One Week, no Eating Out.

So I’ve survived a week without buying any non-grocery food items. No vending machine sodas, no lox bagels, fast-casual lunches or Starbucks cappuccinos. I estimate I saved about $75. That’s $300 a month, and basically, a car payment.

We have my dad’s retirement celebration coming up at a nice restaurant this week, and I find myself really looking forward to that. I think that when you’re not spending money on restaurants/coffee shops everyday, eating out takes on a new and exciting significance.

I’ve made a bunch of pre-packaged food, so I have no excuse to go out.

F.I.R.E

I read a lot of blogs about frugality, minimalism and FIRE (financial independence, retire early). These philosophies appeal to me the way kayaking in an Alpine lake or doing a 3,000-mile Wild-inspired hike appeal to me: aspirational, but more theoretical than likely in my life. A common thread I’ve noticed is that these bloggers and/or lifestyle/financial gurus are often able to achieve financial independence by investing heavily in the stock market early in their careers, and then withdrawing a certain percentage of their investments every year to live off of. 

The part that makes me uneasy, the part I have difficulty reconciling is the following: Many of these individuals value extreme frugality and appear to wholeheartedly believe that capitalism and the ensuing culture of consumption it entails are a major part of what’s wrong with America, and, increasingly, the world. Yet, these individuals are often able to achieve financial independence and early retirement by taking advantage of our collective consumerism, the very consumerism they often rail against.  What is the stock market but consumerism embodied? 

I’m not personally against investing in the stock market. I’m not against buying stuff. But is it ethical to achieve your personal financial independence (when rooted in the ideas of frugality, minimalism and anti-consumerism) on the speculation that the rest of us will continue buying so much stuff that the stock market will continue going up over the long-term? Is it OK to benefit from a system you believe is deeply flawed? Sometimes I feel like some of these individuals have shunned “the system” in their day-to-day lives, but depend on the rest of us to continue with our conspicuous consumption in order for them to continue living off of their 4% portfolio withdrawals.

Don’t get me wrong. A lot of the ideas espoused in these blogs are intelligent, inspirational and retro-radical. We really don’t need to buy so much stuff. It wouldn’t hurt us to be more deliberate about our purchases. We can probably live on a lot less than we think. We are destroying the environment with our festering piles of bottomless stuff. 

But to rail against — and simultaneously rely so heavily on — a financial system? Maybe these people are just pragmatic. Or maybe you can have your cake and eat it too?

Frugality.

Frugality has never been my forte. I am by nature careless and impulsive. I’ve gotten better. I paid off $23,000 in undergrad student loans, $10,000 in credit card debt and a $19,000 car loan in a little over two years. But I’m still not a great saver. I recently started reading a blog that has inspired me to become more frugal and less wasteful.

I took an honest look at where my money is going, and it turns out that I’m spending about $400 a month on insignificant stuff that doesn’t mean much to me, like Starbucks, vending machine sodas and mediocre food. I could also save a lot of money by changing health insurance providers, maybe as much as $300 a month. Addressing those two things alone would allow me to save about $8,000 more a year.

I am also wasteful with resources and not particularly time efficient. I let food go bad. I take really long showers. I take a long time emptying the dishwasher and tidying up my room. In the last week, I’ve started to time my daily tasks. I figured out I can comfortably take a shower in five and a half minutes, twelve if I’m shaving my legs. I can get dressed and tidy up my room (including making my bed) in ten minutes. It takes me seven minutes to empty the dishwasher and put the dishes away.

I think I need to cut a lot of the fat out of my life so I have the time and energy to do the things I actually want to do.

Living in the Present.

Living in — and enjoying — the present has always been a challenge for me. I find that I enjoy imagining things like vacations, a new home, a novel idea, an unfamiliar lifestyle, etc. I love exhaustively researching and planning. There’s great pleasure and hope in imagining your life in more ideal circumstances.

I often retroactively enjoy my experiences too. I think a lot about a slow, meandering walk I took at a town park in upstate New York a few weeks ago. I think about the changing leaves, the wooden bridges over small creeks, the vast, marshy fields and the condo developments peaking out from behind the forest.

But while I was on that walk, I wasn’t having a great time. I was probably thinking of something else.

How can I learn to live in the present and focus on whatever I’m currently experiencing? In a way,I guess I’m lucky: I enjoy thinking about the future and reminiscing about the past.

Envy.

Yesterday my husband took the baby to a local park, and they did a four and a half mile loop around the lake. When he sent me a picture of himself with the baby in the carrier, I experienced a stab of jealousy that his schedule allows him to spend time with her during the day.

Time.

The thing I want most in my life is more time. More leisure time, to be exact. I want time to watch Mr. Rogers and do craft projects with my daughter. I want time to go to the grocery store and to local parks during the week. I want a couple hours of writing time in the mornings when I’m feeling fresh and creative, and I’d like to take art classes again. I’d like to live somewhere rural and scenic with views of the mountains, and have a few chickens, just for fun.

I know this all probably sounds naïve and trite, and also unrealistic. More time means less work, and good views mean higher rents. The two seem incompatible.

This morning, I was browsing craigslist for country cottages within 40 miles of my job. I found a few places for under $1000. Is it crazy to seriously consider going down to part-time, downsizing, and living far away from the city? This desire — to live in the countryside — is something that has come up again and again throughout my life, but I’ve never taken the necessary next step to make it happen.

