Less Junk. More Awesome. This is my motto.  I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out ways to be more efficient with what I have to do, so I can free up more time for doing the things I want to do.  I constantly analyze how to make life easier and more fun, while still being a responsible adult. This is extremely challenging! I am open to suggestions and advice!  Added challenges are living in a large expensive city, being on a budget, and having a full time career (I am sure having kids adds even more of a challenge, but I am not there yet).I often wish ideas would come to me quicker or sooner, and wonder why did it take me so long to think of X, Y, or Z?  How do I, we, decide what is worth our time, calories, and money?  Today I am sharing my list of most recent daily life upgrades, including items that have been worth the money, despite initial deliberation on my part. They are small improvements representing life upgrades for the middle class working woman (or “working girl” if you want to feel slightly more youthful). I would love to find more lists out there like mine! I am not saying the following are original, or extremely cheap, but they have all made my life better in small but important ways.

1.  Laundry/small space aesthetically pleasing solution:  The Lowe’s Paris Fabric Tote pictured above. We searched for a laundry solution for over a year. It had to fit our small space and be agreeable to both parties in price and design. Very unexpectedly, we found it late one Saturday night while looking for folding chairs and paint at Lowe’s. I apologize that I couldn’t find the exact one online to provide a link to, but this one is very similar.

2. D.I.Y. Boba Tea.  In order to save money on our new Boba Tea habit, I thought we should try making some on our own. We bought Boba (Tapioca Balls), Milk Tea Powder, and Green Apple Syrup from Bobastore.com. This allows us to make store quality Milk Tea or Green Apple Slushies at home.  I would suggest you also purchase straws from Bobastore.com that are wide enough to allow for the tapioca balls to slide through. My husband made some out of non-PVC tubing bought at the hardware store, of which I am not a big fan.  Creative, frugal, less wasteful yes, but I would rather have a boba store straw.  Side note:  if you have been contemplating buying a Vitamix blender (I did for over 5 years), yes, it is worth the money.

3.  Blue Apron.  My sister gave us a Blue Apron gift certificate as an anniversary present.  For someone who doesn’t cook much (me), it made me feel a lot more capable than I have ever felt in the kitchen.  Your delivery includes all the ingredients and recipes necessary to make 3 meals for 2 people.  The ingredients are delivered to you in the amounts you need for the recipe. More Awesome, less junk!  The recipe indicates which steps you can do at the same time (e.g., While the potatoes cook, season the chicken with salt and pepper, etc.).  Trying to figure out which steps or parts of the dinner I can accomplish at the same time is the kind of mental gymnastics I do not enjoy! Thank you Blue Apron and my sister for 3 delicious meals.

4. Polarized Sunglasses. I hemmed and hawed about spending the extra money, first on buying prescription lense sunglasses, and second on spending even more to make them polarized.  Worth it!!! I can see so well in them that I don’t take them off when I go inside. Not in JoAnn craft, Barnes and Noble, or in the hall on the way to my office.  The next time you are ready to judge someone for wearing their sunglasses inside, realize that maybe just maybe they are wearing prescription lenses, and seeing better than ever (and/or they may have left their regular glasses in the car). My pair of TOMS sunglasses is prescription, so I purchased from my optometrist, but click here to see a very similar pair.

5. Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt Kind Bars. I grabbed a box of these at Target while doing my typical afterwork household items shopping trip. I figured it was more cost effective to buy a whole box treat to eat over the next few days (I have never outgrown the after school snack and my husband doesn’t quite understand this….yet) than to buy a single candy bar just to tide me over until dinner today. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as the last new “healthy looking” nut bar I tried (purchased at an unmentioned coffee chain) was an expensive waste of money. The Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt bar is delicious! As it says on the box, their snacks are “tasty and healthy.” This particular bar, as the box states, “gives you 7g fiber, 6g protein, and only 5g sugar.”  They also indicate their “goal is to make KIND not just a brand of healthy snacks and foods, but also a state of mind and community of kindaholics – people with an uncontrollable love for KIND and spreading kindness!” Double yay for Kind bars.

6. Adding pickles to my turkey sandwich. After packing a lunch for 25+ years, it is an adult life boring task I really don’t like. It slows me down in the morning as I am trying to get out the door for work, and my resulting lunches are often kind of lame. However, when I add 2 pickle spears to my sandwich, I get more yum(a.k.a. flavor profile) and texture. It also makes me feel like I am eating a BIG sandwich, not a lame skinny turkey on grocery store loaf bread sandwich. I wish I could figure out an easy solution to make traffic “taste better.”

7. Collapsible Kitchen Funnel. I am clumsy. I wish I weren’t. I also tend to use Wonder Woman strength to open containers and the objects inside go flying.  Where was the collapsible kitchen funnel when I needed it as a child or younger adult? Poured too much of something or spilled a dry food product you need to fit back in a tiny opening? I have two words for you:  kitchen funnel. I love you. Again, really wish I had found you sooner. So does my mom.

8. LeTote.  I started this “Netflix for clothing” service 6 months ago with the intention of just keeping it for a month or 2. Now I can’t give it up. I tend to wear the clothes I own until their absolute death, or someone makes fun of me at work (my co-worker indicated my 10+ year-old pair of black work pants made me look like a character on the Addams Family). I also had a habit of looking frumpy at work, as it is really hard to find affordable well-fitting work clothes. With Letote (and BTW this is NOT a sponsored ad, I am not being paid to write this), I receive 3 clothing items and 2 accessories per tote. The $49.99 I pay a month covers the cost of shipping both ways, items in the tote, and cleaning of the items.  You can either buy items in your tote for an additional discounted price or send them back. Once they receive your returned tote, they send you a new one. I typically get 1-2 totes a month, but have read some people are quick enough on the wear/return to get more.  With Letote, I have at least 3 days a week of non-frumpy outfits, I don’t have clothes building up closet inventory (too much inventory is a problem for me….not all good-amazing inventory, but inventory), and have dramatically decreased the amount of clothes shopping I do.

9. I had contemplated buying a garment steamer for over 15 years.  My wasted contemplation time was dominated by thoughts that the steamer wouldn’t work, as most products I bought in my early working years seemed to be huge disappointments. In my 20’s, it also felt like a product that was too expensive for me to purchase.  Fast forward 15+ years, to when my husband and I moved in together, and he came with a steamer (a gift from his mom; she has a talent for picking quality products).  That was when I learned it would have been worth it to buy one years ago. Just a few of the things I have used it on: “office work” shirts, lightweight dresses, and drapes.

10. Canceling cable and subscribing to Hulu Plus instead, for $7.99 a month. Adding Netflix is also an option. It took me a year (during which time the cable company agreed to let us keep our severely discounted rate) to agree to canceling cable. I didn’t want to lose Oprah, HGTV, or DVRing capabilities.  When we were no longer able to get the discounted cable rate, we considered DirectTV.  However, we would have been forced to pay extra for a sports package I didn’t want, to get the Oprah channel I did want. I felt really taken advantage of and forced into paying for something I didn’t want.  So good-bye cable, hello Hulu Plus on my iPad and TV! I couldn’t be happier with the decision and …..a lot more productive. No more not being able to rip myself away from one more House Hunters episode, as my husband and I marveled at the homes we could actually afford in other cities.  We watch the shows we want to watch and I feel great about it. Thank you Hulu Plus!

Hooray for Less Junk, MORE AWESOME!