Remodeling Bankrupt Malls

In the middle of this recession, we can justify scaling back for the common good and improve the lives of the common people for good! If gigantic malls are going bankrupt, fewer malls might give way to more open space. Fewer restaurants might lead to more gardens for communities to grow their own food, prepare it together, and eat it together in well structured community centers in local parks. Fewer fast food joints would definitely lead to more healthy people. And, of course, with fewer car dealerships we could use those showrooms for more after school programs for kids and cheap to free weekend events for families.

For the hundreds of thousands who have become unemployed, more retraining in community infrastructure jobs like nurses, doctors, social workers, teachers, police, fire fighters, camp leaders, mentors, designers, landscapers and engineers who are skilled in building new parks, etc. If we increase communal efforts to raise psychologically and emotionally healthy families, training others to do it would create more jobs. Government would not need to create the jobs if creative and competent entrpreneurs are given tax friendly terms to do business and, perhaps, low cost lease agreements in old mall space or car dealerships for their headquarters.

Fewer malls could make way for more affordable housing and rehabilitation centers for the mentally ill homeless.

I see so many possibilities in helping ourselves and our neighbors with less of what we have allowed to become needs when the extras are merely unnecessary altogether. Many in the sustainable living village see it and live it as well. When we let stuff go, we open ourselves to exciting and more efficient lifestyles and it's all good. Freedom!

My Grandmother Survived the Great Depression...Worrying, Not an Option

As crazy as generational family lines can be, all of us have ancestors who survived worse economic times than what we are currently facing. For me, worrying about the current state of the economy is simply not an option.

Fortunately, my grandmother shared many stories of being a poor teenager in rural Mississippi in the 1930's directly with me. All of her life, she lived frugally and made her own fashionable clothes/hats up until her last few years on the earth. She made most of my clothes until I was about 10 years old but later made my prom dress, a few skirts for work, and almost anything upon request. She never had much income but all of her basic needs were always taken care of and she shared what she had with others as she became very rich in other ways: My grandmother loved to cook and my mother shared stories of the dozens of the people my grandmother fed during her childhood of the 1950's. My grandmother, the seamstress, always had cash flow from sewing for clients and she stashed cash all the time!

In my 20's, my grandmother, who had given up driving when I was a child and knew how to use the fragmented public transportation system in LA County, directed me to drive her with sandwiches and soup she prepared for the homeless "residing" in downtown Los Angeles. She'd collected clothes to give away including some she handmade: She neither needed a government program nor a non-profit to feed hungry people. I will never forget the splinters of hope as we opened up the trunk and passed out what she had prepared. I can see it in my mind even as I write this blog.

I don't have the sewing talent or the willingness to periodically deliver food to masses of hungry people on my own but I did inherit the detachment of not buying if you can make it mindset from her as it was imposed by economics and limited access to education and opportunities. I also inherited trying to make life easier for others throughout the journey with my resources and abilities. I only realized what she really passed on to me in the last 4 years as I eliminated debt.

She ironically died on Valentine's Day, 2004 a few weeks before my 40th birthday: Ironic, because she wasn't the easiet person to get along with yet, turns out, she left the best gift ever! The woman with a 4th grade education turned out to be wiser than us all in home economics and taking community responsibility. She often warned me to not become an educated fool and although I did some foolish things with money that I know she would've never done, I am redeemed by returning to the forced frugality principles she lived by with a fabulous twist in my choice to live simply. Freedom!

Enjoy the Manna Before Entering the Promised Land

Before entering the promised land, the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. God provided the manna for sustenance and all of their basic needs were met. Yet, they complained. They couldn't enter until behavioral changes were made internally.

For me, the promised land is living debt free including the mortgage: I want to live on little materially but contribute hugely to the communities I am part of at work, home/neighborhood, church, my city, globally. The path I've been on in simple living and reducing consumption is my manna and I'm not complaining.

If I do this right and over a long period of time, I can fund my own projects or collaborate with others on a much larger scale. I don't need to wait on government to do what I know needs to be done. You don't have to be a millionaire to deliver the goods to people in the global and local communities. An example: If I choose to not replace my functional 13 year-old sofa and use the same $800-$1000 to assist someone else in need, I've chosen to act in a fruitful and sustainable way and I feel good about it. I personally grow and help lift someone else. Sheer joy! I'm not just talking about food, clothes, shelter. If my neighbor down street decides to go to college in a couple of years, why shouldn't I be one of his benefactors? That's way more important to me than buying more stuff to look at and get dusty!

