James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 4- Food

My mom loves cooking.  I love eating.  It is no surprise that I am not a skinny man today.  My employees asked me what my favorite kind of food was a couple of months ago.  "Anything that I do not have to make myself," was my response.  I love Italian food, Chinese food, sandwiches, pizza, Thai food, Hamburgers, Mexican food, anything with cheese on it.  I am a big fan of eating.

Eating always carries a few challenges with it.  Almost everything is available any time you want it so there are very few restrictions that are externally placed upon us.  All the restrictions usually come from within.  The restrictions could be time available, budget allotment, nutritional value, forbidden ingredients, calorie count, or just living in a family of picky eaters.

The most common struggle that my wife and I have over food has to do with quality.  Her perspective is that whatever we consume most should be of the highest quality in order to give the kids the best nutritional benefit.  I lean towards cheap products for staples with higher quality/cost going towards items that we do not use as much of.  We never sit down and fight out what kind of groceries we need to get.  It is just that whoever is shopping looks at the aisles through their own lens...which could be very different than the other person.  I do have to say that I have come to a point, after 17 years of marriage, where I do carry my wife's voice in my head when I go to the store.  I never used to wonder, "Does my cart have enough leafy greens in it," before.  Now I do.

Simple living has forces...I mean encouraged us to sit down and work out what we need to buy each week and an estimate of what that will cost.  In doing that we are cutting our grocery bill by nearly 60%, which is outstanding.  There are a lot of people who take their simple living approach to food much more seriously than we do.  They will meal plan and prepare for the month, grow their own food, make their own condiments, raise livestock in order to eat in a more organic and focused way.  We are not so zealous.

Again Simple Living is not about living a spartan existence.  It is about intentionally focusing your resources in order to craft the lifestyle that you wish to pursue.  A garden with chickens and goats and compost and root cellars is not the lifestyle that we want to pursue at the moment.  Spending less on groceries so that we can bridge this period between jobs?  Yes.  Having more time to bake and cook with the kids?  Yes.  It is not glamorous.  I will probably never write a book entitled, "Feeding your family on $12 per day...with minimal dishes!"  But this is how we want to invest in food during this season.

James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 3- The Budget

At the heart of Simple Living lies the Budget.

This is not just an excuse for me to again proclaim my love for Excel Spreadsheets...although I do have deep affection for the ways that the columns all line up and you can set up equations and carry sums from one sheet to a different sheet and...I digress.

At the core of the Budget is this truth:  Money is Slippery.  It comes and goes quickly and modern technology makes commerce easier than ever.  The world is available to us and there are a lot of really great things that we could buy.  The goal of the Budget is to take a look at our cash flow and be intentional about where the money goes.  If we do this, our money is a great tool towards living the life that reflects our priorities and values.  If we don't do this, we end up with lots of things that don't last and that we don't want and our credit cards morph from safety nets to heavy anchors.

What makes a Budget work?  Here are a few ideas:

