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.