The Simple Dollar

[chanaleh]

After getting dismissed early from rehearsal tonight, I made a grocery run to Trader Joe's, then took a rare detour over to Whole Foods. As a result -- even though it meant I didn't get home until 10pm -- rather than a slice of crappy takeout pizza, I am dining on fresh asparagus and caprese salad (using the basil I'm growing myself, on my porch). Aw yeah.

So, here's what I wanted to write about today:

I started reading The Simple Dollar (thesimpledollar) some months back, I think maybe via a citation from tapuz? Its main focus is partly frugality/simplicity and partly personal finance (i.e. fiscal responsibility), most of which boils down to Spend Less Than You Earn, No Really, over and over again. However, it's also got strong themes of personal productivity (he's a GTD disciple), writing as a practice, sensible childrearing, and general mindfulness. All of these elements seem worth keeping on my front burner, especially as I've been doing a lot of thoughtful money moving, planning, and budgeting myself since last September. I don't find all of his entries useful, but there are certainly enough tidbits of interest to make it worth skimming through the daily feed.

Here's a handful of entries I found memorable. (I was going to say "recent entries", but looking on the datestamps on them, I am reminded that one of his tricks is to post weekly "time machine" recaps of the best entries from one, two, three years ago that week. Clever? Thrifty!)

Eight personal-finance and -productivity books worth owning and regularly rereading:
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/05/20/the-essential-bookshelf-the-only-eight-books-ive-kept-after-hundreds-of-reviews/

Five reasons that having a child isn’t as insanely expensive as you might think (relative, at least, to spendthrift single life!):
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/10/18/five-reasons-why-having-a-child-isnt-as-expensive-as-you-might-think/

Make Your Own Cream-Of-____ Soup (really a no-brainer, but between having a kosher kitchen, and reviling all the additives and preservatives [and sodium!] in commercial canned soup, this is kind of a brilliant reminder):
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2009/04/24/five-frugal-food-tactics-from-trents-kitchen/

Other useful links he's posted recently:
MissingMoney is a clearinghouse search site for all states with databases of unclaimed property. (It feels a little sketchy, but apparently it's entirely legit. You can also go straight to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators site to do additional searching by state.)
The Cheapest Fruits and Vegetables Month-By-Month (on About.com)
Thinking Small without Guilt: Setting Your Minimum Goal Standards: "Rather than aiming for some maximum level of perfection, think small instead. Decide on a minimum standard which you'll have no excuses for not achieving."

And with that, perhaps to bed.

Comments

[c1.livejournal.com]

Strange that they list the cost of pineapple as fluctuating. I've been getting them year round for about three bucks, no matter where I look. Similarly, clementines are about seven bucks for five pounds.

[eudociainboston.livejournal.com]

The missing money is legit- it turns out that I had an account in FL from 10 years ago and they sent me a nice check. It helped when we needed to replace our dishwasher last week.
I generally like The Simple Dollar too.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I may print out the Make Your Own Cream-Of-____ Soup and paste it in the recipe book next to my mother-in-law's recipes that use canned cream of mushroom. The biggest problem with those is always that there's too much salt, and if I could control that...

The math on the "having a child is cheaper than you think" article is a bit dicey, though. You can save $3,000 on taxes! Woo! Except that assumes you're spending $12,000 over a year in child care. And even if you magically reduce your grocery bills by 20% by shopping more efficiently, on my numbers that's only $1,200 or so. (Which seems absurd to being with unless you impulse-buy like crazy, because you're buying food for more people, plus diapers, toiletries, etc.)

[eudociainboston.livejournal.com]

His math is a little weird and I chalk that up to his living somewhere in the middle of nowhere where childcare/groceries/housing is cheap. There is still good stuff in his general message.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the $1000 Chicken probably would be a lot better with reduced sodium. I love that stuff, but wow do we go through the beverages when we serve it.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I liked the links to the simple dollar!

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

I love GTD! I also love: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/