Cheap is fine

Last year I was talking to a friend about the tools I use online. He commented that he doesn’t pay for anything and always looks for the free tool. At the time I teased him a bit, feeling good about all the tools I pay for, but there’s something about frugality that I’m really starting to appreciate.

Right now I’m looking at ways to cut costs, because frankly subscription services have gotten far too out of hand. Tallying up the total amount of subscriptions I’ve been paying is frightening.

So, as an experiment I basically cut everything I could last month. The result has been some cost savings, and also a mindset shift toward scrappy and quick. I love it.

For instance, I’m now adding a newsletter option to this blog. Anyone who is interested can subscribe and get all these posts in newsletter format.

There are a bunch of great paid options, but I’m going with free for now. That will require a little bit of manual work on my part, but I don’t want to pay until I know that the effort is worth it.

Starting with free has forced me to have constraints, think more creatively, and in some cases come up with far better solutions because I’m looking at how to do things in a simpler way.

Maybe it’s time to re-read Essentialism for my yearly inspiration.