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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

What I'd Do All Day and Are You Crazy, Too?


[Image: "Books Are Love" by janetmck]

My brother: “You know, the thing I don’t get is, it seems like if you retired early you’d just sit around and read books all day.”

Me: “Exactly!”

Yeah, he knows me pretty well.

[Well, I’d actually spend about 80% of my time sitting around reading books all day, and the other 20% writing, researching, surfing the internet, watching movies, drawing, talking on the phone, traveling, walking, exploring the city, ice skating, roller skating, biking, cooking, typing, sitting outside, drinking tea, saving money, scuba diving, asking questions, answering questions, taking pictures, coloring, learning new software, petting cats, running, swimming, hang gliding, doing needlepoint, crocheting, thrift shopping, window shopping, taking long drives, picking apples, jumping in leaves, setting goals, going to the library, collecting, sweeping, making up new outfits, eating caramels, painting, playing board games, watching TV, cuddling, talking to my beloved, feeding birds, birdwatching, tubing, hiking, playing in a concert band. List from this thread.]

Emptying Out the Pantry Report:

Breakfast: Turkey bacon, cheesecake with strawberries, Earl Grey gulped down so fast I burned my throat.

Lunch: Tuna salad, romaine salad, soy nuts, square of dark chocolate

Dinner: Chicken fried rice and more cheesecake

(It might be relevant to mention at this point that I’m more-or-less on Atkins. Today being one of the “less” days. The cheesecake, however, was homemade and Atkins legal.)

As I forge ahead on this extremely strict food budget, I know that a lot of people would consider me, well, fairly insane for not just going to the grocery store and buying a bunch of food. So I'd like to try to pound a few other frugal freaks out of the woodwork here. Have you ever done something eccentric or downright crazy in order to save money? Why? And was it worth it? (I know a couple of the regular readers of this blog can top anything I could come up with.)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

For the record, I never said there was anything crazy about wanting to spend most of the day reading. God knows if I had any literary taste whatsoever I would. I was just curious what your post-retirement plans were.

Also, learning new software? You sound like Dad.

Scarlett said...

Oh, I didn't think you thought I was crazy. Although I can see why you thought I was saying that, considering the name of the post. Two totally unrelated thoughts! I just thought it was amusing that you thought I would read all day, because I would. :)

Retired Syd said...

I love your list of the zillions of things you will do in retirement--I think you're going to need more than 20% of the time for all that though!

I wrote a post awhile back about how I though women had more interests than men, but yesterday I had my astrology chart read (a gift from a friend) and he said that it's typical for Sagittarius to have many many interests. (That's me, I wonder if you're one too?) I guess I'll have to stop the men-bashing thing now that I have a new explanation.

Anonymous said...

I could probably come up with something more extreme if I thought about it, but for my first two years of college (which was about 6 years ago) I didn't eat out AT ALL or go to the movies AT ALL. Not once. I loosened up a little bit my junior year when I had a few thousand dollars saved up.

Scarlett said...

@retired syd: Nope, I'm an Aquarius, so I'll have to stick with the man/woman explanation.

@s.r.: I'm impressed! And you could come up with something more extreme? I think you've got me beat.

Anonymous said...

ate "meow mix" cat food that was given to me. (free, in other words...) it consisted of chunks of moist salmon. it tasted alright.

i ate this when i was trying to save $.

Anonymous said...

p.s.: i don't own a cat.

Scarlett said...

@anonymous: You officially win this comment thread.

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