Live on Less

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Posted on 15th January 2012 by MaryJaneC in Investing |Life

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Yesterday when I got home from my trip to Antique I did a routine check of my site stats, and I was pleasantly surprised on the amount of views gained by my previous blog post: “Track Your Spending.” So I would like to continue sharing the lessons I learned about managing my finances. My fixation for today is how I am learning how to live on less.

When you start getting excited about how much money you can earn by slowing your spending and saving your money, you will probably come up with all sorts of creative ways to continue with your present standard of living – like I did – but do it on LESS. The two main rules to remember are: Pay retail as little as possible, and plan ahead. Because if you wait until the last minute to buy things, you will most likely pay anything. That’s because you don’t have a lot of choices if you really need it. For example, if you know that your computer keyboard is missing some keys and almost ready to retire, start looking early for good deals on a replacement keyboard. Don’t wait until it dies and you have to sacrifice your work. Out of desperation you will probably run out and buy the first keyboard you see.

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Track Your Spending

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Posted on 10th January 2012 by MaryJaneC in Life |Personal

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This is something that I have been doing since last year (2011) and I can say that it has helped me a lot in terms of saving up and knowing where my hard-earned money goes. The first time I began to track my spending it showed me what I thought was important. And it was such a huge eye-opener.

I now carry around a little organizer/notebook where I record each and every purchase I make. If I pay for an 80php cup of coffee I write it down. If I pay for a 500php t-shirt I write it down. If I can’t open my notebook after buying something, what I do is take note of it on my smartphone by using the Notes app, save the receipts and then I transfer it to my notebook at the end of the day. At first this seemed very tedious but the process becomes automatic after a very short time. This procedure is the number one way I know of to get you very acquainted with your financial habits so you can also begin taking control.

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Truthfulness

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Posted on 9th January 2012 by MaryJaneC in Life |Personal

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Being truthful – in a gentle, caring way – is one of the easiest ways to simplify your life. Think of Shakespeare’s classic phrase: “Oh what a tangled web we weave.” What this means is that when we are not truthful, we need to spend a lot of energy trying to remember what we said to whom. Think about the stress involved when you lied to someone and didn’t tell them the truth; instead you concocted a whole new story. How simple your life would be if you did not operate a dual life.

Truthfulness means being honest about your feelings and being real about who you really are. Being honest about your feelings does not mean running around telling everyone your darkest thoughts or telling people a lot of negative things about them -what’s the point of all that anyway? – It simply means being who you are. It means living from your essence, your core, and not putting on an act in order to impress others. I remember I finally felt that I’d reached a true level of acceptance of myself when I could admit to people that my favorite movie was The Wedding Singer. The Wedding Singer has absolutely no intellectual stimulation and few redeeming qualities, except that it is total airheaded, relaxing fun. I no longer felt that I had to impress others with my intelligence or dazzle them with intellectual interests I had or did not have. I also abandoned the grueling corporate/yuppie life to return to my longtime love of sleeping (joke!). LOL! I meant I returned to my longtime love of staying and working at home, thus owning my time too. I no longer cared if people thought I was nifty because I was or wasn’t a yuppie.

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Finding Pleasures in Everyday Life

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Posted on 1st January 2012 by MaryJaneC in Life |Optimism |Thoughts

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First of all I would like to greet everyone a Happy New Year! I am having a slow and wonderful day here at home with my family and I hope you are as well. My blog post today is all about awareness and how you can also incorporate it in your daily lives. So please read on and learn how. :)

Awareness – that’s how we can find pleasure and delight in the typically overlooked moments of our lives. It is also the simplest way of finding meaning in our everyday lives. Simple pleasures are about finding joy and delight in everyday things and everyday occurrences. Finding these pleasures is like walking along with a child who is constantly enthralled with things that adults no longer see. The awe and curiosity of children is something that we should follow.

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Inner Simplicity

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Posted on 26th December 2011 by MaryJaneC in Fixations |Life |Personal

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I think the number one reason why most people even think about simplifying their lives is to attain some level of inner peace and contentment. They have tried all of the outward trappings – new cars, new houses, wardrobes, careers, relationships – and found that while those things can bring some joy and satisfaction, the positive feelings are only fleeting and they can also bring added stress and gets exhausting. I know exactly how all of that feels like. Always looking outside of ourselves for happiness is indeed exhausting. The search is just endless.

How much richer it’s going to be if we feel joy and contentment inside of ourselves first, before seeking pleasure outside. Then we can be more selective about choosing our outside pleasures and those choices will come from a place of inner strength, not as a temporary “fill-up” for emptiness. We are left wanting more when we spend all or most of time seeking outside pleasures and neglecting our inner selves. We do not know what the “more” is but we are vaguely aware that something is missing.

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