Got No Money Guide To Good Living -3

Got No Money Guide To Good Living - 3
©Cricket Diane C Phillips, 2008

* You know, if you’ve never lived without money, this stuff probably won’t be very funny to you and personally, I don’t want you to ever experience it to understand it. That’s okay.

* If I didn’t find myself with a PhD in got no money living, maybe it could be taken that I’m making fun of people who are poor. I’ve lived it, I am living it and it doesn’t seem likely that I ever will live with money to do the things I want and need to do. It is funny after awhile.

* Good living requires us to accept ourselves as we are and work with that. A badly designed chair is a real expensive luxury if nobody in the family can safely use it.

* Good living with no money assumes we are already poor, we are confirmed poor, we know we got no money and we don't have anything to prove to other people because they all know we got no money, too.

* This is very important because if we are okay with having no money, we can sit in the durn floor instead of busting our butts falling out of some stupid cheap chair that looks good but falls over backwards when we sit in it.

* Remember, when you got no money and your butt gets broken or any other body parts get broken - there is no buying replacement parts like the folks with money can do.

* We are just stuck looking real impressive to other people as somebody walking around humped over with a broken butt or arm or draggin legs. Not real impressive and ass first, eyes closed - does not work well at all.

* Since we all agree, it's not worth impressing others when we got no money - we can focus on impressing ourselves instead.

* One sure way to be impressed with ourselves when we got no money is to do good living anyway.

* I can have freshly cut flowers in my home like they do in fancy magazines of fine homes, if I grow the durn things first and go out and cut them.

* Enough flowers in a mayonnaise jar stops looking like a jar at some point and starts to seem like a wealth of colors and textures and beautiful, magical, sunny days of good experiences.

* It works with wildflowers and weeds taken from wild meadows and abandoned service stations and with garden-grown or store-bought flowers. That's why they use them in magazines anyway.

* Never use plastic mayo jars for this purpose. No matter how many rocks are put in the bottom, it will tip over and if anything is nearby worth having - that is the place where the jar will spill.

* Other important got no money good living facts: never use a kid's toy hammer to put a nail in the wall. Never, never use a shoe to put a nail in the wall. Never, never, never use the side of a canopener to hammer anything anywhere.

* Then, you'll have to buy a hammer and a canopener and a pair of shoes. Well, it depends on where you started and when you got the clue that it would pay well to own an actual hammer.

* There are lots of tools for good living needed when you got no money. However, there are a lot that can be ruled out altogether since they will never apply to got no money living.

* Unless a boat anchor can be used to hold that chair from tipping over or to prop up the kitchen table, and its given to us real, real cheap - we probably won't have a use for it until we get a boat, maybe next lifetime.

* In fact, a boat would be nice - we could sit it in the front yard, fill it with water and go swimming.

* We might not have the money to get the boat to a lake or the gas to drive it on the lake once we got it there, but we could turn the garden hose on it in the front yard.

* We could practice skiing on the porch and picnic under the nearest sandy shade tree where nothing would grow except moss anyway.

* With enough Christmas lights and neighbors with parked boats and no money - we could call it a regatta and have every poor man's excuse for a party.

* Nearly forty boats all lit up filing down the street and around the block driven behind cars is still a parade. Its worthy of a front yard dance, barbecue, block party, street party and celebrating. How often do the rich and famous see that from their dock beach house?

* We could hold regatta block parties twice a week for a month if the gas holds out. How many garden hoses do we have for some splash appeal and water fun?

* Good living when we got no money has to allow room to enjoy what might be too embarrassing for the status-seeking, money-making, people-impressing type folks to do. There is a lot of room for good living experiences in this area because so few dare to go there.

* When you got no money, they aren't likely to be impressed with your good taste in anything anyway, including regattas, frequent use of cheap Christmas lights and tacky glittery stuff.

* The bigger and tackier the older model station wagon - the more likely people with car payments to make, will yield the right of way with a polite distance. This is called, quality good living space.

* The more raunchy, stained, mis-matched and wrinkled the clothes you wear to the grocery store, even if they are clean and nicely smelling - the more likely that people will give you elbow room when you shop.

* They may stay off the entire aisle where you want to browse through slowly, if you do it right.

* You got no money to spend - take your time. What little bit you do have may be all there is for who knows how long and you best get your moneys' worth.

* Grocery shopping counts as entertainment, miscellaneous and travel when you got no money. You need as much quality time shopping as possible and its better if people just stay out of the way and let you enjoy it.

* The more polite you are with no money living - the more you can enjoy the good-mannered, calming effects of other people, including children. Why save good manners for strangers? It costs nothing to offer respect to those around you and it is good living with or without money.

