Putting the Simple Back In
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
- Charles Mingus
One of the biggest challenges I have in my life is balancing the simple and the complex. I tend to oscillate back and forth between the two.
What usually happens is that I’ll have a period that’s simple for a while. I’ll have ample free time, even after spending a significant amount of time with my children. My finances are in good shape. Everything is good.
Because everything is flowing along so well, I get a desire to seek out new challenges. I’ll take on a few new things in my life – committee responsiblities, a work-related project, a new book, an increased social calendar, and so on.
And then things get more difficult.
I’ll start finding that I have less and less time to enjoy the things that most matter to me in life. I’ll be worn out in the evenings and have much less initiative to take care of things that need to be done. I’m less focused on my day to day choices and I become a lot more prone to spending extra money that I don’t need to spend. I feel more stress and less happiness.
My response is to start tossing stuff. I’ll schedule fewer social activities. I’ll not renew my commitment to a civic project that I’ve worked on for a while. I’ll put that partially finished manuscript somewhere else for a while (yes, I have two partially completed books that are just sitting there waiting to be finished). I’ll get back in control of my finances and revitalize my commitment to keeping organized.
Then, suddenly, I feel better again.
Here’s the amazing part: I would not do it any other way.
Why? My life improves when it is simple, but without adding complexity to it sometimes, I can’t discover new things in life and I can’t really keep in touch with what’s most important to me.
To me, a truly great simple life keeps you constantly in touch with what’s most important to you without drowning you in the things that are less important to you. The catch, of course, is that if you don’t expose yourself to new complexities sometimes, your life becomes a boring routine.
This “boring routine” is one of the things many people criticize and complain about when it comes to living simple or living cheap. They strip their lives of a lot of relatively unimportant things (a good move), but they don’t bother to continue to grow from there.
A simple life does not have to be a boring life.
A truly engaging and life-affirming simple life is one that constantly takes on new challenges and activities, but doesn’t object to tossing out some along the way, even things that have been with us for a long time but reflect a phase in our life that’s past.
A truly great simple life doesn’t try to “have it all,” but tries to have as much as we want of the things that really matter to us, above all else.
A simple life doesn’t waste time, money, energy, or resources on less important things when more important things are neglected and unused.
In the end, a simple life is one in which a person has spent a lot of time reflecting on what genuinely matters in that person’s life and what does not, and then doesn’t waste that life on the things that don’t matter.
And, with that, I’m going to go put on an old cowboy hat and a poncho and play “Jedi knights” with my son and daughter with lightsabers we made ourselves out of rolled-up newspaper. It might not be important and meaningful to anyone else in the world, but it’s important and meaningful to me (and probably to them, too). Why don’t you go do something that truly means something to you, too – and toss some of that less important stuff out on the curb while you’re at it?
Continue reading Putting the Simple Back In …
From The Simple Dollar.
Spring Cleaning One Room At A Time – Around The Refrigerator – Tidy Tuesday
If you’ve been following along the last several weeks, you know that I’ve decided that tackling spring cleaning one room at a time may make more sense for my family than ripping the whole house apart.
I’ve divided the house into five areas – bedrooms, dining room, living room, bathrooms, and kitchen – for spring cleaning. As I plan my strategy, I’ll be covering one area each week on Tidy Tuesday.
The last three weeks we tackled cleaning the bedrooms, cleaning the dining room, cleaning the living room, and cleaning the bathrooms. You can see what each area involved by clicking the links above.
When I think of cleaning the kitchen, I see how many components there really are. That is why I decided to split the job up into separate chores – around the refrigerator, inside the refrigerator, the oven, and the cupboards.
For today’s task, I’ve posted a refrigerator cleaning guide I did some time ago. Cleaning around the outside of the refrigerator can be a pretty heavy task, so grab a cup of coffee or tea and relax for a few moments before you get started. When you’re ready to begin, go ahead and read on:
I’ll admit, this is a chore I don’t get to very often. Partly because I struggle pulling the refrigerator out from the wall, and partly because “out of sight, out of mind.” So, this is a reminder to myself as well as to all of you that this job really does need to be done a few times each year.
