Clutter Points II: Your Car
Note: I’ll be on vacation next week, so no new posts until Oct 20th. It might be a good time to read some posts that you missed. Now, on with the post.
So, I’m driving to work today and I notice a grape stem in the change part of my car’s console. You know what I’m talking about, that open area in your car that holds sunglasses, change, or trash. Anyway, looking at it, I realize that it had been a couple of weeks since I ate grapes in the car. Ah ha! I’ve found a clutter point in my car! Read more »
Posted: October 10th, 2008 under Possesions.
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Obviously, I feel that having life in balance is very important. It lowers your stress level and makes it easier to deal with the curveballs that life throws at you. I know that in my life since I started putting things in balance, stuff that would have been a huge deal (like a car repair) a few years ago is now just an annoyance that needs to be taken care of. I fully believe that balancing all of the aspects of your life leads you to being a happier and more content person. But what is balance really? Are we talking about a scale where everything is divided evenly? No. No it isn’t. 
I’ve always been sort of a pack rat when it comes to paper. It probably stems back from childhood when my father always insisted I used both sides of the paper to draw on before getting a new one. It probably hit its apex in college. It seemed like there was always some kind of flyer in my mailbox, so I’d stack them up and whenever I needed some scratch paper, I just wrote on the back. I remember Mike, my suitemate, joking about how I would be in charge of the recycling program. After college, I still had about a ream of this scratch paper that I actually moved to my new apartment and stored it in my storage unit there. Why? The practice continues at work. I cut a bunch of old printouts into quarters and use it for jotting down notes. It is a convenient size and it is essentially free. I have a new problem now, though. Lists on quarter-sheet sized paper. Lots of lists. 
A while back I picked up a Dell Axim PDA. I loved this thing. It kept track of my contacts, my appointments, I could read PDFs on it, it played MP3s, I had games for it, heck I even put movies and Veggie Tales on it so I always had a portable babysitter if we were stuck somewhere for a while. It was great, but by far my favorite use for it was as a GPS tool. At the time, GPS receivers for the car were extremely expensive, but for the price of some software and a GPS that plugged into the PDA, I had turn-by –turn directions anywhere I wanted. I used it all over the country and it rocked hard. Sadly, my PDA is going terminal now and is currently on life-support. It works, but not all the time and not as fast as it use to. Also, the PDA market is almost gone now, replaced by iPods and smart phones, so my time with my Axim is reaching its end. 
In September, expenses piled up a lot. When we sat down to do the budget in August, we knew that some out of the ordinary expenses needed to be accounted for. In a nutshell, my kidney stone and Hope’s broken arm both had associated bills due. August is the hot month in Oklahoma so our electricity bill soared thanks to the air conditioning. Finally, some other needed but still price expenses reared their ugly head. Ultimately, our outgo exceeded our income by about $300. Now the great news about this is that thanks to the budget we knew all about this at the beginning of the month. Similarly, sticking to the budget meant that we saved money in previous months for just such an occasion. So we rode out September without much of an issue. Then we sat down and did October’s budget. It too was $300 over. How could this be?