* We can use those respectful, kind ways for each other here and now when we got no money because we are capable of it and because giving the feelings of respect and honor - we gain them. The more we do that - the richer and stronger we are - it is the basis of true wealth.

Got No Money Guide To Good Living - 2

Got No Money Guide To Good Living - 2
Written by Cricket Diane C Phillips 2008

* I have an active living environment. This means a got no money good living environment dedicated to actively living in it. Things to do, workspaces for doing them and living by doing.

* You’ve got to ask yourself what you’d be doing if you had all the money in the world anyway.

* If its sitting around reading books - get some books. If its cooking special meals for people you love - get some recipes and do it.

* This isn’t a hard concept to grasp. I found it in a book once. Then I bought seeds for gardening and planted them.

* It was during a bad drought and only one marigold and five tomato plants grew out of thousands of seeds - about $8 worth of seed packets.

* But the seeds from those six plants have grown tomatoes and marigolds everywhere I’ve lived since. They’ve provided flowers and tomatoes in my friends’ and neighbors’ yards, at my parents’ house and I still have some today from them.

* If I don’t have a yard to garden - I just go and garden somebody else’s yard or plant them in the window inside the house. Its all the same to me because if I were rich its what I would do. So, I do it. Why wait?

* Between books from the library, books on sale, books online and books at the thrift store, yard sales and friends of the library sales - there are whole libraries available to own when you got no money and want good living.

* Be aware that what you have in your hand may be a library book before you stick it under the couch where the leg used to be. And, as soon as you use the dictionary for that you’ll need to look up a word. Better go find a brick instead.

* May as well not sit around thinking about what you haven’t got. Build it, create it, do it with what is around you.

* There is always something - some way to do it - somewhere to find it - some way to acquire it even with no money.

* In fact, with money is one of the most inefficient ways to go about it for most things most of the time.

* By the time I’ve shopped for what doesn’t really suit the purpose I have for it, I could’ve built, acquired or reclaimed four things (at least) to solve the problem that suits the purpose.

Got No Money Guide To Saving Money - 2008

Got No Money Guide To Saving Money - 2008


* Can't save what you haven't got.

-- short chapter. . .


* This is what we call a "fantasy" - its a fantasy you're having if you think its a problem.


By Cricket Diane C Phillips, 2-16-08

Got No Money Guide To Good Living - 2008

* Good living does not require money to be done and it sure doesn't need to wait till you got some.

* There are all kinds of great ways to add good living to every day living. Throw a sheet on the floor and have a picnic.

* Or, if you don't mind ants and bugs - throw the sheet or blanket or old quilt on the grass in the backyard and call it a picnic. You can bring stuff out in baskets - even the pretty napkins and glass cups. Its your picnic - do it so it delights you and those you love. Its good living.

* We grew a beautiful trailing red rose bush to have rose petal baths with rose hips tea. With four blueberry bushes, we had fresh blueberries with the dew still on them warm from the sun.

* It was great fun until my husband put himself in the bath with burnt motor oil and diesel crud all over him. I will never forget that rosy smell.

* Some people just don't have prosperity thinking when they got no money. They would pay $6,000 for a rose petal bath at a spa but wouldn't buy a $5 rose bush to have that bath at home.

* A satin pillowcase isn't but a two dollar remnant or prom dress from the thrift store and a little sewing. Who needs a $50 hair stylist with a satin pillow to sleep on, a hairbrush and blowdryer.

* In fact, a blow dryer comes in handy for all sorts of useful stuff when you got no money.

* Its not real efficient for drying socks compared to the top of a good station wagon - but it is very useful for quick setting glue to fix upholstery on sofas, chairs and free-form macro furniture.

* It also sets the caulk on the bathtub when you redo it to get off the burnt motor oil from husband's baths.

* A good blow dryer will melt some good plastics for sculpting and making handles fit, too. Never melt plastics in a toaster oven - its an air quality thing.

* Every time you buy groceries - put back the cookies and go buy a hammer or a screwdriver or pliers or scissors. You can always bake cookies, but you can never find something to make do as well for the others.

* Although, a dime will make a good screwdriver and even an old phone book can hammer some stuff, its easier to have the tools for easy good living handy.

* I would definitely say "always have" to a few things like duct tape, scissors, hammers and screwdrivers, measuring cups, measuring spoons and some good glues.

* It helps to have nails, tacks, tapes - electrical and otherwise. They are all good living necessaries. When you have to glue something and there isn't any glue, then what? You're stuck with taping, stapling, nailing it or leaving it the way it is.

* Of course, I've caulked some stuff that shouldn't have been touched with caulk just to get it to stick together and there's something that's obviously been fixed poorly.

* I also used duct tape to stick a gutter back on the house and that didn't work very well either. It appears that water sources have to be handled a little differently than sticking it back on with a good long piece of duct tape.