New year, same old goals. 🙂 This January, don’t sign up for an expensive gym membership with a contract, or buy a $500+ treadmill that ends up collecting dust. Yes, these might really help you achieve a healthier body, but they could also be a huge waste of money. What people should really figure out first is if they really have the discipline and motivation to stick with any exercise program.

Before dropping any cash, try one of these free fitness programs first. You don’t have to finish, just follow it for all of January. Studies have shown that it takes at least 30 days to create new habits. If you can’t even run around your neighborhood three times a week for a month, why would you buy yourself a treadmill?

• Couch to 5k
• One Hundred Push Ups
• 200 Sit Ups (similar)
• YouTube workout videos (try sparkpeople, diethealth)

I’m sure there’s more good stuff online, please share in the comments. To better health!

Another topic I’ve been interested in is the 100 Thing Challenge started by Dave Bruno. If you read a lot of simplicity blogs you’ve probably already heard of it, but it’s a pretty simple idea: Live with only 100 personal possessions. You can always quibble about what is a “thing” – a pair of socks, or all your socks? Your nail clippers, or all toiletries? But you get the basic idea.

The goal of the 100 Thing Challenge is to break free from the confining habits of American-style consumerism. A lot people around the world feel “stuck in stuff.” They feel like their closets and garages are too full of things that don’t really make their lives much better. But how to get unstuck?

Reduce (get rid of some of your stuff)

Refuse (to get more new stuff)

Rejigger (your priorities)

Press coverage has included Time magazine, USA Today, and The Times (UK). Here are some lists of folk’s sub-100 inventories:

• Craig Eakright
• RowdyKittens
• ExileLifestyle

Seems like clothes usually take up at least 20 items. Since this challenge basically requires that as many things as possible be digitized, I’ve been eyeing out this $400 Fujitsu bulk scanner out… even though that would be a new thing.

In the process of trying to minimize junk, I sold off some pretty old textbooks this week. It’s been over ten years since I first bought any of these books, and the last time I used them was probably about 7 years ago. I had saved them initially for the qualifying exams that PhD students must take early on in graduate school, and then later thought I might go back to school or use them as references at work. They also looked nice on my bookshelf and made me feel smart. 😉

I was about to throw them out since I figured they’d be five editions behind by now and wouldn’t be worth anything, but a quick search ended getting me about $10 per book.

Compare Offer Prices
After looking around, the easiest place to start seemed to be the price comparison engine at BigWords.com. You simply enter all the ISBN numbers at once to your virtual “bookbag”, and then click “Start Price Comparison”. The site then looks up the price offered by buyback sites like TextbooksRus, SellBackYourBook.com, Bookstores.com, Cash4Books.net, FirstClassBooks, Valore Books, and eCampus.

They also look up current lowest asking prices at sites where you can sell it yourself, like TextbookX Marketplace, Amazon.com, Half.com, and TextbooksRus. In some cases like the one below, a buyback site actually offered more than these middlemen before their commissions.

Another option I considered was to drive to the nearest college campus bookstore and run the books through each of their databases, but I decided it wasn’t worth the time and gas for me. This would obviously be much easier for current students.

Book Buyback Online
I just wanted to get rid of them in bulk and didn’t feel like maximizing my price for something that might never sell, so I just went with the highest offers from each of the buyback sites. In some cases, I had to group purchases because some sites had a minimum purchase amount (i.e. they won’t buy less than $15 of books from you).

All the sites had a similar process, and were very simple to deal with. You add the books you want to sell, and then print out a packing slip and prepaid mailing label. Most pay for USPS media mail, although some offer FedEx or other faster service. I just had to drop them off at the post office since they weighed more than a pound. Once they receive and process the books, they then cut you a check (some offer bank direct deposit or PayPal). I haven’t received my checks yet, but the sites listed appear to be reputable.

Let me know if you know of a better way to offload your unwanted old textbooks.

After a busy long weekend*, I am now a PADI Open Water “certified diver”. It was nice to check off a “To-Do Before You Die” item, although it did cost nearly $500 if you include all the related costs. The cool thing was that while talking with the dive shop folks, I learned that they needed some website help, and they were willing to pay me with some free dives/gear in exchange. Barter! This was interesting, because diving is a very expensive hobby. I was mainly looking to dive the Great Barrier Reef someday, but now I might be able to dive even more than that.

Now, I can directly exchange (extra) work for play. This begs the question: Is it a good idea to use your desire for something enjoyable in order to motivate yourself to work harder? For example, you may try to follow all of the common advice:

• Pay off all credit card or consumer debt.
• Have emergency funds for cushion.
• Spend less than 30% of income on housing.
• Max out your 401k and IRA.

For most people, this doesn’t leave all that much left for other stuff. At the same time, most of my friends are so tired from the daily 8-5 grind that they have no interest in doing anything “extra” for more money. This might be as small as doing a paid survey for a few bucks, or as big as starting a new business on the side.

