Last year, for me, was all about recompense: giving what is owed to friends and family so I can start this year with no debts of any kind – and begin saving for expenses like a new roof and a hedge for my future.
I watched a video on YouTube that lays out Charlie Munger’s 7-step financial plan. Step 1 is Stop the bleeding. That is to say, no more money-in-money-out. Money comes in and it stays in, and it builds.
Furthermore, what can we cut out to save even more? This is the kind of decluttering I am talking about here. Where has money been bleeding out of your life? For me, it isn’t much, because I’ve lived on so little.
1. I canceled my Gaia subscription. Fifteen dollars a month doesn’t sound like much, but multiplied, it’s $180 a year. Now that’s a humble holiday covered, or a pet’s spaying/neutering and vaccinating, or new shoes for the kids.
2. I have stopped giving monthly support to my favorite YouTube channels. I wrestled with guilt, but hey, I gave last year. We all give in our season, and sometimes it’s our season to receive or accumulate.
3. I have vowed to stop impulse-buying fancy supplements, like chlorella and spirulina tablets, and my recent $30 purchase for only 25 servings of liver & spleen detox tea. I didn’t even know the spleen needed detoxing. I don’t need this stuff. What I need is to commit the time to cooking healthy meals.
4. My car insurance dropped $30 – no effort outside of good driving required.
5. I downgraded my phone plan for a savings of over $100 per month.
6. Last but not least, I spend about $25 a month at the laundromat, so I’ve arranged a weekly visit to a neighbor’s house: two loads of laundry in exchange for cleaning and sanitizing her bathrooms and kitchen and whatever else she needs while I’m there. (She’s a young 88 years. Definitely win-win.)
All total, this is over $2,500 a year in savings. And this is one of my favorite new forms of decluttering—not throwing things away, but stopping them from flowing in when they pull money that would be more useful elsewhere.
Leave a comment