change – Annienygma

A New Journey?

It is time for me to turn down a glass. I have survived my very first year without my beloved Katie. I have not only survived, I have made some massive changes to my world, changes that have reaped some interesting dividends.

This year was a year for me to cut loose and have fun. I hit the ground running. I gave myself a bedroom, the first proper bedroom I’ve had in over a decade. I even gave myself permission to spend money, and boy did I spend it! I made sure to save 10% of each paycheck (plus all of my book royalties), but other than that, I allowed myself the freedom to do what I wanted.

I had a bit of a panic over that not too long ago but then I realized that I’d not really wasted much money. Instead, I’d acquired things that not only made life more comfortable, but would last for quite a while. I even acquired a few things that have helped me save some money. The air conditioner, heaters, electric blanket, and electric throw have all helped to lower my utility expenses. The car increased my monthly spending (due to the payment), but it allows me to travel to work in bad weather without fear and even allows me to visit my beloved aunt on occasion.

I never imagined that I would be thankful for having a car payment, but I am. It feels incredibly luxurious to be able to hop to a neighboring town if I need something immediately that I cannot acquire locally, and it feels like heaven to be able to make the drive to visit my aunt. I even got to spend Thanksgiving with her and my cousin due to that car.

I am immensely grateful for that.

One of my goals this past year was to increase my income. I managed that in spades. Now, instead of living on the shoestring budget of $500 a month, I bring home close to $3k. My mind boggles at the change.

In order to increase my income I took a job at a local factory. I ended up in a position that is rather mindless. I spend 10 hours a day painting latex onto a mold before I rotate it through an oven. That position has given me time to think.

What do I want to do next? I began to ask myself. Did I really want to spend the remainder of my working years standing on a hamster wheel? My life had fallen into a routine. I work 4-5 days a week, 10 hours a day. My weekends were spent cleaning my home, watching television, and chatting with family and friends. It’s a good life, a simple life. I enjoy it, but do I really want to spend the next decade or so this way?

I don’t want to retire. I’ve realized that, while pleasant in spurts, that I make myself a bit insane when I take time off to stay at home. I need to have that excuse to get out of the house, if only to provide social interaction. I could retire, even now that I have the car payment. I can afford to do so, but the fact is that I don’t want to. Sometimes getting what you think you want helps you to understand that you didn’t really want it as bad as you thought. I’ve realized that when it comes to retirement.

I need a purpose in my life, or what’s the point in living?

The beauty in my mindless job is that it gives me plenty of time to think about that, to ask myself the important questions while getting paid in the process.

I’ve realized that, if I continue on my current path, that I will simply become a mindless consumer. I will work, then I will spend my weekends decompressing with the latest movie or fad, shifting about on a path that will take me absolutely nowhere. While I see nothing wrong with that, it’s not what I want for my life. I’ve spent my life learning, growing, and experimenting. To stop…well, I don’t want to stop.

I want to do something new.

I don’t want to go back to extreme frugality. That’s served its purpose for me. It allowed me to be a stay-at-home single mother, and for that I will always be grateful. I’ve no real desire to write, however. After spending more than a decade knocking out books, blog posts, and articles in order to pay the bills I find myself burned out. I rarely even journal anymore. I find it a chore just to jot down a few sentences to summarize my day in my journal.

So now what?

I would like to increase my income a bit more. I love the security of having money in the bank, of being able to buy what I want, when I want, without fear. I love being able to replace an item immediately when it dies instead of having to budget. I love discovering an item on sale that I want and being able to take advantage of the cost savings. I like being able to buy things that make life better.

I want more of that, but I know that, if I remain where I’m at, that while my income will increase with raises over time, that there is only so far that I’ll be able to go. I also know that in time, the mindlessness of my current job will make me crazy, so I asked myself what I could do about the situation.

I’m too burned out to write. I’ve no real desire to hop from factory job to factory job in order to increase my pay. If I’m to work in a factory, I’ll remain where I’m at because the work is easy and management is good to me.

I came up blank. Perhaps I’ve spent too many years focused upon being a mom, but I could not think of anything else I could do that would not only provide something to occupy my mind, but have the potential of increasing my income over time.

Eventually I turned that question on its head and asked myself what would I do if I could do anything and money were not an object?

That question yielded instant results. As a child, I had two major passions. I loved to write, and I loved playing with computers. I was the child who could happily spend entire days in her room either writing stories or exploring the capabilities of her computer. As an adult, I even went to school for computer repair and ran a service/repair business for many years. Even now I take on the occasional client just for kicks.

I may be burned out on writing, but there are areas of study in the computer field where I’ve barely scratched the surface despite my curiosity due to money and time constraints.

