November 2010
1 post
Purging: Bullshit.
I know the title’s strongly worded, but titling this has been the only thing keeping me from posting the entry, so this is it. While neither witty nor child friendly, it’s fitting.
I don’t usually mention individual movements. However since I started writing, Simplicity and Minimalism have obviously become hot topics, making news in national and international print and web...
October 2010
1 post
Moving Slow but Slowly Moving
The past few months have been super busy. They’ve also been amazing cycling weather, and I’ve been putting in a couple hundred miles a week and neglecting to write. Do I feel bad? Nope. I don’t want anyone reading this when it’s nice, I want you all playing outside.
The Barter Project is currently moving along steadily. I’ve recovered from the financial meltdown a...
August 2010
1 post
Purging: The Real World
I don’t know how else to say this, so here it goes… Fuck the “real world”.
Feels great, doesn’t it?
This month I’ve learned one huge, gigantic lesson. I know I say it all the time, but this one’s pretty big, and really important. The lesson I’ve learned is this: there’s a difference between “reality” and “the real...
July 2010
3 posts
(Kind of Accidental) Purging: Blogging
The past couple weeks I’ve been traveling around and haven’t brought my laptop with me. It’s funny, just a year after Twitter and smart phones became the norm, the digital cleanse is all the rage. I wasn’t cleansing (and I think “everything in moderation” needs to be the new trend), my laptop’s just kind of broken. That’s besides the point-...
Purging: Purging.
After completing my Survivor weeks, I decided I needed a break- a vacation from the project. I needed to stop cleaning, stop worrying about budgets and expenses and income, and relax. I’ve been going at this for a few months now, and I felt it important to take some time to let everything sink in. After all, I don’t want my life to be centered around not owning things and purposely...
Groovy Thursday
There are a few fabrics that go in and out of style every 10 years. Denim (other than jeans), camo, plaid, and my favorite- tie dye, all come to mind. However, when you wear them with reserved style, they will always be fashionable in a timeless, classic way. Today we spent the day in the back yard, throwing frisbees and laying in hammocks, tie-dying old shirts. Never tie-dye a new shirt- wait...
June 2010
10 posts
Survivor Week Lessons
I drink a lot of Diet Coke. In the past few years, with all the inconclusive studies and research going around, it seems like people have been divided into two schools of thought on the issue: those that look at you with sorrow- like you just announced you had a month to live- at finding out you drink diet soda…and those who still drink it. There doesn’t seem to be a “pro choice,...
A Simple New England Dinner
Growing up in a New England family with true Yankee blood, cooking has never been a very frilly event. In Yankee cooking, the rules are simple and go along with many of the current trends: the ingredients need to be hardy and readily available (locally grown or caught), inexpensive, and the meals need to feed lots of people on very little money. Since most Yankee people worked hard all day, the...
A Welcomed Addition: Going Without (for a While)
When I ran out of bananas a couple days ago, I was met with a decision: do I dip into my untouched emergency fund, or do I wait until Friday and stock up on shopping day? Regardless of the decision at hand, it was 10pm, and no banana selling stores were open anyways. I rummaged through the fridge and found some raisins to throw into my Cheerios. It sounds weird, but try it- the combination is...
Re: New Theme
I’m doing some redesigning of the blog right now, and I really wanted to get the comments section up and running, so please excuse the appearance for a little while. I just grabbed the first theme that guaranteed working with DISQUS comments. Thanks!
Suggestions: Affiliate Marketing
I’m not going to try to sell you e-books in this post, I promise (though there are a lot of good ones out there). It seems there’s been a lot of buzz lately about affiliate marketing online. The basics around this are that you sell another person’s product, usually a book in pdf form or video series of the SEO, Business, Lifestyle Design, or Finance genre, and get 50% of the...
Purging: Personal Hygene Products
One of the first things I did when I started this project was to clean out my medicine cabinet and shower shelf. I noticed that of all the areas I was cleaning, this was the area where I had a lot of overlooked and unused products sitting around collecting dust. This was an important area, because on the road I’m sure I’ll be using showers in campsites, and I’d like to have a...
Budget Redux Pt.1: Survivor Week Training
I’m down to the last few few things I have to sell (record player, second printer, misc. bike parts, etc) so it’s now time to do some serious Stage 3 Purging. The next 2 or 3 weeks I’ll be working on my budget by doing an exercise called a “survivor week”.
