Search Results for: stuff

All the stuff we didn’t buy.

How to save a ton on Amazon without falling into the online consumption spiral.

By Brad Beckstrom

Is Amazon getting too good? We’ve been happy with Amazon Prime, especially the perks of membership like two day delivery, unlimited movies and music, even unlimited photo storage. If you’re going to pay for Amazon Prime membership, make sure you take advantage of all the included services.

Unfortunately, over time we’ve started to see Amazon creep up as a higher percentage of our spending, showing up more frequently on our credit card bills. Usually just as a single line without much information about what we purchased or which Amazon service we purchased it from.

Example
3/20 Amazon.com AMZN.COM/BILL WA 44.27

We use Amazon to price check most purchases, especially any household staples that we have dropped off at our doorstep using Amazon Prime. I usually compare against Costco prices I’ve saved in Evernote or on Google Shopper so we’re not only getting better price on many items, I get to stay out of stores that give me hives. Staying out of stores is a good way to avoid impulse purchases. This was always a problem for my wife at Target, or myself at the hardware store. We’ve dialed back on impulse purchases over the years.

The issue now with Amazon is that they’re making things too easy. They just started offering same-day delivery in our area on many items. They’ve gotten good at making recommendations based on our purchase history. I find myself jumping on the site to do a quick price check, or reordering a case of paper towels etc., and seeing something I remembered we could use.

Stop

There are a lot of these lately. At first Amazon was great, we could quickly reorder household items and simultaneously check the price, online. Amazon would also save all of our purchases so we could go back and remember what kind of furnace filters we used. For example, furnace filters should be replaced every three months. Years ago I remember actually running to the Home Depot and buying three overpriced furnace filters whenever I needed to. By doing some research and ordering a case of these filters on Amazon, I save about 30 to 40% and can switch brands depending on what’s the best deal. I also saved myself a trip to Home Depot. How much is an hour of time worth? Think about that on your way to and from a store for a single item, make sure you include, time to park, gas wasted, time searching for the item, and standing in line to purchase it.

It’s better on Amazon or is it? [Read more…] about All the stuff we didn’t buy.

Stop filling your mind with random stuff. It’s time to go on a high-quality, low information diet.

12/16 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

I thought I had this all figured out. A few years ago, I decided to get on a high quality low information diet. I would avoid traditional news sites and only follow a small group of highly trusted writers, using a RSS feed reader. I would update and pare back this list regularly and categorize the writers I followed by interest. The feed reader I use is called Feedly and allows me to group my favorite writers into categories like business, family, personal development, photography, comedy, sports etc. The feed reader is very effective at stripping out distractions, especially all of that click bait, and fake news, you see at the bottom of many websites, even on many major news and network websites. My plan worked well. Each evening my feed reader presented me with a personally curated news stream from a group of writers I trust with very little distraction. No clickbait, no banner ads, no fake news.

Then two things happened. Apple launched an app called “News” that I started playing with after a recent iPhone upgrade. Then the election cycle began. This news app is comes set up like a feed reader for the big news sites. I found myself following multiple networks, major newspapers. Any spare moment I had, standing in line, having some lunch, I started filling up with this news app. Then I felt I needed to share things on Facebook or Twitter which led me to click on more stories shared by friends. There was so much garbage out there about both candidates, I’d quickly spiraled into a news consumption addiction. I’d gone from high quality, low information to just information and way too much of it. Not only did my other feed reader start to fill up with unread articles, I also found myself thinking less about what I wanted to create. I was too busy absorbing all of the news to think about much else. As a dieter might say, I fell off the wagon. [Read more…] about Stop filling your mind with random stuff. It’s time to go on a high-quality, low information diet.

Big Box America. Maybe our middle class is vanishing because they’re buried under a pile of stuff.

06/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

The average U.S. household has 300,000 things.

Let that sink in for a second. Okay, how about this one: Children in the United States make up only 3.7% of children on the planet but have 47% of all the world’s toys and children’s books.

Who comes up with these stats? As it turns out, quite a few people. Anthropologists and archaeologists, sociologists and economists are all studying our addiction to stuff. When you think about it, it’s fascinating. Writers and academics want to document this phenomenon so that thousands of years from now when an archaeologist comes across 750 plastic toys at a single family dwelling dig site she will be able to explain why.

Life at Home in the 21st Century

The UCLA Institute of Archaeology Press recently published a book called “Life at Home in the 21st Century.” The book is filled with U.S. stuff statistics, but what I found more interesting was the thousands of photographs from families who bravely opened their doors to researchers. [Read more…] about Big Box America. Maybe our middle class is vanishing because they’re buried under a pile of stuff.

Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

05/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Separate happiness from owning stuff

by Brad Beckstrom

You would think someone who writes about living lean and minimalism would not have a stuff problem. Think again.

It’s the start of a holiday weekend and I just spent a over an hour on the phone with Apple support. Turns out I have too much stuff on one of my two computers. I have too many extensions on my Chrome browser. One of these extensions, or other apps, are creating issues, causing the browser then the computer, to hangup.

Apple was nice enough to help me with my out of warranty iMac. I’d imagine there’s some reason for this. Maybe they looked at my support file and got a glimpse of how many Powerbooks, Macs, iPhones and iPads I’ve purchased over the years. I’m embarrassed by this number. When you add in my wife SuperK, my two kids, and various ventures I’ve purchased Macs for, I am very embarrassed by this number.

Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

See the problem is not really the Mac, it’s the number of Macs and the number of apps. Mo Stuff = Mo Problems. Rapper Notorious B.I.G. famously said Mo Money = Mo Problems and things did not end well for him. Shot dead, likely due to some money problems with other rappers. [Read more…] about Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

How to live lean, work lean and travel lean by asking a simple question about stuff.

02/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Will this _________ simplify my life? Go ahead, fill in that blank with anything. In this country, we live with an abundance of stuff. You can walk into any big box store and browse upwards of 150,000 different things. We have millions of apps available with one click and many of the good ones are free. Often with things that are free (especially with things that are free), you need to ask the question. Will this “free _____” simplify my life?

As someone who writes about living lean and working lean, I need to ask the simplicity question often. As an entrepreneur, I need to ask this question about any piece of software, new gadget, health plan the list goes on.

Sometimes the answer is yes, but you don’t really know that until you’ve already purchased it. I had no idea my iPhone would replace over 20 things until quite some time after I purchased it. So often you need to ask other people – How’s that __________working out for you?

“Perfection is achieved, not when there’s nothing more to add, but there’s nothing left to take away”

I repeat this quote, as I look at my cluttered basement. You can apply it to anything. Bruce Lee did when he was learning the perfect kick and the perfect punch. He said, “It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”

Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive aspired to this when working on the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone. These devices were revolutionary, not based on what was added, but what was taken away, like excessive buttons, bells, whistles, and keyboards. They were asking the simplicity question over and over, not just about the device but about every element of its design.

Bloatware. Something as straightforward as creating a document or a spreadsheet is often ruined by bloatware like Word, Excel & Powerpoint. The bloat comes from developers trying to best the competition with features and add-ons. Simple wins. Check out Google docs before Google ruins it with feature creep.

Keeping up with the Joneses. Things that start out as something simple, something that just works, become bloated with too many features. For example, cars with talking digital dashboards trying to sync with your phone and laptop. Will that simplify your life or maybe help you end up in a ditch somewhere, because you weren’t looking at the road? At some point you will definitely end up at the dealer amazed at the cost of repairing your talking digital dashboard.

Examples of when to use the simplicity question:

That presentation you’re working on — Try getting rid of some bullet points. Give it a 50% haircut for starters. Use images instead of words.
Working on an app or a piece of software — Start making a list of features that can be removed.
Creating some copy for a website or writing a blog post — Try to remove every other word. See how much you can cut.
Traveling — Use a website like Kayak.com to sort available flights by total travel time. Always include time in the value equation.
Cleaning out closets and garages — Ask the question “Will keeping these things make my life simpler?” You probably already know the answer.
Buying a car — If the owners manual is the size of a textbook, that should be a warning sign. Always go for quality and simplicity over features, especially electronic ones.
Making a big purchase like a new home — Ask the question about your commute, the condition of the home, how much space you really need, the type of loan.
The utilitarian item — Look at quality first, features last. Is it something you’ll use every day? What will it replace?
Exercise — Complex, backbreaking routines often found in programs like P90X, Crossfit others. See what you can cut out and get your workout down to something you can complete in 20 minutes and enjoy. You’ll stick with it a lot longer if it’s simple.
Looking at shiny displays in the big-box store — Ask the question.

So try asking the simplicity question more often. Picture yourself as Bruce Lee executing a perfect kick as you eliminate stuff from your life.
Life can be simple again.

The Frug

Live lean. Wear Stuff Out.

07/13 by The Frug 2 Comments

Wear Stuff Out.

The average American discards 1569 pounds of waste per year. Often, it turns out that some of that waste is still perfectly usable to someone.

This was a great Adirondack Chair. We had it for years and I even repainted it a few times. Many cold beers were enjoyed in this chair over the years. I read more than a few great books here as well. Early this summer, it started to wobble and one of the chair’s back legs was split. Also, SuperK would not even sit in it anymore due to a fear of splinters. It was pretty much falling apart. We had officially worn it out.

Wear. Stuff. Out.

A big part of my “living lean” philosophy is simply wearing stuff out. Think about how much cheap plastic, or low-quality, outdoor furniture is discarded every day. The cheap or plastic stuff looks great in the store but quickly it fades, the paint peels or it simply collapses and ends up in a landfill. Much better to start off with a locally made quality piece of furniture and wear it out.

This chair had done its job well. I couldn’t just take it to a dumpster or use it for scrap. So, I took this fantastic photo, put a “curb alert” up on Craigslist, then set it out in front of the house. It was gone in less than 15 minutes. Maybe some craftsman was going to sand it down, replace all the rusty screws and rotted parts, paint it and get another 15 years out of it. I’ll never know, but I like to think that someone else is sitting in that chair right now enjoying a few cold beers and wearing it out all over again. This just demonstrates that even when we think something is worn out, someone else can see it as having great potential.

You can post stuff to Craigslist directly from your smartphone using this free Craigslist mobile app. Once your account is set up, you snap a quick photo, type in a description, and post. This is much easier than the old process of getting that picture and uploading photos and descriptions from your computer. It’s always good to include a couple of photos so people know exactly what they’ll be picking up. Curb alerts are always for free merchandise and are a great timesaver versus hauling stuff away.

While you’re on Craigslist, you may even find a replacement.

The Frug