Counting My Blessings
Posted by Lizzie on May-28-2008I have issues with budgeting and planning. I don’t like to do either. However, with the way gas prices are today, I think it’s a good time to start. My husband and I aren’t going to retire any day soon and we’d like to keep our home, so this is something I really need to get a grip on. Right?
Lately I’ve seen a lot of people asking “What are you doing to cope?” That’s a good question. The economy is tanking and people are feeling the pinch. It’s come down to “Do I keep all 5 cell phones? Cut down to basic cable? Eat day old bread?” While I’ve been trying to learn to cut down on our expenses and find extra dollars here and there, I’ve been thinking of what my grandparents had to endure. And somehow managed to survive.
My great-grandmother was born before the Great Depression. They managed to live on $2-5 a week- if that. They didn’t have a car (much less two) and couldn’t afford to buy their children a different pair of shoes for each different outfit. As a matter of fact, my grandmother once told me that they had their “Sunday best”- which was only worn on Sunday - and their everyday clothes. Two outfits. That’s it. How did they do it? And meat was only eaten once a week- or twice if there was a holiday. They convened at the neighbor’s house when there was an interesting radio program playing, otherwise they did without (no TV mind you).
I look around my house and realize that we’ve got it good. I’m typing this on a PC and posting it via the Internet and if we were really that bad off, I would have neither of these luxuries. I wouldn’t have a special shampoo or be able to choose whole grain bread over white bread. I wouldn’t be able to say “Hey! I need new sandals because these are just ugly!” Nope. I would be canning and hoarding and scraping to make sure my kids had a roof over their heads, not worrying about going to basic cable instead of America’s Top 150 on Dish. My children have closets full of clothes and have milk and meat everyday. I’m scrimping and saving to keep these things. So they don’t go without them. Not so they’ll survive. Because I have no worries that our money woes are going to cause our kids to get sick, go homeless or die. We are LUCKY. I don’t think enough people realize just how lucky they are.
I’m still coming up with a budget, though. I like our little luxuries and don’t want to have to give them up. I like having cable and the internet and being able to buy my kids little cheap toys every so often. I like being able to choose between good food and processed. I like that I can take my girls to a decent doctor and not have to worry about them dying from an ear infection (my great-uncle died from an ear infection when he was 1 year old). We have one car (and it runs!), two tvs (we married our households so one of them is 15 years old), and one PC. Our bills are paid on time every month and our refrigerator is always stocked. We’ve got it good. I’m not complaining. I’m counting my blessings.
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LOL. Thanks to you too, Lizzie.
Sploggers are using Adsense and making Google money. If a blog is using PayPerPost Google isn’t making any money. The choice for Google is simple, isn’t it?
That’s one way of looking at it, Frank. Right now it looks like Big G is going after the PPP folks because those hit are making a lot of noise. But I got a feeling there’s more to it than that in this present round of Google slap.
Really, I don’t care about PR. I’ll sell links and reviews on my blog even if it remains a PR 0 for the rest of its life…
Yep Frank agreed, sploggers are full with Adsense ads. Google has shown it’s true colors. It’s not about a rich search experience, it’s about the money.
I think you have the right idea. We can’t worry too much about something we have no control over. Besides, if we crawl back out of this hole they’ll probably just smack us back down again.
Costa,
You’re welcome.
Frank C,
Of course! That’s what I was saying. Google says they only want relevant search results, but have you tried searching for “arthritis clinic of Stark County”? Yeah, those are relevant results all right. Heh.
Markk,
I see more dire things coming.
Ruchir,
At least until advertisers start refusing to pay you for them. They want to pay for popular sites and have drunk the PR koolaid. Not much money in that if your PR is Zero. Ya know?
Jason,
Exactly. They have the power and they know it. Except I don’t care about their power anymore. I’m not sure I ever did, except for the ppp thing. I’m not exactly getting rich off of that either. Hopefully the big G won’t take away my Intertoobs key next time.
Actually not everyone got smacked, pretty much everyone who didn’t use nofollow.
Hi, Indiana! Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve already mentioned that in my post:
I’ve also reconsidered my my position regarding the whole issue. You can find more of my thoughts regarding this particular thing here.