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The True Cost Of Your Car

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The True Cost Of Your Car

Photo Attributed to Thenix

When we purchase a car, we only think of the actual purchase price of the car, and maintenance when we are calculating the price of the car. But there are several other costs to the car that we forget about. There is parking, maintenance over the life of the car, interest paid on the loan that you take out on the car, insurance, and time taken off to repair/replace your car.

When you add up the total cost of purchasing a car over its lifetime, you will realize that the true cost of your car isn’t the cost of the car itself, but probably 1.5 to 2 times as much. It really puts things into perspective, when you actually have to pay $16000 for a $8000 car over its life. For me, like a lot of other people in Canada, living in suburban Canada removed any chance that I was going to be car-less. I had tried using the TTC over the wintertime, but the hour and a half commute killed any chance of any activity besides work during the work-week.

Once I moved downtown, things were very different. With the exorbitant cost of parking downtown, it is a cinch to sell your car, and be car-less. Toronto’s transit system might be berated by many, but it is better than a lot of countries out there. I can choose to be car-less downtown, without a lot of extraneous thoughts. For a lot of people that is not an option, but with the rising cost of gas, and car prices, it is something that we should be thinking about.

We should make an extra effort to ensure that we do not remain dependent on the ever-diminishing oil reserves at least in terms of our automobile usage.

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3 Ways I Knowingly Hurt The Environment

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Downtown Tel-Aviv Israel

Photo attributed to Thenix

(Happy Valentine’s Day!) In this day and age, it isn’t hard to hear about the 30 ways you can save the environment or be green. But what about the flip side of the coin? There are certain ways you knowingly harm the environment, but are unwilling to change, because the change would require something significant or something uncomfortable. There are a few ways I have changed my lifestyle to be more green, sold my car, get clothes from clothing swap, becoming minimalist, using natural body products, using minimal makeup, recycling, reducing, reusing, cutting down on processed foods, reusing envelopes for taking notes, using resuable bags for groceries and so on.

But there are certain important ways I could be saving the environment, but I am not. I list them below. It isn’t that I don’t understand the benefit of them, but the effort to change would be so significant in my mind, that I completely avoid it.

1. Using sanitary napkins – I still use sanitary napkins, instead of moving towards a diva cup. I know the bane that is sanitary napkins, but I have tried using a diva cup and I just find it too uncomfortable. I am reneging on this point for sure. I am letting a little discomfort slowly kill the planet, but I just can’t help myself on this one.

2. Eating meat – I love to eat meat. Being a fluttery and anxious Vata, I like the grounding of meat. It gives me that heavy feeling in my stomach that makes me relax, and lets me go to sleep or work without anxiety. I refuse to give it up. I can certainly reduce the amount I eat, but I know that I will never give up eating meat. Being a yogi and an environmentalist, those are sad words indeed.

3. Using body products, like shampoo, body wash and deodorant – I know the products created by major manufacturers are laden with toxic substances. You would be better off staying dirty. Or more reasonably, making your own. But the effort involved in that makes me say, I would rather stick with my toxicity and be lazy, then save the environment and my body. Unreasonable, but gives me extra time to write my blog posts. That is kind of a win, I would say.

These are the three ways I knowingly hurt the environment. I have accepted it. I have come to terms with it. I know I will not change it. Do you have any of your own? Share them with us. Let’s be ungreen and toxic together.

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Loneliness in the world

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Photo attributed to Thenix

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my parents and how I am responsible in my head and theirs to fend off their loneliness. I was speaking to a friend of mine about this last weekend and I realized that it isn’t just me that is dealing with this issue. Every single one of my friends talks about how his/her parents are lonely, aren’t able to find solace in each other’s company or in their friends, are always looking to their children for help and support. I wondered about this. Why is the level of loneliness on the planet increasing exponentially? The more people that we have on this planet, it seems the more loneliness increases.

