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.)

Back from An Un-Plugged Week at the Cape

We have returned after an all-too-short week on the Cape.  I'm too mellow to complain about anything with any proper level of sustained aggravation.   The weather was nearly perfect.  The only rain we got lasted about two hours.  Somebody said that the best time to catch fish is just after it stops raining.  So, we grabbed our poles and went over to the pond (30 yards away).  We caught a couple of good sized fish, on funky yellow spinner lures.  Unfortunately, I never read the section of the manual where it tells you how to use the camera function on the cellphone and instead lost the photographic proof of the huge Bass and Pike we caught!    They were THIS big (Holds hands about 18 inches apart)...ok maybe more like this (13 inches).

Anyhow,  we went swimming both in the pond by the cottage and also at the salt water beach near West Falmouth. The kids and grandkids came in family groups 3 days each.  They all had a good time, from the feedback I received.  The rubber rafts that I bought at Rhode Island Job Lot were a big hit.

One local provider of lobsters was having a sale ($5.99 per lb for 1.25 lb lobsters) all week so we steamed-up batches on two separate occasions.  Judy insisted that we only wanted male lobsters.  She doesn't like the red lobster roe.  So the fish guy was patient enough to check the genitalia of each lobster.  He tried to show us how to tell the difference, but we seemed immune to such fine distinctions and just nodded as he dropped the frisky fellers into the bag.  These smaller lobsters were the tenderest and tastiest I have enjoyed in years. Not to mention they were relatively inexpensive - normal price is $7.99 for "chicken lobsters."   Of course our feasts were accompanied by hot native corn on the cob.  And cold imported beer (from California).

The problem with August vacations is the garden.  All summer long, you tend and weed and fertilize and water.  Then just as everything is about to ripen, you go away.  When you come back you find that everything dried-up or the squirrels ate all your ripe tomatoes and rabbits ravaged the greenery.

But not this time:  Look at what I picked today!