I recently read Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. To be honest, I thought it was supposed to be a funny book from the description. It was meant to be serious. oops. I did end up enjoying it overall.
While I'm not one for self-help type books there were some interesting ideas and thoughts. Here are my three favorite take-aways:
1. Buy anything you want at the grocery store. It's always cheaper to eat at home than to eat out. I don't know why I never thought of this before. Instead, I see that steak or good cheese is on sale and wish that I could have them. But because they're more expensive than chicken thighs or packaged cheese, I don't buy them. And since Aaron and I both like to cook, we get to hang out, have fun, enjoy a tasty meal and save money. Brilliant.
2. Send holiday cards at holidays other than Christmas. In the holiday rush, I never seem to get around to sending out cards. (This probably has something to do with planning my birthday party weeks in advance instead.) The author of the book sent Valentine's photo cards. A Halloween card could be fun too.
3. Keep a treasurer box instead of a scrapbook. I absolutely hate scrapbooking but I like this idea. The author bought cute file boxes for each of her daughters and labeled the folders for each year of their life. Then she put keepsakes in those folders instead of going all crafty on them with the fancy scissors and glitter.