The idea behind this is simple. For 7 days, you spend no money. Mine are going to run Friday night-Friday...
A Welcomed Addition: Interactive Blog Stuff!
The last few days have been a wonderful whirlwind of activity. I never in my wildest dreams expected it, and I’m absolutely amazed at the support that everyone has shown in my project and what I’m writing about. Special thanks goes to Everett Bogue over at Far Beyond The Stars for all of the help and support. Check him out if you haven’t allready!
I’ve done a bit of...
A Welcomed Addition: DIY
I don’t think anyone should ever limit themselves when it comes to learning new skills. While the same goes for hobbies and interests, I think that learning to do things yourself makes life a whole lot more simple, less stressful, and most importantly (not really) saves you some time and money. That’s why I’ve decided to learn something new this week: how to true my bike wheels...
Purging: Ideas
My computer’s been dead for about a week now, and I’ve continued on my journey to make life simple…and I think this next one might be a Stage 3 purge (see my purging stages here).
This week I purged all of my ideas. This does not mean that I stopped having ideas, because that would be pretty bad. What it means is that I wrote down, to the best of my ability, every idea...
May 2010
16 posts
My Rule of Thirds
In photography, the rule of thirds is a composition technique. You basically draw a tic tac toe board over an image or frame, and the rule states that an interesting composition will have the focus of the the image on one of the lines or at one of the intersections.
My rule of thirds is about not getting in over your head. It’s about knowing where to put your focus, but in a different way....
I’ve been going for lots of bike rides along the shore the past few weeks. I figured I’d post a picture of my bike. She’s dirty, and I need a new saddle, but I love her.
A Welcomed Addition: Limitations
When I was in art school, I had a professor that would just walk in and say “Take out all of your paints and paint something”. I remember when he did this the first day of class, and thinking Wow, we’re going to be so creative.
I had another professor who was very strict and formal. She taught drawing, and would have a perfectly balanced still life set up for all of us to draw...
Purging: Tabs
I’ve learned that multitasking isn’t a very good idea. It usually leads to me doing a few things mediocre, rather than getting one thing done perfectly. So this weekend, I decided to purge internet tabs and reduce my multitasking.
If you don’t use tabbed browsing, it’s basically opening multiple windows inside of one window that you can toggle between. Because I’ve...
I'm not sure how to title this, but I'm purging my...
Stage 2 Purging involves getting into routine and lifestyle choices. This week, I decided to get my diet under control.
A little background in the spirit of full disclosure: I’m 23, 6’4”, and have a very large frame. I’ve got tree trunks for legs from riding bikes my whole life, and I’ve got super wide shoulders. I grew up very large, 302lbs to be exact, and lost...
I haven’t posted any photos on this blog yet, only because I haven’t had any photos to post. Now I do. I’d like to introduce my journey companions, Finn and Gilby.
The Rule of 30.
I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and de-cluttering this week, most of it in the “stage 2” realm. Stage 2 Purging would be the smaller stuff, like junk drawers and under the bed. For me, it’s cleaning out the room I grew up in, as I’m still visiting home because it’s so beautiful down here. I’ve done 3 Goodwill trips and 2 dump runs, and my room is down to...
How to Give Your Stuff Away Without Your Friends...
Today I got a voicemail that I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get because of this project. It went something like this (not exactly…names and specifics have been edited out):
Hey Eric, Just calling to check in with you. A couple people are worried about you…you know…with selling all of your stuff and leaving for a while and all (I’ve been on a vacation to my...
Thank You's are in Order
It’s been a busy day for me. I’m currently visiting my Mom in the house I grew up in, and I’ve been cleaning out my childhood room all day. 8 hours of throwing away/donating things that have memories attached to them is tiresome work, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone that’s read the blog today and sent me kind emails and notes. It’s really nice to hear from...
Purging: Choices
This week I decided to start work on purging the non-material things, or the mind clutter. The first thing I decided to get rid of might sound odd, but it’s rather simple; I got rid of choices.
Choices really aren’t that great. They present you with a lot of information that you don’t need to know but for one decision, especially when you start nitpicking specific details. Once...
Plans for a new Home.
My thinking is starting to shift from purging to buying: I need to find an RV… in essence I need to buy a home. I’ve almost saved up enough to start looking at the bottom of my price range, and I think that I’m going to need a ton of time to find the right camper.
