What is a luxury? That guy who rants on the radio and TV – Dave Ramsey – gets all worked up about cutting expenses and living within your means. I don’t feel the need to call in and confess anything to him, I have lived below my means for many years now. But I will admit that the expense cutting he likes to yell about is practical advice when one is trying to go from being comfortably employed to Living Broke.
My husband I have made our weekly budget and in that budget, there is no room for luxuries we have enjoyed over the years. There are many things we must cut out. Let’s get started.
100% Pure Kona Coffee. Oh, have you tried this? Heaven in small brown, perfectly roasted coffee beans! I didn’t know about Kona Coffee until we went to Hawaii 3 years ago and had Kona coffee in Kona. It was like no coffee I’ve ever tasted, and I fell in love right away.
I found this coffee at my most favorite place to buy yummy foods – Fresh Market (which has also been cut from the budget). I order our delicious Kona Coffee on line most of the time. It runs about $26 for a slighty-less-than-one-pound bag. Even being comfortably employed this was a bit much for coffee. We only drank Kona coffee on Satudays, Sundays and Christmas. If you don’t know about Kona Coffee, read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kona_coffee. Kona coffee was cut.
Eating Out. I am uncertain about completely cutting this out right now. One of the differences I have at home is eating out. Because I travel most weeks on business, I eat out more than I eat in. While I’m galavanting around exotic locales such as Sioux Falls, Topeka and Sandusky, my husband is home scrounging for food he doesn’t have to cook. It is pitiful to call home while I’m on the road and tell him about the fabulous restaurant I enjoyed with a client only to hear him talk about the potted meat sandwich he just ate. When I get home and we have a weekend – he is ready to go out! I am ready to eat in.
Eating out is something he enjoys more than I do. Is it really fair to cut it out for him when I’m still doing it? This one may have to be compromised, espeically when I am out of town.
Nice Wine. Up until I met my husband in 2000, I did not drink. I couldn’t, I was Baptist and it was just not allowed. I didn’t know what wine tasted like. During my wild and rebellious teen years, we were all about the contraband Coors sold only in a few states. I understood the deep motivation of Smokey and the Bandit.
My first taste of wine was the incredibly sweet pink stuff. From there I refined my taste in wine and graduated to less sweet reisling, then on to the light reds. I am now a cabernet lover, I have gone deep into the wine cellars over the past few years. My most favorite wine of all time is Cambria Pinot Grigio. It is a mere $25 per bottle. We’ve had more expensive wine than $25, however that happens to be my favorite. My husband refuses to drink it, stating it should be against the law to charge that much for a bottle of wine. Especially when Berringer is just a few dollars a jug.
Like the expensive Kona coffee, my favorite wine is reserved only for the most special occassions. Births, graduations, signing big deals at work and acquittalsw. But no more. Cambria was cut.
Frivolities:
The cleaning ladies that come every other Thursday. They’ve been coming for 7 years. I can easily justify the meager $50 per cleaning when I’m busy jetting about the fly over states, but if I am at home with no job, I can get off my ass and mop my own kitchen.
The yard mowing kid. He was a tiny little 11 year old nerd when he and his daddy knocked on our door 7 years ago. He stuttered and asked if he could please mow our yard. His daddy would help him, and he promised to always do a good job. We watched him grow from the scrawny little kid to a fine young athelete than is now in his second year of college. He not only mows for us in the summers, but he mows up the leaves in the fall and helps my husband with larger, more manly yard chores. If I am not working, I can get off my ass an mow my own grass. I think it will take 4 hours. We’ve only mowed it ourselves once and it seems it took that long.
Newspapers. I had 2 subscriptions. One to the Wall Street Journal and one for the big city daily. Gone. both of them. I can read the city daily on line and even print the coupons on Sundays. WSJ? Ha! Too darned expensive for those Living Broke.
Phone lines. We have 3 out of necessity. Home phone, office phone, office fax. I must have the office lines, but the day I get the call, I am cancelling them.
Cell phone extras. We will keep our cell phones, they have become a necessity in today’s world. The data package will have to go and so will the broadband card. The minutes will also be cut. If someone needs to talk to me so long that I’ll run over my minutes, they probably need to be telling me stuff to my face.
Tupperware, Premier Jewelry, Pampered Chef and other stuff I buy to be nice and don’t need.
Our satellite TV is not on the cut list just yet. We don’t live close enough to a major city to pick up channels without cable or satellite. We have only the basic channels as neither of us are avid TV watchers/couch potatoes. I enjoy the news every morning and an occassional episode of Green Acres. We watch a pay per view movie for date night about once a month. So for now, the satellite hook up stays.
I have given up manicures, pedicures, massages, buying stuff for my grandkids, Starbucks, mindless shopping, name brand cosmetics, and I stopped our recent home improvement project before it was finished. But I am not giving up the aloe vera toilet paper. Nope. No way. Forget it. That will be the last thing to go, just before we are moving our few possessions under the bridge.
When you are Living Broke, you have to have your priorities in order.
Tags: Musings, Ponderings, reflections
