Far Beyond The Stars: The Archives

Written and photographed by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

We live in a reality that’s filled with deception. Every day when you step out on the street, when you log onto your computer, you’re being attacked.

You might not even be aware how often these assaults are happening, and I guarantee you that you’re encountering more danger than you’re even aware of.

What is this threat I speak of? Marketing and advertising. People getting you to buy stuff to fill up your life. This is the reason your life is so cluttered now, and it’s the reason you had a coffee this morning (and I had coffee this morning, they told me it’d make me think better!) When you’re reading that magazine story, you’d better bet a publicist called a journalist at some point down the line and gave access to the information you’re reading.

Somewhere along the way we lost the battle against the constant barrage of advertising impressions and ordered that Big Mac.

One of the most important aspects of being a minimalist is learning to overcome the power of advertising, and free yourself from being overpowered by the constant messages to buy that surround us.

What is the first line if defense against marketers?
You have to recognize when you’re being marketed to. Signs that have products on them are obvious, but that friendly smile the sandwich man gave you at the mall? That’s marketing too. Smiles are good, they make people happy, they also sell MacBooks.

The Internet is marketing to you as well. That blogger who just read that amazing book? He’s getting commission. That tweet about the cool story that someone just read? Planted by someone selling something. Your yoga studio is selling something, and your doctor is selling something.

There are a billion other ways that you’re being marketed at, I can’t list them all here.

Wow, I hope this isn’t news. If it is I’m probably blowing your mind.

Why should you avoid marketing?
Because buying stuff costs money and clutters your life. If you successful avoided every marketing scheme on the planet, for a year, you’d be healthier, richer, and also infinitely happier than you are buying into that nonsense.

How are you going to exist in a world where everyone is a marketer?
Study marketing. You have to know one to avoid one, right? Start noticing every single sign, advertisement, reading material, on so on, until you believe you’ve thought about the product all the way down the line to its starting point. Maybe read some books on marketing, so you know the modern day strategies that are employed by people who are selling you stuff.

Realize that some of the best things for you don’t have marketing teams.

One of these is vegetables. No one is setting up a tasting table for kale and apples at your local grocery store, because there isn’t a big incentive to. Kale and apples don’t make big corporations tons of money, so there’s no need to push them. But they’re really good for you!

Basic forms of exercise also don’t have a marketing team. Yes, you’re going to be marketed at by a gym, a yoga studio, or asked to buy a bow-flex by your television. You have to recognize that the best types of exercise also don’t have a marketing team working for them.

When was the last time you saw an ad on your television telling you to get out and take a short jog? Exactly. No one is trying to get people to go jogging because jogging doesn’t make corporations money. You might see ads for jogging pants, but not the basic act, which is free.

How do you decide when to buy stuff.

If you avoid every form of marketing, you might say that it’s hard to decide when to actually make a purchase. Here is how I decide, because I do need some things to survive after all.

1, I ask myself will I use this every day? Every week?

This is a big factor, because I move around a lot, and I can’t be bogged down by a closet full of clothes I don’t wear or kitchen utensils that I don’t eat with.

2, How many times will I use this?

There are a lot of one-off products out there, like digital movies for instance. I have to balance the cost versus how much money I actually have, and how much I’m trying to invest that money in my future. A ten dollar movie is taking me ten dollars farther away from my dreams, is it going to be worth it?

3, Do I already have these?

A lot of companies are selling a better something than the last company, in hopes that you’ll upgrade. Upgrade only when necessary! Do they want you to buy better clothes? The clothes you have are fine, until they’ve worn out. Do they want you to buy a new cellphone? Yours takes calls, doesn’t it? Upgrades can quickly become an cash-draining vortex.

4, Will this give my life value?

This is even more important. I use this as a guiding light when I approach every purchase that I make. Will I learn something from this? How will this make my life better? I never buy something that will make my life worse, I never buy anything that will lead to my being less free. Think about this rule when you’re eating too, because there are some foods out there that will really make your life have more value, like kale!

5, Is there any way I can get this for free?

I use this one a lot too. You can read books at the library, if they’re not at the library, you can read them in the bookstore. TV shows are available on Hulu.com (cover you eyes though, there are ads!) Craigslist and freecycle have huge free sections which are constantly being replenished as people move or discard their old stuff.

