On track for 100 Things. April 14, 2009
Posted by atharkhan in : Personal , trackbackLast year, while taking a break from preparing for the California bar exam, I came across David Michael Bruno’s “100 Thing Challenge.” Given that the last few years, I have been acquiring significantly more than the average consumer, I thought it would be a nice thing to do but never really got around to it.
Then, we moved to Chicago and had to fit two condos worth of stuff into a small cramped apartment. As we looked around at our living room (which had a barbecue grill in it!) we decided it was time to divest ourselves of possessions we never seem to use (e.g. my “solar powered air vents”).
Denise came up with a great idea: for every one clothing item we acquired, we had to give up two of the same category. So, we got rid of old, and ill-fitting clothes and donated them to Good Will. Since then, we have held on to this rule. Whenever I feel like getting something, I have to try and find two to get rid of. It’s been working great so far.
A friend suggested looking around for “alligators” — he calls anything that has a subscription fee an “alligator” because “it eats you alive.” Colorful, but you get the point. So,we started slashing things we never seemed to use. The home phone and a car were the first to go. I did some speed tests and noticed that I never got speeds better than 7Mb so it was pointless to pay for a 20Mb connection. We quickly downgraded our cable speed.
Now, as an extension of our “pay-as-you-consume” model, we’re about to get rid of our car and opt for ZipCars. Having paid almost $1500 in parking over the last 6 months, I can’t wait to get rid of this alligator.
The funny thing is that as we get rid of more stuff, we feel better. I am wondering what it will be like when we actually hit 100.
Comments»
Great work Athar! You are certainly moving in the right direction!
FYI – I can’t take credit for the “alligator” term. I first heard it from my real estate broker when I was looking at invetment 4-flats in 2002. It is pretty generally known – see the entry below from Investopedia.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/alligatorproperty.asp
Alligator Property
What Does Alligator Property Mean?
In real estate, when the cost of mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance and maintenance on a rental property is greater than the income it brings in. If this situation is not corrected, it will eat up all of the owner’s profit, leaving him or her with negative cash flow.
Investopedia explains Alligator Property
This occurs more often when a rental property is purchased near the peak of the real estate cycle. In this case, the investor buys the overvalued building and rents it out, but as interest rates rise and maintenance costs add up, the owner is forced to either sell the building or suffer a negative cash flow.
One way to get around the negative cash flow situation is to buy property with a large down payment, thereby reducing the mortgage payment.
[...] the last post, we’ve been eliminating as much excess stuff as possible. We had no need for a patio chair so [...]