Alas, February is here and love is in the air. For me, it will always evoke certain images of a French skunk and his slightly misguided quest for amore. These days, it brought forth Monsieur LaPew as well as another dreaded holiday that costs money. When creating my February No Buy budget, I began to examine the ghosts of Valentine's Days past.
There is the year at the beginning of my marriage. It was a year when things were bad and Valentine's Day was looking to be impossible. But, alas, it brought me more love than I could imagine. My beautiful Miss Lissie dog appeared from out of thin air. She was broken, starved, and homeless. She gave me more love than I could have ever imagined and it would be hard to top that golden furry Valentine.
Just before DS's first Valentine's Day, I took several photos of him and my Miss Lissie dog. He sat upright in a stroller, dressed in a romper covered in hearts and she leaned in for a kiss. The picture was snapped just before the kiss and in the photo, she only has eyes for him. I made copies of the photo and sent them out to family in a Valentine's greeting. On the day that the postman took the greetings from the mailbox, my Miss Lissie died. It was eleven years to the week that she had come into my life. (Ah, I wish that I could put my hands on the photo disk to post the picture here. If I find it, I will certainly come back and edit it in.) I spent around $35 for photo prints, card supplies, and postage.
I sent out Valentine's the next couple of years. Last year, or maybe it was the year before, I made custom wrappers for large chocolate bars from photos and scrapbook paper. By the time I printed photos, bought chocolate bars and shipped them out, I had spent almost $50. And these are for family gifts, it doesn't include DH and DS.
So, this year, I couldn't quite decide what, if anything to budget. I picked $100 out of thin air, and grimaced. A Benjamin is quite a chunk of change, especially given the new lifestyle. I have a theory that sometimes goes awry with money: Set a budget to spend, and try not to hit it. Well, it never seems to work that way. It seems like if the money is alloted, it will get spent. I had hoped to get some sort of small Valentine's out to family from DS, get DH a little something, give him a little cash (and a list! Did you read my post about gifts?) to buy something for me, pick up a small coveted toy for DS, and spend a little more at the grocery store to make a fabulous dinner.
Then, the most beloved appliance in my house died yesterday. Certainly not the most work-centric appliance, but definitely the most loved... the coffeemaker. Oh, sure, I'd be up the creek without the washing machine, dryer, or dishwasher, I do not underestimate the amount of work these take from daily life. I have handwashed before and hung clothes on the line. I have spent plenty of hours in my life with my hands in soapy water at the sink. I cringe at the thought of any of the big appliances dying. But, the coffeemaker! *gasp*
I would like to say that we evaluated the situation before springing into action. I'd like to say that we sat down and thought about whether or not we needed a coffeemaker. But, we are serious coffee drinkers and we couldn't drag ourselves out of bed if we didn't know that there was a hot, fresh pot of java awaiting us. And, both of us take a thermos to work full of hot coffee to help stick to our No Buy. So, we jumped into the car and tore out for Target.
On the coffeemaker aisle, we trolled back and forth. We evaluated prices, and features. Our main consideration was the clock/timer feature that allows us to have fresh coffee when we wake up. We took a good look at the cheapest one. It was the same model that had just died, and it was new last December. So,yeah, cheaper isn't always better. Only after we had picked out the newest love in our life did we really discuss how we were paying for it. (I did bring my cookie jar stash of unspent allowance.) Then, we realized that we were one aisle over from the Seal-a-Meal that was at the top of my Valentine's wish list. So, we picked it up as well, added DS a new package of Cars and called it Valentine's Day.
The total: $98. Is it romantic? Does it show love? Well, this morning, I totally loved my fresh coffee that DH made by setting up the coffeemaker before he left for work. So, yeah, in my house it is!
No comments:
Post a Comment