Technology definitely seems to contribute to the issue, but what else is making this happen? I really don’t understand. Is that the only reason people are having children so they can have that loneliness safety net? Or is it because people do not know how to be alone with themselves anymore? We are never alone, always surrounded by noise in some form, people, music, TV, and so on. We always looking for something outside of ourselves, when we are unable to find it in our jobs, our education, our money, our whatever, we go looking for it in our children. Who are too busy living their own lives, to be able to do much for us.

I do not have the answer in this post, nor do I really have the answers in general. But seeing all this sadness, this loneliness, really makes me sad. Why do people do this to themselves? We do not realize that we really have very few moments on this planet. Especially the older you get, the fewer the moments, the more the possibility of this moment, being your last one. We really have to savour it, learn to live on our own, and walk away from the loneliness. Choosing to be whatever we want in this moment is the key. You can make yourself feel whatever you want. Choosing contentment over loneliness is the way.

Zero commute

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Photo attributed to Thenix

After spending yet another 2 hours in traffic coming back home, I have realized I am over the whole commuting thing. I absolutely despise it. I do not like the idea of sitting in a box for 3 hours a day, moving from one place to another, when most of the time, the reason I am sitting in that box is not because of volume of people sitting in boxes next to me, but because some person couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the road. He or she was distracted and plowed through someone else, in their state of distraction.

It upsets me to wait in a line 10 kilometres long, because of one person’s inconsiderate behaviour. Why couldn’t that person have been safe and careful? It would have really helped my situation. I would have come at a reasonable time. My yoga high wouldn’t have been ruined. I wouldn’t have been absolutely famished by the time I came home. I wouldn’t have binge-eaten through a bag of buttery popcorn goodness to fill that gaping hole that I call a stomach. I wouldn’t have been exhausted from the trip. I wouldn’t have fallen asleep like a loser at 830pm drooling all over the pillowcase.

I also lament the hours that I waste sitting in the box, that I could be spending on something else. What would I spend those glorious hours on, I daydream as I sit in the car, breathing in the fumes of the person in front, and being blinded by the high-beams of the person behind? Hmm. I would do more yoga. I would dance more. I would flit over the clouds on a magic carpet being wooed by a skinny, long haired thief. The fantasy of course persists. But the real thing that I want is my time back. Even if I am going to sit on my ass at home on the couch in that time, I still want to be able to spend that time my way.

Which brings me to the point. My goal in life is to have a 10 minute commute or less. Hopefully that commute is a walking commute, but even if it is by car, it has to be miniscule, tiny, and short. Let’s see how I seek that out.

iPhone5 and the environment

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Photo attributed to flickr user moonjazz

I was reading a technology blog post the other day to get ideas for my own company’s blog and I read this article by David Pogue, on the iPhone 5 and his first impressions.

I do not have a smart phone myself. I just have an old LG flip phone, that everyone is surprised to see. I put it on a table at a restaurant, and everyone wants to try it out, to see how they used to live before the smart phones. One thing about the article really caught my eye. It was about the adapter change that iPhone 5 has made. Pogue said:

Still, think of all those charging cables, docks, chargers, car adapters, hotel-room alarm clocks, speakers and accessories—hundreds of millions of gadgets that will no longer fit the iPhone.

And instantly, I was floored. I hadn’t thought about that until he pointed it out. That is so true. All of those millions of gadgets, wires, adapters, etc., will be thrown out, they will be filling up the dumpsters of the world. Maybe some of them will be recycled, some of them will be reused, but most of them are going straight into the garbage. For a major company like Apple, who is supposed to care about the environment, they didn’t think twice about just dumping their old adapter, and going for a new one.

It just seems like such a waste to me. These adapters and their counterparts are going to spend hundreds of years in a wasteyard, because a company didn’t think long-term.

I’m sure it doesn’t matter to them, because being a corporation, they only really care about the sales for this year, but I’m sure we’ll be dealing with the aftereffects of it, for generations to come.

