EditorialJoe.com | A Hack You Know and Love

It’s a wonder. In 3 months, I saved $850.
After getting paid about 30% less and paying 20% more rent, I was able to save around $70 a week.

$400 went to back rent and $450 has, so far, gone to saving for my move.

Now how much time could I save if I started writing as efficiently as I spent money in these last three months? I’ve never had as many projects going as now, but I still lull. I can’t keep a streak going.

That’s weakness speaking. That’s laziness, I guess. Like I said, I could apply the same principle of saving money to the principles of writing and prioritizing.

Will kept me doing what I knew was better for me in the long run in terms of money. No fast food. No eating out. A smart person can make the price of one pizza hut order last a slim week when you’re crunched for cash. Small allowances were made. $2 a day discretionary budget.

Then you start saving money. Then you see–despite how meager your savings–progress. It becomes a plant to cultivate. It becomes a game. Save more. Cut the discretionary down from $2 to $1. Then from $1 to nothing. Drink water away from home. That’s ten more dollars a week.

And something else happened too. I started losing weight. I know I’m 6′5″, and 220 doesn’t sound that bad, but it’s around 195 in the right places and 25 in the wrong ones. I have a slim build, so what I ended up with after three years at a desk job and my lazy sedentary habits was about 25 lbs around my mid-section.

$40 is A Chinese take out order and a pizza dinner, or it’s ten days worth of food. Yes, ten days. That’s $120 a month for good, reasonably healthy food. When my budget limited me to fruits, grains, legumes, and an occasional meat entree (a 3 to 8 oz serving once or twice a week), I found I lost 23 pounds in 8 weeks. That’s just under 3 lbs. a week, a little over the recommended maximum rate of healthy weight loss.

But it wasn’t that I wasn’t eating enough. I ate three times a day and ate until I was full. It was that I was finally eating the right thing, and at 24, my metabolism was glad to help me so long as I gave my diet a push in the right direction. On my fruit, grain, legume, and occasional meat diet, I found I slowed my weight loss at about 205, and finally hovered around 200 lbs.

So I learned how to save money, I learned how to eat real food, and I lost the weight I gained as a desk jockey.

Well, I’d say this Jr. Sabbatical is a grand success.