Morning friends!

So this is more of a life hack than a money saving one (in fact, it’ll actually cost you more money, lol), but it’s been such a game changer for me that I had to share :)

In a nutshell, I buy DOUBLE of the stuff I need or use everyday, and then scatter them all around the house to make everything more convenient! 

Example: every morning I wake up at 5am and either work out at the gym or take a fun hot yoga class. Being how it’s so early in the morning though, I hate rustling around our main bathroom while getting ready and waking up my wife and kids, so instead I head to our downstairs one to limit the noise. But to use the downstairs bathroom means moving all my toiletries from the top one to the bottom one each night before, and as you can imagine I forget half the time.

I’d been doing this for years, and then one day a lightning bolt hit me – why not buy a second toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, hairspray, etc and then just leave them all downstairs? That way I have everything I need each morning without doing a thing?! And boy let me tell you – it makes a world of a difference!! One small tweak for daily compounding effects – the best kind of hack :)

(And turns out, this particular example doesn’t actually cost you any additional money since you’re only extending the shelf life of your main toiletries since you’re now only using them half the time! It works out nicely! PS: this also works well with shoes)

So that’s kinda where this “double everything” idea came from… Which I now employ in other areas of my life too!

Here are the other things I’ve doubled up on, or even quadrupled up on!

Phone chargers — Why have only one to use, when you can have others spread across different rooms saving you time and energy? (Literally!) No more going back and forth or forgetting your phone in a different room if you have it right there in your current one charging right up…

Laptop chargers — Especially helpful if you go to coffee shops or other places to work every day! I used to take my main one from my house every day, but similar to the toiletries I’d often forget and then get stuck somewhere with no battery juice. One time late at night when I was out of town I got stuck in the middle of a project and my laptop shut down. I scrambled like a crazy person to find an open store who sold them and fortunately came across one, but had to spend over $60 for it (!!!). So now I just throw an extra one in my laptop backpack and keep it there so I’m always good to go without ever having to think about it.

Laptops themselves! — This may be a bit extreme, but after years of moving my main laptop back and forth from coffee shops to my house and vice versa (and always worrying if I’d lose it or break it or got it stolen!), I picked up a new laptop that’s specifically used for these cafe excursions. So that way if I did lose or break one of them I’ll already have another up and running and ready to go without freaking out and being forced to overpay again in a rush! It’s been SUPER helpful, and really the only annoyance is if I have files on one computer vs the other that I need access to, but most stuff these days are on the cloud anyways so it hasn’t been much of a problem… I also like that it helps separate “work” mode and “personal” mode too as the coffee shop laptop is mostly used for project stuff, while the home one is mostly cracked open for personal use.

Reading glasses — I’m now at that age where I can’t read without glasses anymore (IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE!!)  and after weeks of forgetting where I put them and traversing my entire house looking for them I finally picked up a bunch of cheapos and placed one in essentially every single room. Then eventually put a pair in every single car! It’s taken a bit of adjustment to get used to ALL of this (it’s only been about a year) but slowly and surely I’m accepting the new reality, lol…

Car Keys — This is for all you who are always locking yourself out of your own dang cars like I do! I’m pretty good with our personal cars, but for whatever reason I’m CONSTANTLY getting locked out of my Work Van (aka Clothes Mobile), and it always happens when I’m in the middle of setting it up for people. It’s so embarrassing!! So I made a bunch of duplicate keys (like literally 7! LOL… it’s an old van with keys that literally cost only like $3.50 each), and now I make sure to bring TWO keys with me in my pockets whenever I jump in the van.

I’ve only been doing it for about a month, but have already had to use the spare :) And it was a cinch! You still get that pit in your stomach when you realize what you’ve done, but it quickly dissipates as soon as you dig out another one from your pocket. (And yeah I know I could just pick up one of those magnet things you hide under the car, but it just feels better keeping it on me in case it falls off or someone catches me looking for it all the time, lol… Because I always seem to lock myself out when everyone’s around!)

$20 Bills – This one’s not exactly related, but still a helpful tip: I keep a $20 bill hidden in multiple places for emergencies/convenience. One in each of our 3 cars, and then one again in my laptop backpack that I take to coffee shops with me each day. It doesn’t happen often – maybe a few times a year? – but it’s come in clutch on days I’ve forgotten my wallet or phone, or been in positions where I needed cash over card and don’t have any on me… (mainly when giving a few bucks to my unhoused friends). My wife used to make fun of me for it, until one day she needed one of them!!

So there you have it! Small easy things you can set up just once, and then reap the rewards over and over and over again. Whether in convenience, time saving, or just peace of mind!

Let me know if you do any of these! Or other hacks that similarly improve your life! They all stack on top of each other  💪💪

Your friend who forgets everything,

PS: I also double up on Pokemon Cards, but this is more of an “investment” thing than a hack thing. When a new release comes out, I buy 2 ETB boxes – one to save and sell later, and the other to open. That way I can cash in on the craze these past few years (the prices rise more than the stock market!!), but also enjoy the thrill of collecting/pulling at the same time. I’ve only recently started this so time will tell how smart it is or not, haha, but I swear every box costs like 10x more in a year than when they first come out! It’s insanity!