Dust accumulating on the workings of your refrigerator can really gum up the works and cost you money in extra energy needed to run a dirty refrigerator. Might as well do it now and get it over with.
Get some help and pull the refrigerator out from the wall. Yes, you can unplug it for the short amount of time you’ll be back there. Once you can get behind your refrigerator, you’re ready to go.
Start by vacuuming off the grid or coils you see if your refrigerator does not have a closed back. Do this with a hand vacuum like a Dustbuster or a wand on your regular vacuum with a brush attachment. Be careful not to bend any of the metal that’s exposed. Just a light vacuuming usually removes any “dust bunnies” lurking there. If you still see a lot of dust or pet hair, take a soft brush or cloth and gently remove what you can.
Now, wipe up the floor that’s been exposed by moving the refrigerator. You may need a little extra cleaning power if you have some years of accumulated grease and dirt. Also, the tray under your refrigerator may have overflowed on occasion, so be ready for a mess.
In my house, I normally find two or three cat toys that have been abandoned and left for dead. I resurrect these, dust them off, and bring them back to life, much to the delight of my cats as they all of a sudden seem to remember they lost them underneath there. This is a good excuse for me to take a quick break before I finish my task.
Five minutes of watching the cats play, and I’m ready to get back to work. Take a dampened cloth (I use a mixture of vinegar and water) and wipe down the sides and the top of the refrigerator, then shove it back in place. Don’t forget to plug it back in when you get close enough for the plug to reach the outlet.
Once the refrigerator is back where it belongs, you will want to clean out the all important drip tray on the bottom. Pop off the grill on the bottom of your refrigerator and put that in the sink for a good washing. Air moves around underneath your refrigerator, so this area tends to grab all sorts of nasty dirt and dust. Take a look under your refrigerator with a flashlight if you have to, and determine if you have a removable moisture-collection tray. This is where the automatic defrosting of your freezer ends up as well as your humidity control.
If you have a tray and it’s full of water, gently remove it, dump the water, and scrub it up. Take your vacuum hose and suck out any dust you can see underneath. If you have a soft, long handled brush, run that along the floor underneath your refrigerator to gently dislodge any dust that is hanging on there.
If your refrigerator does not have a removable tray, you’ll need to take a warm wet rag and carefully wipe off the tray that is there. This type of refrigerator relies on evaporation to get rid of the water from the defrosting cycle, so you want to be sure it’s clean and doing its job. You’ll also want to take a long handled brush and slide it under the refrigerator along the floor to gather up any “dust bunnies” that have been riding around in the mechanics underneath.
After you have washed and dried the grill for the front, go ahead and replace it and give yourself a pat on the back. This is not an easy task nor is it a very rewarding task. You can’t really see the results of your labor, but just look in your trash can, count those “dust bunnies”, and smile! Good job!
p.s. If this cleaning idea gets you on a roll, you’ll probably be interested in even more Spring Cleaning Tips For Mom. Learn great tips for getting your cleaning done fast so you can enjoy more of your day!
Continue reading Spring Cleaning One Room At A Time – Around The Refrigerator – Tidy Tuesday …
From Hillbilly Housewife Blog.
Hanging out Clothes
It is a beautiful Spring day. I just finished hanging out a load of clothes. One thing nice about hanging out my clothes is I don’t have to worry about getting my vitamin D for the day because the exact amount of time it takes to hang out and take in a load of clothes it the amount of sunshine I need for the perfect amount of vitamin D.
Well anyway there are many of you who are new to our blog this year so I thought with the nice weather rolling in you might like to read on how to hang your clothes outside from one of my old posts. Just scroll down the page a bit on the link and you will find it.