What’s holding me back?

Honestly, if I really think about it, I think it’s fear. No, I know it’s fear. I am afraid of not having a full-time job. I am afraid of not doing what is expected of me. I am afraid of living somewhere so different from the places I’ve always lived. I am afraid that it’s ridiculous to even think about living another kind of life.

If I went part-time, I’d lose about half my income. Could we survive on $60K a year? In some parts of the country, that might seem like plenty, but where we live it’s half of what the average family makes. It would be about 35K after taxes and insurance is taken out. We don’t have many bills: Just $205 a month college loan and $100 a month for car insurance, plus the cost of food, gas, travel, etc. Right now, we don’t have a car payment or credit card debt.

But is this all just an escapist fantasy I’d soon regret after taking the plunge?

Live the Dream?

Outside Albany

I’ve been thinking lately of talking to my husband about living a different kind of life. Right now, we live with my parents and the baby in a suburb. It’s a nice life, but it’s not precisely what I want, and I don’t think it’s what he envisioned for himself either. I’ve been harboring a secret dream of going part-time, 20 hours a week, and asking my husband if he’d be interested in applying for hospital jobs further out in the country. That way we can rent a small cottage or old farmhouse and live somewhere more rural, but in proximity to a decent-sized town. Very cliche, I know: I want a beautiful natural setting, but I don’t want to be too far from an independent, small-town coffee shop. 

Over the years, I’ve been intermittently working on a number of short-stories. Over the last few months, I’ve developed a clearer vision of this project: 10 or 12 interconnected short stories with a deeply entrenched sense of place; stories where the landscape itself serves as character. I have about five stories in advanced draft form, and I think I’ve figured out how I can connect all of them. I’d never seriously considered going part-time before this. Aside from a vague desire to write, I had very little vision of how I would go about bringing this idea to fruition. But I have more clarity now, and I feel like I need a bit of quiet time to put this vision into action. 

This is the first time I’ve even written these thoughts down. It’s the first time they’ve left the confines of my own head. My intent was to talk to my husband about this during our one-week vacation in upstate New York, but now the vacation is almost over, and I still haven’t brought it up. I’m not sure what I’m worried about. I think he would support this idea, and I think that even my parents, who have always wanted me to write, would too.

Clarity of vision is difficult for me. I think I settle too quickly and too easily for alternatives to what I actually want. While adaptability is not necessarily a bad thing, I think I might be happier and more productive person if I stopped chasing things I don’t particularly want, like a full-time job in human services and a busy life in the suburbs. 

 

Vacation Site-Seeing Fever

shelburne-farms.jpg
The Farm Trail at Shelburne Farms

Almost every time I’m on vacation, I’m struck by an acute and unfortunate need to see and do as much as possible. And I want to see only the “best” of everything; I want to see the river from the best possible spot or the ultimate fall foliage, even if it means driving an hour out of the way. I want to do the best scenic drive and see the city’s prettiest streets and nicest parks. This is unfortunate because I spend a lot of time in a state of low-grade (sometimes high-grade) anxiety intricately planning everything, and then wondering if I’m really doing the best of whatever it is I’m currently doing.

We went to Vermont for about 48 hours and saw: Shelburne Farms, Burlington Waterfront Park, Church Street Pedestrian Mall, Oakledge Park, the Burlington Earth Clock, the town of Waterbury, the Ben and Jerry Factory, Monpelier and Killington. Looking back, what I really would have enjoyed would have been to stay at a rural bed and breakfast (the kind that serves a hot, home-made breakfast) about 30 minutes outside of Burlington, an entire day walking the trails and enjoying the landscape and animals at Shelburne Farms, and maybe a nice, leisurely walk along the Lake Champlain bike trail. Next time. I’m writing this down so that next time I’m struck with the site-seeing-best-of-everything-craze I’ll remember that it’s better to enjoy a few things in depth than many things shallowly. I want to try a different and more laid-back approach to vacation.

In any case, Vermont is so beautiful it almost looks fake.  My husband has family in upstate New York, and it’s given us a chance to explore this part of the country on a regular basis. I’ve lived in the suburbs most of my life, and I love spending time in a more rural place.

We Don’t Know.

It occurred to me the other day that there are parts of people’s lives we are completely unfamiliar with. I don’t mean strangers; I mean people we love and know well. For example, my sister goes to the beach with her husband’s family every year, and she spends some holidays with them. I’ve never met his extended family. A few times a year, I travel with my husband to upstate New York, where he has family. No one else in my family has visited the town we always go to, or met this part of our family. You can never completely live someone else’s experiences. I know that’s obvious, but it’s also kind of amazing.

God Loves Me?

I was watching a TV show yesterday and one of the characters said something to the effect of “Jesus loves you.” I’ve heard this phrase a million times: “Jesus loves me,” “Jesus loves us,” “Jesus loves you,” etc. I’ve also heard all variations of “God loves us.” But for some reason, it didn’t really hit me until that moment that many people go through life feeling this monumental love; everyday, they feel God’s love and/or Jesus’ love. I believe in God in an abstract, distant way, at least I think I do, but I’ve never actually thought that God loves me or cares much about me specifically. I don’t mean to say that I feel I’m undeserving of God’s love. What I mean to say is that I’ve never thought to wonder if God loves me or not.