Pick One
Abundance is a curse. You can have anything that you want for lunch. So why eat another bland fast food hamburger and fries? There are literally hundreds of shows on the television. So why stare at another hour of screaming reality TV stars? You don’t eat, drink, or watch bad things because they are cheap. You are responsible for what you consume. If I told you that you could watch just one movie this month, you might spend more time considering your choice. Your options are virtually unlimited. Pick one. Like this: Like Loading... Pick One by Randy Murray, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Tagged as: choice, drink, eat, food, Movies, options, TV, watch
BBC Future column: Why we love to hoard
Here’s last week’s column from BBC Future. The original is here. It’s not really about hoarding, its about the endowment effect and a really lovely piece of work that helped found the field of behavioural economics (and win Daniel Kahneman a Nobel prize). Oh, and I give some advice on how to de-clutter, lifehacker-style. Question: How do you make something instantly twice as expensive? Answer: By giving it away. This might sound like a nonsensical riddle, but if you’ve ever felt overly possessive about your regular parking space, your pen, or your Star Wars box sets, then you’re experiencing some elements behind the psychology of ownership. This riddle actually describes a phenomenon called the Endowment Effect. You can see how the endowment effect escalates – how else can you explain the boxes of cassette tapes, shoes or mobile phones that fill several shelves of your room… or even several rooms? No trade Classic economics states that the students should begin to trade with each other.
Living With Less. A Lot Less.
I have come a long way from the life I had in the late ’90s, when, flush with cash from an Internet start-up sale, I had a giant house crammed with stuff — electronics and cars and appliances and gadgets. Somehow this stuff ended up running my life, or a lot of it; the things I consumed ended up consuming me. My circumstances are unusual (not everyone gets an Internet windfall before turning 30), but my relationship with material things isn’t. We live in a world of surfeit stuff, of big-box stores and 24-hour online shopping opportunities. There isn’t any indication that any of these things makes anyone any happier; in fact it seems the reverse may be true. For me, it took 15 years, a great love and a lot of travel to get rid of all the inessential things I had collected and live a bigger, better, richer life with less. It started in 1998 in Seattle, when my partner and I sold our Internet consultancy company, Sitewerks, for more money than I thought I’d earn in a lifetime. It got worse.
The Salvation Army and Goodwill: Inside the places your clothes go when you donate them
Spencer Platt/Getty. It was early morning at the Quincy Street Salvation Army, an easy-to-miss location tucked away on a Brooklyn side street. The only donations that had come in so far were books, an entire truck full from one single apartment. Charitable clothing donations usually roll in with fits and starts, with the changing of the seasons and at the end of the year, when people are looking for tax write-offs. It was on a weekday morning in the middle of the fall, the off-hours for clothing donations. But I didn’t have to witness someone pulling up their car and shoveling bags full of clothes from the trunk. Michael Noneza, otherwise known as “Maui,” one of the donation center’s assistant supervisors, bounced into the warehouse. The Quincy Street Salvation Army may be on a quiet out-of-the-way street, but it is the main distribution center serving eight Salvation Army locations in Brooklyn and Queens. Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images.
The Clutter Diet Blog
Rag Drag by Nicole Gelinas
Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, by Elizabeth L. Cline (Portfolio Hardcover, 256 pp., $25.95) Earlier this month, the Ralph Lauren apparel house unveiled its designs for the U.S. Olympic team. Outrage soon erupted. The outfits—replete with berets—were made in China. On one level, it makes zero sense for American politicians to be surprised that our Olympic athletes wear clothing made by young Chinese women most likely living in dormitories (the labels don’t identify the particular factory). Chinese clothes—and, to a lesser extent, Bangladeshi, Indian, and Dominican clothes—are cheap. Terrific, right? You get what you pay for, though. As for accessibility and variety, Cline notes that you can’t compare what a nice dress cost three decades, half a century, or even a century ago—a few hundred dollars in today’s inflated currency—with what it costs in 2012. Sure, the rich can pay up for a nice outfit—thousands of dollars for a well-made dress or suit. I’m not alone.
How to Organize the Perfect Pantry
Tasty Trash: The $55 million Squawkfox Food Waste Challenge is a series aimed at helping your family save up to $1,500 this year by reducing food waste. The environment may also thank us. To start from the beginning, read the introduction. I first learned about the existence of weevils in the summer of 1988. Flour? Oats? Dried Melba toast dusted with cinnamon sugar? Ravenous after guarding our goalie from the mean chick who liked to kick where shin pads don’t exist (my knee caps), I munched on my Melba trying to avoid what athletes call ‘bonking’. [series_heading]Despite being dry, kinda stale, and sickenly sweet from the granulated sugar, the Melba was totally hitting the spot. I’m not sure which I noticed first: The swarm of tiny bugs waving angrily at me from my Melba bite mark, or the queasy vomitus feeling of needing to hurl the contents of my stomach. I swallowed my hurl. Anyhoo, my mother wasn’t impressed with the discovery. None of the above. 1. 2. 3. I lied. 4. Save money. 5.
:mnmlist
How to Live in the Land of Enough - Space
One word that often comes to mind when talking about minimalism is space. With space, we can direct our energy and focus on what means the most. Space is not just an empty room, but it is what surrounds us, everywhere we are. Let’s be honest. It is tough to appreciate your space in an airport or an amusement park. This is the fourth post in a series from my guest post Living in the Land of Enough on one of my favorite blogs: becomingminimalist.com by Joshua Becker. Make Space Clear out some space in your house. Ask questions like: How do I feel when I am in an empty room? One of the biggest benefits of living with less, is that you can quickly create space. How to Make Space Closet- Start here and build momentum for uncluttering the rest of your home. Start making piles of clothes and be ruthless. Pile One: I love these items. Bedroom – While I don’t recommend TV in any room of the house, it should absolutely be off limits in your bedroom. As you make space, remember that less is not none.
An attempt by Kelly Sutton to get rid of everything - Cult of Less