• Have some money and some money coming in.  No resource means that your budget is really just an aspirational wishlist of what you might want to do someday.
• Be Honest.  Brutally honest.  Be honest about what you actually bring in and what things actually cost.  If your cell phone bill each month is actually $95 don't say that it is "about $75."  If your monthly income is $1,564 don't call it "about $1,600."  If you need to round in order to keep track of numbers in your head, round down on income and up on expenses so the income would be $1,550 per month and the cell phone bill would be $100.  It is better to end up with too much money than not enough.
• Savings are part of the Budget.  Savings are what keeps problems from becoming crises.  Stuff happens.  Unforeseen stuff happens, like the power steering system of your 10 year old car dying and requiring $2,000 to fix and having to choose whether it is worth that investment or whether you should look into a different vehicle...as a hypothetical, random example.
• Giving is part of the Budget.  If it is part of the money coming in and going out of the accounts, it is part of the Budget.  If you have regular monthly places that you like to give, great.  That's easy.  If you lean more towards spontaneous giving and feel shackled by planned giving, that's ok too.  Allot how much you can give per month and set it aside.  You can pull it out in cash or set up a different bank account just for generosity.  One of the primary benefits of simple living is clearing up more space to give away money to great causes.
• Follow the budget.  The paper (or spreadsheet) is only as useful as the person applies it.  If you put down $50 for gas each month but really spend $75, then adjust the budget or the driving but stop lying to yourself about what you are spending.  Exceptions will arise but if exceptions are the norm then they are your new standards.
• Communicate.  This is for those of us who share a bank account.  A Budget can not just live in the mind of one of the partners.  You don't have to both revere Excel, but you need to both live by the same budget or else you are setting up a volatile mixture of resignation and frustration.  Find a format that you can both read and understand so that you can talk through what will actually work.  
• Money, and specifically the Budget, is meant to be a Tool, not a Master.  Your money is meant to enable you to live according to your principles and priorities.  Treat it as a tool, not the final objective. The bigger question should be "What kind of life do I want to lead?"  The ideal budget will reflect the answer to that question.

James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 2- Adventures in Breakfast

7:30 rolled around this morning and the Menaker Morning Machine kicked into high gear:

• Wake up the big kids because the 12 year old has camp that starts at 8:30
• Wake up the wife since she will be walking the 12 year old up to her camp.
• Get the kids breakfast...this could be interesting.
• Attempt 1- Cereal and Milk.  Nope.  Out of Milk.
• Attempt 2- Toast.  Nope.  Out of Bread.
• Attempt 3- Scrambled Eggs.  Nope.  Propane ran out last night.
• Attempt 4- Pancakes. Nope.  Did I mention that the propane ran out last night?
• Attempt 5-Waffles? Nope out of a couple of ingredients...including milk.
• Attempt 6- Stop by Sunrise Bagels on the way to camp.  Nope. We are on a strict No Eating Out budget.
• Attempt 7- Quick drive to the grocery store to get milk and bread. Nope.  The car is in the shop with "The largest Power Steering Fluid Leak the Garage has ever seen."
•  Attempt 8- Employ super Dadding skills.  Get two glass ramekins.  Coat with butter.  Stir up two eggs in each dish.  Microwave.  Serve the children "The Great Leaning Tower of Scrambled Eggs" and swagger back into the kitchen.

Simple living sometimes requires the impossible...something like early morning creativity. We got the children fed and the girl to her camp. Carina and the boy rode the bus from the university to the grocery store and then brought food back to the house.  The little girl and I walked the empty propane tank over to the chevron station where our poor car was sitting.  We filled the tank, found out the car should probably not be driven more than a few blocks at a time and came home to compare notes with Carina about how her adventures of the day have gone.

The kids are having a grand time.  They get to ride the bus, ride bikes, go for walks, do lots of home cooking, have dad home more and generally do lots of things that they don't regularly get to do.  This is why I describe our status as "Simple Living" instead of "Poverty." Our quality of life is not being adversely effected.  We are just needing to be flexible.

Personally, I hate being poor.  It is such a luxury to simply be able to throw money at something.  Out of groceries?  Just order pizza.  Car won't work?  Rent another one while you spend $2,000 fixing up this one.  Tooth aching?  Just schedule a dentist visit and pay your deductable.  It is easy to forget that this is the lifestyle of the privileged, not the status quo.  There are lots of people who have to get groceries by planning their lives around the bus schedule instead of just going on impulse.  There are lots of people who have to choose between rent and healthy teeth.  There are lots of people who's maximum travel distance is how far they can bike.  They are no less precious in God's eyes and, in fact, Scripture makes a concerted effort to point out that He holds them especially close to His heart.

I dislike watching our bank account shrink.  I dislike having to tell the kids that we can't do some things.  I dislike the uncertainty that tomorrow and next month hold.  But there are moments where I feel my compassion grow or I see the kids' characters being solidly built or our family comes together to creatively solve a problem together and I think this season of Simple Living might be an okay thing.