You don’t need anything fancy to be able to do this as a matter of fact for most of my life I have hung my clothes out and only a couple of years did I have a “regular” clothesline. Right now for me I just have a line strung from the end post of my car port to the end of my fence and it works just fine. So if you always wanted to know how to hang clothes out check out this post.
Jill
Continue reading Hanging out Clothes …
From Living On A Dime Blog » Living On A Dime Blog.
Hanging out Clothes
It is a beautiful Spring day. I just finished hanging out a load of clothes. One thing nice about hanging out my clothes is I don’t have to worry about getting my vitamin D for the day because the exact amount of time it takes to hang out and take in a load of clothes it the amount of sunshine I need for the perfect amount of vitamin D.
Well anyway there are many of you who are new to our blog this year so I thought with the nice weather rolling in you might like to read on how to hang your clothes outside from one of my old posts. Just scroll down the page a bit on the link and you will find it.
You don’t need anything fancy to be able to do this as a matter of fact for most of my life I have hung my clothes out and only a couple of years did I have a “regular” clothesline. Right now for me I just have a line strung from the end post of my car port to the end of my fence and it works just fine. So if you always wanted to know how to hang clothes out check out this post.
Jill
Continue reading Hanging out Clothes …
From Living On A Dime Blog » Living On A Dime Blog.
Potatoes
I was washing up some potatoes this morning to dehydrate them and boy were they dirty. A couple of them had clots of dirt which covered one side of the potato. When I washed it off the part which had been covered in the dirt was a different color then the rest of the potato. Most of the potato was getting a greenish tint to it but the part under the dirt still looked fresh and nice.
It re-reminded me that there is a proper way to store potatoes. When they tell you this is the way to store your fruits and veggies there is a reason for it. In the case of potatoes they must be stored in a cool, dry and dark place. When not stored properly it causes them to spoil faster, grow “eyes”, and the skins to turn green. You can still use them when they turn green but they say it is best to not eat the peel.
Now I understand why years ago they when they stored their potatoes for the winter they would sometimes cover them in dirt in their cellars to help keep them for the winter. That little clot of dirt sure did make a difference on my potato.
Also be sure you don’t store your potatoes in the fridge. The extra cold temperatures causes a reaction in the starch of the potatoes. That is why sometimes you may have problems with your mashed potatoes being more gummy and gooey then light and fluffy.
Speaking of mashed potatoes. I usually add 1-2 tsp. of sugar for every four potatoes when I mash them. I get more compliments on my potatoes and most people don’t have a clue to what my secret is (I guess the whole world knows now 
Also you don’t have to spend ages cutting your potatoes into small cubes before boiling them to mash. Just cut them in fourths lengthwise they cook in the same amount of time as when the are cubed.
Another thing if you are like me and don’t like lumpy potatoes ( I know some of you do like lumps and that’s ok) I use my hand mixer to beat my potatoes. It is much less work, faster and gets them beautifully smooth. Mash them up slightly first then slowly add your milk until you get the right consistency.
One last thing on potatoes and that is dehydrating them. We have had a couple of questions about that since I did my post on dehydrating a few weeks back. There is a unbelievably good web site that goes into detail so much better then I can about dehydrating. Her videos on drying potatoes are especially good. The whole site is free so check it out. She answers almost any question you could have on dehydrating anything and the videos make it easy to understand.
I do my potatoes the same as she does. I cook them whole and with the peel on. Make sure they are cooked all the way through but not until they turn to mush. The way I test mine is with a bamboo skewer. If it slides into the potato easily it is done.
I let them cool, usually over night because they need to be totally cold. This prevents them from turning dark. Then I peel them and grate them into hash browns. I spread them over the dehydrator. It doesn’t have to be perfect and is okay if they clump a little. They will dry fine any way. Usually they take a bout 10 hours here in Kansas but it depends on the dehydrator and humidity.When they are translucent they are done.