I already partner with a couple of charities who do BIG projects globally by sending checks. One of my charities takes shoes to 3rd world villages in Central and South America and another digs wells in African villages to provide clean water. Another one supports HIV/AIDS orphanages in Africa and educational access. I am told that the children are reminded that many of us here in America love them and this is how we show it and if we never make the trip, they know we care. That's what life is all about, to me. I am free to use my skills to make life fun for me and walk with others in fulfilling their dreams. We are connected.

At home, I have many opportunities to care for children through tutoring, buying them shoes, clothes, taking them for haircuts, etc. on my own. My very effective community church lives up to its name and has ongoing support for practically every adult and childhood need but it also consistently teaches personal responsibility in digging out of a pit through education and training: We'll help you out but you still have to do the work. We aren't waiting for government to sustain us, God is our source and we are filled with an abundance of education, abilities, talent, and experience among us. We pray for God's help but we aren't waiting for mystical miracles that we are already practically empowered to perform ourselves. Faith without works is dead!

The best things in life are still free from the cost of money but freedom isn't free. I work at it everyday and I am better for it. I am breaking out. Freedom!

Marching to a Different Beat in 2008

(This photo was taken in my backyard a couple of days before Christmas. It must have been around 55 degrees that day. Cold for Southern CA)

I just made another pot of chicken veggie soup from scratch and it is probably the best one I've ever made. Of course, I say that each time I make a very tasty soup. The chicken was from the one I baked for myself on Christmas. I added the last of this season's fresh herbs from my garden plus the usual base of red bell pepper, garlic, onions, celery. Threw in some frozen green peas. Yummy!

In terms of my simple, frugal lifestyle, I learned more about what I can live without and altered a few practices throughout the journey:

• I began driving to work again about 2 months ago after gas prices shot down far below what I paid summer of 2006 when I started taking the train/bus to work - 25 miles away from home. I learned more about community on the buses/trains of Los Angeles County and encountered the everyday extraordinary people you never hear about on the news. The advantage of taking the bus allowed me to read, on average, 2-3 books a month. I read mostly free library books.
  
• I drive the street to/from work during rush hour so I don't sit in traffic and I enjoy driving through different communities.
  
• I took my lunch to work every single day except for the one or two days when I forgot it. YIKES! It hurt to buy from the cafeteria. I brewed my own coffee each morning at about 11 cents a cup including my favorite creamers. You do the math of spending $4 a day on Stuckbucks coffee...never mind, I'll do it for you: comes to about $1460 a year.
  
• I gave up buying bottled water except for the ones in my earthquake kit and bought 2 large reusable bottles for lunch and working out. I will miss my periodic trips to the recycling center to claim my $5 but the tap water does taste very good.
• I reduced my DirecTV bill to the family plan which eliminated another $30 from my monthly expenses and forced me to stop watching all of the gloom and doom news. (I have been known to scream at the TV for the ridiculous programming they throw at us.) I average about 7-10 hours a week watching the TV I bought about 13 years ago.
  
• I reduced my grocery bill by $60 to $100 each month by buying more of what I already like when it is on sale and freezing or storing it. (Lots of websites and blogs out there on the benefits of buying like this.) I still don't care for coupons, though. So, I just try to go the store every 8 to 10 days instead of once or twice a week.
• I totally gave up red meat. I gave up pork years ago but I will sample it if I am invited to someone's house. I was still enjoying an occasional steak but I no longer miss it.
• I reduced my visits to restaurants to about 1 or 2 a month, including my favorite Pollo Loco drive thru binge.
  
• I paid cash for every single thing that I bought in 2008.
• I was able to give over 10% of my gross income away and I never missed it. God has a way of making this all work out and it is essential to the way I've chosen to live.
• Just received my water bill for December and I cut water usage for the 3rd month in a row: We received free rainfall over the last couple of weeks which directly affected how often I watered both front and back yards and I have consciously been washing larger and fewer loads. I bought more towels from Target a few months ago so that I could wash that load less often. Plus, I don't own that many clothes. I never wash my car at home and prefer the little drive thru one at the gas station. (I stopped going to full service car washes in 2008 and I vacuum the inside myself.)
  

Freedom!