I can make money in the computer field, but even when I don’t make a penny, I still have fun.

So I did a thing. I gave myself permission to delve as deep into computers as I desire. Even if I don’t use the skills to increase my income, I’ll be keeping my mind active and having fun in the process.

It would certainly beat spending my weekends holding the couch down as I watch my latest show.

I thought long and hard as I painted those molds. At my age, the odds of eventually acquiring a job in the field may be slim. The skills would increase my chances of employment in other fields, however, and even if it didn’t I knew I would have fun. It would definitely give me something to look forward to on weekends!

I decided to give myself a good review of the field, in order to ensure that my basic knowledge was current before I proceeded. I invested in a few books and began reading them at night and on weekends. Come spring I would treat myself to something I’ve not treated myself to in ages, a brand-new computer (not used, not refurbished), but a brand-new system that would make my inner geek scream with delight. I would acquire that computer and just play.

Excited at the thought, I began to price my dream machine. Due to space considerations, I settled upon a laptop, a gaming laptop because those are the ones that make me drool. I discovered that it would cost about $2,500 to acquire the machine I wanted to acquire, but since I was planning to use my income tax refund to pay for it (and I’ve already acquired everything else I want), I could afford the splurge.

A friend of mine had decided to invest in a newer system, so while helping him select a computer that would meet his needs, I checked out the sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. To my surprise, I found a laptop that ticked my boxes on sale for $1,400.

I had the money. Even with spending what seems to me an insane amount of money over this past year, I continue to spend quite a bit less than I earn so I had more than enough to make the purchase. I bought it along with a fresh round of books since I’d almost finished the review round I’d purchased earlier this year.

That purchase flipped a switch in my brain. I feel alive again. I couldn’t wait to finish my shift and come home the day it arrived, and I stayed up way too late getting it configured. I delved into the books and began experimenting.

Finally, after a year of hiatus from thinking and planning and struggling, I have a new journey to embark upon, and I am going to have fun with this. I plan to acquire some certifications as I move forward. While I don’t know if I will ever use them to gain employment, they will serve as personal markers of my skill, but at least one of the certifications may improve my odds of acquiring a job I can do from home if I ever get burned out at the factory or a shift in the economy sends me job hunting.

So life is good, and I’ve a new journey to pursue. While in some ways it’s a continuation of a journey I began long ago, this feels like a fresh start all the same.

It’s so easy to get caught in a rut, to do the same things you’ve always done and think the same things you’ve always thought. Mixing it up, allowing yourself to do something that you’ve previously not allowed to do can be good for the soul. Even if you decide that the path you’ve started isn’t for you, you’ve still learned something about yourself.

What do you plan to do with the coming year? Do you plan to start a new adventure? Please share your stories in the comments below.

BTW, I finally finished the adventure of acquiring a new smile. What do you think of the new look?

~#~

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I’ve written a lot of books sharing my odd view of life in hopes of helping others. My most notorious book is titled The Shoestring Girl: How I Live on Practically Nothing and You Can Too, but The Minimalist Cleaning Method is pretty popular as well. You can find them at the following places:

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Winter Arrangements

This year has been one immense roller coaster ride. Just one year ago, a few weeks from now, I made the decision to remake the world around me.

I realized that the world I’d created for myself no longer suited the person I was becoming. The last reason for the life I’d chosen was leaving. It was as if I was dying.

Did I want to “die,” to just fade away into that dark night, or did I want to embark upon another adventure?

The thing about life is that it’s about change. People change. Times change. It’s the ones that remain static, who hold onto the past with clenched fists that grow old and cold and miserable.

My life was changing. I decided to roll with those changes by exploring an aspect of myself that I’d never allowed myself to explore.

I decided to give myself permission to spoil myself, and to have fun while I was doing it.

This past spring it occurred to me that if I invested in a large enough air conditioner, that I would save money in the long run. I could cool my home with a single unit instead of the two air conditioners I owned. I bought one on sale and, sure enough, it did. That air conditioner paid for itself in a single summer season through lower energy bills.

But winter is coming, and winter is when my energy bills are the highest. I had shaved over $50 a month off of my energy bills by investing in a new air conditioner. Could I do something similar with my heating?

I looked around and discovered that there are portable quartz heaters that are rated to heat a space of up to 1,800 square foot. My house is only 500 square feet. They were still on sale due to summer, so I decided to buy one as an experiment. If anything, it will allow me to delay turning on my baseboard heaters. Since those heaters jump my electric bill $100 or more a month every winter season, I decided that it was worth a test.