When you are ready to use them soak them in water for about 15 mins. Use enough hot water to just cover them. In a couple of minutes if they look like they need more water then add a little more. If there is any water left before you cook them just drain it off. Cook as usual. I was so shocked the first time I tasted these because I could tell no difference from fresh ones.
They are great to have on those nights when you don’t feel like peeling and grating hash browns or for things like to take on a camping trip. You can dehydrate frozen hash browns too. Saves on freezer space and you don’t have to worry about losing them if your freezer chonks out. They store longer dried then in the freezer which is a plus.
You can can also slice the potatoes (cooking first as above) instead of grating them and use them for things like scalloped potatoes. The web site I mentioned earlier on dehydrating has some good recipes to use the sliced potatoes for different things.
As usual I could write a book on potatoes alone but must stop for now. I hope this takes care of some of your questions.
Jill
Continue reading Potatoes …
From Living On A Dime Blog » Living On A Dime Blog.
Balancing Money and Time
Two years ago, I made the choice to walk away from a career that I, in many ways, loved. The one thing that I did not love about that career is how it seemed to always be a black hole of time. I worked a bit over forty hours a week on average, spent more than an hour commuting each day, would often spend evening and weekend hours working on things, would go into work on weekends to deal with crises, and would travel for the job as well.
I earned a good salary, but when you actually figured in all of the time I was spending on that job, I really wasn’t earning all that much per hour and it was eating up most of my time.
The final straw, for me, was when I missed out on my son’s first steps while I was on a work trip to San Diego. My wife called me excitedly to tell me about it and, after I hung up, I couldn’t help but feel like I was trading this time for money.
My entire focus over the past few years has been to reverse that equation. How can I make as much money as possible from the time in my life’s margins? In other words, how can I maximize my earnings while still not missing out on taking my daughter to the park or playing Calvinball with my son?
I’ve lost some income in the process. A lot of income. I’ve turned down some pretty amazing opportunities along the way – a radio program, a television show, a syndicated newspaper column, just to name a few. All of these things would earn me quite a bit more money than I earn right now. But they would eat up time.
For me, the perfect balance of time and money is that I spend the minimum amount of time earning money and the maximum amount of time spending time with and taking care of my family while still earning enough for us to survive and thrive a little.
That’s my solution. But it might not be your solution.
If I were single, I would be much more focused on my work than I am right now. There are many, many projects I would take on because, frankly, some of the creative challenges really do excite me.
I simply know where my priorities lie and, right now, my priorities lie in the backyard playing Calvinball or in the kitchen making chicken florentine and roasted broccoli.
You have to find your own balance. What’s important to you? There is no right or wrong answer here – we’re all wired differently. If you spend the time right now determining what the priorities are in your life, an awful lot of “hard decisions” become not so hard after all.
Perhaps your current career is your priority. In that case, you absolutely should throw all your energy into succeeding. Spend your spare time learning new things that can help you – communication skills and the like. Have some down time, of course, but recognize that the down time not only helps recharge you, but can also help you build relationships.
Maybe building a new career is the priority. If that’s the case, treat your current job as merely a way to keep a steady paycheck coming in – a financial platform upon which to build what’s next.
Maybe your family is the priority. Your focus here should be on minimizing personal costs and maximizing every possible ounce of time spent with your family. Flexible hours are at a huge premium here and are well worth less pay. (I’m writing this article at 5:40 AM, for example, so that I can be finished with a few articles before my children even rise from bed, allowing me to spend the entire day with them.)
What’s the real lesson here? It’s all about time, not money. That’s the real secret of personal finance. We are constantly trading our time for money.
Our priorities come into play when we ask ourselves about where the limits of that trade are. Do we go on another career building business trip (which likely leads to a better exchange rate between money and time), but miss out on valuable time at home? That question isn’t really about money at all.
Yes, some money is a requirement, but the lower you make that requirement in your own life through frugal living, the more freedom you have in making time choices. I took a lot less money to get an incredibly flexible working schedule (and more enjoyable work for me, personally), but I was rewarded with a lot more time focused on what matters to me.
