The Torturous Path to Smaller Bills
Like everybody else these days—or, at least, everybody who isn’t in the upper strata financially—I’ve been looking for ways to cut some expenses. My income isn’t going to get any bigger so reducing what I spend is my only hope. That, of course, means getting rid of some of the little extras since most of my bills are of the must-pay variety, pesky things like utilities, credit cards, home equity line, health insurance. My health insurance is far and away the biggest hit since it’s an individual policy but, having had open heart surgery several years ago and having family history of some scary stuff, I’m not about to let that go.
So, the other day, I started thinking about what I can do without. I can reduce some of my lawn care costs but not really till early next spring.  I can cancel my Netflix subscription but that’ll only save me $14.69 a month. Since Annie moved to St. Augustine three weeks ago, I’ll certainly see a reduction in movie and dinner spending—we did a lot of both. That’ll also save a little bit on gas.
Groceries? Not so much I can do there. I’m not a big food shopper and most things I get are not overly expensive except I demand Charmin and Reese’s peanut butter—you just can’t go cheap on some things, right? Still, I suppose I could have resisted the temptation to buy the teeny jar of gourmet mustard I saw yesterday. Sheesh, it was $1.19 for a 1.4 ounce jar but, hey, I’m really into mustard. What can I say?
Sidebar: We Richmonders have not yet gotten over the loss of our beloved local grocery chain several months ago when a big, mean conglomerate bought it and we can’t resist nitpicking about all the ways Ukrop’s used to make our food lives so heavenly. Here’s the weird thing, though—the new chain is less high-end so is a bit cheaper but some of their shelf selections are pretty strange. They carry this expensive gourmet mustard but not Beanie Weenies! What’s with that?
Hamilton, our erstwhile bookstore cat, has just given me some future savings. He lives with friends now but I pay his food and vet expenses. He had a blood sugar curve done last week and he’s doing so well with his diabetes (yay!) that his daily insulin regimen has been reduced from two shots to one. That means the insulin and the needles will last twice as long.
Find a cheaper trash collector? Nah, at less than $36 a month, the one I have is probably pretty much on the mark.
Real estate and property taxes? Yeah, moving right along…
Cheaper cat food? Perish the thought. If I did that, their delicate digestive systems would be sharing the barf everywhere. Uh uh, not doing that.
Sidebar #2: Back to the grocery store…I was there one night about a week ago and it looked like a Canada Geese convention was going on. They were all over the parking lot and not about to make way for silly cars.
Buy fewer books? You’re joking, right? And don’t you even breathe the word “ebooks”. They may be dirt cheap but they’re just not my cuppa tea.
The cellphone is a real drain at about $82 a month and I might actually be able to cut that by almost half if I go on a limited minutes plan or even a pre-paid plan. That’ll require signing another contract which I don’t want to do but have no good reason for saying so. I’ve had a mobile phone in one form or another for probably 20 years starting with a bag phone and, in all that time, the only reason the name of the company has changed multiple times is because they kept getting bought. So, no, I doubt I’ll get an irresistible urge to bolt hence no need to fear a contract. I will have to shell out for a new phone, though. Hmm…guess I’d better go visit the phone store to find out more.
Internet access? Sorry, I like my FIOS coverage and speed and don’t wanna give it up.
And that brings me to the last possibility, my TV plan. No matter how I look at it, the only savings I can find is $17 if I give up HBO. That’s a given after the current True Blood season is over in September since I don’t watch anything else on there. Beyond that, I’d have to give up my DVRs ($26) which is a really scary thought since I always have at least 40 hours on there and rarely erase anything without watching it. And I could drop cable and go with local channels only. NO!!! What would I do without TNT and USA and Syfy and A&E and Bravo (OK, it’s cheesy but I’m a fan) and Lifetime and Discovery and History and BBC America and Investigation Discovery??
This cost-cutting venture is just not going the way I planned. How do people do it?
August 15, 2010
Posted in: Tales of a Bookseller
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