Keep your receipts!

This past year has been a very tough one; it has represented the largest transfer of wealth in human history. The level of suffering and inequality is staggering.

Corporations have had their way with our system. Despite providing a wide range of products and services we depend on, corporations manipulate and take advantage of us at every turn and to the maximum. They’re in a perpetual state of stealing, plotting, and spying.

Therefore, I generally look to deploy every advantage available in our playbook to alleviate their level of thievery to whatever degree possible. For this reason, my blog will include a consumer guide component with many parts. This is part one: Receipts.

It’s always important to keep your receipts! I used to never get mine printed for environmental reasons, so abstaining from getting receipts for this reason definitely resonates with me. If this is you right now, I applaud you and am with you, spiritually. However, I do get paper receipts now, only whenever digital isn’t possible or when there is a strategic reason for needing a hard copy. I do not get paper bank statements etc.

I’ve found that the savings and general benefits of keeping your receipts and documentation can be pretty massive. It can seem like a daunting task to keep all your receipts, but having a system in place simplifies the matter. A shoebox or a ziplock bag consistently housing your crumpled receipts is a great system.

Simply organize them later by store. One of those accordion folders seems like the oceanside mansion of receipt storage options. I’ve made the most ridiculous returns due to meticulous keeping of receipts. These include returning fruit. Below is real footage of such an instance. The video also delves into one of the many ways I differ from Jerry Seinfeld.

I’d like to add here that these are techniques I would use exclusively in a large (corporate/chain) store. I would never attempt to return fruit to a street cart or a smaller business that cannot easily swallow this loss. This is an important distinction. Do not use these techniques on small mom-and-pop stores, artists, or people charging you a fair rate for difficult specialized labor or who are sacrificing and going hard after their passion.

There is an assault on our attention span. We live in an exploitative attention extraction economy. So, it’s important to develop good receipt habits. Maintaining mindfulness is always a challenge, so keeping your receipts in one consistent place can help make it a muscle memory habit.

Using the same jacket pocket or bag compartment until you transfer it into your home receipt box is a perfect solution. It feels great to be able to pull out a receipt whenever you have a problem. Like the above crisis with the mangoes. But in all seriousness, during these times, every little bit helps, and sometimes these receipts belong to expensive electronics, appliances, machinery. (I highly advise taking receipt photos in any situations where you don’t have a digital copy of a large purchase in your inbox.

Receipts contain a lot of critical information that you should familiarize yourself with. Ideally, you should know various return policies before making your purchase (these can be researched online, usually directly on the store website), but they will be printed on your receipt. Some stores write the last date returns are applicable on the top of the receipt. This is rare and usually applies to large corporations with generous return policies such as Target.

When buying electronics, there is a wide range of return policies that can impact you in drastically different ways. Receipts and keeping yourself knowledgeable with the policy can be money and time-saving. Arguing with customer service is exhausting, draining, and energy-intensive.

I’ll be discussing ways to strategize various purchases around return policy and other price-saving measures. For now, I’m starting with a foundational stick-to-basic. Keep your receipt, read your receipt, store and organize your receipt. It just could save you some money, and more importantly, heartache.

All this being said, I think to whatever degree possible, you should refrain from shopping at huge corporate stores. Any store with a huge marketing budget that you’ve seen on TV commercials deserves our business far less than local small businesses. These businesses have struggled drastically this past year and in past years due to increasing automation and Amazon-ification of the world.

In addition, definitely support small businesses, Black-owned, LGBTQIA+ businesses, etc. All our purchases are a vote. There are moments where we cannot spend our dollars where we wish. For this reason, it is important to protect every dollar in these circumstances. We must make sure we are not trapped into keeping an item we’d like to liquidate back to the full purchase price, simply because we cannot find our receipt!

Top Ten Time Lapses of Last year (2020)

My top 10 time lapses from 2020

The first time-lapse is at the airport. On my way to Miami on an impulsive, heart-following trip. My objective? Make moves and equip myself with some tools (a perspective) to help navigate some difficult personal pain stemming from loss. This is me doing yoga pre-departure.

In Miami, I studied breathwork with an absolutely generous, knowledgeable, and bewildering soul who I’ll be speaking about later in a video.

I planned on staying in for four days to a week-ish. I ended up staying the whole summer… 3.5 months in total... Thoughts on Miami… I hate that place, what a bunch of reckless nutcases and psycho lunatics. Also, I love that place so much, what a magical land I can't wait to go back.

The second time-lapse is a cool soul I met helping me with some weird fruit thing I was doing. This symbolizes the evolution of my relationship with fruit and wanting to make some content around it. This fruit was also purchased from a new company my friend started! They inspire me to no end and I owe them a lot for where I am and what I know today!

This year I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. More than I ever wish to repeat most likely... spent a lot of time with fruit and preparing raw foods.

I’m publishing a book of recipes, meal plans, workouts, and a full-fledged course based on health, fitness, and navigating a food world very, very soon. Shooting for Within one week!

This represents my having completed a brutal #75hardchallenge in 2020. I’m gonna write about it and complete it again in 2021. For all my pot-headedness. Chocolate is my hunger one addiction (a typo I’m keeping). It is a neurotoxin so this isn’t as harmless as it seems. This isn’t why it’s a problem for me. It’s the insatiable and relentless nature of the addiction. I’ve heard intense chocolate cravings can be a result of magnesium deficiencies.