Living frugally made this choice possible. The more you can take money – and the need for more of it so you can buy more stuff – out of the equation, the more latitude you have for choosing how you want to spend your time. You can spend more time with your family. You can spend more time on your career. You can spend more time writing that great American novel. You can spend more time going on hikes.
Because time, in the end, is the one limited currency we have in life. We can always earn more money through the sweat on our brow. We can never make more time.
Continue reading Balancing Money and Time …
From The Simple Dollar.
Frugality and Moving On to New Values
Over the last few days, I’ve had several interactions with readers who are heavily concerned about the healthiness of their food and other chemical items they bring into their home. In general, these people subscribe to the “five ingredients or less” school of eating, meaning they don’t bring home any food item that has more than five ingredients in it. They tend to prepare most meals starting with raw foods. They also tend to use vinegar, homemade soap, and baking soda for most of their household cleaning tasks.
In other words, they are heavily focused on minimizing the number of preservatives, toxins, and other chemicals that come into their home.
The question on their minds is what can they do to save money while also subscribing to these values? My answer is kind of a surprising one.
The convenient part with this approach to modern life is that some things are in fact cheaper. Using vinegar and baking soda for most cleaning challenges is a great way to save some cash. During peak growing seasons, eating mostly raw foods can be a big money saver – trust me, during the peak of sweet corn season in Iowa, it can be very inexpensive to eat.
However, most things are much more expensive with this approach. Fresh foods out of season can be very expensive. There’s also a major time cost, as you’ll be doing lots of food preparation work yourself that would go far beyond what other people would do (like making pasta out of flour and eggs, for example, instead of popping open a box to boil it), as well as some preparation work for home cleaning supplies.
By choosing this kind of approach, you’re inherently adding not only to your family’s food and home care costs, you’re also investing a significant amount of time in keeping it up. Since food and home care are pieces of a family budget that everyone has, by making this kind of choice, you largely cut yourself off from money-saving and time-saving tips in that area.
Here’s the thing, though. If protecting your family in these areas is one of the key values in your life, that’s completely fine.
Most people really only have the time, passion, and resources in their lives to really follow through on a small number of key values in their lives. For me, those key values are my family and reading/writing. In some way, virtually everything else I do with my time and my money is in line with one of those two values.
If you’ve made the choice to live that sort of healthy, chemical-free lifestyle because it’s a central value in your life, that means that you’re devoting some significant amount of time and energy to it. You’re more careful with your shopping. You’re more careful with your food preparation. You’re more careful with your household cleaning. That eats up attention and time, but that’s absolutely an awesome use of your time and energy if it’s something that you truly value.
The key thing is to recognize that it is eating a significant amount of your time and energy and that energy and time have to come from somewhere. If you’re spending your time on these things because that’s what you value, it means you’re not spending time and energy on other things.
Maybe you have a huge DVD collection, but you don’t find yourself watching movies any more because you’ve moved on to new values.
Maybe you have a beautiful car, but you don’t get the same rise out of driving it that you once did.
Maybe you have some exercise equipment in the garage that’s just gathering dust.
If you’re living a life in line with where your values are now and not where your values were ten years ago, then it’s perfectly fine to not have the time and energy for those old things. Instead, you should focus on converting what you can of that old value into your newer values. Sell off your DVD collection. Downgrade your car. Have a yard sale. Cancel your memberships. Get rid of your cell phone.
What I see, time and time again, is that people have a short-term passion for something, invest money and energy into it, then grow tired of it and move on, but they don’t let go of the vestiges of that passion. They keep paying the bill for something they don’t use any more. Things sit around and gather dust and fill up a closet.
What are those things in your life? What passions have you moved on from, but still hold onto the material elements of?
Wouldn’t your life feel more complete if you cleaned out your attic, sold that stuff, and invested it into the things you value today?
Continue reading Frugality and Moving On to New Values …
From The Simple Dollar.
