Bridgetown Point of View
PDX Everday – N. Lee JohnsonArchive for September, 2008
No Spending Month Begins Tomorrow!
I’m a little psyched. I’ve been surfing websites for frugal living. And to be honest, I’m so not prepared to not spend money.
In the late 70’s, early 80’s I remember conservation as a kid. My mom would do dishes in the sink. Reusing the rinse water, rather than blasting the water on. We brushed our teeth and turned the water off. I don’t know when we stopped being conservative.
I hate the stock market right now.
| This view shows a summary of your account activity from the beginning of the calendar year. | ||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Sex and Your Neighbors.
I live in a stupidly cute, stupidly small apartment building downtown. It’s a 100 year old hotel which used to be a whore house. So the history is part of its charm, I’m not going to lie. Age, hotel and whore house to me implied sound proofing. And for the most part, this was true.
Hello horny, young, unattractive 3rd floor couple and open window syndrome! It has always been, or at least since the start era of when you could download good porn from the privacy of your own home, that ONLY attractive, professional, paid adult actors should provide any type of porn – watched or heard.
Listening to average, everyday people, who you wouldn’t have sex with, copulating audibly is just… gross. It’s probably too late to declare that I’m not a prude, but really, I’m not. I just like my sex private, or professional.
So, here are some tips for you would-be apartment porn stars – intentional or not: no one wants to hear it. So please shut the hell up. I recommend closing your window. Or turn up your tv/radio. Be responsible for yourself. Be responsible for your sex-life and don’t embarrass yourself – especially if you aren’t smoking hot – by forcing your neighbors into your sex life. Particularly when you are in the throws and you have quite possibly the most unerotic, unsexy gasps or exclamations this side of a Warren Buffett orgy.
A Little Inspiration From SmallNotebook.org
Frugality Challenge!
Can you imagine only spending $250 for a month? For a family? I have no idea how she did it. But it’s obviously attainable.
With everyone screaming economic crisis on news sites, tvs and papers, it’s probably pass time to start living a little less extravagantly and a little more responsibly. Meaning no more take-out, no more shoes, clothes or expensive hand-made cosmetics and hair-care products, because I want them. Cheering noises for the Albrecht brothers who found a market in the states for Trader Joes.
According to my spending report, I spent $331 on restaurants, $75.91 on retail, $53.17 on gas, $132.37 on groceries for the month of September. Or $592.45. Oh look at those ugly numbers. Especially the $331 vs. $132.37. Over twice as much going out, than parking it at home and cooking. The horror and shame of it all.
After finding Rachel’s blog on MSN money, and needing to make my money go further, I have decided to make October 2008 my spend no money month. Mainly because this is the last month of the year where I won’t have to spend on birthdays, or holidays.
Can I cut my spending in half?
Just be cutting out restaurants and cooking and preparing meals at home and for work, I could save a lot in the “restaurant” category. Eliminating restaurants would alone get me closer to my goal.
Right about now those coupon books, valpaks, penny-saver papers and online e-coupons are probably doing well with traffic. Maybe eBay will return to it’s more “quite a deal” values of it’s infancy.
In Portland, we have the Chinook Book. For $20 you get this mega-book of 400 coupons ranging in a variety of local grocers and services. Portland being the greenest city in the nation, there’s a lot of coupons for organic goods, which are generally more expensive. So it’s kind of a glass half empty or half full scenario here – go non-organic and increase savings, or use the coupons and stay the same money-wise, but increase the perceived quality of your goods.
