03 April 2011
Frugality & Virtue
03/04/11 11:58
Quick, name a liquid that you drink?
Beer.
No, this stuff is clear and has no taste.
American Beer.
An old Canadian joke but I've come to realize that there is some truth in it. I was never a huge beer drinker. Back in college I was always the designated driver. Generally my attitude toward beer ranged from indifference (Miller, Summit, Stroh's) to active dislike (Western, Budweiser, Coors). Overall though I'd rather have had pop of some kind or if I was feeling dangerous a little bit of White Zinfandel.
Since I've moved up here though I've discovered a whole world of beers that are really good. We mentioned Dead Frog last year. It's a local brew that we first picked up because of the name but it turned out to be one of our favourites. This week we ran across another one. Gopher Lager is made in Alberta and is even better. For the first time I actually look forward to having a beer, well, half a beer. Marsha and I usually share one because while blood may be thicker than water, beer is more expensive than either.
And I have a long tradition of being frugal.
In other news I started the seeds for the garden. It's still too cold to put them out but I have them in peat pots in the kitchen windowsill. You know, apparently gardening has gotten a lot more complex than it used to be. We got the bag of soil and pots at Canadian Tire. As I paid, the older lady running the register in the garden section mentioned "Now, honey, you make sure to follow the instructions on the package". You gotta' be kidding me, instructions? For dirt? But when I got home I looked at the bag and by golly there were instructions. And not just "place soil in pot, add seeds". No, I had to measure out some soil in a bucket and then add water in small amounts while stirring it so the "moisture crystals" would soak up. Only when the blend was uniform, without lumps and evenly damp but not soggy was it suitable to plant.
Instructions for dirt; who knew?
So the pots are in the windowsill and the tomatoes are growing wildly. I had enough seeds to put several in each pot so I'm going back through and pulling out the weak and smaller ones so I'll end up with one or two strong plants in each pot that I can move outside in May.
The bell peppers are a different story though. I got both red and green and there were just enough seeds for one in each pot (Well ok a couple of them got two, but it wasn't the dozen or so each like the tomato pots got.) So far there has been nothing. Not a single one of them has sprouted. No evidence of anything pushing up through or even disturbing the soil. You'd think I'd fertilized the peppers with Roundup. They are completely dead. So, on the assumption I got some bad seeds, we picked up some new seeds and will try again. Worst comes to worst, I'll get some bedding plants and put THEM out but I'd rather be able to say I grew them from seeds like the tomatoes. It's also cheaper, than bedding plants.
That is unless I have to keep buying new seeds over and over.
And speaking about being cheap how about getting a $320 iPod Touch for less than $100. It started a couple of months ago when we got new phones. We bought two phones for $75 each but we managed to catch a special where Future Shop gave us a $75 gift certificate for each one. Then we waited. Now, Apple products never seem to go on sale, but finally after waiting for months we saw another deal. Future Shop was offering a $75 discount on a new iPod Touch if we traded in an old iPod. We had an old iPod. It was the second one we ever bought. It wasn't touch screen. It wasn't even colour. The headphone plug was intermittent. The screen was dim and hard to read. It would sometimes shut itself off for no reason. And the battery life was around 30 minutes. If we'd tried to sell it we'd have been lucky to get anything. But it WAS an iPod and Future Shop gave us $75 for it. So $319.99 - (3 x $75) = $94.99 for a brand new iPod Touch.
And I call that a heck of a deal.
My new toy
Thought for the week:
Frugality is living well without wasting.
Parsimony is sacrificing your quality of life for the sake of not spending money.
If the purpose of money isn't to improve how you live, what is it for?
Doug & Marsha
Beer.
No, this stuff is clear and has no taste.
American Beer.
An old Canadian joke but I've come to realize that there is some truth in it. I was never a huge beer drinker. Back in college I was always the designated driver. Generally my attitude toward beer ranged from indifference (Miller, Summit, Stroh's) to active dislike (Western, Budweiser, Coors). Overall though I'd rather have had pop of some kind or if I was feeling dangerous a little bit of White Zinfandel.
Since I've moved up here though I've discovered a whole world of beers that are really good. We mentioned Dead Frog last year. It's a local brew that we first picked up because of the name but it turned out to be one of our favourites. This week we ran across another one. Gopher Lager is made in Alberta and is even better. For the first time I actually look forward to having a beer, well, half a beer. Marsha and I usually share one because while blood may be thicker than water, beer is more expensive than either.
And I have a long tradition of being frugal.
In other news I started the seeds for the garden. It's still too cold to put them out but I have them in peat pots in the kitchen windowsill. You know, apparently gardening has gotten a lot more complex than it used to be. We got the bag of soil and pots at Canadian Tire. As I paid, the older lady running the register in the garden section mentioned "Now, honey, you make sure to follow the instructions on the package". You gotta' be kidding me, instructions? For dirt? But when I got home I looked at the bag and by golly there were instructions. And not just "place soil in pot, add seeds". No, I had to measure out some soil in a bucket and then add water in small amounts while stirring it so the "moisture crystals" would soak up. Only when the blend was uniform, without lumps and evenly damp but not soggy was it suitable to plant.
Instructions for dirt; who knew?
So the pots are in the windowsill and the tomatoes are growing wildly. I had enough seeds to put several in each pot so I'm going back through and pulling out the weak and smaller ones so I'll end up with one or two strong plants in each pot that I can move outside in May.
The bell peppers are a different story though. I got both red and green and there were just enough seeds for one in each pot (Well ok a couple of them got two, but it wasn't the dozen or so each like the tomato pots got.) So far there has been nothing. Not a single one of them has sprouted. No evidence of anything pushing up through or even disturbing the soil. You'd think I'd fertilized the peppers with Roundup. They are completely dead. So, on the assumption I got some bad seeds, we picked up some new seeds and will try again. Worst comes to worst, I'll get some bedding plants and put THEM out but I'd rather be able to say I grew them from seeds like the tomatoes. It's also cheaper, than bedding plants.
That is unless I have to keep buying new seeds over and over.
And speaking about being cheap how about getting a $320 iPod Touch for less than $100. It started a couple of months ago when we got new phones. We bought two phones for $75 each but we managed to catch a special where Future Shop gave us a $75 gift certificate for each one. Then we waited. Now, Apple products never seem to go on sale, but finally after waiting for months we saw another deal. Future Shop was offering a $75 discount on a new iPod Touch if we traded in an old iPod. We had an old iPod. It was the second one we ever bought. It wasn't touch screen. It wasn't even colour. The headphone plug was intermittent. The screen was dim and hard to read. It would sometimes shut itself off for no reason. And the battery life was around 30 minutes. If we'd tried to sell it we'd have been lucky to get anything. But it WAS an iPod and Future Shop gave us $75 for it. So $319.99 - (3 x $75) = $94.99 for a brand new iPod Touch.
And I call that a heck of a deal.
My new toy
Thought for the week:
Frugality is living well without wasting.
Parsimony is sacrificing your quality of life for the sake of not spending money.
If the purpose of money isn't to improve how you live, what is it for?
Doug & Marsha