The Framework
We all have lives that are chock full of distractions.
Television. Radio. Magazines. The behavior of other people. The comments of our friends and family. We use all of these things as cues for how we should behave. Often, we even try to think ahead about these things and use them as a behavior guide.
I’ll hear my mother’s voice all the time, for example, when I’m at the grocery store. I’ll think about my friends and their reactions when I look at cell phones. You can’t help but get at least a few cues planted in your head when you read a magazine or watch a bit of television – beyond the ads, the material itself puts such ideas in your head.
All of these cues add up to a big influence on our decision-making process.
There’s another big factor, too – the short amount of time we have for such decisions. We make thousands of little choices each and every day. In order to make so many snap decisions, we have to rely on our almost instinct-like quick thoughts to make many of them. We don’t spend ten minutes at the grocery store comparing two different versions of the same item. Instead, we combine together the cues we have in our head – and various pieces of information about the state of our life, from what we have in our kitchen to what we have in our bank account – and make an instantaneous decision. We put an item in the cart and keep going.
This quick decision phenomenon is simply a constant in our lives. A day doesn’t go by when we aren’t making hundreds, if not thousands, of them. At the same time, we have countless cues about what decision to make thrown at us around the clock.
The end result of all of this information and all of these choices is that it’s incredibly easy to make some poor choices along the way. Every single person does it. I do it (particularly when I’m in a bookstore, for example).
Here’s the big secret, though. The big framework for personal finance success is to override those cues in our decision-making process.
How does one do that?
First, you have to spend some time figuring out what’s truly important to you. This is purely a soul-searching adventure, but for most people, there’s a group of one to four things that really form the center of their lives. These things bring them lasting happiness and fulfillment.
It can be a real challenge to find these things. There are many things in life that seem to fulfill us at first glance, but really don’t bring any lasting joy. I put them into a category I call “time fillers” – things we do that fill our hours without really fulfilling us.
Spend some time teasing apart the things that really matter from the things that don’t. One great way to start is to ask yourself what your most enjoyable moments and things of the last year were. Make a list of them and start looking for commonalities. My list quickly fills up with great books I’ve read and moments spent with my family, for example.
Second, isolate what’s really at the center of those things. Again, for me, it’s my family and reading/writing. Those things are really the two things I’m most passionate about with my time.
Let’s dig a little deeper here with the reading element of things. I love reading books and, for a long time, I confused that love of reading with a love of buying and owning books. Thus, I would go to bookstores and allow that passion for reading to take over, causing me to way overspend.
In truth, though, it’s the act of reading that I love. I really don’t care much at all whether I own the book I’m reading or whether it’s a library book, or whether the book is used or new.
Once I realized that, my bookstore spending went down. Way down. Instead, I started doing most of my book browsing at the library or on PaperBackSwap.com or in my friends’ book collections.
Once you’ve figured out those true key central values in your life, use them as the first filter for everything that you do, especially spending money.
When I go to the grocery store, for example, the first thing I ask myself is whether or not my family will get genuine value out of this item. Thus, my shopping starts in the fresh produce area (and I shop at farmers markets during the summer).
Does my family get genuine value out of “premium” toilet paper? Not really. Then why spend more on it?
Does my family get genuine value out of a new digital camera? My old one takes great pictures. So why spend the money on it?
Does my family get genuine value out of a round of golf on the weekend? Maybe once or twice when I take my son and/or daughter out with me, but not every weekend, not by a long shot. So why spend money on this, especially when there are much less expensive ways to relax?
Here’s the big idea: once you’ve figured out what really matters in your life, start passing everything you do through those filters. Cut your spending hard on the areas that don’t matter and you’ll find that you have the money you need for the things that do matter, plus you’ll be able to be debt free and start building up savings for yourself (which itself is a protection for the things that matter most to you).
Note: I’m giving a talk on Monday evening concerning the above topic. As I was sketching out the notes for the talk, I decided it would make a pretty good post, too.
