Tag Archives: buying stuff

Christmas Weight, Bills, Spending, and “Stuff”

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On average we gain seven pounds (three kg) between Halloween and New Years. I wonder if we don’t lose a thousand bucks on Christmas stuff. Then, according to fitness experts, it takes us an average of five months to lose that weight. Well, according to financial studies it takes even longer to get the Christmas spending paid back: It takes until June on average.

But every year I’m reminded that most of what we buy, not just at Christmas time, is just “stuff.” And that’s not what Christmas is, or should be all about.

A few years ago, after decades in our family home, my parents could no longer handle the physical upkeep of a large single family home. It turned out that the trauma of selling our family home wasn’t nearly as bad as what us “kids”, now middle aged ourselves, had to do in order to make it happen.

 One Friday we ordered one of the big commercial dumpster bins to be delivered to the house. After giving away stuff  that our family members, friends and neighbours wanted, we knew there’d still be a lot of things that had to be thrown out: From sleeping bags to tools, furniture to books, and extra dishes to everything else, none of these could go into a one bedroom nursing home unit. What we weren’t prepared for was the visual impact of a huge and full bin being hauled away, then a second bin, and even a third bin. In total, the stuff accumulated added up to over 14,000 pounds – in the dump. Few things in life have had such a powerful and visual impact on us.

 Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of stuff, purchased one at a time, over a lifetime, ended up as 14,000 pounds of trash. It sure put things into perspective. You’ll now understand why I’m just not that excited about buying that newest whatever, the next model of some gadget or another, or running up my credit cards. (Money Tools & Rules excerpt page 216)

Five Bucks and Up For Anything You Can Dream of Creating

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Fiverr is a world top-100 website that’s now been around for 10-years. I’ve used them for a lot of years for small one-off jobs: Three pictures for my websites written in sand from the Gold Coast in Australia, a custom-made postcard by someone in New Mexico, a custom made picture by someone in Pakistan, work on an excel document from Colorado and two incredible original custom charcoal drawings from a lady in Bristol, England.

If E-bay is for buying stuff from around the world, Fiverr.com is for services, starting at US$5 – hence the name Fiverr. It’s no longer a flat $5 base price, sellers or service providers now set a price, but you’ll find some smokin’ deals for any service you may need from the gig economy around the world.

Online tutoring, fitness lessons & tips, create pictures or greeting cards, family tree work, celebrity impersonators, voice-overs, short videos, your message written on anything, blog set-ups, picture editing, social media work, songwriting, music remixing, IT support, etc.

Want to create a custom designed T-shirt? There are over 2,000 services available starting at seven dollars and up. Want a custom-composed, written and recorded song done for you? That’ll start at $33. The list is as endless as your imagination. You just need to type in a few words of what you’re wanting, and a long list of people from around the world will pop up.

On the top of the fiverr site, check that it’s showing Canadian dollars. Then contact one of the sellers based on their rating, service or cost, agree on a flat price for what you’re looking to do, then get the draft of it when it’s completed. Make your changes or accept the work that’s done. It’s only after you’re satisfied that you pay for the item or service. You can click “local” on top, but it’s likely you won’t find anyone. I am a huge believer in dealing local, but these are such small and specialized items that (in my mind) they’re exempt from trying to make that happen…

An Expensive Disease Called FOMO?

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It turns out that vast numbers of people in their 20s and 30s have a new condition called FOMO, which stands for Fear Of Missing Out.

Having grown up with social media, their priority is not buying stuff, but buying experiences. Whether it’s the super cool holiday, the sold-out concert, a trip to the Grey Cup, the safari to Africa, or whatever interests them. Everybody can buy a sofa or big screen TV, but their spending priorities are on experiences, so as not to feel left out when their friends post some of theirs on social media.

While their parents or grandparents may have accidentally lucked out in being at Woodstock, or having seen Elvis in concert – it’s a financial priority for this generation. While I’m a little bit envious, I wonder if our older generations aren’t better off financially because of our different priorities.

Experiences cost a lot more money. They’re also a one-off in that it’s the trip, the concert, and then it’s over, and the big bucks are spent. We certainly don’t need a lot more “stuff” in our life or our homes, older generations have also spent money. They’ve spent it on a television, dining room furniture, a sofa and the likes that may last a decade vs. a one-off experience. Which is better? That depends on the priorities of the person doing the spending.

Today’s 18 to 30 year olds don’t want to own things – they only want access to things. No box of DVDs, just streaming. No CD, but gotta have iTunes. No car, just ride shares or day rentals. No books, just kindle. Makes me wonder how ready retailers are for this group being the largest in the country. As a reminder, Blockbusters refused an offer to sell their business to a start-up called Netflix for $50 billion. Blockbusters is now just a memory and Netflix is worth over $65 billion.

It’s Just “Stuff”

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A few years ago, after decades in our family home, my parents could no longer handle the physical upkeep of a large single family home. It turned out that the trauma of selling our family home wasn’t nearly as bad as what us ‘kids,’ now middle aged ourselves, had to do in order to make it happen.

One Friday we ordered one of the big commercial dumpster bins to be delivered to the house. After giving away stuff family members, friends and neighbors wanted, we knew there’d still be a lot of things that had to be thrown out: sleeping bags to tools, furniture to books, and extra dishes to everything else, none of which could go into a one bedroom nursing home unit. What we weren’t prepared for was the visual impact of a huge and full bin being hauled away, then a second bin, and a third bin. In total, the stuff accumulated over a lifetime added up to over 14,000 pounds – in the dump.  Few things in life have had such a powerful and visual impact on us.

Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of stuff, purchased one thing at a time, over a lifetime, boiled down to 14,000 pounds of trash. It sure put things into perspective. You’ll now understand why I’m just not that excited about buying that newest whatever, the next model of some gadget or another, or running up my credit cards. Hopefully it won’t take that kind of experience for you to look at “stuff” a little different in your life, or with Christmas presents this year.

When you decide you want to reach financial independence and become debt free, it needs to start by turning off the buying and borrowing tap, to end your continuous borrowing and payment cycle. That decision comes with good news and bad news. The good news is that ending your borrowing cycle rapidly accelerates the date of your debt freedom.  After all, you’ve now stopped digging and stopped making things worse. Besides, if you look at all the debt you have, there’s a good chance that today, most of it couldn’t be sold on e-Bay or given away on Kijiji.