It’s a dangerous world out there, hopefully these marketing self-defense tricks will keep you safe. Good luck!

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What have you avoided buying recently? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Written and Photographed by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

When people think about minimalism, some of them think that it’s really hard and it involves throwing out all of their stuff and being a freegan or something. It doesn’t. Minimalism is about small steps toward a simple goal. It’s totally achievable, but the idea of running around with just a backpack is really terrifying for folks who have a house full of stuff and a packed schedule.

You’re not going to be a minimalist overnight, but by taking tiny steps you’re getting there slowly, and more important, simply.

If you can do one of the things on this list today, you’ll be a little more minimalist, and that helps! Yes, they’re small, but that’s fine. Maybe try doing one of these once a day for a hundred days? Maybe some of them will stick, and then you’re doing 100 things that make you more of a minimalist. That’d be pretty cool, and I think you can do it!

Here is 100 things you can do today to simplify your life and become more of a minimalist.

1, Recycle, donate, throw away one item.
2, Eat one less mouthful.
3, Spend one less dollar.
4, Drive one less mile.
5, Watch one less movie.
6, Count how many things you own (I own 79 things.)
7, Drink one less cup of coffee.
8, Cook one meal at home.
9, Think one freeing thought.
10, Walk to the store once.
11, Work one less hour.
12, Spend a half an hour meditating.
13, Skip dessert.
14, Skip the soda.
15, Drink one glass of pure water.
16, Cook with carrots.
17, Cook with kale.
18, Give one less gift, give a hug instead.
19, Bike to work for one day a week.
20, Walk around the block instead of anything.
21, Plant one plant that you can someday eat.
22, Write one list about how you could be more minimalist.
23, Read Tammy’s RowdyKittens.
25, Read Leo’s Mnmlist.
26, Read Dave’s Minimalist Path.
27, Donate one book after you read it.
28, Email one story about minimalism to your best friend.
29, Write one minimalist thing somewhere prominent in your house.
30, Read Walden by Thoreau.
31, Create one piece of art with one tool.
32, Do one thing at work that you’ve been meaning to do, but have done fifty things instead.
33, Take a plane trip somewhere with only a backpack.
34, Unfriend one friend on Facebook.
35, Unfollow one person on Twitter.
36, Follow me on Twitter.
37, Cook without meat for one meal.
38, Sit in front of a fire for an hour.
39, Sit under a tree for an hour.
40, Watch birds for an hour.
41, Dedicate one hour to reading a book.
42, Unplug your TV for one evening.
43, Write one paragraph on how you could become more minimalist.
44, Donate/recycle/trash one memento that you’ve cherished since high school.
45, Tell one person you love them.
46, Take the train to work once.
47, Take one yoga class.
48, Give some of your money to a charity that helps starving children.
49, Quit your job that you hate (don’t worry, you’ll be okay.)
50, Write one blog post on minimalism.
51, Tweet once about minimalism.
52, Dream one dream that you could never do if you had a house full of stuff.
53, Redefine your idea of success as being freer.
54, Work from home for one day.
55, Turn off the lights for one day.
56, Walk on a beach with a friend, once.
57, Make your own coffee in the morning, once.
58, Make one payment to get yourself closer to being out of debt.
59, Walk down Broadway between Houston and Canal in Manhattan and don’t buy anything.
60, Walk down Hawthorne in Portland without buying anything.
61, Read a book in a bookstore without buying it.
62, Take your lunch to work for one day.
63, Cancel your cable TV.
64, Cancel your Netflix.
65, Delete your Facebook.
66, Turn off your phone for one day, call everyone back the next day.
67, Don’t drink one more beer.
68, Do one action without doing any other action.
69, Watch a butterfly.
70, Watch a fruit fly.
71, Clean your counter top so the fruit fly goes away.
72, Clear your desk.
73, Take everything out of your car.
74, Decide what you’d take with you if you left today.
75, Realize that you can’t take it all with you when you die.
76, Think about what people will remember you for when you’re gone.
77, Send one short email that conveys just as much information as a long email.
78, Have one friend over to dinner.
79, Spend one day with your dog.
80, Subscribe to this RSS feed.
81, Buy one (necessary) thing with that jar of change that everyone has.
82, MP3 and sell/donate/recycle/trash one CD.
83, Stay home for one friday/saturday evening.
84, Take a photo of a tree.
85, Buy one less boxed thing at the grocery store.
86, Avoid buying in bulk once.
87, Breathe slower and more steadily.
88, Close your eyes for ten minutes.
89, Smile at someone you don’t know.
90, Walk slower.
91, Say thank you, smile, and look into the eyes of someone you don’t know.
92, Sit on a park bench.
93, Lie on a beach (with sunscreen on.)
94, Leave your house without a backpack.
95, Leave your house without your cellphone.
96, Sell/donate/recycle/trash one object you haven’t used in a month.
97, Sell/donate/recycle/trash one object that you haven’t used in a year.
98, Think one thought for 15 minutes.
99, Do one yoga pose.
100, Text your girlfriend/boyfriend/someone and tell them that you love them.

