We vote with our dollars.  Every time we spend our money, we aren’t just getting a hamburger or pretty new sweater.  We’re saying, “I support the way this product was made.  I support the way the animals and humans involved in the production of this thing were treated.”  Each dollar is a nod of approval to the practices that go into the production of these items.

I know we don’t really think this way when we’re doing our shopping.  But as we turn more and more to cheaper products as the economy worsens, now is really the time to be thinking of where our dollars are going.

A few easy adjustments in the way we shop could make a few small strides. 

First, consider buying locally made foods at your grocery store.  If your grocery store doesn’t offer local products, ask them why.  Why, for example, can’t I buy tortillas made at a small local business but I can get tortillas from huge factories thousands of miles away?  Or why can’t I get handmade ice cream made in the next town over, but I can get fifty selections from the other side of the country?  I try to make an effort to ask these questions.  If businesses don’t know what the customers want, they won’t change.

Second, you may consider some Christmas shopping at these sites where individuals sell their homemade products.  I was recently given an apron here.  It cost the same as the apron I would have chosen from my favorite purse maker except it was made by an indiviual.  I knew that the profits were going to her and not a CEO who doesn’t even touch the sewing machine.  There are prints, sculptures, holiday cards, decor, clothing, gifts…  

• etsy.com  “Your place to buy and sell all things handmade”
• dawanda.com  “Products with love” and “DaWanda is the place for unique and individual products and people. Buy handmade and hard to find goods, share your discoveries with your friends and create your own collections.”

The net worth is struggling to maintain itself these days, and to be honest, I’m not thinking about money to the point of obsession like I used to. Instead, I’m experiencing the things that I haven’t been able to do since college:

learning how to cook
writing a book

My husband is doing something he’s always wanted to do:

earning a master’s degree

While my co-personal finance bloggers experience rapid growth this year, we’re setting different goals for ourselves that involve personal development and enrichment. I work part time until May, which is the coolest feeling I have ever experiencing about work. Working 9 to 5+++ was the most miserable experience I have ever had.

Now I don’t have to worry about what the boss thinks or if I’ll lose my job or how to spend my messily vacation days. I have total freedom for myself, which no one else in my office experiences. Sure I get paid less. But at some point, we have to ask ourselves what matters most: lots of money or lots of freedom.

I read a fantastic book that illustrated the way I was feeling:
The Anti 9-to-5 : Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube

I suggest that anyone feeling frustrated with work take a glance. It has some fantastic strategies for reflecting on what makes you happiest and determining how to obtain the best situation for your working self. The fact that it’s targeted to women is something pretty much only relevant in the title. The rest is easily male or female.

It turns out your people-pleasing work ethic may not get you ahead. You’re not taking any risks to make the company—and you—any better. Kate White, author of Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do is already teaching me a few useful strategies… and I just started the book.

This subsection really stood out in my mind:

Never Appear at the Mercy of Your Time

Because it’s important to a good girl to be perceived as a hard worker, she never minds (in fact she likes it) if someone catches her looking a little frantic: riffling through papers, dashing down the hall with her hair flying, lugging home a huge pile of work on Friday afternoon. Begin in overdrive, she believes, shows everyone that she not only has lots to do but is getting it done.

Though it’s import to be perceived as energetic, acting frazzled or short on time actually creates the impression that you aren’t under control, and that calamity is waiting just around the corner to ambush you. It makes bosses reluctant to turn more responsibility over to you and it makes co-workers and subordinates as anxious as passengers on a bumpy 747.

Anyone else seen him/herself doing this same thing in the past?

When I quit my job last month, I felt pretty uncertain of where life would go, especially because my husband quit his job the month before. I never expected to find such satisfaction in setting and accomplishing my goals instead of my employer’s.

Living without a constant paycheck is tough. When working for someone else, you start to depend on this little burst of wealth every two weeks when a boss gives you a check. When you don’t get that check, I think that you fight a little harder. You don’t clean your house as much, but you keep working when you get home after a long day.

My husband and I can only keep up this schedule until December when he starts graduate school, so I’m trying to make the most of each day. Freedom spoils you, though. I feel like I’ll be like the new college graduates with skewed perceptions of how work and life should be.

But then again, I think college grads believe in something that we long ago forgot:

1. Work and pleasure can be the same thing.
I don’t mean that you have to love every moment of everything that you’re doing *that’s impossible. But shouldn’t you be just as eager to start your work day as you are to finish?

