Less is More | Mary Beth Danielson Writes

What we spend and where we spend it; this is how most of us strengthen - or waste - our best chance to pursue our own happiness while helping to build - or weaken - economic justice for others.

There are no simple answers to the questions raised by buying cheap products produced by exploiting animals, workers, and the environment. This is a conversation about good values and our values. Let’s share what we are doing and learning.

Street Cred? In 1997 I wrote and published the “Less is More Gazette.” (Friend Mary Duerson did the desktop publishing configuration and record keeping, Jack Stubbs did the drawings.) Amy Dacyczyn wrote to me that it was the ‘best written’ newsletter she reviewed; but this was right after she published her LAST Tightwad Gazette. Timing is everything?

Frugality Hacks or how I saved $64,000,000, so far.

I read the ‘frugal things I did’ letters in other people’s huge and interesting frugality blogs. I figured I could list some of the ways I saved some money this week (this life). I’m pleased to say I saved about 64 Million.

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Quarantine Diary #645 - Granola

Two recent tweets : Someone named Kate Harding tweeted; “What haunts me is that I am not just smart enough for so many people to be this much stupider than me.”

And from Di, Obstinate Hoper; “I’m starting to think of pandemic caution like labor: buckle down during peaks, relax a little between them. Hang in there, folks. It’s a damn long labor.”

Frugal? Road Trip to New Mexico

If our finances were stretched we wouldn’t have gone to New Mexico. We are doing fine despite the advice that says one ought to retire with a million dollars in the bank. Imagine that.

1. We and, at this point, about half the nation, have had our Covid vaccines so we felt safe and ready to see something new. However, we traveled to a place where they had worked WITH the effort to fight this pandemic. This limited our choices and is the #1 reason we didn’t go to the Badlands. How we spend $ is our power.

The Mindful Chickens are Wordy Today

Other people call them “frugal things I did lately”. I call them Mindful Chickens because they are about:

Being Cheap (cheap, cheep).
Being thoughtful about how choices affect our community and our earth.
Paying attention to the constant tumble of dollars and choices.

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This is my collection of wise choices and dastardly schemes from the last two months.

ONE: Our electric toothbrush/water pick would no longer hold a charge but a new one costs more than $100. Len took it to the battery store where they replaced it for $15.

Mindful Chickens - Plastic & Hunger 12/20/2020

I went for a walk on Wednesday and saw this mitten on a sidewalk. When I was at the same spot on Friday, it was still there, so I brought it home because it is a hand-knitted kid mitten, ya know? Any knitters out there interested in making it a mate, so that we could give it to a kid in my community or your? It's 7" from top to ribbed bottom.

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The point of “Mindful Chickens” is to spend less money while being mindful of the environment and our human values. We can try, right?

Holy Mackerel! Mindful Chickens 12/12/2020

Yamiche and Weijia licking out the mackerel bowl this morning.

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I said I would write “mindful things” we did this week. The agenda of “Mindful Chickens” is to spend less money plus be mindful of the environment and our other values at the same time. Sometimes, one of those purposes wins over the other, but we can think before we spend, right?

1. I cut my hair. This is not a particular skill of mine, but I can do it well enough to not look like the Pittsburgh Paint Dutch boy.

Section Archive

December 2020

July 2020

7-6-2020 Mindful QUARANTINED Chickens

May 2020

Making (a little) Sense of Medicare by Len Lamberg

March 2020

Mindful Chickens - Clucking at the Stock Market

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