Whew, that was a lot of thinking for one morning.
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If you like one of these ideas, share them with one person.

I probably left some out, can you think of one thing that you do to be a minimalist? Leave it in the comments.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

I’m going to say a slogan that you have probably heard before: spend less than you earn. It’s the only way to get out of debt. We nod, we get it. It makes sense, right?

So we spend less than we earn when we’re in high school, and then we spend way more than we earn in college, and then get out of college and most of us spend less than we earn and try to pay off those loans.

Than an interesting thing happens, if we have one of those day job situations that most people are in.

We get a raise.

And suddenly we have this extra thousand, or two thousand, or ten thousand extra dollars. Oh my! What are we going to do with all of this money?

I can tell you: most people spend it.

People are exceedingly good at spending all of the money they earn. I’ve known people who were making $12,000 a year and getting by fine in New York, I’ve known people making over $100,000 a year and struggling to save anything in New York. They were living in the same house, paying (nearly) the same rent.

But what if you spent way less than you earn?

What if you said to yourself: I don’t need to fill up my life with useless crap anymore. I don’t need my cable TV bill. I don’t need my first car, or my second car, or my third car.

I can tell you the answer, if it hasn’t already occurred to you. You’ll save money, you’ll pay off your debts, and then someday if you’re really lucky, you’ll be able to spend that money on your dream.

The stuff that dreams are made of.
If you live a minimalist lifestyle, spending exactly the bare minimum to survive every month. You’ll someday be able to do something. Or better yet, quit your job right now and you’ll be forced to spend the bare minimum to survive, and eventually you’ll actually do something.

Something that’s yours, something that you own, that you’re responsible for. Something so important that your actually passionate about it. These are the kind of dreams that you should be dreaming.

But all of this is confusing, they told me I wanted a house, that I wanted a full time job.
Some people get really confused here, which is understandable. You’ve been conditioned your whole life into thinking that dreams are a bigger house, they’re a bigger yard, they’re a new kitchen set, they’re keeping your old kitchen set in storage.

Dreams are not made of bigger houses.

I’ve seen where that old kitchen set sits in storage, and it’s dusty and not used very much. It’s in fact, useless.

A fork is just a fork, and a plate is just a plate. It doesn’t matter how fancy they are, and you certainly don’t need twenty five of them to eat dinner.

A dream isn’t a dream unless you do it.

You can’t have the money to do a dream if you spend it.

If you stop spending your money on perpetuating a corporate cycle of consume, destroy, consume destroy, you’ll be able to do something important.

How to save for the future, minimalist style.

1. Make sure every cent you spend is for absolute necessities.
2. Move to a smaller house, rent a smaller house, one costs less.
3. Abandon cars, take public transportation (move to an area with public transportation.
4. Save the rest for your dreams. You’ll have way more than you would if you spent it all.

Here’s an article and a blog that will help you.

The True Cost of Stuff [Mnmlist]

And basically read everything on GetRichSlowly

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

Leo Babauta just blogged at Mnmlist.com about a hypothetical minimalist society where no one owned anything, I think this is an outstanding idea.

These are ideas that I subscribe to already, but there are limitations to how far you can take them in a society that feeds on permanent ownership and throwing objects out when you’re done.

However, there are methods that we can put into play to make a system like Leo describes work.

Let’s develop some of those ideas, in my real world situation.

