purple room vents: INTERESTING TO WATCH

Now that times are tougher, less expendable money to go around, I find it interesting what households decide to cut first and maybe even more interesting what they don't.

I don't know for sure, I am not part of anyone else's household and I have discovered that people kinda fudge their personal facts. But I sure am sure of what we are cutting in this house!

First thing I did when I made the conscious decision to cut back was decide on a budget. That wasn't easy or fun. The thing is there are still things one has to pay for, even if you can't eat anymore, or drive or buy necessities (and that term has had to be redefined). One of those things is house insurance. I think you are nuts if you own a house and don't have insurance. If your house burns down you become everyone else's problem, my worst nightmare....not the fire but being a problem to everyone else. So after deciding on that budget the next problem is sticking to it. Jeez!!!

Back in the day when we had pigs, one of the foods we used to feed them was cabbage. They love cabbage and cabbage is basically a garbage food. Sooo cheap and you only ate it at the end of your pay period when you ran out of everything else. At the end of winter our root cellar was relatively empty and one of the fuller bins was the cabbage bin. I mean face it, other than cabbage rolls and coleslaw (which we all hated cutting it up for it) what do you do with it? I know mom would whack wedges, boil them and serve it with butter, s&p and vinegar drizzle. Then she would tell us kids it was special. Sure.

The reason I mention this is that in this house Ange, bless her heart, now and then makes vast huge pots of cabbage roll casserole. Deeeelicious!!!!! And cheap. So I checked out the cabbages the other day thinking it was time to put some more of that delicious cheaper food in the freezer. I was shocked!!! What used to be a two dollar cabbage was nine dollars!!! Nine!!!! Pig food has become foofoo food!!!!

Potatoes is another one. That was another root cellar special at the end of the month. Mom would make what she called 'mulligan stew'. She would get out the cast iron frying pan, fry a bit of bacon (from the same pigs we fed cabbages to so I guess we did get cabbage another way than boiled) and onions, pour in milk and add a whack of cut up potatoes. Oh god I hated that stuff. I can still taste it when I think about it too hard. But potatoes were cheap and in the light of disclosure, we never bought potatoes, we grew them.

When I make a grocery order online for pickup at the Walmart grocery site, they sell potatoes individually. They are almost two bucks a pound. I mean who the heck buys potatoes individually? Let's see, Aunt Martha is good for 3 potatoes, she likes them a lot, Mable is low carbing so I don't have to buy her one, I need enough for mashed spuds so I think ten should do for that. Jeez! Have you ever just counted how many potatoes you peel and dump into a pot? Who does that? Just give me a freaking ten pound bag already!!!! I don't want to know how many potatoes are actually in that bag and multiply by individual prices.

I think the biggest change in our house due to less money, budgets etc...was selling Gladys, my beloved violently red jeep truck. I hate to admit it but I didn't just love the look and convenience of have that truck, but I will be honest and admit I loved the attention I got. Sick, I know, at my age. Jeez! But holy canoly! the money we have saved in gas is phenomenal. I mean truly amazing. She was a total gas guzzler! Smudge, the corolla, that replaced her doesn't even use a quarter of what Gladys drank. So I will put up with anonymity and being lost in parking lots. Smudge looks like at least 20% of the cars out there. In fact Ange and I headed to a car we thought was ours and it wasn't until I was right up to the door and noticed a very puzzled man sitting behind the wheel. We blend in perfectly now.

So I am taking deep dives into one of my four freezers that are so full I can't shut them. Two days ago I hauled out a bunch of frozen beef and made the most delicious stew. We ate it two or three times in a row. There is still some left over. Cook once, eat three times. From now on thats the motto, well I have always kind of done that but now it's serious.

It's funny but the cheap hamburger chubs at Walmart were 4.95 at the beginning of the pandemic when I started to do online/pickup shopping. And guess what? It still is! I bought five of them yesterday and they were still 4.95!

Anyway, long story short I guess we all are trying to find that extra money we don't have any more in weird but obvious places. Gas, food, dining out no longer, extra ferry trips stopped, clothes, household extras, cheaper versions of things like toilet paper etc....Meanwhile property taxes, income taxes, utilities, insurances, house upkeep, car repairs...steadily climb.

I am not complaining. I think 'hard times' are good for society. I saw this happen in the beginning of the eighties when the interest rate shot up to 21-23% and stayed there for three years. Banks ended up owning most the houses. New cars were a thing of the past. People had to pull up their britches, buckle down and work two or three jobs....if they could find them. The unemployment rate shot up ridiculously. Society took a huge smack and I was pretty impressed with how we all dealt with it. We didn't have a Trudeau handing out billions of dollars to undeserving masses, causing the inflation rate to go up like we have now. Thanks Pierre. And if people have to give up some lux extras well boo hoo. And from what I am also seeing people in general are truly being as generous as possible and helping the less, really less fortunate ones out. Charity is booming. Good things happen in tough times.

Well enough silly preaching. If you are still reading, I am impressed! Hahaha!!! I am now about to figure out how to cut my tv bill in half. My goal for the day. TTYL

'Freedom (n): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.' Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead"

THIS IS TRULY MY MANTRA. LOVE AYN RAND