One of the ways I have avoided a lot of stress the last two years is to have a stockpile of birthday and all occasion greetings cards in my filing cabinet. When you work at home like I do, you try to have the least interruptions to your day as possible. These cards have saved the day on many occasions. I get them when I am out shopping, I look for the ones I love and sometimes I am able to make the most of sales and cut price items by buying them in bulk. Of course I make sure I also have a big reserve of stamps to go with them.

There are many ways to avoid those extra stresses of everyday life by thinking about what you would love to have reserves of. When you have large amounts of reserves you also start to gain extra feelings of security and abundance. You know what happens then??? If you are feeling abundance then you are living abundantly and things will start just showing up in your lifeJ What fun this is!

What if you were to have large reserves of Toilet paper and other paper items, light bulbs, laundry detergent, providing, of course that you have somewhere to store it. Start buying the very biggest packs you can find and take care to buy when they are "on special".

Ok, so its obvious that you can always gather stocks of goods you need around the house but what else?

How about what would happen if your washing machine and car broke down on the same day and you had all your underwear waiting to be washed? Ok , well maybe that wouldn't happen, but if you had reserves of underwear, it would be no problem at all. Makes quite a good argument for haveing plenty of underwear:-)....So make sure you buy in bulk and when its on sale.

Another idea is make sure that your computer has more than enough memory before you NEED to upgrade. This way if you have something important to do it doesn't result in panic when suddenly you realize you need more space!

Lets take the idea of reserves even further. What if you were to have a "reserve of time" up your sleeve, wouldn't that feel great? One way to do this is to make dummy appointments with your self on the calendar. This is great for creating time just for you, those times when you could do with a bit of pampering or just some quiet time to veg out and read a book. Just write "MPT" on the day for however much time you want, then if anyone questions it or asks you to do something you can say "sorry, no I already have an appointment that day". By the way, MPT stands for My Private Time, but know one needs to know that but youJ

Think of lots of ways you can use the idea of "reserves" in your life to make it much more stress free. I would love to hear of any ideas that you come up with. Email me at di@dyzee.com please.

Di McDonald is a certified Life Coach who has a deep love of personal growth, visual journaling, constant learning and the laws of attraction. "I love teaching and encouraging women to make time for themselves, to get what they want in life and to pursue their creativity" she says. Please visit her websites -<-->> http://www.DiMcDonald.com and http://www.dyzee.com>