System · Travel & Mobility
One Bag Travel
Personal recommendation by Marshall Delpé. Not made by Marshalldelpe.com.
One Bag Travel
System · Travel & Mobility·
Skip baggage claim forever, and your shoulders will send a thank-you card.
What it does: Reduces all travel—short trips, long trips, international movement—to a single carry-on backpack. No checked luggage, no baggage claim, no airline fees, no lost bags, no decision fatigue about what to bring. You arrive the same moment your flight lands. You leave whenever you are ready.
Who it's for: Travelers who want more freedom and fewer logistics. Especially useful for frequent movers, remote workers, minimalists applying their philosophy to transit, or anyone who has lost a checked bag and wants to never do that again.
Why I use it: One bag travel is not a packing hack. It is a philosophy made physical. The constraints force intentional selection—what you bring, what you wear, what you do not need. When you can fit your entire trip in one bag on your back, you move faster, spend less, think more clearly, and eliminate an entire category of travel stress. It compounds with minimalism. The gear choice matters: the right bag (see Osprey, listed in Products) and the right items make the difference between comfortable and miserable. One Bag Travels and Pack Hacker are the two communities that map this system most thoroughly.
Tradeoffs: Requires intentional gear selection upfront—synthetic fabrics, packable layers, multipurpose items. There are real tradeoffs around outfit variety, especially for longer trips or formal events. Takes a few trips to dial in the right loadout. Some climates and trip types (extended winter travel, extended beach trips) require creative compromises.
Alternatives: Packing cubes within a traditional checked bag are a middle ground that works for people not ready to commit to one-bag constraints. Rick Steves has advocated carry-on-only travel for decades and his packing guide is the most widely used practical resource. For truly minimalist travel, the "personal item only" approach (no overhead bag at all) is the next level down.
This is a personal recommendation, not a paid promotion.
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Amazon Affiliate Program (Amazon Associates)
Income System · Affiliate Marketing·
Get paid a little for recommending things you would recommend anyway.
What it does: Amazon's free affiliate program for websites, blogs, newsletters and social accounts. You get a personal tracking tag, add it to Amazon links you share, and earn a commission (roughly 1–10% depending on the product category) on qualifying purchases made within 24 hours of someone clicking your link — even on items you didn't link to.
Who it's for: Writers, creators and anyone who already recommends books and products online and wants those recommendations to pay a little back. You need a site or account with real content, and three qualifying sales within 180 days to stay approved.
Why I use it: It turns recommendations I would make anyway into a small, automated income stream — an asset that keeps working after the writing is done. Every Amazon link on this site carries my tag, so when a reader buys a book or product I use, Amazon pays a commission at no extra cost to them. It is one small way of living the motto: Own More Assets.
Tradeoffs: Commission rates are low and Amazon can change them at any time. Your own purchases never count, cookies only last 24 hours, links must carry a clear disclosure, and the rules are strict — breaking them can close your account and forfeit unpaid earnings. Real income needs real traffic.
Alternatives: Brand-specific affiliate programs (often higher rates), networks like ShareASale, Impact, Awin or Rakuten, or selling your own products and services.
This is a personal recommendation, not a paid promotion.
Automation
System · Money & Time·
Let robots handle the boring errands so future you stops nagging present you.
What it does: Moves recurring decisions out of your head and into rules that run on their own: automatic transfers to investment and savings accounts on payday, autopay for every bill, recurring supplement and household orders, calendar templates, and AI tools that handle repetitive digital work.
Who it's for: Busy people — shift workers, parents, professionals — who want good habits to happen by default rather than relying on willpower and memory.
Why I use it: Willpower is unreliable; systems are not. My investing happens before I can see or spend the money, my bills never go late, and the essentials restock themselves. Every decision I automate frees attention for the decisions that actually need me. It is minimalism applied to effort, and it lets compounding run without my interference.
Tradeoffs: Automated systems can run blindly — subscriptions you forgot about, a transfer that overdraws an account, or an investment that should have been rebalanced. Review everything at least quarterly. Setting it up takes a few hours up front.
Alternatives: I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi (the clearest money-automation playbook), the "pay yourself first" principle from The Richest Man in Babylon, and tools like Zapier or IFTTT for digital workflows.
This is a personal recommendation, not a paid promotion.