My world is getting smaller

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Photo attributed to flickr user MarilynJane

A quote to begin the post:

From Kathleen Kelly, You’ve Got Mail : Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life – well, valuable, but small – and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

I had a dream a few nights ago – I am observing an events ceremony, all the prefects of our high school are sitting there, in their new married selves, and clapping and laughing at the spectacle before them. I am not one of them. I had wanted to apply to be a prefect, but that would have meant speaking in public, in a crowd, that I feared greatly when I was a teenager. I regretted later that I didn’t apply, and in the dream, that regret came up. And then came another thought. What happened to all of those brave girls who were our leaders in our high school? All they talk about now are their families and husbands. What happened to them? The dream ends.

I spoke to a friend of mine about this dream – she’s pregnant and in that phase where her baby, her dog and her husband are all that matter in the universe. She doesn’t care about work, or about anything else really. She lamented about the fact, that she feels like she’s getting boring and her world is getting smaller. Then she said, that she feels that she is alright with it. What else matters on this planet besides the living beings in your life?

I loved her thought so much I thought I would share.

The power of sharing

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Photo attributed to flickr user snowpeak

As most of the people reading my blog know, this blog is anonymous. It is anonymous because I have trouble sharing my most intimate details with friends and family, but find it easy to share it with strangers. Maybe you judge me when you read my posts, but because I do not know you, I do not care.

Little by little, though I have been sharing my blog with my friends, and my siblings, to increase the power this blog has for me. I was talking to T, yesterday and I realized that this blog will be ultimately powerful for me, when I am able to freely share all the random thoughts and episodes in my life, with everyone in my life, stranger or not, without any fear. They will ridicule me for sure, and maybe even unfriend me on FaceBook, but it won’t matter, because at that point in my development, I will be strong enough to withstand the pressure.

I am strong at the moment, but not that strong. The moral of the story is that I do not need to be that strong right now. This blog is working for me as a catalyst for further thought and exploration, perfectly well, right now, without the need for added pressure and glory among my friends. I am happy with the release that it provides for me, the stage that it provides for me to understand myself better, and the possibility in the future of more.

I am happy for the few readers that I do have, and I hope they are able to share in some of the discoveries I make about this world and the inhabitants in it.

I am not the only one who wants to live a minimalistic, nomadic, happy life. There are others as well. That makes me happy.

Taking care of the big purchases

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Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

I’m sure you have heard of the Latte Factor, in which the financial advisor tells you to take care of the small purchases, the coffee and muffin you have every morning, or the chocolate bar from the vending machine every afternoon, because these little, meaningless purchases, seemingly add up to hundreds of dollars a year. Which can be prevented, if you just paid attention to what you purchase, when you purchase it.

I have actually paid attention to my meaningless purchases, but I have to admit, I have gotten more by paying attention to my bigger purchases. The ones in which I am spending thousands of dollars a year, my mortgage, my car insurance, my student loan, my credit cards, and my cellphone and gas bill. By ensuring I have the best interest rate on my mortage, and student loan, by shopping around for the cheapest car insurance rates, by ensuring I pay off my credit card off every month and that I have no weird charges on them, and so on. By doing these little things, for my big purchases, I am able to save more overall, then if I made sure I didn’t have my daily morning tea, and biscuit. Or that I didn’t grab something from the convenience store to quell my sweet tooth once a week.

What do you think of the big purchases vs. the small? What do you think you should pay more attention to?

Being selfish is a good thing

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Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

I wrote a comment on the post by Be More With Less on Self-worth vs. Net-worth. I wanted to share my comment and the reply to it – as it was just so beautiful.

My comment: I try not to measure by self-worth by my net-worth – but my parents make it hard for me to do that. They grew up in the traditional way – with money being paramount – they notice me not paying attention to it – and they get upset with me – calling me selfish. It is hard staying strong in the face of such adamant opposition.

cjrenzi: I am 42 and this situation persists for me still. However, it is no longer a problem. I do what I need to do and let them do the same. Opposition, even adamant opposition, makes no difference in my decision making. I do what I do and apologize later if an apology is warranted.  As for “selfish”, I have adopted the word as a compliment. If making myself the best person I can be while being very pleasant about the whole business makes me selfish, then yes I am selfish. I hope that it becomes easier for you to cope with their attitude and for them to cope with your lifestyle. You sound like a reasonable and thoughtful person.