Obviously these get harder to execute with the more belongings you accumulate, but I think that’s kind of the point. If you cut down on your personal possessions than you can start to live in this society that Leo describes.

Car Libraries:
Zip Car has this down. Next week when my girlfriend flies in from New York we’ll be renting a Honda Hybrid and driving up to Seattle. We never would have been able to do this without Zip Car

Housing Libraries:
This isn’t easy, but I’ve seen it done. I’m doing it now, by renting a room month-to-month in Portland. I’m going to move out at the end of November and head to Chicago. We had a kind of a housing library system set up at The School House in Brooklyn–we had ten rooms in the place–and we subleased when someone was traveling. It was kind of like a housing library system, the only thing is that socially it was a lot more complicated than renting a house.

We need push for social change and start to install systems where it’s okay to rent a house for a week, or two months. We’ll call it Zip-house. Someone should get on this idea, there’s a lot of money to be made.

Bike libraries:
I’m really surprised that Portland doesn’t have these. They have a tool library, they have public libraries, but no bike libraries? I think I remember someone talking about how they tried to implement one and failed. Try again Portland.

How I’m renting a bike:

When I moved to Portland on September 21st, my first goal was renting a room, my second goal was buying an inexpensive bike that was nice enough that I could resell again just before I skipped town again. The bike cost me $140. I’m trying to resell it for at least that much before I leave on November 18th. It’s kind of like a free bike rental if I accomplish this.

Clothes rental:

This is harder, because clothes wear out. I personally just stick with a weeks worth of clothing, with a little extra underwear and socks thrown in. This way I just wear them until the clothes wear out.

It would be really nice if I could check a winter coat out of a library though, because right now my winter coat is in a box in my mom’s basement in Chicago, which I had to time ahead of time, because I knew I’d be in Chicago around the holidays.

Let’s build this minimalist society that Leo dreams of.

Post written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

This is the first in a series of articles I’m doing on reducing clutter in your life. Tune in tomorrow for the next installment!

Many people have too much stuff. We’re faced with endless choices in modern day society, and the most common choice is ‘yes, let’s have another.’ Another plastic knickknack, another candle holder, another footrest, another little cute bowl to put your keys in.

Take a break from this post for a second, and look around whatever room in your house you’re in. What do you see that you haven’t used in a month? In six months? In a year?

If you’re at a coffee shop, take a look inside your bag. What have you been carrying around for a month that you haven’t used?

I have a roommate currently that brings back a bag of little useless objects every day when she comes home. I had a roommate back in New York that did the same thing, except she made far more money than my current roommate, so the situation incredibly worse. Both of these roommates left their stuff all over our apartment, and then promptly forget they’d even purchased the item, as far as I could tell.

Why did you buy these things? I asked them. For someday, they replied. What use is someday if you’ve forgotten you even purchased a thing?

Think about the life-cycle of your average inexpensive mostly useless object for a second.

1, Somewhere, probably in the United States, someone has an idea: they’ll make a Useless Object, and it’ll make them rich!
2They sketch it out, they mull over it. They send the idea to their friends. Hey, that’s a good idea! I bet a bunch people would buy that and you’d make money!
3, They get a few made at a factory in the US. They seem to look good! They work perfectly at doing the useless thing that they do. Good!
4, They send their sample over to a factory in China, South Korea, or another asian country, and the factory sends a note back. Yes, we’ll make that for ten cents per Useless Object! They make five million of them.
5, Stores in America spend endless amounts of money and resources bringing these Useless Objects into American stores, where American consumers spend their hard-earned cash buying these Useless Objects because they think they will make them happy. Either that or an American consumer buys it for their friend, because they think that it’ll make them happy.

That’s the basic life-cycle of the thing you haven’t used in a month’s life. Insert the real name of your object where I put ‘Useless Object.’

The only solution to this is to stop buying. Stop indulging that little voice in the back of your head saying to you that one more object will make you happy. It won’t. You’ll be happy for fifteen minutes, and then you’ll go back to being sad.

Let me tell you a secret, that all of materialistic society doesn’t want you to know. Ready for it?

The best step you can take to be happy, right here, right now, is to stop buying useless physical objects that you think will make you happy. They will only make you sad, and make you feel more trapped by society than you already are. That and you’re spending all of your hard earned money on useless things. You’ve been deceived by advertising and people who want to make money off of you into this pattern that’s robbing you of happiness and your wealth. Isn’t that outrageous?

