Tuesday 4/17 $48 at grocery store
Wed 4/18 $11 lunch
$45 at Target (printer ink, bubbles, kids' socks, etc.)
$20 family dinner at Five Guys
$8.15 library fines.
geesh. This challenge is really making me think about how much money my family spends on meals out and groceries. More than I thought.
Also ran a mile today and trained with personal trainer for 1 hour. (I get a deep discount through the Y).
Anyway, I am cleaning out the large, icky concrete block and concrete floor room in the basement that we will soon be finishing into my sweet home office and sewing room.
I've been sorting through boxes that have pretty much been sitting there untouched for 1 year, since we moved in. I've found a bunch of old pictures, and a bunch of papers that made me think... why do I have this? So yes, the recycling bins are extra full this week. I also refinished the last of the 4 foot wide bookcases my grandpa made me before he died. Much of the paper stuff from my office will hopefully be housed there.
I'm trying to have a keep eye for tossing, selling, and sorting. I'm tired of living with so much stuff.
I ran across a few things I might be able to sell, like my old Pentax K1000 camera and lenses, and I'm considering giving up my collection of 1960s knitting books and vintage sewing patterns. I'm sure there are some crafters out there who could make better use of it! I may also sell my 1950s desk with the kidney bean shaped top and my blue formica and chrome table.
They are great pieces, but they just don't work for me anymore. Boo.
Spending update, and home office project
April 19th, 2012 at 12:39 am
April 19th, 2012 at 02:31 am 1334802673
April 19th, 2012 at 03:14 am 1334805252
April 19th, 2012 at 03:30 am 1334806227
April 19th, 2012 at 03:50 am 1334807445
I love the Getting Things Done method of dealing with paper stuff, which is put every scrap of it in a giant pile, then look at each piece of paper and decide is it "actionable," reference or trash? If it's reference, file it away in an A-Z folder, if it's trash, trash it, and if it's actionable, decide the next action and put it on your to-do list or on a calendar (if it's not to be done right away). Then, since it's been captured in your to-do system, either trash it (if you don't need the hard copy) or file it. Just keep one A-Z file for everything; don't try to store different types of papers different places. It's worked really well for us.
And now that I've done it for crap that had been piling up for a decade (took me about a week of sporadic work), I can even let things pile up for a couple weeks, and it only takes me an hour or so to clear out my whole inbox using the same process.
April 19th, 2012 at 01:44 pm 1334843096
April 19th, 2012 at 11:58 pm 1334879906
April 20th, 2012 at 01:32 am 1334885537
The weird thing is all members of both our families hold on to stuff, even stupid stuff. His dad still has computer punch cards from a job in the 80s. Why would be keep that???
April 20th, 2012 at 10:35 pm 1334961354
Jerry