I’m with Jeff at Daddy’s Toolbox. Social media has replaced nightly TV. I don’t feel there is much worth watching on TV these days. The things I used to think were worthwhile aren’t so anymore (with the exception of hockey games and Family Guy). Like Jeff, I would rather spend my spare time on Twitter and Facebook.

I’ve been online since 1992. The internet looks very different, but we still use it for very similar purposes. I searched for information. I stayed in touch with people I already knew. I looked to make new friends. Internet porn is almost as old as the internet itself. There. I said it. I said “PORN” in a blog post. All it takes is one mention of “PORN” and you become a spam magnet. Just ask Jeremy at Discovering Dad. Spamdora’s Box is already open. If comment moderation slows down, you’ll know why.

Where was I? Oh yeah, social media. I don’t even use instant messenger and I got sidetracked.

Jeff’s post and some recent email conversations with some old friends got me thinking. My friend Pat has been online since 1994. He’s extremely tech-savvy, can build an entire website in Notepad, assemble a computer from parts, troubleshoot Windows (that alone deserves praise!), and gets along with technology in general. However, he flat-out refuses to go anywhere near MySpace and has put signing up with Twitter, Facebook and  LinkedIn on his procrastination list.

There are times when I feel cutting-edge, and there are times when I feel like I’m only Web 1.6. Pat and I email each other and have “conversations.” Instead of replying in one big block of text, we reply to each other’s emails paragraph by paragraph. We keep track of who’s saying what by the presence or lack of >’s.

We rarely send attachments in our emails. Back in the day, attachments were unwieldy, requiring you to manually encode and decode them. We simply posted files up on our web servers or FTP sites and put the link in the email.

I have benefited a great deal from using social media. What Classmates.com charges money to do, you can do for free on Facebook. I’ve had some great Tweet sessions. StumbleUpon continues to send traffic to my blog.

But all this takes time. MySpace and Digg are like gym memberships. I’m beyond inactive on those sites. I check in with Facebook and LinkedIn periodically. I don’t post nearly as many photos as I should to my Flickr account. If you ask nicely, I’ll Stumble your page or site. I also use Entre Card to promote my blog. All of these sites take time to work. If you’ll excuse me, someone has added me as a friend on Facebook. I’ll need to sign in and confirm them.

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One month ago, we made a family decision to downsize to one vehicle. We took inventory of our needs and our expenses, and it made sense to get rid of one car. I am glad to be free of life’s most inconvenient convenience.

We’re not disadvantaged with the lack of one car due to our circumstances. One parent stays at home with the baby and home-schools the older child. I’ve learned how to use public transit and I ride my bike whenever I can.

The prevailing attitude in South Florida is that a car is a necessity. The lack of a car would be a hindrance. I have not felt that hindrance. Did I miss the meeting? Did I not get that email? I’m supposed to feel stuck! Why has an overwhelming sense of liberation come over me?

• I’m not a believer in multi-tasking, but this is as close as it gets. I’m getting recreation, exercise, and transportation at the same time.
• Riding the bus gives me opportunities unavailable to me if I’m driving. Try reading or watching a video podcast while driving. Oh wait, this is South Florida. I wouldn’t be surprised if people did just that.
• Riding the bus insulates me from the bad drivers. Everyone thinks the drivers in their city are the worst. South Florida drivers really are among the worst in the nation.
• Riding my bike is a much more intimate interaction with the aforementioned bad drivers. I choose my bike routes accordingly. I’ve discovered some great scenery because I’ve had to find alternates to major thoroughfares.
• I eliminated $600 of monthly expenditures.

My current work situation allows me to carpool with a friend of mine. Beer is cheaper than gas now, so I buy him a 12-pack once a week, and I even get to drink 2 or 3 of them.

Sarah Palin is keeping all you fact checkers very busy, so I’m going to save you some time. A 12-pack of Heineken works out to be about $9.70/gallon. Okay, so in Europe, I’d be right. However, the amount of gas I’d burn in one week commuting costs significantly more than the beer used to fuel our friendship.

The point is, (I find myself saying this a LOT to the resident teenager) there are alternatives to the automobile. My bitter and contested divorce from conventional wisdom has allowed me to explore the options I am currently using.

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There is a lot of talk about saving money when grocery shopping right now. But what about saving time? “Grocery shopping” appears as a single line item on your big-picture to-do list. However, it’s made up of several steps. Nothing in life should ever take more than 2-3 minutes. The issue is, we have 4-500 things to do each day that all take 2-3 minutes. Before you know it, it’s 8:00 and you just started boiling water for the pasta.

It’s going to take about 300 words worth of rambling before this little nugget of wisdom is revealed. Don’t be such a lazy ADD’ed-out blog reader! Stick with me. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.

Let’s take a detailed look at this single line item:

1. Take inventory of your pantry and your refrigerator.
2. Plan some meals for the week and make your list.
3. Collect all the plastic bags you’re going to drop off in the recycling bin at the store. You have all these plastic bags because you always forget to bring the reusable bags.
4. Get in your car and drive to the store.
5. Turn around and go back home. You’re not going to forget those reusable bags again!
6. Sit in your car for 3 minutes. Someone is blocking traffic in the parking lot waiting for a parking space 10 feet closer to the store.
7. Find a parking spot close to the cart return area.
8. Do your shopping.
9. Check out.
10. Load up the car.
11. Drive home.
12. Unload the car.
13. Put groceries away.

Whew! Even on my most caffeinated days, it can take up to 3 hours. Shopping during off-peak hours will shave some more time. So will making a list, and planning a week’s worth of meals. If you’re stopping at the store on your way home from work, pre-planning is critical. This is also one of those times when it’s definitely OK to “outsource” some food. You’ll spend more money on unnecessary impulse purchases than you would on a quick snack. Without hunger to worry about, you’ll also perform the task of shopping much faster and with more clarity of purpose.

Organization is The Key

I went through the trouble of mapping one of the two main Publix locations that I shop at. I thought I would make my list according to the sequence of the aisles. How many people actually do that. I know I don’t.

Organizing your pantry and your refrigerator starts at the checkout line. That’s right. You can start organizing while in the checkout line. I load the items on the conveyor belt in the following order:

• Frozen items
• Refrigerated items
• Perishable items
• Non-perishables
• Non-food items

Each main group is also organized further. All like items go together. The items end up getting bagged together. You can put them away much more efficiently.

The benefit of leaving non-food items for last will help you when analyzing what you really buy. In order to create an effective budget, you have to know how much money you’re actually spending on food. Having those non-food items at the end of the receipt makes this accounting much easier.

The beautiful thing about this little trick is that it doesn’t take any additional time or effort to implement. You’re performing one of the necessary steps in the grocery shopping process, but you’re doing it with a little forethought. This advance thinking saves you time at subsequent steps.

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