What’s the secret to happiness?

To make yourself happy the best thing you could do is to start eliminating the clutter in your life, to the point that you’ve pared down your possessions to the absolute necessities for your life.

This opens up a whole new can of worms, I know. You’re probably looking at all of your stuff and wondering what you can do to start getting rid of things. This isn’t going to be easy, the more clutter you have, the larger the project.

Start small.
Pick one section of your house to start decluttering. Maybe your desk, your bedroom floor, or your closet. Perhaps you have a garage or attic that’s full of stuff. Pick one corner, and start from there.

Bring a sizable box with you, and throw anything in that box that fits under this criteria:
1, You haven’t used it in a month.
2, You don’t use it regularly for your work.
3, It doesn’t belong to someone else (throwing away other people’s things will lead to confrontations. Take a moment and speak to them about the problem, and maybe send them this blog post.)

I’m ruthless when it comes to clutter. I just take it all and put it in a box, let it sit for a day to make sure I really don’t need anything, and then start figuring out how to sell, recycle, or donate the materials to people who need them.

Personally, I only have a computer bag, camera bag, a yoga mat, and seven day’s clothing. I’ve determined that this is all I need. Think about it for a second, what would your life be like if you could just pick up and go wherever you wanted, whenever you wanted?

Wouldn’t that be amazing? Yes it would.

Post written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

My blog buddy Tammy Strobel, over at RowdyKittens, recently went on a media diet, which got me thinking about the subject.

Why are we consuming all of this news?

The media: newspapers, television, radio, can be intoxicating. If you wanted to, you could spend twenty-four hours a day devouring little bits of news coming from every direction. There are news sources targeting every demographic, every nationality, every personality.

They all have one thing in common: they want you to read more.

But, just like if you were to eat food (even fresh vegetables!) for every single second for every day, what would happen? You’d get fat, and you wouldn’t get anything done. The media has the same effect as over indulging as everything. It’s time to take a break from the media.

Why should you take a break?

1, Because everything will continue to happen without you.
Obama will continue to make amazing speeches, Lohan will continue to make a fool of herself, Afghanistan will still be a cluster-fuck, Jennifer Aniston will still be sad and un-datable. It doesn’t matter if you’re watching or not, what the media thinks is important in the world will keep happening. It’ll still be there when you get back, but if you take a break maybe you’ll realize that you have more time in your life.

2, You’ll find more productive things to do with that time.
Think about it: if you spend three hours reading celebrity-obsessed blogs every day, what else could you do with that time? I can think of a few things: raise money to save starving children in peru. Sign this petition to get keep off-highway-vehicles (OHV’s) from destroying the habitat that yummy Chanterelle mushrooms grow in. Maybe you could start a blog on minimalism and start promoting values that will save the entire world.

I love having space in my day, to sit and meditate, to read an informative book. Empty space in a day is a lost art, why are we filling it up with useless information?

3, The news doesn’t effect you, you have no effect on the news.
Chances are that most news doesn’t impact your life directly. Of course maybe you’re super interested in the health care debate, or whether or not the employment in the U.S. is still down (it is.) But chances are there is nothing you can do about this personally, so why are you worrying?

Trust that you elected competent representatives for the job (you did.) And let them do their jobs. Tell yourself that health care will happen if it happens. And if you feel really strongly about the issue, actually do something to make it happen, don’t just read about it all day.

4, Because you’ll stop feeding a part yourself to the corporate machine.
Why do they want you to read more? Because it makes corporations richer. Time-Warner, Newscorp, Conde Naste, Bloomberg, the list goes on and on. By abstaining from the media you’re giving the big money less ad clicks, and thus less ad revenue.

Obviously not all media is owned by huge corporations, but most of it is. If you read independent blogs (like me!), instead of eating what the big media wants you to, you’ll help support people who are trying to make an honest living.

5, You’ll have time for everything else.
Is there something in your life that you’ve been meaning to start doing? Like maybe you’ve always wanted to start doing yoga daily, cook dinner for your loved ones or friends, or learn a new skill?

The list goes on, the possibilities for the time you’re not spending reading the news is endless.