My plans are to get a class B motorhome. I chose this class because I need some room: I’ll be taking my 2...
Things You Should Get: Paypal Debit Account
This is just a quick note on something simple. We all know it’s a pain in the ass waiting that 4 days for your money to take some sort of vacation before it arrives in your bank account after you withdraw it from Paypal, so here’s a free and easy thing to do: apply for a Paypal Debit card. It’s free, fee-less, and allows you quick and easy access to your Paypal balance from...
The Purging Stages
The reason for all of this cleaning out and purging is to create a blank slate. By stripping down my life to as much of a skeleton as possible, I’ll be able to build and curate who I am and what I own to make my life as effective and productive and…most importantly…. as simple as I can.
So, that being said, I got a couple questions regarding the purge stages. I didn’t...
Purging: Bikes
I know the last post was about bikes as well, but I can finally say that I’ve cleaned out my part of the bike rack (we literally have one in my apartment, with 6 or 7 bikes between 4 people).
Today I sold my road bike, which marks the end of my purging phase 1. It was bittersweet, because I built it up for myself when I graduated college almost exactly a year ago, and this was the one...
Contacting/Bartering
What am I looking to trade? Anything! Songs, artisan goods, clothing, art, design, fresh produce, baked goods, toothbrushes, zines, books, photography…I really can’t think of anything I wouldn’t like to trade for. I’m a leathersmith, and will make any sort of goodie you’d like. The purpose of The Bartering Project is to meet the people behind all of the...
Choosing a Bike is more than just Choosing a Bike
The last real decision I have to make is which bike I want to keep. I don’t own a car, so cycling around the city (I live in Boston) is my main form of transportation. Cycling is also third and last on my “passionate hobbies” list, and my excuse to not join a gym. Because of this, I have two bikes: a geared bike for long and hilly weekend rides, and a fixed gear bike for getting...
Purging: Social Networks
Cleaning physical clutter is the easiest part of simplifying. The hardest parts are the things that don’t really clutter your desk or dining room table, but your head and your time.
These days, every web service and site is incorporating social networking, making it easy to belong to 10 or 20 social networks without even knowing it. While I love the global community that the internet has...
April 2010
7 posts
Warming Up and Kind of Bartering
Today I had what I would call my pre-first-barter barter. I had a lot of old music equipment that I didn’t want to just give away: effects pedals, some computer recording stuff, etc, and I didnt think it was worth much. I didn’t want to take the time to sell it $20 by $20 on ebay or craigslist, so I decided the easiest thing to do was to go to a music retail store with the entire pile...
I Bought Something Yesterday, and a Crappy Pants...
An easy way to become a smarter consumer is to look at every purchase as an investment. By purchasing something, you are investing in a company and supporting their products, the way they operate their business, and their future. You’re also investing in your own life, and the affect the product you buy is going to have on it.
Yesterday I made my first purchase of something besides food...
The Big Phone Debate
I have a first generation iPhone that’s far overdue for an upgrade. I’ve been trying to decide whether to keep the iPhone service, or downgrade to a simple and cheap flip phone.
My issue is this: I’m going to need wireless internet on the road. It’s going to cost an extra $30 either way, be it tethering my iPhone to my laptop or simply paying for a wireless internet card...
Purging: Cameras
I’ve always been into cameras. I shot some weddings in college to pay bills, shot product lines for some smaller clothing brands, and even now I take headshots for friends. I also shoot all of my own product photos for my work, which is digital for web. I have a couple projects I’ve been working on for a few years now, and I shoot film for those. Basically, I had 2 50lb backpacks...
Purging: Wardrobe
It’s very easy to collect lots of cool, useful things, and end up never using them. I decided the first thing to do in preparation is to make sure everything I own has a use and meaning in my daily life, and all the clutter was out. That means cleaning out a whole lot of stuff, and curating the things that I own in order to make sure I have exactly what I need.
The first thing I decided...
The Project:
My name is Eric, and I’m a leather smith. About 2 months ago, I set out to simplify my life a bit. In doing so, I’ve come to the conclusion that, well…I’m not really living much of a life at all. The Barter Project is a journey I’ll be setting out on when my lease is up in about 18 months. I’ll be traveling the country by small rv, trading goods with other...