Summertime and the living is easy

Now that I'm on summer vacation, I'll try and update more, at least until I leave for a couple of months for some traveling. The reason I haven't updated this blog much since the flurry of postings during the beginning of this year is that after reading a couple of books like Ishmael and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, I've been much more critical of the way I spend my money. What I've gotten from both books is a further heightening of my conviction that the way we in America and other industrialized nations spend, consume, and discard, is not sustainable and comes at the expense and even exploitation of others.

Before, money excited me, the prospects of earning, saving, and accumulating money excited me, and perhaps that was because of the books I was reading, such as . Nowadays, I see money more as a means to an end, a necessary evil, rather than something that inspires me. Without inspiration, you can see why I've lacked the necessary motivation to update this blog in a consistent manner.

However, lucky for you - or perhaps unlucky if you find my prose to be pedantic - I think I've found a way to balance my anti-consumerism with frugality. In fact, in many cases, the two even go hand in hand. From henceforth, I will cut out the crap, both figuratively and literally, and only present examples of ways to not spend money. "But that's the same thing as saving money!" you say. Not quite. Saving money generally implies not spending as much as you normally have to spend on a product while not spending money is just that - either not even buying a product or figuring out a way to get it for free.

Without further adieus, I'll begin today.