard. And we are trying to change many at once as well as changing behaviors we've been mindlessly doing for years. I guess it was predictable this would happen but now we have to jump back on and figure out what will help us stay committed to this project.

We didn't buy anything during this time. That's the good news. The only issues were eating out and TV. I will write more about what I learned and what I need to do to avoid this in the future in my next entry. For now, no more rationalizations, no more bending the rules and no more excuses. Admission complete, now back to being a careful consumer.

My New Normal

The last two weeks seem to be about settling in to this new routine. There have been some challenges for sure, especially last week when Mike & I were both sick. It was hard to pass by a restaurant and just pick up some food when we wanted because we didn't feel well enough to cook. It was also difficult to avoid the TV. We both wanted to lay around and vege out to some bad TV. We might have watched more than six hours but not by much. We did allow ourselves our one time eating out during that week so all in all we maintained.

This week I have been struck by how relatively easy these changes have been. Really, the greatest challenge is sticking to the food budget. Food is just crazy expensive. I actually enjoy looking around the house for things before I buy them. It is like my personal treasure hunt. It sounds weird but finding something and getting rid of it has feels rewarding! Maybe I have a secret fear of becoming a hoarder. All I know is clearing out things feels good. I have almost gone through all the tiny hotel soaps and lotions! Next is checking out what is in the medicine cabinet. Six years of various sundries. Who knows what's in there? I am hoping to find some Udder Butter, a cyclists intimate friend when riding a lot of miles. We are out of this vital product.

One of the best rewards so far? We have already paid off one credit card and we aren't even two months into this project. The goal of having no debt other than our house is in view. This time next year it will be a reality. So when we are being lazy, greedy or whiney about our experiment, I just remember the impetus for taking this on and the rewards keep surfacing.

Will work for food

A couple weeks ago I was having a rough time at work. We were really busy and as usual I had more projects going than I should have. Just when I thought I couldn't handle any more, one of my office staff mysteriously left me an email saying that they would not be able to work their shifts anymore. Considering that I am always a day or two or five behind on my emails this caused me a bit of stress. I couldn't find anyone to work the next Saturday and we had new clientele coming in for appointments.

As you may know Caron and I have put restrictions on how many times we can eat out. We allow ourselves one dinner out per month but we have a loophole. We can go out if we don't have to pay, so we allow ourselves to barter or use gift cards that we have laying around. I found a need to barter and use a gift card.

To sum things up I asked Caron to work the front office on that Saturday in return for lunch at the restaurant next door. I used a gift card that I had received from a student as a Christmas gift. Not only was I able to have some bad fast food with Caron I was able to hire the most cost effective employee I've ever had.

Mike Boren

The Guitar Lab
1010 S. Weinbach Ave.
Evansville In 47714
www.theguitarlab.com
Mike@theguitarlab.com