50 days and a 1000 dollars – Part III
This is the third and final installment in the 50 days and a 1000 dollars series. Here are Part I and Part II.
Reuse, Reduce and Recycle – Best Friends
Reuse, Reduce and Recycle sounds like a green mantra but today I’m going to show you how you can actually apply this mantra to your financial life.
When I came to the US almost ten years ago, I was pretty intrigued by the whole ‘Back to School’ concept. Kids get to buy new stuff every year? That’s weird! Back in the day (and this applies to today’s kids back home too I’m sure), the only new stuff we used to get was notebooks and pencils. We wore the same school uniforms to the next grade and the next grade if our parents had their way. As long as they were not worn (read torn) or they wouldn’t fit anymore (most likely reason for them to be worn/torn), they were all fine. And if you had an elder sibling, then you were pretty much screwed. All your life, you would just be using his/her stuff! Can reuse get any better? So next time you want to throw away that old TV just because you’re bored of it, think again. The sight of perfectly working stuff lying next to the community trash bin just plain horrifies me. Give it to charity, send it to the bedroom or better yet, put an ad and someone will buy it. Don’t just throw it away; which by the way makes you very eco-unfriendly.
There were a lot of pearls of financial wisdom that one could have gathered back in India while growing up. Another thing that I remember from my childhood was the idea of reduction. I have already spoken about reduction in Part I but I want to write some more stuff just to put the point across. I remember the times as a kid back home, when I used to go on shopping trips with my parents. Never was there an occasion where we just saw something and said ‘Let’s get this’, other than maybe vegetables or groceries. I used to find it quite silly back then. I thought my parents were the biggest misers on this planet. It was excruciating. What I realized later was that it was not a parenting trick, but more of a financial principle. You don’t need it, you don’t buy it. Simple. Classic reduction! It makes a whole lot of sense now.
The last bit of the mantra, recycle, might throw you off a little. You might be thinking I’m talking about taking those plastic bottles out of the trash and puttin’em where they belong, which you should by the way. However, I’m talking about recycling stuff, all that stuff that’s lying in your attic, thanks to the packrat that you’ve been all these years. It’s time to clean all that junk out. ‘That day’ when you will find some use for ‘that thing’ will never come. Believe me. You’re getting this from a former packrat, man-to-man. Scavenge through your closets, underneath the bed, the garage, wherever you can. Hunt down the last piece of junk that you haven’t used in years and will never use in the near future either. Put an ad on your local classifieds or on Craigslist and you will be surprised to see the kind of response you get. One man’s junk can be another man’s treasure. I made a good thousand bucks getting rid of my junk. I’m sure you have way more junk than I did. Use that money to work on your wishlist (more junk?). Do whatever you want, it’s extra tax-free cash. But if you want to buy new stuff, get rid of your existing stuff first.
Lesson learned: Memorize the mantra: Reduce, reuse and recycle. Reduce – Buy less. Reuse – Think before you throw. Recycle – Use old to buy new.
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