I’m going to take a break from the media myself this week. No New York Times for me, and sorry Vulture blog you’ll have to inform someone else!

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If you liked this post, send it to your news media outlet of choice so they can run a fluff piece about me. Thanks readers! Oh, and subscribe to my RSS feed.

Post written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

I went for a hike in the forest on Mt. Hood yesterday, where I learned how to find, identify, and harvest wild Chanterelle mushrooms. It was such a great experience, that I thought I’d share it with all of you.

To the right is a photo of the actual mushrooms that I harvested.

I’ve never harvested food from the wild before, and it reminded me of just how important the food we eat is, and how terrible most of the food available actually is. We go into the supermarkets and we’re confronted by all kinds of concoctions born from laboratories, claiming to be food. Vitamin infused wheat cakes. Rows upon rows of bottled bubbly corn syrup in plastic jugs (translation: coke, pepsi, yes, that crap.) Soy-pulp mush.

It’s difficult and time consuming to find and eat foods grown in the wild, but the benefits are worth the effort. Food grown from the forest floor is full of nutrients that over-cultivated soil just doesn’t produce.

A lot of us don’t eat real food anymore, and by doing that we’re alienating ourselves from our potential, and quite frankly killing ourselves.

This summer I read Michael Pollan‘s illuminating book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which delved into a lot of these topics with a lot more depth, knowledge and research than I ever could offer. I strongly suggest you pick up a copy.

Mushrooms taste amazing, harvesting them myself was an incredibly fulfilling experience, but there are ways you can improve your diet without driving up Mt. Hood and romping around the woods, here are some that I use daily.

Rules for the Minimalist Diet:

1, Eat only food that will spoil.
If it won’t go bad, it’s probably bad for you. Vegetables spoil, meat spoils, bread that is good for you will go bad. These are both real foods. Buy them and learn to cook them.

I commonly only buy food that I’m going to eat that day. This way I can really listen to my body and see what I’m craving. Is today an Avocado day, or do I need mushrooms? I don’t eat meat often, but some days after a really hard workout my body will literally be crying for a piece of chicken.

By shopping for what I’m going to cook that day, I can answer these questions, and also eat fresher food.

2, Shop the periphery of the supermarket.
Most supermarkets are designed with the produce on your right as soon as you walk in, hit this are first. Fruits and vegetables are some of the most wonderful foods on earth, we should all eat them. Meat will be at the back, so that’s safe too.

Avoid the middle of the supermarket, that’s where the food products that last forever and thus are full of preservatives and crap food science.

3, Don’t buy anything that claims to be healthy.
Vegetables aren’t part of organizations, they don’t have public relations departments. This might be confusing, because there are a lot of products in the store proclaiming to be the solution to all of your problems. Like Froot Loops!?

4, Eat mostly vegetables.
Vegetables are truly amazing, they’re incredibly complex organisms that we’ve been thriving on for centuries, but modern food science has coaxed us away from them by tricking our senses with sugars and false promises.

I’ve been eating mostly vegetables since reading Pollan’s book, and the results have been amazing. Before I was constantly struggling with wildly fluctuating weight (mostly my tummy) and energy levels that just didn’t make sense. Now I feel healthy, and most importantly, I look healthy!

Not only are vegetables good for you, they’re also the simplest diet you can eat. There are no wrong choices in the produce section. The biggest challenge for those of us born in the modern age is learning how to cook them properly, but that’s the adventure. And that brings me to my last point:

5, Cook your own food

The best thing you can do for yourself is to prepare all of your food from raw ingredients. Not only is this the most fulfilling wait to eat, it’s also the healthiest, and the cheapest. I do this for almost every meal, unless I’m away from my house.

When you eat food from random places (NYC bodegas come to mind, but also like everything) you have no idea where the food came from. Can you identify all of the ingredients? Probably not. Good food at restaurants is expensive, and most of us can’t afford to eat good food for every meal if we were to eat out.

I’ve found that I really enjoy cooking my own food. Last night I made a stir-fry with ingredients that I had harvested from the forest floor. Can you imagine how thrilling that was? And best of all, the main ingredient cost only $5 (and I still have a HUGE bag of mushrooms), that I put towards carpool gas. The rest of the ingredients cost me under three dollars, and I was cooking for two.

