But wait... there's less!

Should people serve the economy or should the economy serve people? Because dollars are easy to measure, politicians and the media measure our economy by whether more dollars are changing hands. I think this is a poor way to measure how well we are going. It completely ignores other aspects like our happiness, the amount of free time we have and the amount of pollution that occurs. I recently saw the documentary Fixing the Future, and it contained this great illustration of how money is only a small part of the equation. By spending less we can improve our lives and other people's too, even if it can't be measured in dollars. We should look at the bigger picture if we want to live better lives.

We meet many people through selling our excess stuff. Some are fascinating. Some funny. Some odd. Some a little weird. Today a local buyer declined to pick up their desired item. Or to have me bring it to him/her. I say him/her because even their profile name sounded more like a code name, giving away no information. The instructions were to wait for the all-clear and then deposit the item at a designated letterbox (presumably theirs). The money would be in a side compartment. This was definitely a first. Unexpected and a little strange. I might not have done it, but being very local I did it during my afternoon walk. I'll probably never know who the buyer was - or why they wanted this secretive method. In my free ebook Less Clutter More Cash I said selling to people can be fun and interesting. At the time I didn't expect that to include doing a spy-like drop-off to a secret identity. Now that I've done it, I think they're onto a pretty good idea. Letterboxes...

Advertisers say some ridiculous stuff to manipulate us into buying useless items we don't need. The Checkout took a quick look at some of ludicrous items for bikes . Would you pay $1100 for a watch? How about $491 for a bike pump? It's funny, and slightly jaw-dropping, but the sad part is that we sometimes we are lulled into buying this stuff. Then we have to work more - or sacrifice other things - to pay for it all. PS. If you regret stuff that you've bought, why not sell it online? Download my ebook Less Clutter More Cash for handy tips.