Pasta & Vasectomies

I have been reading the headlines.....pasta consumption is up! Vasectomies are up! all due the recession. We've been trying to be more conscious of where our money goes too because of the recession. Some months are better than others. I bought Quinn's summer shorts at the second hand store. I try to shop at Save a Lot for stuff like produce, canned items and dairy (it is a lot cheaper). We also try to eat through our pantry before I go to the store which averages every 2 weeks for a major shopping trip. We do have to buy milk and bread throughout those weeks, but I try to wait on the rest. I try to stay home during the week as much as possible to avoid being tempted in a store to buy stuff on impulse and to save on gas. We reduced our cable/internet bill and phone bills. We cut our membership to the gym (although I'm thinking of re-joining later this spring on an individual membership vs. family). We hardly eat out as a family. If we eat anywhere, it's fast food and we bring it home maybe once a week. Even doing that, I plan for drinks at home, we buy sandwiches and minimal fries then add a fruit and maybe some chips from the pantry. I even began to use cloth diapers about 6 months ago to fore go having to fork out close to $160 a month in Huggies. (We still use some Huggies at night and when we're away from home for a long period of time).

I'm not complaining, just commiserating. It makes me think about my grandparents in the Great Depression (which also leads me to wonder, what they will call our current Depression down the road, the Not so Great Recession?). I digress. My Grandma was a frugal, penny pinching person till the end. She had plastic on her couches so they wouldn't get dirty and those great vibrant colored metal cups in her cabinets. She got rid of nothing. Everything was hoarded and treasured. Our society is so "disposable". If something breaks, we throw it away. If something is old, we get a new one. My kids even noted as we waited at a stop light off the highway how dirty and littered the area was from people driving by and dumping cups, trash, papers. They said, "people just don't care if they're litterbugs!".

Maybe if people had cared more about someone other than themselves, we wouldn't be where we are now. Maybe we'd have something still. These times make you realize what is valuable, what is important and it's unfortunate that it takes times like these to bring it to your attention.