So cheap, so awesome. Go forth and eat well!

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You might have noticed that I don’t have comments. It’s not because I don’t love you, it’s part of the minimalist approach. Comment systems have their upsides and downsides, and I’ve weighed both of these and come to the conclusion that I don’t want to spend time moderating comments on my website. But you can still comment: if you want to reply to anything that I write here, hit me up on Twitter!

Post written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

One of the things that I’ve been focusing on exclusively, since quitting my job in July and moving across the United States to Portland, has been focusing on what’s important.

How does one decide what’s important?

1, Does this positively effect my life in the future?
2, Will this bring meaning to my actions?
3, Will this accomplish something, like furthering my goals?
4, Can I look back on what I did and be proud of myself?

And what do I think about when I am doing something that doesn’t fit my definition of important?

1, Am I wasting my time?
2, Is this really bringing value to my life?
3, Does my body think this feels good?
4, Does my mind think this feels good?

Now, these aren’t catch all answers. You’ll develop your own, based on your own priorities, which vary greatly from one person to the next.

My priorities are very simple:

1, To do yoga daily
2, To live a life of value
3, To take care of myself, and by doing so take care of others
4, To consume as little as possible

So far, I think I’m doing well. I do yoga daily. Every morning I feel like I’m valuing my life, and every night I go to bed feeling like I value my life. I’m taking care of myself by not eating bad things, and in doing so I’m saving a lot of money. I made a healthy sandwich yesterday for 50 cents! Portland is so inexpensive.

I consume as little as possible. Now this is really key, I feel like a big percentage of my re-directional focus is maintaining the sparse and simple life that I’ve been living so far. A lot of the problems that society faces in modern times is due to America’s over-consumption of just about everything.

I feel that by abstaining from this practice of consumerism, I’m both improving the world and becoming an example by which other people can choose to live their lives.

By consuming less, I also have to make a lot less money, and thus have to work a lot less, and then I have free time to do what is important. See the wisdom here?

How you can start escaping consumerism and focus on what is important:

1, Adopt a 30-day watch list for any item that you’re tempted to buy.
A lot of consumer is snap decisions that are based on marketing hype and societal conditioning. I’ve known a lot of people who are subject to this, they’ve every moment of their lives focused on stuff, and getting more stuff, their brains are conditioned to buy buy buy.

You can stop this cycle by, as Leo Babauta suggests in his guest post yesterday on Get Rich Slowly, adopting a 30-day list.

When you’re in the store, and you say to yourself: “gee, I could use that new deluxe sandwich slicer” stop yourself, pull out your notebook and turn to the page where your 30-day list is. Write the date, write the time, write what you want to buy.

After 30 days, return to the list. Do you still want the deluxe sandwich slicer? No? Good, now you haven’t bought it. Do this for everything, except necessities like food, which 30 days from now you won’t really need anymore if you put it on the list.

2, If you had to go today, could you take it all with you?
I always like to think leaving. Maybe there’s a big disaster, and your city is sinking into the ground. Or you find out that you got a job in Cincinnati that is going to make your dreams come true, but they won’t pay relocating fees and you have to be there tomorrow. Or your girlfriend wants to move to Japan, tomorrow. Will it be a big project to move, or will you just pack a bag and go?

I can pack a bag and go, because all of my stuff fits in a bag (well, three bags: one backpacker bag, one computer bag, and one camera bag.) Isn’t that nice? It really is. I can go anywhere, whenever I want.

3, Limit your exposure to advertising.
A lot of buying is the result of ads leading to you to believe that you want something that you don’t really need. By blocking ads, you’ll negate their effects instantly. Cut down on your TV, install Adblock for Firefox, don’t look at billboards (and if you do, laugh what they’re trying to accomplish.)

This is really difficult, and it won’t happen overnight. You’re being subjected to literally billions of dollars of research by advertising firms on how to manipulate people, every time you look at an advertisement. It’s a big battle to fight, but one that is extremely rewarding.

4, Breathe.
If absolutely must buy something, at least stop yourself and take ten deep breathes. Walk around the store and meditate on the item you “really must have this instant”. Do you really need it now? How will it benefit your life? Will it actually hurt your life? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. It probably will, so think about that has you walk and breathe. You might be surprised what answers come to you.