But wait... there's less!

A group called Advent Conspiracy put together this great little video about how to make Christmas more meaningful, less commercial, less materialistic while also helping make the world a better place. Surely this is a no-brainer. It's a winner on all fronts. I think the only reason it doesn't take off is the massive amount of advertising that tells us that Christmas should be all about consumerism. Which is wrong, but it's a powerful message. You may also be interested in previous videos by Advent Conspiracy. Here are the US version and Australian version from a few years ago. It's pitched at a Christian audience, but I think the message is applicable for everyone.

Have you ever signed an internet petition? Often they are for great causes, and other times it's someone letting off steam about something that irritates them. I recently received one started by a lady upset that she had to pay tax on her redundancy package. I'm not here to debate the merits of the tax system, but in her petition she mentioned being 66 years of age and still having a mortgage to pay. What? How can that be? Surely there's something wrong when a couple who have been of working age for 50 years are still making house payments. This is precisely the kind of terrible situation that I'm hoping to help people avoid. At this age Linda and her husband should be able to spend time with their grandchild and relax a bit. They shouldn't have to be spending their time chasing the government to change the federal tax system. I hope they sell up, pay off the mortgage, and move into something smaller and/or more affordable. They can have more time with the f...

This past week we gave away one of those beach shade tents (seen below in our driveway). It was nothing flash, but handy for avoiding sunburn at the beach. We put it online for free and that night we had 5 replies within a couple of hours and arranged to give it away the next evening. It was great to have a double win. 1. It was so easy to avoid something ending up in landfill (or deteriorating in the back of the garage) and 2. It was wonderful to help out another person (or whole family) at the same time. As the taker said to me in a message afterwards, “we have been wanting one for the kids ... but never really had the spare funds for it.” PS. I left the post online until the tent had been collected. In less than 24 hours, it was viewed over 500 times and I received 21 enquiries. There's certainly a lot of people we can help out, while also de-cluttering our own home.