An extra special giveaway

What do you do when you have 80 pens? Help save someone's life.

Most times we give away an item we feel we're helping someone. Even selling an item does the buyer a favour by providing what they need at a bargain price. But this was a step above.

At a local church, lawyers and other volunteers help refugees seeking safety in Australia. They have a mountain of government paperwork to do to demonstrate who they are and the serious danger they face in their home country.

Recently they needed more stationery supplies for the paperwork and applications. It was a great chance for us to declutter our stationery and help people in real need.

I was surprised to find we had at least three staplers and 80 pens. Almost half the pens no longer worked - either broken or had dried up while waiting to be used.. We have much less now - but probably still more than we will ever use in our lifetime.

Comments

Don't dump on charities

Netflix causes mass dumping. Here's an alternative. January is usually a big month for physical donations to charity. In 2019 it's been over-the-top (literally) as charity donation bins have been overflowing with items. The Netflix series "Tidying Up" by famous declutterer Marie Kondo (see her book ) has inspired many to declutter their homes. But in the process they've cluttered the streets. What's so bad about donating? When the bins overflow the extra items are thrown away. Having been in the weather, the rain and on the ground, they are classified as contaminated and cannot be sold. To make it worse, much of what fills the bins is not good enough to sell, and is also dumped. Bad donations hurt charities 13 million dollars. That's how much it costs charities to deal with all the junk we dump on them - 60,000 tonnes a year. Lifeline says half its stores have stopped accepting donations. We might think we're helping, but that's a lot ...

You know what to do. Ignore this ad!

Yes, jewellery stores pump out the ads around valentine's day - that's no surprise. After all it's a made-up day designed to sell more stuff at higher prices. But this year they seem extra desperate to sell stuff we don't want, with the "You know what to do" campaign. I reckon the sales team are scared by the number of couples that have realised that love is not in physical merchandise but in quality time. So they've made an ad exactly about these people. The message seems to be aimed straight at guys to say "even if you and your partner agree not to waste money on jewellery, you should buy her some anyway". Apparently in a relationship it's important to ignore what your wife or partner says and do what profit-motivated corporations tell you to do. I tend to disagree. If you're interested have a look - it's interesting to see how transparent it is.

How to retire on a boat at 40

Irish Leonard explains how his family of four lives on a sailboat. No inheritance. No lottery. Just not wasting money - or his time. How does he afford it? He explains by showing the average Irish household expenses, converted into hours worked. Here's the result shown as a working week: We work a lot to pay for our cars. As he puts it: Almost 20% of our working lives is spent so that we can afford to get to our working lives. So Leonard eliminates or massively reduces most expenses. On the family boat, he sails "in a climate that requires no heating or air conditioning, doesn't own a car and generates what energy he needs using solar panels". Remove the unnecessary costs and you remove most of the need to work. He calculates that we can feed and clothe our family on 5 days work per month, or the equivalent. By contrast the average Irish couple devotes 19 hours a day to work, including commuting. Why all this focus on time? In Leonard's words "I...

But wait... there's less!

Search This Blog