As a High Wire Woman, I often find myself wasting a lot of money. While I truly believe in spending money to make your life easier, there are some things that you can get for free with very little effort. My recent discovery is a library card to the New York Public Library. The library! I can’t tell you the last time I was in a library. It’s so sad. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve riding my bike to the library and coming home with a stack of new books (#nerdalert!). As the digital world evolved, I switched to e-books and have been buying them through the Apple iTunes platform.
Recently, my best friend since first grade told me about the New York Public Library. I finally got around to looking at it and was blown away. It literally took me two minutes to sign up for a SimplyE account online. I immediately started to browse, and it is so amazing! There are a million books and audiobooks to choose from. The choices are endless, and you can reserve them with a click of a link. For FREE! I probably read a book a month from iTunes, which generally costs about $14. That is almost $200 a year, give or take. And now, with my handy-dandy SimplyE card, it’s FREE! You can also stream movies and music, browse through magazines and the world’s newspapers. I’m excited to use this the next time I travel. Imagine having the New York Public Library at your fingertips, without carrying a book or spending a dime!
Best yet, if you’re a continual learner like me, you can access Lynda.com, which is a LinkedIn company that includes over 5,700 courses (and over 180,000 videos) in popular fields like web design, web development, IT, education/instruction, media production, and business. Experts create and deliver all courses as well as provide supplemental materials like exercise files and relevant work samples. I recently bumped up my Excel skills by watching a 30-minute online video. They are simple and easy. And FREE. You can have your employees or kids learn new things on this platform.
In a world where we are forced to drink from a firehose most days, take a few minutes and read or listen to something you enjoy. You won’t be sorry and your wallet will be happy!