Getting More Value Out of What You Already Own
Aside from changing our spending habits, we also decided to get more value out of some of the things we have or need: for example, we are planning a garage sale which has a two-fold purpose: it is forcing us to “de-clutter” our entire house (in 15 minute increments), and it may give us back a fraction of value – I’ll update you on whether it was worth it and provide details of my learning experiences as a result of my first ever garage sale. We are planning to donate all leftover goods (and have already donated a few good things to someone I know who needed them). I am excited about finding new homes for my old things. (I am an avid fan of DIY shows and, as such, have seen many people find great things for themselves at "bargain" locations such as garage sales).
And, other than the garage sale that we’re planning, I have been looking into ways to sell some of the things we own, possibly on Ebay. Part of this is that we realized that our things are really hindering the life we want to live, yet, part of it is that we are in a financial position that we would like to get out of. We learned from that process that we bought a piece of art (my birthday gift in 2000) for a small amount of money and it is now worth 10 times that amount and seems to be going up. (If only we could buy more – what in the world is getting that rate of return?) It was a present from my husband to me, on my 40th birthday, and, I am not going to sell it, but, it was nice to find that out. I do have a brand new Liz Claiborne beautiful coat that does not fit that I am going to sell on EBay, and, as we de-clutter, we find more items to sell or donate. Donations are good for your mind and help at tax time. I just am making sure to get a receipt for my donations and to file that receipt where it can be found next year at tax time: in my file system under current year tax deductions. These kinds of changes have not impacted on our live style at all: except in positive ways; I am learning new things (garage sales and EBay), and we are getting rid of the clutter in our house.
Again, this is a short-term fix, but a real eye-opener. As we de-clutter, we realize the waste: the unused or barely used items, the impulse buys, the full price buys, items that did not fit but did not get returned. For some, this all may sound insane: but, in my life, this was eye-opening. I was truly wasting money and had you asked me if I thought I was an extravagant spender, I would have said no. But extravagance is not what you buy, it is why you buy it, and, having no good reason to buy something is extravagant living even if it is as cheap as a dollar picture frame. Other things we have are not as tangible, so I have been looking for ways to reduce their costs or get value out of them. One of them is a timeshare that we own. Another is reducing my insurance costs.
This is so simple, it seems almost unbelievable. So far, we have changed our relationship with money and our financial situation simply by investigating what exactly we have, need, want and taking stock of it all. The process is clearing our heads, our hearts and adding actual income into our pockets. These steps will not make us rich immediately, but over the long term, we will have saved money by really thinking before we spend because now we see how unwelcome the accumulation of unnecessary things is in our lives and on our wallets. I have also been making copies of savings tips -- little things like cutting your electricity bill that require very little work on our part, but can generate big savings. One example is that many of your electronics use electricity even when not in use (for powering up lighting displays etc.; thus, it may make sense to put them on a power strip and shut down the strip when you are not home). But, remember, once you look at your spending, you will have a better grip over how to make sure that you are doing the right thing with your money -- using it to add value and not wasting it on things that do not bring you any value. We had a health club membership for my daughter and she was not using it -- it turned out to be $75.00 per month. That was strictly the equivalent of throwing money out the window. Plus, we are learning to be more savvy shoppers and looking at price in a whole new way.
Coming soon will be how we start dealing with our new habit: getting receipts for everything we spend and creating a cash account on Quicken. We created a box to put envelopes in to just hold our receipts. My plan is to put the information on the computer account software. I will let you know how that helps our situation and be able to start running tallies of all of our savings from previous patterns of spending. I imagine that we will find that the bulk of our money is spent in a lot of little ways that could be changed without a significant impact on our lifestyle while freeing up a significant amount of cash for the other phases of our plan.