Don't Spend $400.00!

Todays New York Times had a hilarious article about people who never look at the price of anything suddenly trying to cut back on expenditures. They were clueless. One guy bought a $400.00 electric fireplace to save on his fuel bills. It barely heats anything. Someone else bought a gazillion heads of cauliflower trying to save money. Another person "frugally" eliminated her $12.00 soup purchase and bought $500.00 dog bed. Go figure.

I didn't even know there were $12.00 soups. Not where I shop. Cripes, I could live for a week on $12.00 worth of soup: goulash, onion and chili, and maybe some bean or pea thrown in. Soup is the cheapest thing you can serve.

To save, what you do is not spend money on anything that you don't have to. Nothing. If you discover that the cauliflower is $5.00 per head and you have carried 6 to the checkout counter, tell the clerk you only want one. Or none. Just because it is in your cart, you don't have to buy it. The man who bought the stove should have done a cost/benefit analysis. The woman with the cauliflower is supposed to be good at math.

I don't know.

Today I checked at the resale shops I take used clothing to, and the one wanted nothing until after Thanksgiving, and the other wanted nothing until after December. Wha? The economy must be so bad that everyone is taking old clothes to the resale shops instead of donating them.

Think I'll try EBAY or Craig's List. Really.

I bought all the sale items for ingredients I need to take my Thanksgiving side dish and dessert to our hostess' house. Amazing how much is on sale. I'm taking a Brussels Sprouts/Cauliflower side side and a pumpkin cheese cake with a marshmellow-sour cream topping. Both dishes are rich as Croesus and have some nutritive value, i.e. vitamin a, beta carotene, protein, calcium, well, you get the idea, as well as loads of fat.

It's cold out and we need an extra layer to keep us warm. That's what I keep telling myself. Have you ever noticed how skinny people are always cold? They must dread winter.

The Cauliflower woman has started a blog. EconoWhiner.com. Maybe we should all give her the wisdom of our experience.