When I start lacking motivation, sometimes I try and focus on something short-term and luxurious that I want. In the past, it might have been a gadget. These days, it’s mainly an experience like travel or some sort of lessons (ex. ski, scuba, flying). I tell myself “$1,000 will buy me a flight to Thailand.” I am starting to label my “real job income” as taking care of the current basics and the long-term future (retirement), while my side income pays for the “fun”.

Does anyone else do this? Isn’t this another form of mental accounting? If money is fungible, then you can’t really assign labels to specific income sources. To me, it is using mental accounting, but I’m twisting it to my advantage. 🙂

* I was going to use the term “action-packed”, but given the circumstances I just hope all the Gustav-watchers are safe and sound.

I spent most of today going through all our stuff to see what would go in the house. The one negative of having your employer pay for relocation costs is that you are less motivated to fully purge all of your belongings…

As I went through all our things, I wondered – What if we were forced to toss anything that we hadn’t used in one year? Clothes, sports gear, electronics, books, magazines, trinkets. Either sell, donate, freecycle, or throw it away. Critical things like birth certificates or anything that would fit on a hard drive would be exempt. Imagine what your home would look like if you did this…

I don’t know if I could pull off that “One Year Rule”, so instead I made up an alternate one for myself: Once every May I will unpack every single item in storage, consciously make the decision to keep it, and inventory it. Theoretically this would be for insurance records in case of loss, but realistically I am hoping this actual process of having to go through 10 boxes of stuff annually will make me less sentimental about things like my old textbooks.

A few years I ago banned all travel souvenirs except for photos and one postcard from each place I visit – instead of those odds and ends I used to keep accumulating – and it’s been very liberating.

Forget carbon footprint… What kind of tips or tricks do you have for convincing yourself to reduce your stuff imprint?

Nobody has ever accused me of being the most organized person. I don’t carry a PDA, a dayplanner, or even a notebook/moleskin. It’s pretty much just Outlook at work, and a lot of Post-Its at home. But recently I’ve discovered two applications that help me remember all the thoughts that flit in and out of my mind. This is in turn saves me money indirectly with less late fees and missed opportunities. Both have been around a while, but were new to me:

Sandy
First up is IwantSandy, which is an assistant that you can interact with by sending e-mails. She communicates back to you via e-mail or SMS text messages.

Say you want someone to remind you for your doctor’s appointment at 4pm next Monday. No problem, just send an e-mail to Sandy:

Remind me about Dr. appointment at 4pm next Monday.

Sandy will send you an e-mail or text message to do just that, both in a daily digest and a specific reminder 15 minutes (by default) before the event. Most casual language is recognized. You can set repeating reminders easily:

Remind me to pay off Citi 0% credit card on 4/24 @monthly

You can also tag items for easy organization, add contacts, and or create To-Do lists.

Remind me to call contractor back in 3 hours @newhouse

Remember Melissa Valiant (415) 555-1212 mval@gmail.com

Remember my United mileage number is A4362215 @travel

Remind me to refill my prescription tomorrow @todo

You can even “snooze” by replying to a reminder with “snooze 4 hours”. Lots more examples here. I live by my e-mail and I have unlimited text messages, so this system has been working out well for me. (Text messages can be better if you are under e-mail overload.) I basically just shoot Sandy an e-mail anytime a thought pops into my mind.

Remind me to blog about Sandy @daily @blogposts

Remind me to sign up for Citibank 25,000 mile banking bonus @daily @todo

Try it! It’s free and even a bit fun at first. I’m not quite sure how or even if they intend to make money. More organized people might not need Sandy, but I learn a new feature every day. For example, if I e-mail Sandy from any computer with “lookup blogposts”, I get a reply with all my post ideas. Very handy while traveling.

Jott
Now what if you’re away from your desk? Jott is a service that convert your voice into text and sends it as an e-mail. It’s like having your own secretary transcribe your thoughts.

On top of that it, even integrates with Sandy. Just add Sandy as a contact, and call her. From the EfficientMD:

Let’s say you’re on your mobile phone and a colleague tells you about a meeting you have to attend tomorrow at 3pm. You’re walking quickly and don’t want to slow down, so you call Jott’s toll-free number and have this conversation:

“Who do you want to Jott?”
“Sandy”
“Sandy. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
BEEP.
“Remind me about meeting tomorrow at 3pm.”

And that’s it. Sandy/Jott will email you a confirmation to ensure that they’ve heard you correctly (which in my experience, is practically 100% of the time), and then tomorrow before 3pm, you’ll receive a text message reminding you about the meeting.

Together, it’s like having your own personal administrative assistant. She’ll remind you about stuff, remember important contact and numbers, and you can just e-mail or call her like a regular person. You don’t need to install any new software or buy any new gadgets.

More Reviews
LifeHacker posts on Sandy and Jott
Mrs. Micah on Sandy
Efficient MD on Sandy and Jott