The heater arrived. I rearranged my living room so that I could place it in a spot where the air would blow towards my kitchen and bedroom. I will let you know what happens when the bills begin to arrive.

Have I shown you what my bedroom looks like? I can’t remember so while I’m sharing a photo of the newly rearranged living room, I’m including a photo of my bedroom as well.

My bedroom at night. I feel like a Queen when I go to bed now!

It’s amazing to think that my home has changed so much. Here is an old photo for comparison.

Living room, 2018. The kid had the bedroom so no photos of that, I’m afraid.

Another angle of my living room/bedroom area.

Over all, the changes are immensely positive. Not only does my home suit the person I’m becoming better, I feel happier when I’m at home.

Have you ever decided to remake your world? Please share your stories in the comments below.

Are You Caught in a Monkey Trap?

If a monkey discovers a treat in a gourd, it will reach in, grasp it, and refuse to let go even if it cannot pull the treat-filled fist back out of the hole.

It’s a common way of trapping them, I gather.

Humans are prone to making the exact same mistake. We grasp onto things that do not serve us, to the point where it traps us into situations that make us miserable.

Part of that is due to habit and identity. For instance, I spent so many years living on as little money as I could that I had problems breaking myself out of that mindset when it was time to move on.

Another part could be societal programming. We hold on to things like clothes, furniture, food, and possessions because society tells us that it is horribly wasteful and bad for the environment to just toss that shit and move on. We’ll tell ourselves that we’re going to find someone to pass the items onto or place them in a donation bin but we never get around to it–and when we do, we ignore the cognitive dissonance of handing off the problem of “too much stuff” to someone else.

There are several reasons we could be holding onto something that doesn’t suit us. We could have been taught that divorce is wrong so we stay with an abusive mate. We may have heard that only sluts and “bad girls” wear cosmetics and actively dress in a certain manner.

Sometimes, we simply lack the courage to experiment. While we tend to experiment routinely while young, time can lock us into habits that we hesitate to change. “Why fix it if it’s not broke?”

There is a danger to this. If we refuse to change, to evolve with the times, we can become old and bitter before our time. If you’ve ever had a conversation with an elder who insisted upon complaining about technology, shifting societal mores, “kids these days,” and so forth, pay attention.

That is your future if refuse to let go and embrace change.

Monkey traps can sneak up on you. That outfit you wore when you were twelve. The furniture that belonged to your dead relative. The hairstyle you haven’t changed since high school. The types of movies you watch. The books you read. The places you go. The thoughts you think.

When was the last time you mixed it up, made an effort to do things in a different way? Have you ever looked around and realized that you keep the things that you keep and use the things that you use out of habit?

Did you decide to do things differently? What happened? Please share your stories in the comments below.

~#~

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The Art of Evolution

When the economy tanked in 2009, I found myself laid off with bills to pay and a child to support.

Instead of becoming bitter at the fact that the world was changing, I evolved instead.

I threw all of my energy into a free blog I’d created to toy with, mastered the fledgling online-publishing field, then I wrote and published my very first book.

When it became obvious that I wouldn’t be able to afford to continue living in the house I rented, instead of fighting the inevitable I evolved again. I cast about for cheaper housing, traded for an older mobile home, and settled into a life where I would continue to evolve for some time.

I realized that, by helping others help themselves, that I could help myself achieve my goal of being a stay-at-home single mother. To better facilitate the process, I shifted my spending patterns, cutting my expenses down to a level I’d not anticipated.

I didn’t do it all at once; the evolution from Average American to Minimalist Frugalista was a slow process. I evolved by making one small, single change, allowing myself to grow comfortable with that change, then moving on to the next item of transformation.

By evolving, I turned a situation that was considered disastrous by many into an opportunity to achieve a dream. I thrived where many struggled simply because I adapted to the situation.

We are now facing a similar era of change. Covid has upended our daily lives. People are dropping dead around us. Employers are severely understaffed, and childcare is not only dangerous, it’s prohibitively expensive if you have access to it.

If you attempt to maintain your status quo, the chances are high that it won’t work out so well. But if you allow yourself to roll with the changes, to evolve, then you can come out on top of the situation.

Remember:

How can you evolve to better prepare for the future? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

~#~

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Chapter’s End

“I hope you hate your new job!” Gemma’s eyes flashed as she flounced up to me.

I smiled. “I’ll miss you too.” I had heard that sentiment several times over the past two weeks; managers and coworkers alike were upset when I had given notice. While on the outside the statements seem harsh, they are actually the highest compliment one can receive in the restaurant industry.

That is the statement you receive when you are truly loved.

So many people pass through the restaurant industry. Few stay. They become a blip on the radar to the crew who sticks it out long-term. Many times the old-timers don’t even bother learning the names of the new ones. Why bother when they’ll be gone in a few days?

