The Simple Wealth

One local bank send us a letter informing us about their celebration for relocating to a new address by offering one day of free stuff: free hot dogs, free cokes, free pretzels, free ice creams, free live music, free games… I almost missed out such great event, luckily I was sorting through my mails and spotted it just in time. I certainly didn’t want to miss out such free fun things.

Free Games

There were hammering stations for small kids and big kids. My daughter got very good at hammering after practicing a few times and won a few prizes. There were two basketball games to throw balls into the net.

The balloon artist was very good with her hands. Look at my daughter wearing butterfly balloons with her face painted for free, of course.

Picnic on the lawn

we had picnic on the lawn in front of the bank. They did a beautiful job on having a beautiful lawn and flower garden.

Giving something back to the community

It’s wonderful that the bank gives something back to the community. It takes a lot of efforts to build a community desirable for people to live in. This kind of events, like the annual downtown stroll, certainly create something nice to the community.

Festival of Frugality

Festival of Frugality #132 - “Frugal is, as Frugal does” edition is hosted at Budgets are sexy. I enjoyed Jacob’s post,What I pay for health care, from Early Retirement Extreme a lot, he is on the Warrior diet which is having only one main meal at night, that’s quite an interesting idea, he eats fruit and veggies through out the day, then eats whatever he wants at night. I’m very glad to discover his blog from this Carnival, I browsed some of his posts and like his writing a lot. You should check out his About me page, he stated that he reached his goal of not having to work for money any more in five years after he started his journey.

I also enjoyed the post: Frugal Habits that Have Improved my Life, by Coupon Artist at artofthecoupon.com. We tend to think that frugality means lower quality of life, that’s not exactly true, the opposite could be true. Interestingly,one of the things she mentioned, buying raw meat to feed her dogs, is what I have been doing for my pets as well. I don’t have dogs but cats. I have stopped buying them canned cat food because they didn’t seem to like canned food all the time, but they love raw meat and chicken livers, so I have been buying them a container of chicken livers a week for under $2, that’s a lot cheaper than canned food, and sometimes I skipped buying that too because they have been eating so many mice outdoor, feeding themselves nicely with plenty of raw meat. Another thing she mentioned is cooking at home instead of eating out that has improved her life. We cut back on eating out a lot as well, but we are eating gourmet food at home, my hubby likes my cooking a lot. That aspect of our life is certainly not lower in quality. Check out her About me page as well, it’s quite interesting, she mentioned that they are $250k in debt, and no, she’s not talking about mortgage debt.

Carnival of Financial Learning

Carnival of Financial Learning #5 is hosted at Financial Learn, my post: Tips for finding cheap day camps for your kids, is one of the editor’s picks. Thanks to the editor.

Everything Family

Everything Family Issue 3 is hosted at her family blog. P.L. Frederick’s post, The Sweetest Pet Ever, is very humorous.

Carnival of Everything Finance

Carnival of Everything Finance: # 19 is hosted at Everything Finance. I like the post, $2,811 In Passive Income For April 2008, from LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS. That’s really good passive income that makes me drool.

Carnival Of Tips

Carnival Of Tips - June 28, 2008 is hosted at Tip Diva.

There are so many posts but I have to stop here now because my baby just woke up from her nap.

I usually spend some time everyday cleaning the house. When you have kids, your house doesn’t stay clean any more unless you clean it at least once a day, and pick up things a few times a day. So cleaning is on my daily to-do list, but decluttering has not been on my list for years until now. I decided that I need to spend a little bit time, maybe 15 to 30 minutes, everyday to declutter my house.

Declutter a kitchen drawer

So I started with a kitchen drawer which held miscellaneous small stuff. That drawer had been a mess, I did not know what else I had in there besides rubber bands and bandages. I used a few containers for different things: one for dry sponges, one for glues, one for small screw drivers, one for rubber bands, one for small miscellaneous hardwares. I was very impressed myself after the drawer was organized. I showed it to my husband, and he was very impressed as well, he said, “Wow, this is even more impressive than a clean house.”

It’s incredible. That drawer had not been useful to us because it was such a mess, and now after I spent a little bit time organizing it, it became much more useful to us.

To spend 15 to 30 minutes decluttering a day is a very doable goal, I wonder why I never thought of doing this before? It has something to do with one’s vocabulary, when the word ‘declutter’ or ‘unclutter’ was not in my daily vocabulary, it was not in my thinking; when I used a broader term, ‘clean’, it did not necessarily include ‘organizing’ and ‘decluttering’. It’s quite interesting how one’s words influence one’s actions.

Next Steps

Maybe tomorrow I would spend some time declutter my desk.

Maybe the day after tomorrow I would declutter my book shelves.

It feels wonderful to have a clutter-free space.