Upgrade Your Life!

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about free money lately, meaning money that I do not include in my budget. This money can come from a variety of sources, but for me the main two are annual income increases and side jobs (like blogging). As I’ve mentioned before my recommendation to you is to try to save part of your annual raise each year. If you get a 2% raise, save 1% of it. Or .5%. Or .005%. The amount doesn’t matter much, but what I’ve found is that “free-money” gives me the opportunity to grow as an individual. I use this concept to enjoy life and to grow my own skills.

What skills am I learning with the concept of free-money? I’m learning to be a long-term planner, because right now these funds are minimal at best. It would be easy to lose them entirely by eating out an extra time a month or buying me something shiny.

I’m also learning to be creative, because I want to find ways to increase this group of funds. And I want to creatively invest the funds too. Creativity takes time to develop, and it is a unbelievably helpful skill to have both in good times and difficult ones. We get so stuck in our normal everyday mode of living that we can’t even imagine doing things that would benefit us, like changing jobs, leaving work a ½ hour earlier than we currently do, or selling our home and moving across the country. Develop a little creativity and a world of options becomes available.

I’m also learning how to dream, imagine, and use the left side of my brain. I think I gave up part of my imagination skills when I had to put food on my table early in life. But dreaming is part of being happy, and I can start practicing and developing these skills now in small, less important areas of my life.

I love free money, which I can designate for use however I see fit. By my own personal definition “free money” is money that is not needed or included in my current budget. I especially like money that is earned outside of my primary income.  For the most part right now this comes from blogging, and is very minimal. But even at $10 per month, I like thinking of this extra-money fund as a completely separate entity. It may never make me a millionaire, but I like to think about segregating it, perhaps in a separate ING sub-account or (eventually) mutual fund that perhaps could grow. Maybe I’ll save it for a while and do something nice for my wife or kiddos (when they arrive). Maybe I’ll use it towards the kids college fund, since I’m having a hard time finding the money to fund their college fund in their budget. The options are endless, but it gives me an opportunity to dream and plan and use my brain, which are all good things!

I may be a bit behind the times, but did you know you can watch many of your favorite TV shows online now? There are several services available now that might allow you to cancel your cable for good (just not your cable internet). One such site is hulu.com. I haven’t used it myself yet, but it appears to have quite a few shows. I wonder if they make you watch commercials (they probably do), but it is an interesting concept.

Most major network also allow you to watch the most recent episode of shows online after the initial airing. CBS, NBC, FOX, etc all have full-length shows available on their sites.

Of course if you’re like my wife and only watch the more unique cable channels then you might be stuck with the cable bill.

I can be stubborn at times, and I’m working to be more open to new ideas and to try to solve my problems creatively. And I think most people are stubborn as well, and lack the ability to creatively solve their problems.

I had a good example of this earlier in the week. My mother called and had some financial questions for me after she and my father saw their financial planner earlier this week. One thing I mentioned during the conversation was that they could move to a smaller house and perhaps fund part of their retirement that way. “But we love this house, and the kids enjoy it when they come to visit. We could never move.”

Check and mate. When you’re closed off to making changes you might as well just give up and let what happens happen. Action is required for change and improvement.