While I’d never planned to stay when I started working at that restaurant, I’d lingered long enough for the crew to get attached. I’d gotten attached, too, so when I turned in my notice I quietly began to say my farewells.

While it was bittersweet to work that last day, this was something I had to do. Now that all of my children are grown, it is time to work on me for a change and for my next adventure I’ve decided to continue my exploration of finance and life. I’ve spent the last two decades actively exploring frugality (most of my life due to circumstances, to be honest). Now I want to see how far I can go in the opposite direction.

The job offer I’ve accepted is part of that process.

This new adventure is a continuation of the experiment I began with the purchase of a journal a while back. I gave myself permission to buy something luxurious to explore the Diderot Effect. I’d taken a good hard look at my home and realized that my personal environment had changed in a way that did not please me. I did not enjoy having my home look like something out of Deliverance, so I decided to change it.

I am still working on that.

I asked myself what I would own if money were not an object and I didn’t have to count my pennies. I asked myself what my ideal home would look like if finances were not a concern, then bit by tiny bit I began making changes, but I didn’t stop there. I also asked myself what I could see myself doing in my ideal life.

Once I adapted to Katie moving out, the answers shifted. I discovered that I needed the face-to-face interaction that a public job provides. Few things give me more joy than watching my coworkers smile when I sing out my greetings each morning. That said, I didn’t see myself remaining in the restaurant industry. I saw myself in a position that not only provided a stable schedule, but provided a larger income and insurance benefits as well.

I start that new job on Monday.

I will miss my old friends, so after that last day at my old job I took the evening to mourn.

Now it is time to move on. I will make more friends starting Monday.

Change can be scary, but change is also the way that we evolve. Like the butterfly, we have to dissolve ourselves in order to become something better. We have to pare down to the bones of who we are deep down and rebuild ourselves from scratch if we want to grow.

Have you ever decided to change your life, to evolve and explore something new? If so, what did you do? Please share your stories in the comments below.

~#~

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The Walmart Monster

“The best slave is a slave that doesn’t know he’s a slave.” – www.zerohedge.com

The human race is the only species on this planet that is forced to pay money for the right to live. In the United States, our parents have to go into debt just to give us life. They sweat and they struggle to support us through our childhood until finally they release us into the world, praying that we can support ourselves.

Things don’t get much better for us once we reach adulthood. For those of us who attend college, hoping that it will give us a chance, we have to shoulder the burden of immense debt for that privilege. When we want to reduce the amount of debt that we incur, we search around us for work, a job that will allow us to pay our bills and eat something more substantial than ramen.

Many of us go hungry and homeless instead.

The story gets darker for those of us who discover that the privilege of higher education is beyond our reach. The story grows especially dark for those of us who start our families while we are young. For want of a single piece of paper, we are relegated to the waste heaps of humanity. We work in restaurants, we toil in factories, we slave away at gas stations and convenience stores.

We pray that we can find someone who can take our children in so that we can work the hours we are forced to work. We pray not to get sick as we beg for help to survive.

But we don’t deserve to survive. We are worthless. We are lazy. We are nothing but the scum of the earth. We deserve to die.

We are told from the moment of birth that we’re not good enough. We need to fix our appearance. We need to wear certain clothes. We need to buy the houses and the cars and the stuff. They tell us that if we work harder; if we get an extra job, if we get the degree–if we put in enough hours and do enough work that we can fix our situations.

But it’s all a lie.

Even if we get that piece of paper, we still won’t be able to make enough. By the time we repay our student loans, there isn’t anything left. And regardless of whether we choose college or not, our fate will be the same. We will work until we break and be discarded.

We are the slaves of the United States of America. We are the ones who have been lied to our whole entire lives. We have been lied to because we are not the ones in control of our nation. Our nation has been bought by the monsters.

The monsters work hard to disguise this fact. They lurk in the background, paying off our public servants to pass laws that favor them. They barrage us with ads, ads designed to give us hope for the future so that we will continue to fund their excess while we struggle.

They think they are powerful. They believe they are unstoppable. This has gone on for so long that the monsters believe they are god.

I think it’s time we met the monsters. Let’s start with one of the biggest ones, the Walton Family.

As you can see from the image, we are giving this monster $70,000 every single minute. We are giving them more each minute than most of us earn in an entire year. In exchange for that money, they sell us cheap crap at slowly inflating prices. They move into our towns, destroy our businesses, and revel at their monopoly.

