When Every Cent Counts

We are going through challenging times. No question about that. What I ask myself however is this. Is my life about wants or needs? We can actually take stock of what answers we get by looking around our own home. Are there things that cost us when we bought it but have not even touched it for the last year or so? Why did we buy those things in the first place? Want or need?

Sorry folks but I'm into one of those writing moods so I'll try to get to the point.

I love music. In my car, in my living room, my bedroom, my bathroom… I have my music playing. When I work I listen. When I chill, I listen. That's me. But today, I looked at my collection of CDs that is about 1,400 on my last count, and I realised I haven't even touched one of them over the last few years! Mind you, I bought multiple copies of the same album. First on vinyl growing up, then cassettes. Then I had them on DAT and on to Mini Disc. Finally on CDs. Of course those were limited to my favourites of about 20 titles. Of course I had them converted to digital for iTunes. But you get the idea.

Why am I not playing them? Because I have moved on to streaming services. First Spotify, then Rdio and now on Apple Music. I have come to the conclusion that a subscription service is one of the best invention yet. Why? Because you no longer need to own what you need.

That's a key realisation. You pay RM14.00 per month and you have almost any album you want on all your devices, including new releases everyday. And it's legal. Why own it when you just need to listen to them? The day will come when I'm wondering what I'll do with those CDs (some are pretty nice limited edition box sets). I'd be that much richer if I can convert them back to cash at the price I bought them (dreaming mode on).

Wifey is a different story. She loves to read. And I have to buy her a wall cabinet for her books and it's still not enough. Will she ever take out a book she read and read it again? I doubt that. It takes up room and it ages away. But she is now beginning to finally convert to reading on her iPad. She can have as many books as she wants and it'll only take up about 5 in by 8 inch mini iPad space. And there's now a subscription service too where you can read any book you want. And we save some trees along the way.

Movies. It's the same. First I used Netfllix and now we have iFlix at only RM8.00 per month.

The thing is, if you find your expenses are a little over, just cancel your subscription and live within your means. When you can afford it, just re-subscribe and the good thing is these services keep your data, play history, playlists and bookmarks. You own nothing, You just pay for the rights to read, listen or view them.

Okay, you may say that's just all entertainment. New technology can actually de-clutter your life.

How many of you have photo albums? Or videos of special occasions like weddings. Now be honest. How often do you take it out and look at them? Rarely. And they sit somewhere in our house and again is subject to deterioration. You may argue and say now you have digital copies stored on hard disks. Again I ask you. How often do you plug those hard disk to your computer and look through them? In fact my daughter just asked if I could find my grandson's first birthday's photos when she knows she has them. She probably just don't know where to look, or maybe she knows I can get them in like under a minute.

How? Cloud service. And it's free.

I have Flickr accounts for my personal albums, my church and my company. One terabyte each. That's enough for years of photos. And it can be auto-uploaded from all your devices. I put them in albums and tag them. So to find anything, I just key in Caden (my grandson) and birthday and all the photos will appear. I can retrieve them at full resolution or just play a slide slideshow of them right off Flickr app or in this case send a link for my daughter to view or download them.

Then there's Google Photos. Unlimited space. Auto uploaded and videos included. And it has smart search. It recognises things, places and occasions. So if you search dogs, any dog photo in your collection will appear, chronologically by date. Or search weddings and all wedding photos will appear. In the U.S.. versions, faces can also be recognised and I believe that feature will be here soon. All your photos and videos available via a username and password. And it's all private unless you choose to share them.

Is it safe? Well, it's safer than your computer or hard disk or photo albums. Your computer can be stolen and often together with your hard disk. Or your hard disk may just choose to die or fail at the most unexpected moment. Or a fire can destroy them all. I've heard of horror stories where all the memories they had were wiped out when a thief broke in and took all their computers and hard disks. You can replace them but you can never replace what's in them.

Cloud services on the other hand has multiple backups in different locations. And you can access them from anywhere in the world on any device that's online. Often over dinner, I'll just show a photo from the past related to what we were talking about and they are amazed I keep those photos in my phone. They're not. I just pluck them off the clouds, figuratively.

It's the same with my business. Now is the time to run lean. We used to spend tens of thousands to buy design software and pay again for every upgrade. Now we just subscribe to cloud service. It's always the latest version and no upgrade fees. We don't own the software as in having a physical copy. It's a subscription for rights of use, again via a username and password. So I can work on a project on any computer even if they don't have that software. I just log in, download and continue my work.

And we learn to outsource services and talents via strategic partnerships. We used to do everything in-house. Photography, web and multimedia. Even though they were not our main focus. Now we have partners who can do them better and at a lower cost to us because we only pay when we need the job done and is no longer part of our overhead.

Don't get me wrong. I am not against owning things. I am against hoarding things. Things we pay for but hardly use. If it's something you use frequently, by all means. But if there is a better way in having our needs met without having to buy them, why not? Especially now when the ringgit is not taking us as far as it used to. I am taking a reality check.

My church is undergoing a major renovation and we have a "gotong-royong" day where we try to clear stuff. I am surprised how hard it was in making decisions to throw things. Even things that are no longer in use, like VCDs and VHS tapes. That's because they cost money. We are still physically burning CDs of sermons. I wonder why, when YouTube offers free and unlimited space to store them in the clouds. It's easier to share them and they don't deteriorate over time. There needs to be a shift in mindset. Having things we can hold in our hands no longer means what they used to. Technology have changed all that and we should embrace them because they'll help us save money and provide a convenience we never knew possible.

I leave you with this thought. Every trash we throw away was something we paid for. Nothing we own means much one day, so if we were to take a hard look at the things we spent our hard earned money on, is there an alternative that can save us some money and yet get us what we need. That will make us good stewards of our money.