[.ca] Keeping Life Simple (ISBN 0882669435)

A wealth of information on frugality:
Great book. I recommend it to anyone already into frugality. Not so good as a starter with too much emphasize on actions and a little bit of a lack of background stuff. But in connection with a more philosophical book on frugality for sure a very good choice

500 things you can do . . .:
This book is a collection of bits of advice about life and how to live it. It is intended for people who have come to the conclusion that there is more to life than consumption. The book begins with seven guiding principles: 1. Relax your standards. 2. Free yourself of stereotypical roles. 3. Take time to figure out what you find most satisfying. 4. Create time for the things you care about. 5. Learn to enjoy what's in front of you. 6. Learn to be flexible. 7. Prioritize. After laying out these principles, Levine recommends keeping an activity log for a week At the end of the week, she asks readers to analyze their activities during the week to see how closely they are aligned with the principles. She wants readers to especially focus on how satisfied each activity made them feel, and also whether each activity was an efficient use of time. The remainder of the book consists of tips for simplifying or getting more satisfaction out of life, organized by topics like rest and relaxation, taking care of yourself, managing money, and home repairs and maintenance. After reading the introduction to the book, I had high hopes for finding some useful ideas or encouragement for living a simple life. Unfortunately, the tips section of the book doesn't quite live up to the promises. Quite a number of the tips are general and aren't exactly focused on living simply, like the suggestion to occasionally run your dish strainer through your dish washer "to get it really clean." It's hard to see the connection between the simplicity philosophy and other tips like "learn a foreign language in your car." Others seem to be downright inconsistent with simplicity like "take a bubble bath with votive candles and buy a copy of Chant." The idea behind the book itself is intriguing, but it would have been much better to either describe the credible simplicity tips in greater detail or come up with a lot more credible simplicity tips and eliminate the fluff.