Last week I introduced a month of posts dedicated to intentionalism, and I kicked off with a post about what it means to be intentional. This week looks at the first logical step, intentional spending. Which is basically, asking yourself a lot of questions before you buy. Many would say it is about living frugally. Frugal is not a dirty word. Yes, there are some people who take it to the extreme, but there can be many advantages to consciously thinking about, spending and saving your money. I went off to the Middle East for three years after living in poverty as a university student. And the money I saved from living frugally in that time paid off an old car purchase, bought a new car on my return home, paid off two credit card debts, two university degrees, saved enough to travel for months after I left, and all the while, flew business class and stayed in apartment hotels each year during vacations. How? Everything I did, came from intentional thought. Continue reading
goals
Endings
2016 is done.
In numerology 2+0+1+6=9 and 9 is the year of endings and change. No one could deny there was so much of it last year, losing iconic celebrities like David Bowie and Alan Rickman at the start through to George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds at the end, and so many in between. There were countless terrorist attacks – I was very close by during two of them – plus the usual and at times, unusually-located flurry of weather hazards and natural disasters. Then there was senseless tragedy, helplessness and devastation for the vulnerable people of Aleppo, as well as broader Syria and Yemen. The wider Western public gave in to fear and wayward politicians, voting in Brexit and Trump and changing this liberal world as we know it. Time will tell but I think what people were really voting for was a pre-neoliberalist, pre-Reagan/Thatcher world where everyone had a full time job, comfortable wages and job security and adult children could afford their own house and dreams. Something no politician can achieve these days without dramatically changing the massive corporate power and wealth influencing the global government and world today.
Quite simply, it was quite a year.
For me 2016 embraced both endings and change, but not really in any negative way. Continue reading
Life with Less 