Monday, March 30, 2009

Phoebe is asleep. Every day she comes home from school cranky. Today was no exception. It occurred to me that she should take a nap when she gets home, so I lay down for my own nap. Eventually, she took my bait and climbed into bed with me. After she dozed off, I got up to write this message.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Budget Backwards

I'm lucky. I have enough money to buy groceries. Given this fact, how do I plan my food spending, now and in the future? I have decided that the best thing to do is to see how much money I spend, at first without budgeting, and then to maintain the same level of spending. It might be fun, a good idea, or wise, to lower this amount of money over time, but striving to keep the same level of spending is possible and realistic. My method for keeping track of spending is simply to gather the week's receipts in my purse until they add up to the magic number (I was five dollars under, last week!!), then stop spending on groceries. I will have to increase the degree of challenge by adding in restaurant meals, but I'm not ready for that yet. I'll be lucky if I remember to add in receipts from my trips to High's. At present, my plan for restaurant dining is to make sure I'm not dining out at the end of each grocery week, after I've run out of grocery money.

One result of seeing how much I spend is that I can think about this money as one chunk of the household spending, instead of as many dribs and drabs. If I know that I spend $600 a month on groceries, I can think about how much it would cost to spend some of it on home milk delivery, and how much money would be left to spend on the rest of the groceries. I can also think about how much less I would spend on milk (about half) if I switched from organic milk to regular. Thinking about the real makes it easier to think about the possible and the impossible.

I learned, probably from reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, that Americans spend about 10% of their income on food, whereas Europeans spend about 17% of income. I wonder how much my household spends? I would have to multiply that $600 by 12 to get $7,200, then add all restaurant spending, then compare that to our annual income. This is a homework problem that will not be solved for a while.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Knitting Affects My Whole Life

This morning I discovered that what I have learned knitting can apply to other parts of my life. I tried a new pancake pattern, I mean, recipe. I thought I had all the right yarns, in the right fibers, but it turned out I needed to replace meusli with something from my stash: oatmeal, oat bran and wheat germ. Then, when I was following the pattern, I discovered I had added the flour before grinding the oatmeal. So I frogged back a couple of rows. I put the flour and the oatmeal into the blender to grind. It all worked out. Now I have a full stomach.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

My Personal Economy

I try to listen to the news, and to read the paper once in a while, but I get scared when I hear that the economy will keep getting worse until next year, or the year after that, or the year after that. I hear one person's solution is another person's curse, and vice versa. I hear that I should spend, in order to save the economy.

I can't spend to save my country's economy. Here's why: I spent about fifteen years of my life spending, eating out twice a day (no lie), buying clothes and movie tickets on credit. I never saved a dime, except for what my employer put into my retirement account. It was a lot of fun, that life, although maybe not as much fun as it could have been. I could never seem to plan to use a large sum of money, because I never had that money. I was afraid to take out a big loan, because all my little loans were always on my back.

For better or worse, I will never live that way again. I'm not saying I never spend on personal entertainment, or that I only eat rice and beans. I don't sew my own clothes, nor do I grow a big vegetable garden. The fact is, though, that the way I spent in the 1990s is not possible for me now. I can't do it anymore. I desire to send my kids to private school, which is kind of like Home Economics 101 all by itself. I want to keep working at home. Therefore, I am gradually learning how to save instead of spend, and how to plan my spending.

I am very, very lucky to be able to send my kids to private school, to live in my own house, to have my own car, to have heat and electricity and clean water, a yard for the kids to play in, a safe town and county. I am very lucky that Brad has a good job. There is a great deal to be thankful for. I want to always feel lucky. Part of feeling lucky means, not wasting the day, not wasting money, not wasting time, not wasting my life.

I don't know what the larger economy will be like in three or five years; I assume it will get better with time, like a broken bone. If everyone across the country has changed their spending habits the way I hope I have done, then the economy will never be the way it was. Maybe that will be okay, not because we'll be better people (we won't be), but because, on an individual level, we'll be more financially secure. I hope so.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Brad's socks are still coming along, but slowly. I will post a picture soon, when I'm near the camera and the socks.

Today will be muffin day. Phoebe and I will make muffins for her to take for the class snack, tomorrow. Phoebe likes to cook.