Actually just coming up the money for the heating bills has been a bit of a stretch. We seem to be at that point where incomes are going down but prices have not yet followed suit. In fact, the amount my rural co-op pays for electricity had a huge spike. Greed on the part of corporate executives? Surely not!I certainly stay home more even if the house is a lot colder because I have really turned down the heat in an effort to be able to reduce utility bills. And evidently I am not the only one. People are eating out a lot less or ordering in like pizza.
I write a cooking column for a local newspaper and had decided before the news on Domino's bottom line it the news to focus more on good old home cooking and comfort food. Even I, a single person, dropped Ragu from my shopping list and made a huge pot of Mother's Spaghetti Sauce with Italian sausage. I froze some of it in the large cups of a muffin tin and then popped them out and into a freezer bag so I can just pull out a serving of sauce when I want pasta. Pasta is my comfort food of choice.
I also find that I am altering my schedule in my home to fit the temperature in various parts of the house. My studio hours for painting are between 10 and 2 because the sun streams through the studio windows and warms it up. I watch DVD's in the evening (cut off my satellite TV) from Netflix which is enjoying a boom in this economy. I can sit in my easy chair with Afgans over my lap and shawl around my shoulders and knit or crochet another warm object.
I go to bed when the sun goes down and snuggle up on propped pillows with "bed jacket" and read until I am sleepy. I wake up and put on hoodies and long johns and head to the coffee and the morning computer dose with lap blanket.
And I just don't dash off to the store because I need one or two items. I carefully make a list, consider the price, and the necessity before dropping by the store on a group of errands that finally must be run.
I feel somewhat guilty that I am not buying things and shoring up the economy but as an artist my income is down and there is not a lot of excess income to spread about beyond the necessities for me and my fur kids. My sister has just adopted a rescue dog. There are a lot of those these days. People that cannot afford to feed them are dumping them in rural areas hoping one of us pet lovers will pick them up. I have all I can care for as it is and know I would feed them before me if it came to that. Course I could use the reduced rations to look model thin. They already have great figures. Hopefully none of them gets sick because I don't know how I can afford the vet bills just now.
Oh, and I am probably blogging more and going out with earth friends for lunch far, far less.
What about you? What ways has the economy effected you?
Like you, I also really try to combine any shopping errands into
ReplyDeletea one trip dash. I dash because if
I linger in any one store I will end up buying that latest handy gadget
for whatever use.
The grocery store is the worst place after Wally World for impulse buying, so I try to strictly adhere
to my list and keep my eyes on that
list only!
Good one and one that this article I saw mentioned. "Browse time" in stores is down, way down. It is in with the list and out with those items on that list only.
ReplyDeleteI am also not stocking ahead unless there is a huge sale - like 4 cans for $1. I seem to be living on the assumption that prices have to go down when they finally have a glut of merchandise.
This is really true with art supplies. No more buying the canvas to fit the image but looking at the canvases I have on hand and designing the painting to fit them.