Wasn’t that just wonderful? I just loved his comment. I like it two different ways:

1. It shows me that it never ends! You can be as old as you can be, and if your parents are still alive, they will have something to say about the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you do your hair, the way you live your life, the job that you have, the car that you drive, and anything else they can comment on. It will never end. So why let it bother you? No matter what you do, your parents are going to be unhappy, displeased, dissatisfied with it. No matter what. Doesn’t that mean, that you should just do what you want, and let your parents be unhappy about it? My strategy is to listen to their opinion, see if there’s anything in there to warrant some use, otherwise, discard their advice, and do what I want.

2. I absolutely adore the idea of taking ‘selfish’ as a compliment. I just want to smile at the idea. I love it. If only I had gotten this feedback beforehand. Years, I have spent thinking selfish is a bad thing. But I am not selfish. I do what I can for my parents in my own limited way, and then I try to live my own life, filled with drama and uncertainty, but filled with joy and adventure. I am not selfish. I am living my life the way I want. I have the freedom to do what I want, physically and politically, I am not going to let my mental demons created by my parents take over all the fun.

Thank you for cjrenzi for the comment and I hope everyone starts taking ‘being selfish’ as a compliment. Love it!

My Ideal Life

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Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

I have thought about this topic for a while now, ever since, I left Thailand after the Full Moon party over last New Years. I looked around at all the people, who had retired on the beautiful island of Koh-Phangan, or in Thailand in general. Or all of those people who had quit their jobs, or semi-retired from a profitable venture, strapped on a really expensive backpack and are now strutting around the Earth, collecting stamps on their passports. Or whatever the story might be of the loads of people I met on that island and during the quiet hours of the Full Moon madness.

I have been trying to imagine what my ideal life would look like. Would I work from home? Would I be a Professional Travel Blogger, travelling and writing, and making money at the same time to support a life-time of travel with T? Would I be a Professional Yogi, doing yoga at retreats all around the world, getting paid for helping people, and travelling at the same time, my two loves? Would I travel for six months of the year, and work at home for the other 6 months as a yoga teacher and server, saving up as much as I can from my work, fulfilling my nomadic nature?

The main themes in my dream life are travel, yoga, lots of amazing authentic international foods, and writing. These are the four things I need to have in my ideal life – in varying quantities. The big question now is – how to create a life from these four ingredients? What should the quantities be and how should they mixed together?

Some things I definitely do not want in my ideal life are a 9-5 job, restrictions to my time and freedom in anyway, restrictions to the place I live in, restrictions in finances due to debt or inability to earn, restrictions in my physical body in any shape or form.

I want to continue learning, and growing on this spiritual journey that I have chosen to be my path, with lots of travel, yoga, food and writing. How do I create from this? I am going to let this percolate a bit more in my head and then go from them. Let me know if you see anything striking that I have missed.

Asking your significant other for permission

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Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

I have noticed an increasing trend in the couples around me of asking each other for permission to do…anything. It might be going out with friends, or taking the children out for a walk, or even staying late after work. I don’t know why this is happening, maybe spouses tended to do this earlier as well, but I never paid attention, because I was too wrapped up in my own head-drama. But recently, as recently as last Monday, I noticed a colleague of mine, who couldn’t go to an after-work event, a few drinks at Jack Astor’s, because his girlfriend wouldn’t give him permission. She said, he had to come home and help her with grocery shopping!

While I’m all for being in control in the relationship, I do know what it’s like to be a control freak, I do not understand how all of this coddling, restricting, and being the dictator in the relationship will help the future of the relationship. I find myself that when I do not spend enough time outside the relationship, and outside my work, doing fun things, I do feel like life is a boring, meaningless sham and I usually end up blaming the man I’m in the relationship with, even if it might not be his fault.

