I roughly totalled our spending for this month, our first time in a number of years. $3000. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! The money is whizzing out of our pockets. I thought we were living a rather semi-frugal lifestyle, but there are so many non-recurring items that look like they--or similar ones--that will keep occuring so that it now appears frightening. I bought snow tires (should last 4-6 years-$140), replaced a windshield ($350--no deductable applied), a by-pass for the water heater on the camper ($75). Other than those items, everything was a regular monthly expense. And the irregular ones will happen regularly because if it's not one thing it's another. And this doesn't even include pornography
Possible solutions: Become fake Amish, wearing one set of dark clothes everywhere we go and bring a picnic basket with us that includes ham bologna sandwiches and fresh fruit, fly to Hawai and stand on a busy corner with a sign that says "Will work for poi," crawl in the basement and hide under the bed, or suck it up and just complain about taxes and inflation like everybody else..
Seriously, we are going to delve into the budget and see where we can slash and burn. We have zero regular monthly payments other than utilities and it's still $2500/mo expenses.
Thank God we have this board for cheap thrills, have Dan for our adult entertainment, REW to keep us me honest amused, and JG
for spiritual guidance. So I start by counting my blessings, so far three. The good-bad ratio is currently 3:3000. Ahhhhhh!
--Greg