Money Month: 23 Days in

Thus far, in money month I have:

Cooked nearly every meal I've eaten.
Almost bought a car.
Listened to about 6.5 of the total almost 14 hours of my audio book, 4 Hour Work Week.


I was taken out to eat once for a work meeting, once when we ordered pizza in (again, at work), and once when I was in a tight spot schedule-wise I ordered delivery pizza at someone else's house. My boyfriend bought my lunch after Habitat for Humanity last Saturday, and also took me out for Valentine's Day. That's it! I have really enjoyed cooking. Thinking ahead makes it so much easier to make sure you have food when you need it, and coming up with meals has given me the opportunity to get so much more creative with my cooking, taste-wise, but also trying to come up with good ways to eat healthfully.

It's quite comical to me that I almost bought a car during No-Spend month, but hear me out. I am sick to death of my car payment. With the amount I'm spending, I could make way less money per month and still have essentially the same exact lifestyle. So I wanted to do it to save money, not to spend more. However, now that the deal fell through, I will wait until March to do any serious car shopping. Honestly, the grief I would have gotten worries me not in the least. This is my project and I have goals. Staying in a car with a huge payment and no end in sight is not one of my goals. Reducing my monthly expenses and expenditures is. My vehicle is by far the largest bill that comes due every month besides my house, and more flexible than I have previously given it credit for being, due to the fact that I could, I think, sell it fairly easily. So there's the story on my almost-car purchase. And for the record, I thought it would have been absolutely hilarious.

4 Hour Work Week has blown me away so far. When I first heard about this book and what he was proposing (namely, living on income generated by working only 4 hours per week!), I was skeptical, to say the least. I have always been a pretty big proponent of "alternative" lifestyles (he calls it "Lifestyle Design" but mine is so much more fun and naughty-sounding). My dad was self-employed when I was growing up, and we were homeschooled. Doesn't get much more out-of-the-box than that. Never mind the fact that I've already decided to travel the world. I probably didn't need the first, I don't know, maybe 2-3 chapters, because they were all about "you can do this" and "why you should do this". I'm thinking, OK! Get to the good stuff. How does this actually work?



This is one place I plan to spend
an afternoon writing a blog post
 in the future.
Instead of on my couch.

 Make no mistake. This is a how-to book. This is not simply a book about philosophy, even though, yes, it is a book about life, money, and time philosophy. But Timothy Ferris does not pump you up only to let you get beaten down by the real world once you put down the book (or in my case, press pause). Not only does Mr. Ferris include gads of real-world examples, he gives you resource after resource. Websites, books, and ideas. He does have some of the pie-in-the-sky fun dreamy aspect that I love to read about. But he doesn't stop there.

Going into this, I thought yes, I'm sure what he's talking about can be done. We've all seen those goofy reseller websites, right? SMC? What about those infomercials for real estate? I'm sure some people make money, but not only does it seem an incredibly stupid and pointless business completely devoid of any innovation or creativity, I seriously doubt most people outside of a select few actually make decent money. I'm thinking, yeah, he's Type A, boring guy, only worried about money, going to suggest I set up some sort of facade website to sell junky kitch a la Western Novelty, the pretend company in the indie movie Outsourced (watch it, very cute).

This is not what he's talking about - not at all. What he suggests ends up playing to your strengths, no matter what they are. He's given me what I think is a really wonderful book idea that in all honesty should have been on the tip of my tounge to begin with. In fact, I remember one night about three years ago, sitting up until the wee hours of the morning watching old movies with my boyfriend, and he suggested something similar. At the time, I waved him off, but this book has made me realize what a great idea it was. This will be a creative and very fulfilling project to complete, but ultimately I think that it could become a profitable one as well.

Hopefully you haven't noticed that I said that I have about half my book to go... with only 5 days to go. But unfortunately, that's the case. I better quit writing and start listening.

Buenas Nachos.