A new Get Rich Slowly subscriber emailed me yesterday to alert me of two problems.

• First, all of the free resources I share on Google Drive have magically switched from publicly-available to private.
• Second, the automated email sequence for new readers is broken (which means that folks aren't receiving The Money Boss Manifesto).

Fixing the email sequence will take some work. It wouldn't take much effort to make it functional again, but while I'm in there mucking around, I might as well make a pass to revise it. The info and examples are five years old. (Meanwhile, the current version of The Money Boss Manifesto can be downloaded here.)

Fixing the shared documents on Google Drive was easy, though. They should once again be publicly viewable. Please let me know if they're not.

When Kim and I go to bed each night, we spend time casually browsing Reddit on our iPads. It's fun. Mostly.

She and I enjoy sharing funny animal videos with each other (from subreddits like /r/animalsbeinggenisuses, /r/happycowgifs, and /r/petthedamndog). Kim dives deep into /r/mapporn and /r/documentaries. I read about comics and computer games and financial independence.

But here's the thing. After browsing Reddit for thirty minutes or an hour, I'm left feeling unsatisfied. In fact, I'm often in a bad mood. After browsing Reddit, I have a negative attitude. My view of the world has deteriorated. Why? Because for all the fun and interesting things on Reddit, it's also filled with a bunch of crap.

I like to travel. Over the past decade, I've probably made an average of two international trips per year. But you know what? Never once in that time have I tried to track how much I spend while exploring the world. Sure, I log my numbers in Quicken (as I do for everything), but I've never analyzed the cost of an individual trip.

This month, I flew to Europe to hang out with my cousin Duane again. He and I enjoy traveling together. Because I was curious, I decided to be diligent about tracking my expenses for this trip.

Note, however, that I didn't try to do anything different. I didn't adjust my normal behavior simply because I knew I'd be reporting to GRS readers. I did what I always do. I spent in ways that felt normal to me.

When J.D. decided to spend three weeks in Europe with his family, he asked a few people if they'd be interested in contributing articles during his absence. He even asked me!

My name is Scott Rieckens, and I'm new to the world of smart money management. I'm new to the world of financial independence and early retirement. I'm new, but I've totally immersed myself in it. I've immersed myself so much, in fact, that I've spent the past eighteen months creating a feature film about FIRE. (FIRE is the clumsy abbreviation for "financial independence/retire early". Basically, the FIRE movement is all about saving big so that you can choose to live however you want.)

"You've been in a unique position over the past year," J.D. said when I asked him what I should write about. "You've had amazing access to a variety of people who think and write and teach about financial independence and early retirement. You've been able to hear what they think and say in private as well as public. What about sharing your biggest takeaways from this experience?"

Last week, I was a guest on the new Fire Below Zero podcast. The interview was fun. (It'll probably be several weeks before the episode airs, though.)

Toward the end of our conversation, the hosts asked a question that my mind keeps returning to: "What's something you spend money on that other people might question?"

At the time, I had two answers:

Old habits die hard.

When you get to be a middle-aged man like me, you have forty-nine years of learned behavior to guide your actions and decisions — even when you know your choices aren't necessarily for the best. Our mental blueprints (including our money blueprints) are deeply ingrained and tough to change.

Don't worry. I haven't turned into a spendthrift or anything. But I've been thinking a lot lately about how certain parts of my past continue to affect me, sometimes in huge and annoying ways. For instance, I fight an ongoing battle against a scarcity mindset. I haven't been able to master the abundance mindset. Continue reading...

I spoke with a reporter the other day. She was looking for ways to fight the urge to shop. "My top tip is to avoid advertising," I told her.

"That sounds nice," she said, "but how do you actually do that?" I talked about how I used to read comic book blogs and participate in comic book forums, and how doing these things led me to increase my spending on comics. When I stopped visiting such sites, my spending dropped.

"Television is especially bad," I told her. "I don't watch much TV, but I did watch the Olympics. I hadn't watched anything on TV since the Oscars last winter. I'd forgotten about all the advertising. It was mind-blowing. There's no way a person could watch television day after day without having the commercials affect them."

I spent a couple hours this morning performing what ought to have been a simple home maintenance task. The light fixture on our front porch had gone faulty, and I needed to replace it. I've done enough wiring projects now that the electrical aspect of the job didn't bother me. But the woodworking? That was frustrating.

As I fumbled with the jigsaw ("Drat! Another blade bent!"), I wished again that I practiced woodworking more often. I have several friends who do so, and the skills they've learned help them to save money around the house. My incompetence this morning gave me plenty of time to reflect on the value of productive hobbies.

Productive hobbies

When I was younger, I spent most of my spare time reading comic books and playing video games. There's nothing wrong with a little self-indulgence, but the older I get, the more I appreciate hobbies that provide practical skills. Productive pastimes are not only fulfilling, but they can also help save money. (Sometimes they can even generate a little income!)