A Year to Change: Conversations with women on choice, connections, and clarity in midlife

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve decided that getting my financial situation in line is just about my most important goal… behind tending to my family and keeping my own talents stoked, of course. I’ve even noticed my youngest son asking more questions about saving money and preparing for his future. I’ve been watching as friends and clients try to get a handle on some kind of budget for themselves and for their businesses.

Sunday I noticed an article in the Baltimore Sun called “Getting dressed for less,” by Gregory Karp about budgeting and saving money. He was talking about a plan for saving money on buying clothes for adults.

The bottom lines are these:

• At this minute, you probably have enough clothes. Most of us do.
• Consider what you have and plan what you need. Don’t just pick what looks “pretty.”
• If you need something, shop second hand places way before department or specialty shops. That is thrift stores and yard sales and then consignment shops before going to retail closeout places — like TJ Maxx — AND THEN department stores, etc.

Then I noticed this morning over at 9:01 am that for the first time, apparel sales beat computer sales online. So people are buying more clothes on line than they are buying computers on line.

Geeks have always bought computer stuff on line. But RAM is RAM. It either fits or it doesn’t. But moms are catching on. Stuff comes in a box and you at least imagine you’ll send it back if you don’t like it.

And so now, if it’s so easy to do, how to you maintain some level of control over shopping for stuff you don’t really need and can’t even see or feel?

What happens when the box comes and you’re embarrassed to have spent the money. You can’t bear to open the box so it gets shoved under the bed…

I’m not saying *I* do this.. but what happens to the people who do?

It just seems to easy to get out of control.

Leslie sent me a note yesterday suggesting I check out this book: A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder–How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman

Actually, I wrote about the project here when there was something about the project in the NYT in December of last year. I don’t think the book was available then. But maybe I just didn’t look for it. Anyway…

Leslie sent me a link to the book at Amazon. OOOH, the temptation to BUY something new that most certainly will fix all my problems. (NOT!)  But that same evaluation of year end expenses that I talked about yesterday shows me just how much I did spend on random stuff I didn’t really need. I gotta get that under control.

So I thank Benjamin Franklin for invention the public library. And I thank the Baltimore County Library System for having the greatest online system for finding books in their system. I know they HAVE the book in stock and I know it’s checked out. So I’ll wait until it comes back (the due date is also public) and then I’ll go get it.

Thanks for your continuing poke at me to keep working on this project. I guess, in the end, that’s what friends are for!

Kerch -

A tip o’the hat to Merlin for this:

 

Beauty & Simplicity

The Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid) is a fully extensible system for coordinating incoming and outgoing data for any aspect of your life and work. It scales brilliantly, degrades gracefully, supports optional categories and “beaming,” and is configurable to an unlimited number of options. Best of all, the Hipster PDA fits into your hip pocket and costs practically nothing to purchase and maintain. Let’s make one together.

Building your first Hipster PDA

1. get a bunch of 3″x5″ file cards (here’s 500 for around 3 bucks)
2. clip them together with a binder clip
3. there is no step 3

Settings & Preferences

For you hotrods who like to tweak your equipment, I’ll note a few mods you might make to the basic configuration.

• Consider picking up some different kinds of cards—different colors, lined and unlined.
• Personally, I like the really small binder clips and a stack of 12 or fewer cards; experiment for the combination that suits you
• Try using a single different-colored card as a visual separator between used and fresh cards in your stack (helps you from accidentally giving someone an old, written-on note)
• Buy yourself a Fisher Space Pen. I’ll post more on this later (since I’m a bit obsessed with them), but The Fisher Bullet model is tiny, sturdy, and surprisingly comfortable to use. And, thanks to its famous nitrogen-forced ink well technology, the Space Pen writes upside down, underwater, and—yes I’ve tested it— through a pat of rich, creamery butter. It’s the perfect stylus for your new Hipster PDA.

Point and click your way to his blog - it will change your life!

http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda/