I wake up at 5:00 a.m. to the rich aroma of coffee brewing in my kitchen. The smell wafts up to my bedroom and it fills my nose every 9 minutes when I wake up enough hit the snooze button. This has become one of the benefits of not spending money -- I don't stop at 7-11 for a cup of coffee every morning. I figure I'm saving $3.00 a day -- if I don't buy a sandwich for lunch. That's $15.00 a week -- $35.00 if I don't get a sandwich everyday -- that I've saved simply because I set up the coffee machine the night before. That's a lot of money that's still in my bank account, but even more enjoyable is that I drink a cup of coffee while I'm getting ready for work. Who knew that saving coffee money could be such a pleasant experience?
Since I'm not buying sandwiches for lunch, I'm packing lunch. I haven't been grocery shopping since I bought the necessities for my New Year's Eve party, and I've eaten the leftovers at this point. My refrigerator is starting to look sparse. I don't have any more yogurts, nor do I have any more salad fixings. I'm snacking on red peppers and English cucumbers because that's still left over from my party. What's with those English cucumbers anyway? Is it really necessary to wrap the cucumber in plastic so tight that it's like trying to get the Illinois IRS to give you back money on your tax return? Regular cucumbers don't need to be wrapped in plastic. Putting plastic on a cucumber -- talk about a waste of money! And don't even get me started on the environmental aspects of plastic on a damned cucumber. Opps...I digress.....
Anyway, my refrigerator is quickly becoming empty. Last night I managed to whip up some pasta for dinner for my son and his girlfriend. I had shrimp in the freezer, and I made a light tomato sauce. It was really good. Later I was trying to pack my lunch only to discover: no bread, no lunch meat, no lettuce. In other words, no sandwich. I ran out of Lean Cuisines before Christmas, so the quick grab is now out of the question. I had a huge bag of Kirkland chicken breasts, so I pulled out a couple of them, plopped them into a baking dish, and then hunted in the frig for something to spice it up. Pineapple. I had some pineapple that was getting close to turning so I dumped that into the dish. I figure if it baked with the chicken there would be very little chance of me getting sick from slightly fermented pineapple. Then I took the leftover tomato sauce (the shrimp had been picked out), and dumped that it over the chicken. Baked it for 30 minutes, and wa-la! Lunch for the next couple of days. How brilliant! This morning I grabbed a bag of frozen veggies and added that to the chicken. Is it possible that not spending money is going to make me eat healthier? Maybe I'll be lucky and at the end of the 30-day challenge I'll not only be richer, I'll be thinner!
Late this afternoon my ex-husband invited me to have tapas with him, our son, and Lara. Did I mention that she's from Spain? The dinner was in her honor because she's going back home this weekend. I accepted the invitation fully expecting to pay my way...this was another one of those family moments that you can't put a price on, so I was going to declare the event a necessity. The dinner was wonderful, the company was terrific, and when the bill came I tried to give my ex-husband money, but he wouldn't take it. Chivalry is not dead, I guess. He said he invited me, so he was going to pay. It was a kind and generous thing to do. Walking back to my car I was noting that I hadn't spent any money today -- not even in the soda machine at school. I was thinking about how I was going to brag about this here, on my blog, but when I got to the car I had a parking ticket.
I saw the meter and thought I put two hours of quarters in the damned thing, but it was dark and I couldn't see the LCD screen on the meter, nor could I see the denominations of the coins I was pouring into the meter one after the other. Evanston cleverly makes the meter signs impossible to read in the dark so I didn't see that I had to put money in until 9 p.m.. Obviously I didn't put enough in, and then it suddenly dawned on me the insignificant coins that I put in the meter was money spent, and even more distressing was that I had spent $10.00 over that because of the cost of the ticket. What is Evanston thinking? Do they really need to charge people for a parking meter till 9 p.m. on a Thursday night? I'm going to have to remember this and make a point to go Glenview or Winnetka where they don't have parking meters.
Why is it that things we don't want to spend money on are frequently necessities? I have to pay that ticket so it instantly floated to the top of the necessity list. While I'm not buying food -- a true necessity for sustenance of life -- I am earmarking money to pay for the privilege of parking. That just doesn't seem right, does it? I thought briefly about not paying for it till February when my 30-day challenge is over, but then it would cost me $25.00! No, I'm going to be stuck paying for it within the next five days. Oh well....sometimes you just have to pay the ticket to eat, have fun and be merry. A necessity of a different kind, and it was worth every penny to have a enjoyable family moment with our son.
Total money spent today -- $10.75 (the 75 cents, give or take, was for the meter but I don't even know how much it was because it was dark.)
I've gotta go set up the coffee pot for tomorrow's aroma experience!
Karrie
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