Daily Latte – Ah, the infamous latte factor. We rarely go to Starbucks. At least I don’t. The only time I am there is when we’re on vacation or going camping and we leave early in the morning and need a boost. I rarely even drink coffee. Both coffee and tea are provided for free at work for me if I really need them and we have an instant hot water thing at home so we can brew pretty quickly there too. I mostly stick to water.
Cable TV – Yes, this is something we could probably scale back on. But I love the DVR and Bravo and FoodNetwork, so until Time Warner rolls out an a la carte cable package, I think we’re stuck with what we have. Since we bundle the internet and phone in with the cable I suppose perhaps it’s not as bad as it could be.
Manicure/Pedicure – Ha! The only time I had a manicure was for the wedding. Never had a pedicure, and never will. I wouldn’t want to subject some poor person to my feet. Not sure I’ll go for a manicure again either. It wrecks your nails.
Botox – Come on, I’m too young for this… And even if I had wrinkles I was worried about, I have such a needle complex that I doubt this would be a solution I’d choose.
Bottled Water – We gave up the bottled water a while ago. The only time we still use it is for camping and this year we’re going to get a big jug and use that instead. We’ve kicked around the idea of installing a whole-house water softener, but I don’t know that we really need that. I think the water from the tap is just fine.
Second Car – In the area where we live and with our schedules it’s just not practical to drop to one car. Public transportation is a joke. My car is paid off and the registration and insurance fees in WI are reasonable. As for gas, well, my car is pretty efficient, in the 30 mpg range, but I drive less than Adam who averages about 22 mpg. Thanks to all the gas taxes WI has, we’re running about $300/month these days. Ouch. Yay for the Chase BP rewards credit card!
Cell Phone – We originally planned to not get a landline in the house and use our cellphones. Then we discovered that our house is in a dead zone for my phone. So we do have both. I rarely use my cell phone and when I do, it’s generally to Adam so the minutes don’t count. I’m an add-a-line on his plan so it’s not horrible. Although we’ll have to see what the Verizon-Alltel combination does to our service.
Lawn Service – Pfft. Adam takes care of the yard work. The one thing we’ll probably have someone come in for is doing fill and slope work when we re-do the deck and siding.
Clothes – I go for months not buying anything. Then I go all gung-ho and drop a chunk of change for new underwear or shirts. My deal is I find something I like and then buy multiple colors of the same thing. My main problem is pants. I can’t find anything that fits right so we end up spending money to trek to Marshalls. Clothing is always a fight for me. No matter what size I’ve been, I can’t find clothing that fits or I like. *sigh*
Private School – I’m thinking this is only applicable to those with kids. I’m public school through and through while Adam went to a private school until high school. We’ve had discussions about this and I don’t think we’ve agreed on our stance. But that can wait awhile, of course.
Childhood Parties – Same as the schooling, this doesn’t help us save money if we’re not spending it anyway. My mom threw some pretty good parties for us at home, with a homemade cake. I don’t know where things will be by the time we have kids (if we have them at all) but I can’t wrap my brain around spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on something the kid won’t even remember. I think it’s probably more to satisfy some show-off urge in the parents…
Pet grooming/Walking – Not really applicable since cats don’t generally get taken for walks. Neither to guinea pigs or hamsters. The cats are shorthair so don’t require grooming. Mo is the only guy who needs a haircut every once in a while. We also trim everyone’s nails. Our biggest pet expense is food. We get the hamster and guinea pig food and timothy hay from Walmart. They seem to like that brand better than Kaytee. Plus we don’t really like Kaytee too much anyway. The cats eat pretty much anything, especially Ted. We feed them Fancy Feast and Iams, but we get the Fancy Feast at Walmart where it’s 8 cents cheaper per can. We use coupons on the Iams or wait until it’s on sale and stock up. We’ve talked about cutting them back to wet food every other day, but I don’t think the extra $1.26 a day will kill us. Plus feeding time is pretty much the only time Ted lets me near him! Lately when I lean over to fill their dry food he’ll get right up in my face and meow. Talk about bad breath… Heh.
In general I think we do pretty well in scaling back the buying of crap. With the arrival of warm weather we’ve been spending more on outdoor/yard/mini-home-improvement project items than before, but with the purchase of a home comes the need for continual improvement and upkeep. We’re still chipping away at the balances left from last year but I see no reason (for now) to not be able to have those gone by the end of the year. The two zero interest balances we have expire in January so after those are gone we’ll be able to start being responsible and putting some away for a rainy day. Or for a new deck. Whichever.
In other news, they’ve closed Cty A again so I’m back to taking the highway to work. Ugh. Although the lake has been smelling extra fishy lately so perhaps this is a good thing. Unfortunately the barriers are up at the end of the street so I have no choice but to go around on Bruce to get anywhere, including the grocery store. Hopefully the road repair is quick.
Speaking of groceries, here’s what’s on tap for this weekend: slow cooked BBQ pork, Alton Brown’s Moo-Less Pie, and spaghetti with asparagus and bacon. Yesterday I made a Southwestern Chili-Mac Salad and tonight was Lamb Pitas.
And since it's been awhile since I posted any kitty pictures, here's JC doing the exact opposite of what I told him to do (shocking, I know):
And here's Ted ruining a perfectly good picture by being a pervert:
Ah. Kitties.
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