Foreign Currency

The only time I complain about having too much money is on the last day of a trip in a foreign country.  If I have local currency in my wallet, I try to spend it as quickly as possible.  Inevitably, I come home with at least a few coins.  Other world-traveling friends have complained about the same thing (first world problems, I know!).  So the beautiful paper and coins sit at home in boxes and junk drawers collecting dust.  As we continue to travel, it continues to accumulate.  (Disclaimer: At the risk of sounding like an ungrateful brat with money to throw away, let me clarify that the amount brought home from a trip is typically under $20 USD.  Many times it’s under $10 or $5 USD, so barely enough to buy a couple gallons of gas or a latte!)  Like most twenty-something white girls who need advice, I turned to Pinterest for help.  Here's what they told me to do.

 

Turn coins into magnets...

Vacation Wardrobe Styling

I used to be a notorious under-packer, which is strange for a chick.  My motto was, “There’s nothing I’ll forget that I can’t buy at my destination, besides contact lenses and medication!” And strangely, it rhymes.  Maybe it was a subconscious strategy to create and excuse to go shopping.  Now I'm trying to be more organized.  I’m heading to Austin tomorrow for a girls getaway with some extremely chic ladies so I have to bring my A-game in terms of wardrobe.  I read that celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe starts planning what she or her clients are going to wear to an event days if not weeks in advance so she can perfect the look.  I’ve recently tried to adopt this approach, especially when it comes to packing. 

A Nomad's Home

I have earth-shattering news.  I have a home.

I’ve been waiting to post this update for a couple of months, as I was planning to include pictures and wanted to have the place looking decent!  However, I've been busy lately with other changes in my life, which I'll share with you in the near future, so when my place is nice enough to grace the pages of Domino (I miss that magazine!) you'll find them here.

First things first.  I'll explain how it happened.  When I began my nomadic venture this past November, I wanted to find a permanent home that fit my needs, rather than jumping into the first thing that was available.  I wanted the right size, price, and location, and at the time had expressed interest in a job on my team located in Chicago, so I wanted to remain flexible and avoid a lease at all costs.

One of my very generous friends is a pilot, and I often crashed at his apartment when he was on trips during my extended nomadness.  Lucky for me, he had the opportunity to “upgrade” apartments in his complex and moved into a one-bedroom, one-bathroom place with new hardwood floors, granite countertops, vaulted ceilings, and a spare room.  Guess who is living in spare?  That's right- yours truly!

The situation is perfect for me.  (I hope my roommate says the same!)  The location is perfect, space is just right, and my rent is priced accordingly, so I’m still able to stock away savings every paycheck.  We rarely cross paths so it’s a pretty low-maintenance relationship.

Step Two: Organization, Part II

Two posts ago, you read about how I’m legitimately living out of the trunk of my car.  Now I’ll dive into the details of day-to-day living.

Thanks to my wonderful employer and our lovely work facility, I have access to a weight room, yoga and kick-boxing classes, and a really nice locker room!  I try to take advantage of the weight room as much as possible during my lunch break.  I can pop over and put in about 45 minutes, then hit the showers in the locker room, and be back at my cube in an hour.  I was on a waiting list for about a year before I got my own locker!  This is perfect for my current lifestyle.  I have all my toiletries stored there so I can take a full on shower after work before I go out for the evening.  It’s really nice to have a central place to keep my stuff and shower, so I’m not tying up my friends’ bathrooms.  Plus, it's cleaned daily, unlike most residential bathrooms.  ;)

Step Two: Organization

My first "secret-revealing" post, The Purge, told you all about how I narrowed down my possessions to just the essentials.  Now here's the fun part!  I am an organization geek- I get overly excited about nesting boxes, file folders, and containers of all shapes and sizes.  I got rid of nearly everything I owned, but still have necessities I need to easily access while storing them somewhere.  My personal challenge with my living experiment is to operate as efficiently as possible as I go from one place to the next.   My goals are:

1. Be organized and look nice (I don’t want it to be obvious I’m living out of my car!)


2. Don’t leave anything (for more than a couple of nights) in my friends’ homes


3. Leave a place better than I found it (life lesson from Girl Scout camping trips)

I have three places I store my things:

1. Trunk of my car


2. Locker at work


3. Boyfriend’s garage (original plan was to rent a storage unit but I'm taking my time to shop around for the least sketchy, most convenient location that is safe to visit by myself in the evenings... it's like searching for a needle in a haystack!)

What I access the most often (once or twice a day) is the junk in my trunk!  This is where I store my toiletries, pillow, blanket, accessories, and some clothes.