F.I.R.E., Life Hacks, More experienced Investors, New To Finance, Review, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

Review: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Love London Real because of the depth of the conversation and the interesting questions that he asks.

I love to listen to inspirational youtube videos. The ones I like aren’t the ones that promise to make you the ‘world’s greatest’ or give you unattainable or grandiose, hyperbolic dreams of success.

The ones I like are the videos that contain processes that can lead you step by step to success through doing small regular actions.

I like to watch people who use words like productive, practice, regular, continual, growing, meaningful, contributory, valued, asset, creative, progress.

I like videos that talk about the aggregation of small gains.

That’s exactly what James Clear talks about.

Small daily habits that can literally change your life, and how to go about making them and putting them into place.

Love this guy for the science he puts into his work. Warning: lots of advertisements.

My husband and I decided to get into a really good savings habit.

One of the things we saved for was our wedding. We got married during COVID lockdowns, so we never had a party.

We saved $50 per week for several years, and we ended up with our party.

The aggregation of small gains meant that we had enough in our ‘party’ bank account to pay for gifts for our guests, as well as a wonderful lunch with trays of food for everyone to take home.

We are so blessed to have people like James Clear on our radar teaching us how to do well.

We’ve reduced our spending on the ‘party’ account now that the wedding is over to $50 per fortnight.

Now we’re saving $50 per fortnight for an amazing new flute for me (as well as all the other stuff like investments, property, etc).

Thanks for reading my blog! I love putting money into future good!

Please note: there are no affiliate links in this blog, and I don’t get any income from the owners of the website’s links I’ve put here. They are all businesses I either use or respect.

Leaves against a blue sky
F.I.R.E., Life Hacks, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

To buy or not to buy…

“Urges are like bubbles in a lemonade glass. If you leave the lemonade glass on the counter and go back to it the next day, [there are] not so many urges, not so many bubbles.”

Professor Mike Kyrios, a clinical psychologist from Flinders University

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-16/compulsive-shopping-fast-fashion-threads/101528868

Loved this article from the ABC news about how to buy less stuff online. This is good advice, and also a good article.

Thanks ABC.

It’s so exciting when new art materials come in the mail! It pays to be careful of what you buy and how often though. Surf those urges!
F.I.R.E., More experienced Investors, New To Finance, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

Savings Trick for Pattern-ish Peoples

Are you a lover of patterns and numbers?

Fibonacci fun

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008ct2j

Golden Mean grins

http://www.csun.edu/~lmp99402/Math_Art/Golden%20Mean/golden_mean2.html

Times-tables totally terrific

Here is one simple action I do to trick myself into locking more money into savings:

Make the numbers in your savings accounts line up in a row.

Here’s what I mean, I use a notice saver account which means that I can’t access my savings for a minimum of 30 days no matter how many shiny things I want to buy.

This very neatly prevents me from buying shiny things.

About 2-3 days after arranging a transfer, I nearly always think twice about buying the shiny, shiny, stuff and cancel it. Ka-ching!

I try to add money to this account every single week, even if it’s only $1.

The way I trick myself into saving more, is by adding (say) $5 to each account, and then remembering how much I Love it when the numbers go in a row.

Isn’t it fun-ner to see a savings account at $8, 722.22 rather than $8, 714.37?

I think it’s waaaaaay better when the numbers all go in a row. It makes me happy.

And then, because you’re putting money in but not taking money out, the numbers go Up as well.

So not only do you have a cool number pattern, you’re also putting money into savings and increasing your wealth base.

Awesome!

All you do, is grab a calculator, and put enough money into the account so that the last four digits go in a row (eg $8, 714.37 would increase by $7.85 to make $8, 722.22).

Generally this will cost you no more than $11.12 per account, and when they’re all orderly and delicious, you’re going to feel really good.

Good luck and happy savings 🙂

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By reading this blog, you agree that you read it under your own risk, and Gill’s Practical Bookkeeping is in no way responsible for any harm or prejudice to yourself, your business, or any fictional examples above.

I am not a financial advisor. I do not have an AFSL. I am a chick who likes to read, think, write, and has access to google. You should treat this blog with the same seriousness that you would treat anyone whose main qualification is access to google. This blog is for entertainment purposes only. It’s a little like watching The Good Place for nerds or artists.

Anything you take from this blog is your responsibility. Nothing in this blog, even if you are mentioned by name, address, and telephone number, pertains to your personal situation. Anything you agree with, or disagree with, you are welcome to comment on, but your opinions belong to you. You are responsible for your comments. If they are offensive, I will remove them.

F.I.R.E., Life Hacks, More experienced Investors, New To Finance, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

Plenty of Honey in my Cupboard (Part 2 of 3)

How to get honey in the cupboard and things that are real honey instead of fake honey

  • Real honey: touch. Sit with your partner and massage his hands, feel happy about the physical touch time. Let your partner touch your back and your hands and spend time just talking and touching and hugging
  • Real honey: conversation. Spend time ringing and speaking to friends, past and present. Spend time speaking your heart and listening to them speak their heart. Listen.
  • Real honey: exercise. Spend time building your muscles, strength, balance, flexibility, and cardio ability.
  • Real honey: rest and sleep. You need to rest and sleep each night. Ask for vitality and calm productivity. At least one day per week should be at home pottering around and resting/cleaning etc.
  • Real honey: nature. Spending time outside in nature is physiologically good for us.
  • Real honey: creativity. Spending time doing creative stuff is real honey. This could include creative things which you can use to make money.
  • Real honey: mindfulness and inspiration. I like James Clear, Robin Sharma (the less egoic videos), Thich Nhaht Hanh, Brene Brown, Paula Pant, Andrew Hallam, Bill Gates and many more. I also like to meditate and be mindful.
  • Real honey: Kindness. When you do nice things for someone you feel good.
  • Real honey: virtue. Do things that are virtuous and you feel good. If in doubt, read an Old Fashioned Girl Louisa May Alcott or Tell me if the Lovers are Losers by Cynthia Voigt.
  • Real honey: savings. Having savings in the bank is real good honey. I don’t feel right if I don’t increase my savings by a little each week (increased by around $33 this week to a total of nearly $46k).
  • Real honey: satisfying food. Yes this includes animal products for me, also vegetables, fruits, vinegar, fermented foods, and sweet forbidden carbs.
  • Real honey: supplements. I take lots of supplements, and they help me feel healthy and safe.
  • Real honey: learning and teaching. This is the best.
  • Real honey: charity. Give to charity. Volunteer. It feels damn good to build up the community that supports you. And pay your taxes. We all like the Doctors to be paid, the sewer to run, the curbs to be maintained, and the poor people to have income.
  • Real honey: confront your demons and learn about hard stuff. A book on my current to-read list: http://www.katemanne.net/down-girl.html
Life Hacks, Novels and Creative Writing, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

Three Things Challenge #M28

This is my response to the three things challenge from pensivity101

Shopping: Bargain, Parking, Shelf

Contractual relationships– our lives are governed by parameters and hierarchies. Breaking free of it leaves me breathless, searching out: faith, friendship, family, and work that serves the community.

And I know that Kmart doesn’t pay their workers right, but I catch myself searching for bargains. Who can resist those $2 bouncy balls?

Always hurrying my shopping so I don’t have to pay for parking, adding one more book to shelves crammed with books and ornaments.

Then complaining that I don’t have enough.

In reality there’s plenty of honey in the cupboard; I’m safe.