They pay us workers so little that we have to beg the government to have enough food so we can eat, but that’s still not enough for them. They have begun to eliminate the jobs we are forced to take just to pay our bills. They are so greedy that they suck our nation dry by exploiting loopholes to avoid paying taxes.

They have taken over our towns.
They have corrupted our government.
They are destroying the dairy industry.
And now they are after our children.

What will they go after next?

There is only one we can stop this monster. There is only one way that we can destroy their power. There is only one place we can strike that will hurt them.

That place is in their wallet. We have to starve them out if we want to retake our nation.

Stop giving them money.
Stop shopping at their stores.
Stop feeding the monsters.

It is hypocritical to run a website about buying and living on less while begging your readers to buy your crap so I refuse to do it. That said, I live on the money I receive from book sales, so if you can find it in your heart to pitch in I would be immensely grateful.

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How to Change the World

Big Business cares nothing about you. If it doesn’t benefit their bottom line, it doesn’t matter to them. The lip service they give you is meaningless. Some corporations even acknowledge this with backhanded ways of “helping” their employees.

We aren’t supposed to believe that, however. We’re supposed to believe in “by the people, for the people” despite the growing evidence that our beloved nation is no longer a democracy. Big businesses owned by the extremely wealthy are the ones who control us but what do we do?

We spend our entire lives making them even more powerful.

There is something we can do to change that, however.

Sam Walton made a prescient quote about the subject in his book Made in America, My Story. He stated:

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

Every time we agree to work their jobs we make them more powerful because we help them become even wealthier.

Every time we buy their goods and services we make them more powerful.

We are giving them the money that they are using to buy our government, to use our government to fulfill their desires. We are literally giving them the power when we choose to work for them and give them our money. We bring them joy when we take the money they “give” us in our paychecks and hand it back to them.

If you are content with this knowledge than there is nothing for you to do. Just keep doing what you’re doing so that you can continue to help them.

But if you’re tired of being a legal slave, if you are tired of businesses running your nation, then there are a few things you can do to begin changing the world.

Stop working for major corporations. They use your work to make the money that they use to control your nation. The less workers they have, the less money they will make and the less power they will attain.

Stop buying from major corporations. This one is really hard because we’ve given so much of our power away that we no longer know how to do without the things that they provide. There is a workaround to this for many things:

Buy used. Buy used items from local dealers, people who live with you, have kids that go to school with your kids, and don’t use their money for power. The damage was already done during the initial sale but doing this prevents the damage from getting worse.

Fix your stuff. Don’t replace something just because a new model came out or it gets a few scratches. Wear it out completely and keep it in service for as long as possible. This keeps your money out of the system and away from their hands.

Cut your expenses. You have to pay for certain services like housing and utilities but you don’t have to give them as much as you do. Be conservative. Spend less. Get the smaller home. Live in the slums. Buy the used mobile home. Isn’t freedom worth more than a fancy house on the hill?

Watch your charities. Here is an article that will help you identify the worst offenders. Many large charities spend most of their donations fattening the pockets of those in charge and fueling the donation system by paying other companies to advertise. Helping others is a wonderful thing but don’t fall for the wolves that lurk among them.

Consider the motives. When a college tells you that you will benefit if you attend their institution or a business tells you that it is to your benefit that you buy their stuff to be healthier or prettier or to have greater opportunities, consider their motives. Do they make money if you believe them? If so, they don’t have your best interests at heart.

Educate yourselves. You can find books at your local library for free or support independent authors to increase your knowledge. You can watch movies and videos. You can find a mentor and learn from them. Experience itself is a powerful teacher. Money does not prevent you from becoming educated, not in this modern age. The only one who prevents that is you.

Spread the word. Encourage others to live on less. Explain why you make the decisions that you do. Show the world that you are taking a stand by the choices you make.

Do no harm. It is not for us to judge how others choose to live their lives. When we support a local business as opposed to a major corporation we are helping our communities. Others may not agree. They may accuse you of being lazy, of “dropping out” or being insane. Accept their criticism calmly and move on. They are entitled to their opinions. We tend to sway more people by our actions over time than any loud protest ever does. Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself what happened to the Occupy Wall Street Movement. It faded into nothingness and is barely a blip in the history books now.

How you decide to do this is up to you. You may decide to pursue full minimalism. You may decide to hit the road. You may decide to stay right where you are and make small changes in your daily life over time. There is no wrong way, only progress.

But the time has come where we are fast approaching a tipping point in our world. If we hit that point it will be too late. The blinders will come off and we will see the truth of the world for what it is.

“If you want to change the things in your life, the things in your life must change”(Kevin Trudeau). If we want our world to become better, then we have to remove the power from those who wield it.

The only way to do that is to take away the money that gives them power.

Good Luck.