Food, Clothing and Shelter
In our personal lives, finances can be all wrapped up into the three necessities of food, clothing and shelter. These three can have lots of luxury potential! We do not have to spend tons of money to live in luxury.
So let’s rename these financial catagories thinking about the luxury. In other words, what’s the purpose of each if we had all the money in the world?
Food Dining
Whether we are eating out, or staying home dining in the kitchen, what we can purpose in our heart is being great company, eating healthy, with the feeling of luxury all around.
If all we add to the TV tray in front of television is a placemat, a gorgeous salad, sparkling water and a cloth napkin, that works! But it still takes planning.
Meal Planning To Save Money
- Take an hour today to write down what you have on hand (inventory the freezer, fridge, and pantry)
- Take a lovely calendar, (mine is a ”islands” calendar that cost $1.00 with fabulous beach pictures to help me stay in luxury mode) and your inventory list, and write down on next week the meals that you could prepare without shopping.
- Next, take a favorite cookbook and look through it to get a few more meal ideas out of your inventory list and write those down for this week.
- Then and only then, start your grocery list thinking about your favorites, what you and your family always enjoy. Do you have what it takes to fix two of those meals this week? If not, shop for those two meals only and your done
with money to spare!
Here’s a role model for you
Clothing Fashion (My Passion!)
I think it was a fashion designer who once said:
“Luxury is to live a healthy life, surrounded by beauty and sincerity in a peaceful world… I wish you this and more.”
Remember, getting organized with purpose can be summed up with these three why’s… Live on purpose, creating:
- beauty
- health and
- peace
for yourself and those you care about… so are your clothes doing that?
How do you look? We do not have to spend a fortune on clothes to look great!
Right now Macy’s in my city has 75% off on really wonderful, luxury PJs!! PJs are the new power suit for those of us who work at home Oscar De La Renta ice blue pajamas for PEANUT$! And cashmere sweaters waaay less than $100…
Inventory
But we must plan ahead. You guessed it… inventory time! Save tons of money and look fabulous with just an hour or two writing down what you have in your closets and drawers.
Warning: don’t organize your drawers and closets to do inventory. DON”T do it! This is a finance exercise. We are getting organized in our finances right now, not in our closets.
You know what S.H.E. stands for, right? Side-tracked Home Executive. That’s definitely me. So I can help. I constantly have to say to myself “Stay focused.”
Take a pen and a tablet, see how much you can write down, standing in your closet for just 15 minutes.
Style
You won’t be finished in 15 minutes but that’s okay. You will have a huge list. Now take a highlighter and highlight each piece that gives you either a sense of style or just makes you smile, like my sweatshirt from Zermatt, Switzerland. I take very good care of that white sweatshirt with gold embroidery “Zermatt” on the front because of great memories.
Zermatt is the village in Switerland that was the model for the designers of Vale, Colorado. It is where the was where the majestic mountain, the Mattahorn is. I’ll probably never throw it away Just as an aside, if we were cleaning our closets, which we are not on this page, but if we were, we wouldn’t throw away or give away anything that makes us smile
So the Zermatt sweatshirt may not give me much style but I love it.
Other items in my closet are perfectly fine but they don’t make me smile and they for sure do not add style, peace, or beauty. So anything like that, don’t highlight on your inventory list.
Fashion Diva
Now, all you need to do today for 15 more minutes is look at fashion, either online or in magazines or catalogs. When you see a few complete looks that you like with some of what you already have (that you’ve just highlighted) start a file with them. Call the file something like ”fashion diva.” Put a post-it note on each look that lists what you have and don’t have.
Never Buy A Complete Look Even If It’s On Sale
Believe me, you have at least half the look you want already but if you do not plan ahead, you won’t remember that great belt stashed in the back of your closet, etc.
The next time you have a little extra money and there’s a big sale, pull out your fashion diva file and treat yourself to complete the look with only one or two purchases!
Shelter Home Is Where The Heart Is
When the wall paper is peeling, glue it back! Don’t let your heart be troubled over needing new wallpaper. If it’s really awful, paint it.
Don’t buy that new sofa yet if you haven’t planned ahead. Do this for 15 minutes… walk around in two of your most lived in rooms with a tablet and pen.
Write down every thing that would need to happen in those two rooms if you were going to have an open house to sell just those two rooms. I know, but it’s just an exercise so just try this. Set the kitchen timer for 15 minutes, now go!
Chances are, more than half of what’s on your list is no cost – just work. Right? Highlight the cost items on your list of say the TV room that you are pretending to sell. Now add up the no cost items in hours of work.
If you take a calendar and get one room ready for show each month, you will have a budget of time and money.
Remember, organizing your finances with purpose just means thinking about why we want what we want. Chances are if we know the purpose, we can get what we want for less!
“Luxury is to live a healthy life, surrounded by beauty and sincerity in a peaceful world… I wish you this and more.”
