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Consciousness Raised, now for the Net Worth...

January 31st, 2007 at 03:52 am

January is the hardest month financially for my family. Water/sewer bill, electricity bill (a third of the water/sewer), highest natural gas bill, semi-annual insurance, dental appointments. I start to worry about making my full Roth IRA payment, and fret about energy. I'm reeling from some poorly timed purchases: pricey motorcycle boots, dresses for interviews, another motor scooter (80 mpg, under $2K), a nifty helmet.

For those who keep track, I am in my quarterly "I am poor and inadequate and have no self-discipline, so I'll throw myself under a hybrid bus" anxiety attack.

Especially I am fretting now that I'm reading High Noon for Natural Gas by Julian Darley, and The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and ten months of the year being here is splendid. This is not one of the splendid months ($147 heating bill).

How do I calculate the projected natural gas costs? I need to estimate them so I can determine if it's worth going back into debt to make energy efficient home improvements, or if I should just use some film coatings and caulk.

There are simple living groups and gurus (Cecile Andrews, Vicki Robin, Steve Rose all live in Seattle), study groups and progressive communities here, including a Peak Oil Awareness group. They're probably all debt-free with no mortgage, or child-free. It sounds hokey to put out a personal ad, but I'm wondering if there are any other parents nearby like me who are thinking "eeps! I better adjust so I can give my kid and my senior self a better life!"
Thursday's Peak Oil Awareness group might be where I meet him or her.

When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around
I sometimes fear I'm unwilling to make necessary adjustments to adapt to the reality of diminishing oil and gas reserves -- this year so many countries (Canada and Mexico and others) are to have their peak output of these natural resources, and then trouble will start (like it didn't start in 1973, or 2003).
I have strong psychological attachments to the home, I don't have the time right now really to get gung-ho on gardening, aside from ordering seed catalogues from organic seed suppliers. But I have Steve Solomon's book Gardening When it Counts.

Something else I need to do is rely more on beans and rice to make complete proteins. A few months ago, inspired by the peak oil crisis, I opted to make as much of my diet come from agriculture within 100 miles from me. I eat more fish than chicken and beef these days, but a recent New York Times article by Michael Pollan gave me twinges of regret spending $100 on local organic beef and wild-caught fish this past weekend. Our diet should be mostly plant-based, with maybe a 4 oz. portion of meat, instead of the 5-6 oz. portions. I'd save some dollars.

And I did a bad thing -- I walk close to a mile every day, either to the post office or bus stop or library. Sunday afternoon, jonesing after taking my tot for a 1.3-mile walk with playtime around a man-made lake, I took my motorcycle to the library (0.5 miles away) to photocopy the Sunday crossword. That cost me nearly five cents in gas. I could have walked some more, but seeing other motorcyclists enjoying the sun makes me itch for my scooter key.

It is not without alarm I read online economic data points spiced like projected home valuation depreciation, current negative savings rates, with the comment "Not since the 1930s..." Everyone knows how America fared in the 1930s, right? At least I still have those bottles of sloe gin and liquors. And a fur coat.

I've got to cut down on the frivolous expenses, and I've got to get my family to help. I've got to increase our taxable assets, maybe buy some gold. And chickens. If S. J. Perelman, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, and E. B. White can transition to farmer scribes, I should be able to transition to farmer tech scribe.

I want to inoculate us against the myopia and ignorance of others, and the waste and dystopic zeitgeist around me. I want to seek local versions of the SavingAdvice.com mentors here. I'll even make tea biscuits and offer what I hope to be the last frivolous purchase in a while: specialty tea from TeaCup. Even if it means turning on the natural gas to heat the water.

Protecting the family from screen media is another hard task. I rented "Mr. Show", Seasons 1 and 2 of a hip, long past (1995-1998) sketch comedy HBO show. My kid loves DVDs and VHS, although he sees maybe two hours a week, and we're thinking even that's too much for him: "Let's play Trailer Park Boys, okay? Let's play Mr. Show and I'll be Bob Odenkirk, okay?"

I need to lighten up, but at this point I am racing around the house yelling at people for leaving lights on. I need to break free of this bulimic pattern of scrimp scrimp SPLURGE SPLURGE scrimp scrimp scrimp. I am seriously considering giving up the television, only how would I watch my Chaplin DVDs at those times the world seems especially oppressive and pugnacious?

1 Responses to “Consciousness Raised, now for the Net Worth...”

  1. LuckyRobin Says:
    1170225707

    Slow down, breathe and try not to take the entire weight of the whole wide world onto your shoulders. Your back and your mind will break. All that you can really do is to take one step at a time. Take one thing, one change that you want to make and learn to do it and do it really well and once you have mastered that, move on to the next thing. You cannot change the world overnight, you can only change yourself and inspire others to change.

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