The list of quick

One area I've been working on for about a year is reorienting my spending to really stop and make sure that I'm not trying to buy myself a better feeling or just spending money needlessly on conveniences. Part of that was to ensure a larger portion of money goes to saving and debt reduction. But from that you have to reduce spending, something I haven't been totally successful at.

Oh I've had a few wins here or there. I've made myself take a non tolled route home from work when I can which takes a few minutes longer, thus cutting my tolls in half  and negotiated with work to work from home one day a week (approx $60/month savings). While I haven't been brave enough to throw out my cable tv for a subscription service I did play around with some packages and have cut that bill by  $35/mo.

Still at the end of the month I feel like I'm behind the 8-ball. I use Mint to track my spending and one category is clear is food &Dining. One of the issues with being single is the high cost of food per person as you have to be careful about bulk buying and it's easy to waste food by overbuying. One I issue I have is getting all stoked up about meal planning and buying a bunch of groceries then hitting the drive thru instead when I'm short on time.  Double jeopardy as not only is it more expensive but then I tend to have food waste.

So one of the ideas I've had is to implement a quick meal list. Since the biggest excuse I give myself is that well I will only have ten-fifteen minutes to make something and I don't have anything that I can pull together that quick, my idea is to create a list of things I can make that are already in my house and that I usually have on hand that I can make in ten minutes. 

I'm going. To do this from what I already have rather then going out and buying new food. Why? A)because I already have so much food in my house b) because even if I buy food and put it away, chances are I will forget about it so a list will keep it more visible.

Then I will post that list on the door of my fridge and it will be a reference for those days. Even if I haven't gotten home yet I know that list will be there so I have to go home first and check it before I make any further decisions.

This could be the start of something...

Like the song says,"this could be the start of something". Now that normally ends with the lyric "Big". But big can be scary, big can be overwhelming, big can make you want to immediately give up and stay with the status quo.

So why not  start with just one thing?  Just to get in the habit of doing one thing better.  Change is exponential.  If you strive to continously improve and make small little changes soon you will find that you've changed a whole bunch without the pain of trying to force something big.

I once heard the analogy of change being like a giant steamer shift. If you tried to force the rudder ino a quick turn you would break it off. In order to steer the ship you have to make smaller corrections so that the force on the rudder is not so great.

I also through my work have been involved in adopting the idea of continuous improvement. This concept called Kaizen by the Japanese and what it means to me is to always keep asking, how can I make this better, be courageous to start something new at least one step, and although something may have worked it can always get better.

The areas where the thought of this is floating my boat and that I plan to blog on are:

House

• Home
• Simplicity
• Friends and Family
• Finances
• Self/Soul
• Environment/Being a World Citizenship

Maybe this is just for me, maybe someone else will see this and want to create something better.  For if we could all just do one thing better, maybe we can all feel a bit better about our relationship with the world.