The interesting thing to me, is that it isn’t only females who are reigning the roost, dictating to their spouses, but males as well, going with the jealous, possessive trend. There isn’t a gender-relation to this trend, which makes me wonder, what the reason for it is. Is it that we are so scared of the world, of all the crazy things that are happening on this Earth of ours, that we want to ensure our loved ones stay safe by keeping them indoors in our safe apartments or houses all the time? Or is it that we are afraid to trust someone else, we can’t believe that someone would actually want to be with us, so we keep a reign on them, ensuring they don’t realize that they can find someone better, newer, shinier out there in the real world?

Whatever the reason might be, the trend is disturbing and we need to stop ourselves when we do something like that.

Cooling off period

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Photo attributed to flickr user Roberto Verzo

Most of us have an issue with buying stuff we don’t need. We buy items that we already have two or three of, just because it is in a different color, or we just had a bad day and we needed to console ourselves. Whatever the reason might be, our closets, garages, houses and sometimes storage units are testament to that.

We fill them with stuff, until we can’t fill them anymore. We then move to a bigger house and fill them with items until we can’t fill them anymore. I have found that in spite of not liking shopping much, I still like the thrill of finding something new and beautiful. The path that has really helped me in my quest to reduce stuff in my house is two-fold.

First of all, I give myself 24 hours before purchasing anything. If I have suddenly decided that I need to buy a new sweater – despite having 15 of them in my closet at home. I mean, c’mon, we live in Canada, you can always do with one more sweater, right? Not really. In reality, you can survive with just 5 of them, but I’m a bit more extravagant. I put the link of the item or the thought of the item on the backburner for 24 hours. I put it away, and sleep on it. If I wake up in the morning, go about my day and at the end of the 24 hour period, still remember that I want that sweater, still think I need that sweater, then I purchase it. In my opinion, I’m working this hard at work, in order to travel as much as possible, and reward myself occasionally.

Second of all, when I purchase something new, I have to remove something else in my closet or room. I have to either throw it away, donate it, give it away to a friend, or whatever else it might be. There can’t be an additional item coming into my life. It has to be replacing something else that was already taking up space in my life. It is the one-for-one rule applied to stuff. And I find it works really well, because it ensures that I can live in a small space, without really feel overwhelmed by all the items I have in it.

What do you do in order to control the amount of stuff and shopping in your life?

3 ways to increase your Personal Power

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Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

I have noticed an increasing sense of powerlessness among the people that surround me. I noticed that trend in myself as well – last year, when I had just started my job, and I hadn’t started paying down my student loan.

Something that helped me in the whole process of getting my personal power back was three-fold.

  1. I spend almost all of my income on paying off my loan. The less loan I have, the more power I have. How? If I have no loans that I need to take care of, I have the power to either quit my job when I do not like it, or to find something that pays a bit less, but is my dream job, or go travel around the world, or whatever else it might be. If I have a pile of loans that have exorbitant interest rates, that need to paid off every month, there is no way I could feel any sense of personal power. I am bound to the person who pays my salary, and I am bound to the banks who hold my loans. My life is restricted and powerless.
  2. I spend very little money on random purchases. Every single time, I get an urge to purchase something, first of all, I take a 24 hour cooling off period, but more importantly, I remind myself, what I am doing every day? Why do I work so hard to save money? What is my ultimate goal in life? The minute I remind myself about travelling and living my life on my own terms, I immediately do not want to make that purchase. I quell that urge, by thinking of my dreams. In this case, having dreams, and goals is extremely important. Without them you have no purpose, and no aim. You live rudderless.
  3. I do yoga. Just improving my health, strengthening my core, increases my personal power from the inside out, both physically and mentally. I strengthen the Chakra which is located in my core – the Chakra related to personal power. In addition, the healthier I am, the stronger I am, the more energy I have, the better I feel. All of that helps me feel good about my life, about my goals, and makes me feel powerful from the inside. The kind of power that is unshakeable. The kind of power that comes from deep inside. You can read more about the Chakra 3 here.

I feel the more I do the three items above, the more I increase my sense of power, and the better I feel about everything else in my life. Fear is a restrictor. Try to move away from fear, and towards power. In every little and big way possible.