Good bye former life

We've decided to try not spending any money for 2009. That means that we will not buy anything at all unless it is for health. We are still setting up the ground rules. Because Jeff and I go out to eat way too much, we decided that it's back to the kitchen for us. We've reacquainted ourselves with the kitchen and have already made several nice dinners and we are quite pleased with ourselves. Our grocery bill looked kind of high, but that was to be expected cuz we had to start off with some food.

Our daughter, Nadia, took pity on us and invited us to her place for lunch tomorrow. That will seem like an outing for us. She did say to bring a salad so Jeff and I will prepare that happily together.

All seems good...so far. The one exception is that I was set to take two little garments to the cleaners today and Jeff reminded me that that was an area I should cut down on. Okay, so I won't wear fine silk blouses and angora sweaters for the whole 2009. He wondered if I just couldn't launder them myself and, of course, I can. The silk blouse is old, so if I ruin it, it had a good life. The sweater should be okay.

Ground rules: For now, we know that going out to eat is out. But I wondered about buying prepared foods. Seems we should cook it all from scratch. HMMM? Going out to eat was our identity. Who will we be without that?

Personal grooming: Jeff wants to continue to get haircuts and I said that I could go a year without cutting my hair. I have never done this and have no clue whether this is possible without scaring myself silly when I look in the mirror. But, if he is getting haircuts, then I should at least be able to buy hair dye. If I am not a grandmother (Nadia are you listening) then I don't want to look like one.

I have already bought 6 months of contact lenses, so it seems reasonable that I should be able to buy the solutions I need for that purpose, right? Well, Jeff protested that I could live very happily with glasses for the whole of 2009. I had to plead that my glasses are old and I would save buying new ones, if I could just have the lousy solutions.

It will be very interesting to see if we make it. We love to watch Longhorn basketball games, football games, etc. in a sports bar. Would we be able to get away with nursing an ice tea for an entire game at a sports bar? Should we even spend the few bucks for an ice tea. Since we don't have cable, we would have to watch games broadcasted on networks we get and listen to the rest on the radio. I suppose I could knit while I listen to a game on the radio.

Life as we know it is already changing. I'm hoping we will become very good at snatching good free entertainment whereever we can get it and decluttering the house will also be good. Not buying doodads and clothes that overstuff my closets will be nice. Who am I trying to convince?

The hardest thing will be vacations. We decided not to take any. Anyone who knows us, knows that we take at least 3 nice vacation every year. Sitting at home or just visiting venues in our area seems pretty lame but we can make them just as much fun as say, Paris. LOL! Stay tuned...