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From USA Today:

With research showing that many households plan to cut back on summer travel — a Rand McNally survey found two-thirds plan to shorten or cancel summer road trips — Wal-Mart is rolling back prices on everything from mosquito repellant to portable DVD players to baked beans and barbecue sauce.

So here is the question: Are you going away for a summer vacation? Or will you be staying home to see some things locally that you would otherwise ignore?

What do you think of this trend? Personally, I love it, as my lovely bride and I enjoy taking short road trips to neighboring communities and seeing what there is to see, enjoying lunch in an off-the-beaten-path cafe, and scoping out used bookstores.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5j54er. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

My friend Ariane Benefit is on NPR today!!

Listen to the podcast here. It is a really good interview, with Ariane and the FlyLady.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5bgu57. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

I have been on the road for the past few days (or week!) and I just have not been able to do any writing. Luckily, Kris Rowlands has offered to pitch in and help cover for my own lack of posting.
Here is the latest Guest Post:

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle!

Source: FotoliaAlways accused of being frugal, I have several things that I do around our house that would fall into the frugal/productivity category. When I was young, my father had a really good job that was lost do to a strike and firing by Ronald Reagan of all the striking employees. We learned in a big hurry to be frugal - and a wonderful side effect of being frugal is also living a greener lifestyle. In this article, I’ll give you a few of my tried and true pointers and explain how this fits into being productive.

We do not throw much away in our household. Since moving. we are now in a community that supports recycling, which thrills me to death! Everything that can possibly get recycled does. When we first moved here and I switched to the recycling rubbish plan, but my SO couldn’t get around the idea that we could only have one bag of trash, but all the recyclables that we wanted. The thinking was that one garbage bag would not be enough for us. I kept trying to explain that almost everything we use could be recycled, with the exception of food scraps and a few other things. Once we went through a couple weeks of recycling, the light bulb lit brightly and all was understood. In our community, we have the luxury of grouping all of our recyclables together in one bin. The only thing that we need to do is make sure that we rinse out any containers that are recycled and generally make sure that the recyclables are clean.

In our household, there are a few extra steps I take that fall under the “frugality” category that I’d like to share with you.

• Reusing plastic zippered bags - these are typically made of a strong plastic, so they either get put into the top shelf of the dishwasher or they get washed by hand. Fold over sandwich baggies are not a good candidate for this as they are too thin.
• Using plastic containers from purchased items - I rarely buy plastic containers such as Tupperware or the like because we save our plastic containers from purchased goods. Now while these may not be as attractive or as organized-looking as containers that all match, this is a great way to save money and be green.
• Reusing paper towels - if I wash my hands and use a paper towel to dry them, I will set that paper towel aside in order to reuse it. It will dry out and may be good for cleaning a counter spill, wiping something off the floor, or cleaning a pets’ face that has just buried their head in the food bowl!
• Use reusable coffee filters - I have a single serve coffee machine (Senseo) and use the eco-pods with it. If you use a regular drip coffee maker, there are reusable filters for those as well.
• Save condiments from restaurants - I use these to pack in lunches as they are handy to have and will cheapen your grocery bill: you won’t have to use condiments from your home supply, plus you won’t need plastic containers to store it. Now I don’t advocate taking extra from restaurants, but if they are given to you, put them to good use! Remember to bring home the packets/containers to recycle.
• Use windshield washer fluid instead of window cleaner - it is just as powerful but at about 1/3 the cost.

These are just a few of the things we do to stay green and save the budget.

Now, you ask, how does that make you more productive? Let me tell ya!

1. Less to buy at the grocery store, which means less time being at the grocery. That, in turn, gives you more time to devote to other things.
2. Less waste, which means less time taking out the garbage and less money spent on garbage bags. That will allow you to perhaps spend money on some tool that will allow you to be more productive as well as more time being productive.

As you can see, being frugal and green has a definite impact on being productive and being able to Get Things Done! What are some tips that you incorporate that allow you to be more productive while being frugal and green? I’d love to have more tips to implement into my daily life!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6jrwpt. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

A while back I posted that I was upgrading my smartphone and considering some options. The time has come like many gadget aficionados (’geek’ after all is no longer in vogue) I have invested far too much time in my selection.I chose the Blackberry Pearl 8130, a sexy little number with snappy performance. Unfortunately, after a week of use, I realized that it wasn’t for me. The ‘crack’ in Blackberry just didn’t grab hold of my PDA needs so I went looking for an alternative. Mistake #1.

Many video reviews later and I am still not sure which one to use. (I do recommend PhoneArena.com in case you need to see specs, etc.) Now I’m thinking about this process way too much and it’s beginning to stress me out.

Here’s the spiritual twist- gadget owning the gadgeteer. It bothers me that it bothers me which smartphone I use. I’ve adjusted my aim- instead of finding the ideal smartphone I just want to put the whole process to bed and be done with it.

My suggestions if you are like me and find that your gadgets are owning you:

• Go on a gadget fast. Read “Unplugging the Noise” for some ideas on products and the media. A once per month fast is a good idea for so many reasons.
• Put things in perspective…on paper. Write down the pros and cons of a gadget that you’re thinking of purchasing. Do you really need it? Will it really improve the quality of your life? If we’re honest the answer will almost always be, “probably not”.
• Know the fine print. If Sprint has fine print about returning a phone, read it carefully. You don’t want to become a wasteful buyer of goods. Like the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, the desire for more can take over the best of us.
• Stay old fashioned. No matter how cool the iPhone is, there is still no substitute for pen and paper.
• Maintain quiet time each day. Steadying buying habits (and gadgeteering) with down time, alone, is valuable and keeps things in balance.

Off to work on an article…win old fashioned pen and paper. I’ll keep my phone on standbye.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/56ocyq. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen