Category: The simple life

5 (free) ways to keep in touch during a lockdown

5 (free) ways to keep in touch during a lockdown

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Hello dear readers and followers of the Total Balance household!

While we all try to practice safe “Social distancing” these days (to break the chain of infection from the dreaded Corona virus dubbed Covid-19), there are ways to remain social, without being close to one another!

Thanks to the great invention of The Internet (and Video chat software/Apps!).

Todays post is thus NOT going to be about investments (lets all try to avert our eyes from the market for a little while anyway, am I right?!)…

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A tribute to TEoW

A tribute to TEoW

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Behind every (great) man is a great woman (rolling her eyes)…

This is a tribute to my (eye rolling) wife. Because she doesn’t get enough credit for her hard work every day, taking care of our family. I figured it was only appropriate to use the voice of my alter ego to thank her properly. And because part of this journey is also being grateful for what you have.

You all know a lot about me and my Total Balance. The truth is, it’s really not MY Total Balance – it’s OUR Total Balance. It’s time you guys get to know the real mastermind behind this endeavor. I might be the one leading the pen, but make no mistake – my family is my muse.

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A lazy mans guide to budgeting

A lazy mans guide to budgeting

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I know.

It was bound to happen eventually, right? – “How to do x-y-z” is the most boring blog posts of them all. I do believe we even refer to them as “filler posts”. Something we use to fill the void between the good stuff, right? – But not this guy! I’m here to tell you that this IS the good stuff! Why? Because, it involves the use of technology to help me (and you) to facilitate my favorite activity: being lazy.

Thanks to the somewhat monopolized payment industry, I no longer have to lift a finger to control my spending. How is that, Nick? You might ask. Well, to be fair, the monopoly doesn’t exactly help me control my spending – but it helps me categorize my spending, which is pretty much the most important part, of budgeting…

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Finding your purpose

Finding your purpose

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It’s no secret that a lot of us (humans) often struggle to find our “reason for being” – our purpose in life.

Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going? These are some of life’s hard questions, and we’ve been (probably – we can’t really know for sure) searching for the answers since the dawn of man.

As I alluded to in my last post, I too have been (still am) struggling to find my purpose. It seems so spoiled to say this, when I have everything a man could ever ask for; A nice home, a loving wife (for the most part), a beautiful daughter and a well-paying job, in an industry that keeps screaming for more employees.

This is supposed to be the dream, but somehow it’s just not enough. I feel guilty for saying it, as I know there are people around the world, who can only dream of having what I have.

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Why I rarely get on a scale

Why I rarely get on a scale

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We’ve had a lot of “money talk” lately. I feel it’s time to dig into a little “personal wealth” as well, if you catch my drift!?

Part of the journey to FIRE is also a spiritual journey, in where you (most of us) try to find your inner balance along the way. What makes you happy and fulfilled? – Find out, and use FIRE as leverage to get more of it/spend more time doing what you love!

Society today dictates that we be skinny and fit, wear designer clothes and drive fancy cars, while we vacation on sunny islands and drink tropical drinks all day (while staying fit!). The youngsters today get more stressed and more depressed than ever, trying to keep up with the perfect instagram lifestyle(s). I’m here to tell you, to FUCK all that!

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How to hack your charity donations

How to hack your charity donations

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If you’ve ever walked down a busy shopping street, odds are that you at one point or another, have been solicited by one of those annoying street “sales-people”, who will try to convince you to support <insert worthy cause here>.

When I was living in the city (in my 20’s) this happened to me quite often. I distinctly remember one guy, who managed to catch my attention AND sell me on one of those monthly plans, to support <insert worthy cause here>. He was young and enthusiastic, and with the argument “it’s only 1 pizza per month”, I couldn’t turn him down. His teeth was so crooked that I could not take my eyes away from his mouth, the entire time he was talking to me. I don’t remember which charity it was, but I remember him! I figured that if I supported this <insert worthy cause here> I could honestly – and in good conscience turn down any other solicitor for the next many years! “No thanks, bro – I’m already donating to this cause”. Of course it never actually pan out like that. …

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Confessions of a Shopaholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic

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“Hi, I’m Nick and I’m a shopaholic”.

OK that might be a little overly dramatic. I was never really a shopaholic. But like most of our society, I had bought into the fact that buying stuff = good! When you click that BUY-NOW button on Ebay, it instantly release a shot of dopamine in your brain. And you do NEED new stuff (and gadgets), right?…

That’s right, the instant gratification “drug”. Also known as the “feel-good hormone”.

Dopamine is one of the main neurotransmitters in the brain. It is most commonly recognized for its role in reward, motivation, and pleasure, but also plays a crucial part in modulating focus, motivation, cognitive flexibility, and emotional resilience. In addition to these creative-productive capacities and states, dopamine is one of the main regulators of motor control and coordination of body movements – neurohacker.com

So now we know, why we (humans) love to buy stuff. But our shopping-impulses are also highly influenced by external sources, primarily being advertisements/commercials, but they are also controlled by our inherent need to “fit in”.

The “Advertisement and marketing” industry is a trillion dollar industry. A trillion dollars! Imagine if governments across the world decided over night to ban all form of public advertising. What would happen?!

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Show me your budget (and I’ll tell you who you are)

Show me your budget (and I’ll tell you who you are)

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Much like your clothes, your friends, your pet(s) and your means of transportation says something about who you are, so does your budget…

When I talk to people about my FIRE project (it happens a lot, according to my wife), they often react as though I’ve just told them that they can’t have coffee again. Ever. Are you crazy?! Why, Nick?! WHY?!

Then I try to explain that I’m not trying to deprive myself of life’s luxuries. I’m merely trying to optimize my life and my time. Whenever I choose to buy something, I’m essentially paying for that item with my time (time that I’ve spent at work, earning that money).

Then they argue that it can’t possibly be worth it, living “on a rock” (I never really understood that expression – we all live on a giant rock, remember? 😛 ) just so I can quit my job and continue to live my miserable existence without coffee, ice cream and holidays to foreign countries…

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Lost & Found

Lost & Found

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So, last week I made a bold statement, and accused my wife of stealing my stones (No, not those! – But I like the way you think! 😛 )…

It turned out that I still had them! They were tucked away in one of those moving boxes that you never get around to unpack (we moved over a year ago…).

I vowed to my wife that any box that was left unpacked after 1 year after moving in, I would throw away, as we clearly do not need/use the content of those boxes. We had a total of 88 moving boxes when we moved (I know the exact number, because my wife numbered every single one, and categorized them based on their contents, so we knew which room to put them in, based on the number. Yes. That’s my wife – the organizer 😛 ).

Of those boxes, 8 still remain unpacked. We could probably re-pack them so the content could fit in 4 of them (and maybe chuck some unwanted items in the process). – But really what we should do, is just get rid of them…

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When the Universe throws a curveball

When the Universe throws a curveball

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– Do you try to hit it out of the park, or do you move the fuck out of the way, to avoid getting it in your face?

I apologize for the baseball analogy (and the foul language), but it seemed appropriate, giving the topic I’m going to ramble about today!

You see, I believe that the Universe generally want me to succeed in life. Sometimes that faith is challenged though (I’m not religious, but I do believe in some sort of higher cosmic power. Sort of…). This week has been one of those weeks!

We try not to let the little things get to us, right? So what if someone took your parking spot right in front of you, and it’s the last one on the lot, and you’ve been driving around for what seems like hours to find one!? Karma will get that a**hole for sure!
Anyway, as parents of a 4-year old with two full-time jobs, two cats, two cars and a mortgage on a 200 year old house, there’s not a lot of tolerance for such kind of events to happen on top of one another, before someone lose their shit…Today that someone was me! (Well, almost).

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