Continue reading The Framework …
From The Simple Dollar.
Balance the Equation
I subscribe to receive emails from the website Simplify 101. An email last week sparked a “lightbulb moment” for me. I quote: ” . . . become mindful of the things you add to your home and life. For each thing you add, decide to remove something old. So, if you add a new shirt to your closet, take out an old one. If you add an exercise class to your weekly schedule, subtract the equivalent amount of time from another activity such as web-surfing or watching T.V.” (emphasis mine)
For a long time I’ve actively practiced this “equation” when it comes to belongings and purchases, and it works beautifully. But I have honestly never thought about how it applies to time management. I’m so guilty of stuffing more and more commitments and expectations into my days and weeks, and then wondering why I can’t get everything done. I’m SO glad for this lightbulb moment! So, I find myself looking at my current commitments and expectations using my “mantra” Evaluate, Prioritize . . . then Organize.
It hasn’t taken me long to figure out that something(s) got to go. Remember, for every new time commitment you add, decide what you’re NOT going to do, in order to free up that time. Balance the equation.
And remember to rest. After 6 days of Creation, God rested. Cycles of rest are woven into creation and throughout Scripture. Why do we think we can do without it?
Do you struggle with that balance? Any tips or success stories to share with our readers?
Continue reading Balance the Equation …
From Econobusters.
Keep foods safe
photo by corey ann
DEAR SARA: How long does it take before food goes bad when the fridge gives out? — Denise, Missouri
DEAR DENISE: Whether a refrigerator dies or you have a power outage, refrigerator food needs to stay 40 F or below and freezer food 0 F or below. You have about three hours for refrigerated foods to stay at a safe temperature and about 24 hours for freezer food. Don’t open the doors unless you’re adding ice, which can help prolong the amount of time the food stays at a safe temperature. You can also place the food into coolers with ice and see whether friends or family can store it in their refrigerator/freezer temporarily until the power is restored or the refrigerator is repaired or replaced. Investing in an appliance or food thermometer can help you know exact temperatures.
DEAR SARA: How do I barter? I’m interested in taking a dance class and would like to barter for it, but I have no idea how to proceed. Do you have any tips regarding how to bring up the topic? What I should say? — Trinaren, Canada
DEAR TRINAREN: You have to have a price for your skill and compare it to the cost of the dance classes. You’re striving for a win-win situation where the barter is as equal as possible. You need to know how long you’ll be bartering, too. Some people/businesses aren’t open to bartering, or they keep bartering to a minimum. It depends on what service you have to offer in the deal and whether they’re willing to take a swap instead of money. Some people think bartering has increased with the recession. I’d rather have cash flow unless it was a service or product I really wanted. If you already know the dance company uses or is interested in your service or product or a similar one, it will be that much easier. Going into it blindly, you have to hope that they value your product or service as much as you “charge” for it and that they are willing to forgo money. Then simply take your chances. No harm in asking.
DEAR SARA: I’m turning an unused basement room into a big storage pantry. I would like to store all my stockpiled food and household cleaners, etc., in this one place. My concern is: Will the fumes from the cleaners (Lysol kitchen cleaner, toilet-bowl cleaners, dishwashing and dishwasher detergent, etc.) get into my boxed foods (cake mixes, cereals and the like)? What is your opinion? Thanks for your input. — Bev B., Tennessee
DEAR BEV: You’ll want a dehumidifier in your basement if you plan to store these items. You’ll also want your items either on shelves or in plastic totes or bins so they’re off the floor. I wouldn’t store cleaners and food near one another. Boxed items tend to absorb odors and moisture. You or your family members could accidentally confuse food and cleaners, or cleaners could leak or spill. Food items in basements are susceptible to insects and rodents, too. You can transfer boxed food items into glass jars or food-grade plastic containers. Lastly, you shouldn’t place food items anywhere that gets too hot or has direct sunlight.
Continue reading Keep foods safe …
From Frugal Village.