James' Guide to Simple Living: Chapter 1- Name it and Claim it

A quick job update:  Still waiting...on everything.  Waiting on the results of my most recent interview.  Waiting to hear from the 2 magazine that I submitted proposals to.  Waiting to hear from any of the 6 freelance proposals that I submitted last week.  The waiting is not unexpected, but it is not fun.  What I really want is a timeline; I want to know when I will start working again.  A hard date is something that I can work with and plan around.  Starting work in June?  Great we'll enjoy the rest of the month until that starts.  Starting work in July?  Ok.  We'll budget our time and money to have a great summer.  Starting work in August?  Fine.  I'll find some seasonal work in order to cover the gap.  Any of those will work out, but until we get some solid information, the family is trying to make what we have go as far as it can.

Welcome my friends to the world of simple living.  Simple living is a lifestyle of frugality that does not compromise the family's quality of life.  The children are well fed and clothed; they play and pursue their interests.  However we cut out some of life's extras in order to intentionally apply our time and money other places.  Some people choose a simple life because they value quality time with the family or they want to focus their resources on donating to a valued cause.  Some people have a simple life chosen for them.  They are fired, take a pay cut, have a huge medical expense or some other unforeseen event arise and they have to budget accordingly.

It is always a more secure feeling to choose instead of having it chosen for you.  We are somewhere between the choosing and being chosen for.  I could have chosen to stay at my previous job longer by simply not telling the Board that I was considering leaving.  Then I could have quit one day and started my new job the next day.  That did not seem like a decision with integrity so I informed my employers of my intention to move on and they were able to complete their transition without harming the organization or its participants.

So June rolled around and Carina and I decided that we needed to re-evaluate our budget.  We have a month worth of savings but that could be extended if we simplified life.  I'll get more into what we cut and what we kept later, but here's the big initial take-away:  A simple life is not a worse life.  There are trade-offs that come with getting a big paycheck.  There are trade-offs that come with kids being involved in lots of activities.  There are trade-offs that come with eating out and going to movies and having nice stuff.  We have the opportunity to decide which trade-offs are worthwhile and which are too costly.  Instead of complaining about what we don't have or can't do, we have the opportunity to explore other ways of living so that when we do have money again we can be intentional about pursuing the kind of lifestyle that is in line with what we want our family to value.

This is our summer of simple living.  If you are there too, try to not fall into despair.  Simple Living.  Name it.  Claim it.  Learn everything that you can from it for it will only be for a season.

Waiting

I can tell when I am antsy when my legs cannot stop moving.  Sitting here at my desk I keep bouncing my leg.  Then I bend one leg so that I am sitting on it and the other one starts swinging.  If I stand up I am merely going to pace or go do dishes while I fidget.  Why am I antsy?  Because I am waiting.

So I've taken some steps in this whole freelance writing adventure.  I have reviewed our budget to figure out what kind of financial margin we have while we wait another few weeks for job interviews and invitations.  I have set up no fewer than three spreadsheets to track freelance money and projects. I set up skype and norton and windows and a couple of other tools in order to have this computer meet my needs.  I have registered on a freelance writing service, applied for three projects, submitted proposals to two magazines...and now we wait.

I don't like waiting.  I don't know anyone who really does.  The most positive thing that I ever hear is, "I don't mind waiting."  Waiting means that you have something that you want to do but you cannot move on it until something else happens.  You need someone else to finish their part of the project before you can do your part.  You need the rain to stop before you can play outside.  You need the crappy driver in front of you to finish parallel parking before you can get around them to drop off your one little letter at the post office.  Whatever the case may be.

There are a couple of different approaches that can be taken when you are waiting.  Option A is to turn your whole world into focusing on when you can start.  I cannot make a call or be away from my phone so I don't miss the notification that I can begin.  I will check my websites multiple times per hour to see if it is time.  I get tense and short tempered because nothing good can happen in my life until this waiting is over!  So there's that option.