I must tell you all a chocolate story from my first year of college. I will be doing a video today or tomorrow on it. Remind me in the comments if you see this and “the chocolate bet“ story isn’t posted.

Anyways. This time-lapse is me chopping chocolate for the very first time I’m allowed to eat chocolate after a 75-day abstinence. This year I learned how to make amazing raw Snickers bars.

Fourth time-lapse is practicing breathwork. This is going to be the theme of the year again for me this year. And one of the main focuses on my life. The degree to which this sounds ridiculous is the degree to which we have been removed and separated from the knowledge of our power and from what’s foundational to our existence as well as our emotional and physical capabilities and tools.

This year, while being an utter failure in many regards, has successfully instilled in me seeds I will begin to adequately nurture.

I owe so much to @the_black_air_bender for teaching me so much. Much more on Devon later! So I’m going to keep it brief now. What I will say now is that this guy revolutionized my way of looking at the world and my life! He’s very knowledgeable, a great teacher, and a powerful force. I feel very blessed to have shared breaths with him this summer. Luckier than I knew, even though I was aware at the time.

The fifth time-lapse is some yoga stuff. Its frequent presence here on this list represents the rigor and relentless consistency with which I have dedicated myself to practicing yoga. A highly misunderstood practice. The value of yoga has been ultra commodified and watered down of much of its sacredness. Some of this commodification has led to a wonderful spreading of the practice, but some has led to great spiritual bypassing as well as tons of appropriation.

I’m guilty of having spent long periods thinking of yoga as a physical workout (while still knowing the depths of its spiritual and mental practice). This year I’m gonna talk about what I’ve learned from yoga and what it means to me. I started doing yoga for a very atypical reason. I started teaching it for the same atypical reason.

Here I’m doing yoga outdoors and in the sun. An environment brought on by COVID, which helped me get in touch with what’s important again. This was a day where I was down on myself about missing yoga class. Sometimes I am far too rigid and miss the point of yoga, stressing myself out over obligations to complete certain tasks. A very utilitarian, American commodified fitness mentality at work. I understand the beauty and sacredness of yoga… however sometimes the hustle-bustle of life spills over into not prioritizing the quiet contemplative aspects of yoga, over the typical fitness “get jacked or the body of your dreams” oriented mentality.

The degree to which society connected with nature this year was no mistake. So while I owe an immense debt of gratitude to so many amazing yoga studios and teachers, spending less time in studios and more time doing yoga outdoors this year was the reconnection I didn’t know I needed. Or I did know but reconnecting was going to require a push.

On the way home from this, I filmed a skateboarder land some trick on the first try. He told me it would take hours if I tried to capture it. He tried it once, then security put a stop to things.

A backpack that’s been like a brother to me. This summer I was living alone in a new city where I had a few substantial connections but didn’t what I was doing. I obtained a bike and rode everywhere I went to Miami. I’d never been a bike rider, but this summer that changed. A huge sense of independence that didn’t involve burning fossil fuels was experienced. A low-impact form of exercise gentle on the joints. A form of transportation that integrates exercise naturally. I’d tie my Bose mini speaker to the handlebar and blast comedy podcasts and interviews while riding to the beach, yoga, or to get ingredients. This bag is Mary Poppins’ status in its ability to hold treasures. I do have to pack them myself in advance though.

This time-lapse shows me taking unpacking a mediocrely large grocery haul.

Yoga studio alternatives. My home yoga studio went from affordable to 5x that cost due to COVID restrictions. So I haven’t seen that place very much and I do miss it. But I found a room that’s hot that I rent and do solo stuff in there. Again representing my relentless commitment, as I bike there daily. The newly solo nature of my daily yoga practice has enabled me to do a lot of content creating and filming that I’d not have been able to do in the community classes I miss so much. Communal/group classes definitely changes the feel and intensity workouts. People create energetic fields which give you motivation and demonstrate a range of possibilities. Plus, I’m a little attention slut of course, so it’s good for that too. Adjusting to COVID…I’ve done a bunch of classes on zoom. And am floored at the precision with which some of my favorite teachers are able to teach over the screen. The minute detail that they’re able to key in and focus on through the screen is incredible. In 2020 I practiced yoga over zoom, with a few teachers I’ve never met, who were based in other states. That was cool and different. The online community was something, but it definitely was different.

Vinyasa yoga is my favorite form, not the one I practice daily though. (I should!) I practice a form of yoga which is not my favorite. This shows me doing my favorite. While it may seem like exactly the same as last post. There are two main types of yoga I do in my life. This one feels very creative to me! It's philosophically rooted in pairing the movement with the breath.

Cutting a jackfruit. That’s all. No further elaboration.

Fruit Hair Art Projects This is me getting my hair fruited by an unbelievably amazing lady! I’m gonna post this separately soon because my hair is a shitshow and tryna make a move with it! Anyways, this lady helped make a lot of dreams of mine realities and in doing so she demonstrated how proper planning, time management, and dedication are often all required to bring seemingly fantastical things to fruition. The (apparent) ease with which she does it in her own life is inspiring!