Indulgent Allocations

I am at the library, hiding, while the cleaners are at the house,scrubbing and vacuuming.  Since we retreated from the world of full-time work (and full-sized paychecks) we have cut-back on many of our discretionary expenses.  Dry cleaning, eating-out, impulse purchases have been severely curtailed.  Nowadays, I go to Hair Cuts Ltd where I can get a senior cut for $12  (and every 10th cut is Free!) instead of going to my former barber who charged $35 for the same trim and no freebies.  At the supermarket, we tend to choose items that are on sale.  I have little use for professionally laundered shirts, and have adopted the typical wrinkled retiree look. (The wrinkles practically disappear after you have worn an item for an hour or so.)
I guess these alterations in lifestyle are fairly typical of retirees who find themselves facing the uncertain future with a drastically reduced, fixed  income stream.

But there are some quality-of-life compromises we have agreed not to skimp on.  So, every two weeks we chip-in from our allowance money to put folding green in the cleaners' envelope. 

Just last week this agreement was reaffirmed.  We had rented a house on the Cape for the first week in August.  Part of the rental agreement include leaving the 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house swept, vacuumed and clean.  As we were driving back, my wife observed, "See, we are not such indolent creatures; we can still manage to clean a 3 bedroom house!  Maybe we should fire the cleaners and save all that money we are paying them."  Then, we just looked at each other and laughed --as we always do when one of us suggests saving money by firing the cleaners.  Hey, let the grand kids earn scholarships if they want to go to college. 

The other thing that we've agreed not to skimp on is travel.  If we go, we don't go off-season to save a few bucks.  We eat-out and have good meals while we are traveling.  We stay in three or four star accommodations.  We rent a car.  We check our bags on the plane.  We aren't crazy extravagant - we do check the online specials and try to get the best price for rooms cars, airline tickets, then we bite the bullet and book.  During the trip we try not to think about what it is costing. 

The problem about travel is this:  Since we don't have regular jobs, there is no good excuse to resist the urge to go places.  So every week or so (it seems), I find a new glossy travel brochure on my desk, or my wife sends me an email link from her latest Trip Advisor.com search on great destinations in Italy.  "You need to plan the next trip so you have something to look forward to," she reminds me.  I know this is true. But, where will we get the money, I wonder.  Maybe we should fire the cleaners. (Laughs.)