Simple Abundance, Minimalist Living & Slow Travel Inspiration

In case we haven't made our thoughts clear on a subject near to our hearts these days, I thought I would make a statement with a few of our thoughts on the subject and then send you over to our guest post at Care One Community, a great site that helps people make better financial choices and get out of debt so they can live a life their passionate about.  Most of you have gotten to know Travis Pizel who writes about his journey out of debt there and more recently we've introduced Suzanne Cramer to our readers; they both share great information on getting your financial lives in order.  If you're wondering why a blog dedicated to the Go Slow life; slow home and travel lives, following your dreams, and minimalist living is putting an emphasis on anything having to do with money, it's simple.  If money is out of order in your life, if finances and/or the lack of them drive your decisions, if debt is dragging you down at every turn you and your family, your dreams and hopes for a different way of life are going to get back burnered over and again until you deal with what is out of order in your life...money.

We have become bona fide non-consumerists.  You'll find out in our guest post how shockingly little amount of money we have spent since this year began and we'll tell you here and now our goal for 2011 is to remain out of the consumerist lifestyle wherever possible!  We will not be buying furniture, new artwork, craft supplies, rugs, curtains or dishes.  We will not be buying new electronics, a new vehicle, a new mattress or lighting for our home.  We have one basic criteria; if an item such as a piece of clothing (we have a greatly reduced collection of clothing, less than 50 pieces between us) that is necessary to life and business either wears out or becomes too large it will be repaired or tailored if at all physically possible, if it is truly in need of replacement we'll be watching for a steal of deal and will not replace it until we find it.  Jeff will need new running shoes soon as his have hundreds of miles, soon to be cresting over into thousands, we tend to treat those as a consumable, no different than deoderant, toothepaste, etc. as we literally consume the object with its consistent use.  If an item is not a consumable; food, personal care product (and we've learned to limit those) or an item like the running shoes, we will not be purchasing it this year. 

This is in part an exercise in discipline; us over our finances, and in part due to goals we have that are best served by being extremely conscious of our financial expenditures.  In fact we are only very occasionally buying experiences at this time.  We are very grateful to live in an extremely beautiful place with literally tons of free entertainment and activity options available any day of the week.  Sunny? A hike or bike ride, day at the beach or snorkeling will be on tap.  Rainy?  A drive or walk in the rain is an option as are still some hikes.  We are blessed not to have to pay for these activities, we can always choose next year to go out on a sunset cruise or helicopter tour, until we really desire to do so and can comfortably justify the expense we'll be sticking to free experiences.  I bet if you look around your area there are dozens of things you and your family can do to get outside, get active, and/or learn about your area. 

Before I send you off to Care One, I want to clue you in on a few other blogs and people that we enjoy regularly and think you will too:  ExConsumer, if you haven't met Jenny in our comments you need to check out her blog, we really appreciate what she's up to!  Get Rich Slowly, if you have somehow not discovered J.D. Roth's excellent all things financial blog, do not pass go, proceed directly...you get the idea, not to be missed! Ted Hunter's blog Money Smart Online is a great resource for your financial education as is his book Money Smart, which I plan to get my hands on a copy to review for you and then hold a contest to pass along to one of our readers.  Ok, that's all for today so you still have time to check out our guest post, stop in and let us know what you think and poke around some new to you blogs on finances and getting the upper hand over them!  With Aloha!

Have you ever noticed that there are two basic personalities in life?  Oh, they take on various other idiosyncrasies, a bend in one direction or another.  They may be reserved or outgoing, talkative or monosyllabic but regardless of the *side issues* of these individuals you’ll see them over and over again.  They are the Dream Builders and the Dream Killers.  Like tends to find like, a quirk of fate? More likely a case of the clichéd birds of a feather flocking together.  Builders recognize other builders; Killers tend to gravitate to their own kind as well.  What gets interesting is when you mix them up a bit and when a killer has no idea he just played hit man for your Dream.

Let me state for the record that we are Dream Builders.  We dream big or go home.  Some of our dreams come to pass; others become fine tuned and find their fruition in a different form than we originally thought they would.  That’s ok by us, had we not dreamed in the first place then what has been realized never would have come to the light of day, its value never explored or appreciated. 

Imagine for a moment what life would be like today if a man named Alexander Graham Bell or Martin Luther King, Jr. had never dreamed.  Go ahead try.  Try and envision this world without these Dreamers having walked our soil and pushed their respective envelopes.  Don’t like how that plays across the screen of your mind?  How about this?  Their dreams may not have had the desired effects had a few Dream Killers not been in their lives.  What?!  That’s right, their particular, oh so necessary to this life dreams may never have got off the ground if they hadn’t been opposed by Dream Killers.  Why is that?  There is something innately incredible about the birth and cultivation of a dream that also fights to gain its toe hold in society, it gains strength, legs to stand on via its struggle for existence.  A Dream Killer, going about his business may ironically enough be the catalyst that propels a Dream Builder on to his or her success.  Talk about pure irony!