It’s the day after Christmas - and now that the euphoria is over you might be a little bit worried about the VISA/DISCOVER/AMEX bill that will arrive in a week or two.
Is the secret to happiness as simple as simplification? I don’t know, but there are sure a bunch of good tips in this eBook. Leo Babauta is cleverly giving away the eBook to advertise his new book - but there are 27 pages of goodness to be had for the cost of a download.
The one the tempts me the most? Giving up cable (or in my case satellite). That would be 80×12=$960 a year.
The other one? Diet Cokes. I go through at least a 12-pack a week. At $3 (on sale) x 52 = $156. Though, I think it would be easier to get rid of cable that Diet Coke!
Other tips that I wholeheartedly agree with:
1) Go debt free - we use our debit Visa and an AmEx that we pay each month. The only other real debt we have is our house…and I’d sure like to have that paid off too.
2) Create an emergency fund - I like Leo’s goal of aiming for $1000 to start with - but you really should have 6 months of bills in reserve. Another reason to eliminate debt and simplify - it makes that number much smaller.
3) Create a spending plan - I need to do a better job here, but we’ve done more of this in the last year and it has made a major difference in the final scorecard.
Check it out here:
http://thepowerofless.com/2008/12/fre … fying-in-a-tough-economy/
Dan