Option B realizes that there are some things that are out of my control.  Refreshing the page 1,000 times will not make the plane land any faster.  What I can control is how I choose to spend right now.  Do I make the most of this time by engaging in rest or play or learning or prayer...or do I choose to wrap myself up in anxiety until I can be released like a wound spring when the waiting is over?  I am starting to learn that B might actually be healthier than A.

The people who are most miserable here in Fairbanks are the ones who live for summer and spend our 8 months of winter waiting, resenting the snow and darkness and cold.  The ones who are happiest find things to do in all seasons; Indoor or Outdoor, Active or Stationary, there are activities that build the body, mind and soul that can be found in every season.

So today, I have put in a few hours of administrative work and freelance proposals.  I have initiated with those that I need to initiate with.  My family is engaged in their individual activities.  We will connect a little later today for some family fun.  So instead of clicking back and forth between websites and cursing people who do not respond quickly, I will do a little praying and some housework and I will learn a new skill.  I'm going to learn how to write screenplays and then start adapting "The Seer."  Will I complete it and try to get it turned into a movie?  I don't know, but it sounds like a fun challenge and a significantly more productive way to wait than Option A.

From Riding to Writing

     The wordplay of the title only works if you read it out loud quickly, but I am pretty proud of it anyway.

     So I realize that I have been out of touch for a while.  The middle of last week my son and I went out on his big birthday ride.  I'm not saying that it has taken a week for me to be able to sit back down at my desk after that...but today is the first day that I have not had extra padding on my chair.

     The ride went great.  The weather was overcast but we had no rain.  It did start hailing about two hours after we finished so I was grateful that we headed out when we did.  We loaded up our four water bottles and 8 energy bars; we aired up our tires, packed our backpack and set off with mom and the girls waving from the house.  We hit the first intersection and climbed the first hill to the second intersection...and decided that this was a grand place to take our first water break.  We hit the downhill side and then trudged up the next hill to the third intersection and mutually agreed that it was time for a rest stop and power bar break.  Fifteen minutes.  One mile.  Two stops.  Look out Tour de France.  My biggest consolation was that the fifteen year old was huffing and puffing just as much as I was...nearly as much as I was...for about two minutes and then he was ready to go again.

     Everything went really smooth.  Our rest stops were right where we needed them to be.  We were right on schedule and Big Mister had a great time whooping and hollering as he charged down the substantial downhills.  I really appreciated knowing the route well so that I could tell the boy (and myself), "Right after this big set of hills is a drop and rest stop,"  or "We'll meet up at the top of this hill, right before the turnoff to the bike path."  Kiddo had a good ride and a fun birthday filled with legos.

     We've done a couple of short rides in this past week, but now that the big ride is over, my attention is turning from Riding to Writing.  Have to admit, I still am so internally impressed by the word play that I had to use it again.

     My job search is going well.  I have a really strong chance to get one of a couple of different positions...which start end of summer-ish.  So likely I won't have a steady position for another month or two.  We've gone over our budget and can make it work, but this is going to be a season of lots of disposable time and little disposable income.  And did I mention that I have US District court Jury duty for 90 days starting the end of June?  So no big trips our of Fairbanks that last more than a weekend.

     Instead I'm diving into Freelance writing.  I have submitted some proposals to magazines and signed up on a Freelance site.  I will be working on content for magazines and blogs and websites and possibly some grants.

     What I found while I was setting all this up was that there were some similarities to preparing for the bike trip with my son.  First and foremost, I needed to get over my fear of pain and rejection and dive in.  I put off training for the bike ride because I knew it would hurt to get back to biking.  I spent a fair amount of time researching freelancing and looking at different proposals and organizations because I hate getting rejection letters.  I just needed to commit and dive in and grow as I went.

     So here I go, trying to become a writer.

     My seat is still sore...maybe I'll use that padding for one more day.