Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Thursday Three



Perhaps you all overlooked my plea last week for Thursday Three ideas? Hmm? Oh, well. You're stuck with this today. Consider it incentive for next week.



Three Things I (Stupidly) Refuse To Spend Money On Unless I Absolutely HAVE To




1. Parking. I have a parking meter aversion that I can't seem to shake. Unless the weather is horrific or I have a whining kid in the car, I'll park blocks away to avoid a meter. (Or a funky ankle, but that's another post). This meter phobia was a lot worse in LA, but is still something that I have to deal with in Liberal Collegeville. What makes this just plain stupid is the fact that you can park downtown for two hours for fifty cents - not a sum that is going to break the bank.Even my bank.


And if your meter runs out and you get a ticket? Two dollars. The first time I got one, I swore until I saw the amount. I looked for extra zeros. Then I laughed out loud. Two dollars. That's not something you'll see in LA. Maybe two dollars a minute.



2. Stamps. Almost all of my bills get paid on-line or by automatic withdrawal, both to save time and money. Most of my personal correspondence is done by e-mail or on the phone. And although I aspire to sending personal little notes and cards by mail, I almost never do. So I very rarely have stamps in the house, and hate buying them with a passion. Like the meters, forty two cents is not a big deal, so I don't have a clue what my problem is.


Unfortunately though, there are things that can't be done on-line or in person - things like legal documents and medical bills. For those things you need stamps, so I'll bite the bullet and go out and buy them. But only the amount I need. (This is especially stupid because I keep extras of everything on hand. I hate running to the store for every little thing. Evidently, this doesn't apply to stamps).


Today, however, I had to mail two things and I bought six stamps. Woo Hoo. Maybe she's finally seeing the light, folks.




3. Bagged Salad. We eat a lot of salad. For a long time we couldn't find the lid to the salad spinner. And I hate wet lettuce. This is a bad combination all around. The obvious answer was to either buy a new salad spinner or bagged, already washed, lettuce. Well, lets go for the not obvious. I kept buying lettuce (romaine, our very favorite) and washing it. Then I would struggle to get it dry enough to make me happy - an impossibility. I would think of this every time I passed the pretty little expensive bags of salad in the produce aisle, but I still wouldn't buy them. (I buy bagged spinach every week as part of my "staples" list. I have no idea why I consider that different). Finally last week I couldn't take it anymore. I broke down and bought a new salad spinner.


And a big head of romaine.



Your turn.

6 comments:

Maggie May said...

Those little bags of washed salad would suit us ( husband & me) fine, but as it takes us a while to eat a bagful, it goes off very fast.If I buy masses of the real stuff, the same thing happens there. Can't win with salad, but we like it.

flutterby said...

1. Hair cuts - I hate to go get my hair cut even though I look and feel much better afterward. Talkative stylists really have me gripping the chair arms - cut it already and let me out of here!!!

2. Expensive brown eggs - I can't tell any difference between cheap white eggs and those designer eggs.

3. Shipping and handling charges. I'll search high and low to find a site that either eliminates those charges or has the lowest ones.

Amy said...

Bagged salad--eew. You're better off with the salad spinner.

Susan said...

I pay for parking often and it doesn't bother me. Parking tickets here, well they're not two dollars, are they, Altaglow?

We've always got stamps on hand and use them reguarly (by the way, does this mean you won't be sending Christmas cards?). I haven't ever paid a bill on line.

Don't use bagged lettuce - it tastes bad. Use lots and lots of red leaf and romaine, though, and I swear by a good salad spinner.

So, what are my three?

Cable TV - we get lots of channels with nothing on them already.

Movie tickets - We wait for the DVDs about 99% of the time.

Private school.

Susan said...

p.s. an idea for next week: your three favorite Christmas cookies, and maybe one of the recipes!

Irene said...

Riding my bike downtown and finding out that there are not enough bike stands to park my bike legally, which means I have to go to the underground parking or have my bike towed, as a matter of speaking. You'd think the city would add extra bike stands where they are needed most, wouldn't that be a logical solution instead of wasting the manpower on collecting illegally parked bikes?