Bachelor Home Economics 101

Yesterday, I finally followed up with the action related to some of my rantings I posted in my last entry: I relinquished my modems for my LAN phone and digital cable. I thought I would be feeling a tinge of regret, but I honestly didn't. It was actually empowering. It helped that I used most of that morning to be productive with so many other initiatives that jazzed me up with the knowledge of how much I was saving (in terms of time, energy, money), and techniques I was enhancing through committing myself to those tasks. I believe I reached new personal bests for optimal quantity, quality, and efficiency in managing my resources at home. I owe it to ridding myself of the extra distraction of television.That, plus also noting the ridiculous examples I've been witnessing lately of the insane pissing away and squandering some guys are doing with their recent windfalls of money has made me think more shrewdly. It really makes me so sick to watch it all happen. I suppose it sparked some kind of rebellious proactivity in myself to be a counter-example, and make certain that I'd never ever lower myself into becoming that ignorant, delusional, and stupid. I'm always eager and interested to find out ways to save a buck or two (or more) around my home, along with improving the productive use of my personal time, and to still acquire the things I like, but this time I thought I'd slap down some calculations and figures in this entry to keep me riding along on a cycle of motivation.
 

My biggest conquest of the day was making ten days worth of meals for about $15.00 worth of ingredients*. Cooking from scratch still rules! I figured I trimmed an extra $25.00 off of what I would normally be paying for groceries for that duration, about the cost of a dozen of Alexander Keith's IPA beer at the SLBS (the brand that I was craving). As much as I was tempted to reward myself with a couple of beers after the busy day, I became much more curious as to how far I could graft that money into perpetuating more savings. So, I compromised with my reward instead. I invested $17.29 in a discount beer kit (India Pale Ale style), since the vendor of it was en route to my modem disposal destination. One beer kit yields 23 litres of beer, or roughly 66 standard, 341 ml Canadian bottles. If I had bought that much of the brand I quoted, at retail price, it would be $137.50. Thus, I saved $120.21 this way, or spent $3.14/dozen** for my homemade beer, or about one fifteenth of the price per bottle of one I may have ordered from a pub/lounge/beer parlour, it's an enormous savings whichever way you choose to look at it.
 

So, I’ll have $7.71 left of those savings after the beer kit purchase. I wondered about sticking it into a wine fund. If I repeat this process for a few more months, and if the loonie stays well over par with the American dollar up like it is now, imported grape juice from California will be cheaper. By next September, when the next juice season arrives I would use that total savings make 23 litres of wine. My conservative estimate is that I would be making it at a cost of $2.75 per 750 ml bottle. If the average price of wine is around $12.00 for the retail brands I prefer, that same 23 litre quantity of wine would cost me $367.92: about a 280 dollar difference.
 

Thinking of exchange rates in the last paragraph leads me to note that I'm taking a break from the FOREX market for a while to rethink and re-model my methods and strategies. I haven't been losing out at the rate I did when I tried out this stuff a couple years ago. I did rake in some small profits today; however in the previous couple sessions of trading though, what looked to be promising profit making movements suddenly went volatile, and turned south when I wasn't around to close the orders on time. The indicators of the pairs I bought into dropped like shit from a tall cow, and closed at a bad net loss. It sobered me up to research more precautionary measures for the future. For now, saving coin is a lot easier for me to do than trying to profit on currency orders.
 

This is the outlook of how whittling down just this one bi-weekly food expense to $15.00; plus using six hours (including food prep and brewing time) of work has potential to help me save up to $540.00 for the same quantity of prepared food and booze bought from retailers.*** I'm frugal, not cheap; there is a difference. Being frugal is living richly, in a life enhancing way while spending very little, maximizing the bang for your buck; being cheap is not daring to spend anything at all out of greed, lack of confidence, and other motives related to fear of loss and deprivation.

*-That value is in proportion to the cost of the actual ingredient quantity I used. My grocery bill was slightly higher ($39.27); I portioned and froze the extra meat for future use, and stocked my pantry with the remaining extra bulk and canned goods. The results of my three hour kitchen frenzy for that afternoon were: one roast chicken, six litres of chicken stock, three litres (6 large servings) of Caribbean Black Bean Soup, 500 ml of chicken salad, 700 ml taboulleh salad, 400 ml of egg salad, one large black olive and oregano focaccia bread, three servings  of pasta arrabiata, three servings of walnut pesto sauce, two servings of Chicken Achiote, four servings of Spanish rice, and six servings of cole slaw. My conservative estimate of what all this would have cost if I bought all this as pre-made, delicatessen goodies, or convenience food ranges between $120.00 and $140.00. To add, this stuff I made is a hell of cheaper and healthier than 10 days worth of McHappy meals. If I had more time, and used some of the garden goodies that were gifted to me by my folks, I probably could have covered beyond a full two weeks.

**-I love that figure! How often is it that one could say that one spent pi dollars for a dozen bottles of beer? I will procure the more accurate savings figures for making my own wine in another entry when I actually get around to doing it.

***-This posting also serves as a special "Go Screw Yourself!" message to all the people from my past, especially to those macho shithead jocks out there, who ever bullied, ridiculed, badgered me, and thought me a sissy or effeminate because I knew my way around kitchen. They are the same kind of stupid assholes who would go broke feeding themselves because they are too retarded to know how to cook for themselves if their wives/girlfriends ever left them (and for some of them, they damn well deserve that sort of karma).