Ugh. I saw this horrid sight for the first time in my life, but probably not the last.
It's kinda funny -- last week, a classmate and I were fussing about fuel prices when I speculated, "I'd be that diesel will be up to four dollars per gallon by Labor Day (beginning of September), maybe even Memorial Day (end of May)." Or... tomorrow! This followed a fifty-cent rise in the price of diesel over a two week period. Ugh. :J
By now, I should've closed on and moved into my condo in Greensboro. Negotiations with the seller were quite brief and the inspection turned up little of concern. I knew when I made the offer that I was buying the most expensive unit in the community of about 200 condos, but I figured that it was worth it since there's steady demand for housing in that area and my unit would have a brand new kitchen, furnace, water heater, and even a gas stove for back-up heat. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be.
Bad news came back with the appraisal, which valued the unit at about 5% less than what I'd agreed to pay. The seller, who was not using an agent, had made noises that he wasn't willing to lower the price since he'd accounted for his renovations and a buyer's agent's commission in the price. At the same time, the mortgage company wouldn't lend me all of the money that I'd need to buy the place. I had a few options before me if I really wanted the place. I could pay for another appraisal, but that seemed pointless. The appraisal looked reasonable enough to me and my realtor's research revealed it to be so; it even appeared that the appraiser had tried to help me out a bit by using comparables at the higher end of the scale and looking at a very similar community about a mile away (Whilden Place) where units sell at consistently higher prices. Other options involved even more money coming out of my pocket and none of them were at all appealing; some even seemed ethically questionable, though legal. I decided to let the condo go on the grounds that it didn't appraise and I couldn't get satisfactory financing. It took about a week of my realtor's arm-twisting and my own hand-wringing to convince the sellers to sign termination papers on the sales contract, but they finally did and I look forward to picking up a check for my earnest money before the weekend.
During this drama, Leslie, my friend with whom I was staying in Kernersville, made me a very good offer to rent space in her house. A bit of budget forecasting showed that this would be a very good move, even after accounting for the additional fuel and car maintenance costs, and would provide each of us with a built-in pet-sitter.
I've spent the past week settling into my new digs, the large bonus room above Leslie's garage. She installed ceiling fans and a closet system and I've been dragging things out from storage to make the place homey. I brought Cilly to his new home and he is acclimating well and becoming acquainted with his new canine cousin, Leslie's dog, Emma.
With the housing question answered, I turned my attention to other law school housekeeping matters -- applying for student loans and purchasing a laptop. The loan applications are in and I hope to hear something soon. I'd assumed that I'd buy a Dell laptop, but I don't care for the looks of their current line. I'd seen some nice Hewlett-Packard laptops at Costco, so I compared prices around town. Costco's prices were about the best around (bested by Sam's by a few pennies, but beating hp.com by a few hundred dollars). I was still nervous about shelling out so much money for a computer with an operating system that I'd never used (Windows Vista) from a manufacturer with whose products I had little experience, but Costco has a good return policy for computers, offers technical support, and extends the manufacturer's warranty on computers that it sells, so I finally settled on configuring a system myself on costco.com and expect it to arrive soon.
Meanwhile, Chris has been having his own housing drama, but I can hear the fat lady warming up so a climax seems to be drawing near; he'll move into his new condo this weekend.
Though I've heard the -vegas suffix applied with varying degrees of admiration and derision to many -villes (particularly Nashville, to become Nashvegas), Kernersvegas is a particularly apt moniker for Kernersville for me, since Leslie moved here about a year ago from Las Vegas AND the fact that I'm about to roll the dice in the crap-shoot of life in a quite fabulous way. :J
I am proud to consider myself a frugal individual -- one who economises on most of my resources, not just money, though everything seems to come back to that most liquid of assets. I believe that frugality is important for making the most of the limited amount of resources that I personally possess and for conserving the limited resources that exist on our planet so that others might enjoy something closer to their fair share of our planet's bounty.
One way that I do this is through my shopping habits. I'll look for anything on E-Bay. I've bought books, many clothes, shoes, crockery, car parts, tools, and endless gifts from other individuals from around the world on E-Bay. In doing so, I'm reusing something that's likely still perfectly good rather than buying something new (though much new merchanside sells on E-Bay, too), paying less for it than I would if it were new, and sending a few dollars to an individual to whom that money probably means more than if I were to spend it at a corporate store. Shops run by Goodwill, the Salvation Army, Urban Ministry (Greensboro), the Rescue Mission (Winston-Salem), Habitat for Humanity, and endless other non-profits, charities, and churches are also good places to hunt for reusable bargains.
When you're finished with something, don't just throw it away and let it sit in a land-fill or be incinerated. Sell the best things on E-Bay, put the rest in a yard sale, and donate the remainder to a charity shop! You'll help someone to find a bargain and put a few dollars back into your own pocket!
Let's think about grocery shopping for just a moment. I often start my shopping at Big Lots. They have some incredible bargains, even on what would normally be pricey food (gourmet and organic items). Monthly trips to Costco help me to stock up cheaply on items of which I use a lot (cereals, soy milk, canned tuna, coffee, fish, produce, paper products, etc), but be sure to compare prices, as such "wholesale" clubs aren't always the cheapest! Store brands almost always deliver better value over national brands, even with a coupon.
Don't forget to read those nutrition labels carefully! Cheap food is often made with cheap ingredients and the few dollars that you save now will be spent down the road on health care costs associated with consuming such trash.
I don't often use coupons. I was once a loyal devotee of the clip-'n'-save method, until I thought about what I was buying with coupons and found that it was often something that I wouldn't normally buy. Even if it were, the store brand was usually cheaper. I now see coupons for what they are, a marketing device.
However, there are many things that money can't buy. Though it might not seem like it on that flight from New York to Kuala Lumpur, this is a small planet and, at the moment, it's the only one that we have. Our mother Earth gives freely of many of her resources, but they're not endless. Someday, the oil, coal, natural gas, and, perhaps, even the air and water will run out. Money can't buy more of any of these things. There are over six-and-a-half billion people on this planet with whom we have to share this space and limited resources. Not only is the rate at which industrialised nations use oil irresponsible from the perspective of its being a finite resource, but the way that we use it damages the planet on which we depend for life. Sure, the planet can heal itself if left alone, but that takes time and money can't buy time.
When you're next on the hunt for a new car, look for one with a smaller engine that will get better gas mileage. Better yet, buy a gasoline-electric hybrid (as much as 70 MPG) or a diesel (as much as 48 MPG) car and steer clear of the Hummer dealership!
So, the next time that you're have to go out for groceries or are in the mood to do a bit of recreational shopping, start at the thrift store, charity shop, or E-Bay. You'll find a bargain or two, keep a few dollars in your pocket until another day, help a worthy cause, and take a bite out of conspicuous consumerism. :J