2. Little favors can lead to big favors. Sometimes you can accomplish a lot more when you team up with others who have different skills and ideas. We’ve really tried to build good connections. While we were in Germany recently, our real estate projects kept developing. Our real estate agent was willing to serve as our emergency contact. My sister was depositing monies at the bank. And several great contractors and handymen tackled a few of our dreaded projects while my dad stopped in during his lunch breaks to follow up. With the exception of family, everyone else helped us along because we’ve helped them in the past, and they know we’ll have work for them in the future, too. Bosses can’t be feared, and as a boss, you can’t always appear so fearful.

3. Life is about living.
My last boss was a workaholic, and it made him furious that I wanted to leave at the end of the day. My memories of college often involved doing the least amount necessary to generate the most pleasing results. You figured out exactly what score you had to get on final exams to maintain your grade. And how many people actually read every text that they were supposed to? School was about more than what you learned in class. Work shouldn’t consume you when life holds far more.

4. Money isn’t everything.
I’m not thinking of reverting back to Ramen Noodles. But whatever happened to the thrill of a free meal or cheap living? How about riding that bicycle even when you can afford the gas now? We work to make money, and suddenly we don’t know what to do without the huge sums of money. You become entrenched by growing “necessities”.

5. You don’t have to be an expert to give it a shot.
In the workplace, it’s easy to see the people that are better than you and become passive. Sometimes it’s even easier for the boss to literally remind you of how unknowing you are because you lack the experience, the knowledge he has, or just plain common sense (HIS point-of-view). In college, we were fearless – what’s the worse that could happen? The sense of adventure vanishes at work, I’ve noticed. Don’t just stick with what you’re good at. Take a leap at the things you’ve never tried or don’t do as well.

NPR is doing a nationwide project called StoryCorps where people are invited to share their lives. For forty minutes, a person can interview a relative or friend, have the information stored in the National Archives, and most importantly, walk home with a personal copy of the recording.

Ever since my dad and I decided that I would interview my grandma the day after her 90th birthday celebration, my dad has been urging me to record my memories before they become as fuzzy as memories are to my grandma.

Share your lessons on money

My grandma didn’t know much about her own money; my grandfather cared for the books. He died years ago, and I can no longer ask him about his experiences and lessons. Today, such disparities are few. You know about your money, and you know the strengths that are bringing you more money. Start keeping a record of your lessons.

The sad truth is that most of us don’t have living grandparents or family members experienced with wealth over time that we can talk to. It’s pretty hard for them to look back even if we have such people around.

You don’t have to have wealth now to record your experiences. In fact, that’s not the perspective future generations can truly learn from. The mission at Aridni is to walk our readers through our lessons. Have you ever seen a book or self-help program that truly starts at the beginning? Seems like they’re always skipping a step—like you already have the million dollar idea or something! These books sell a philosophy; they don’t offer frankness during each step of wealth building. A personal connection who wants YOU to succeed (not another book sold) offers far more useful nuggets.

I learned a lot from my grandma and family traditions that day. I only wonder how much more I could have learned if she’d written them down when she was younger.

How to write your financial journal

1. Address the journal entry to someone close to you so that you’re more likely to write personal thoughts. I start with: dear friend.
2. Talk about where you stand with your finances today
3. How did you get where you are today?
4. Where do you hope to financially stand in the future? Why?
5. What are some ideas and plans you have for obtaining that goal?
6. What are some smart decisions that you have made?
7. Any mistakes?

Have you ever noticed how many little things never get done because you’re so busy focusing on important things and urgent things? Look around your environment, and you’ll probably find over fifty of these things – e-mail accounts that need cleaned out, pictures that need framed or hung, products that need to be returned, faucets that need repaired… Trying to conquer all of these little chores would be impossible.

Yet finishing a few small tasks might actually boost your attitude.

Every time I see the charm that needs a chain, I get horribly depressed for a moment. I only see the unfinished necklace once a week or so, yet every time, it lowers my mood. There’s one thing I’m not getting taken care of. Why not take fifteen minutes to get a chain and be done with it? Why don’t you take care of your little things. We all know why we don’t. We have a million reasons and a million other things that are more important.

For the next week, I challenge you to start tackling some of these nagging areas that you neglect. Every time you take care of another box of clutter or flush out unused bookmarks on your computer, you’ll get a small boost. It’s a jolt without the caffine. You’ll feel better about yourself and your day. More positive energy feels great. Your mind will feel refreshed and ready to tackle other things… like that net worth.