Law Students

On track for 100 Things.

By Athar Khan

Last year, while taking a break from preparing for the California bar exam, I came across David Michael Bruno’s “100 Thing Challenge.” Given that the last few years, I have been acquiring significantly more than the average consumer, I thought it would be a nice thing to do but never really got around to it.

Then, we moved to Chicago and had to fit two condos worth of stuff into a small cramped apartment. As we looked around at our living room (which had a barbecue grill in it!) we decided it was time to divest ourselves of possessions we never seem to use (e.g. my “solar powered air vents”).

Denise came up with a great idea: for every one clothing item we acquired, we had to give up two of the same category. So, we got rid of old, and ill-fitting clothes and donated them to Good Will.  Since then, we have held on to this rule. Whenever I feel like getting something, I have to try and find two to get rid of. It’s been working great so far.

A friend suggested looking around for “alligators” — he calls anything that has a subscription fee an “alligator” because “it eats you alive.” Colorful, but you get the point. So,we started slashing things we never seemed to use. The home phone and a car were the first to go. I did some speed tests and noticed that I never got speeds better than 7Mb so it was pointless to pay for a 20Mb connection. We quickly downgraded our cable speed.

Now, as an extension of our “pay-as-you-consume” model, we’re about to get rid of our car and opt for ZipCars. Having paid almost $1500 in parking over the last 6 months, I can’t wait to get rid of this alligator.

The funny thing is that as we get rid of more stuff, we feel better. I am wondering what it will be like when we actually hit 100.

Full post as published by Atharkhan on April 14, 2009 (boomark / email).