I guess it’s no big secret that money is tight for most everyone right now. With inflation and rapidly rising gas prices, most Americans are doing all they can to stretch a dollar. I, for one, am stretching them so far they are in danger of ripping apart. I suppose that is what we all have to do for a while until things seem to level out.
The blame for the rise in everyday costs can be put on any number of people depending on who you talk to. Republicans are blaming the Democrats, the Democrats are blaming the Russians and so on. Of course, with all this going on, a lot of so-called experts are telling us how to save money and cut back on costs. Everyone has an opinion and you know what they say about those.
I’ve been doing pretty well managing things for a while and figured we would be okay. We are going to be okay, just a little tight, but there are some folks out there that are choosing between gasoline and food. Turn on the television and there is a politician telling these folks that the answer is to buy an electric car. That’s all fine and dandy, Mr. Smarty Pants, but if these folks are having trouble buying food and gas, I’m sure they have $60,000 sitting around so they can buy a fancy electric car.
At my house, I don’t have a garage. Where am I supposed to plug in my car?
This morning on one of those stupid morning news shows that go on for two or more hours, there was some egghead talking about how the average American can spend less on meals by doing a few simple things. He talked about “meatless Monday” and how that could save consumers x-amount of dollars by cutting back on their meat budget. Have a pasta salad instead of a steak.
I have some news for that guy: I haven’t had steak as a regular meal in, well, forever. I sure as hell have eaten a lot more pasta salad than steak.
It was also suggested that consumers use a meal service instead of going to the store and wasting gas. I thought that was a brilliant idea. Pay for someone else to use their gas instead. There’s no way that could go wrong. He estimated that a family of three would have a weekly food budget of $400. I’ve fed a family pretty well on much less. If I had a $400 a week food budget, I’m pretty sure food would be one of the last issues in my house.
My suggestion is much less complicated. Don’t eat. You read that correctly. If you simply skip all meals, the rest of the financial blocks will fall into place. If you don’t eat, you will be too weak to drive. If you don’t drive, you don’t need gasoline. There will be fewer people on the roads because everyone will be at home suffering from starvation that the price of fuel will decrease because there is such a surplus. If the price of fuel goes down, so does the cost of everything else. Additionally, as people slowly die from hunger, there will be less stress put on the economy. Less demand means more supply and more supply means lower prices. It’s the survival of the fittest. Only the strong survive. Add whatever other goofy catchphrase you want and you get the idea
Walk to work. Whether it is one mile or 30 miles, walk to work. I have a 35-mile commute and I walk about 3 miles per hour if I really hustle. I’m over 50, so I don’t hustle like I used to, so I figure if I walk to work, it would take me about 12 hours to get there. My day starts at eight a.m. I leave at 8 p.m., taking 12 hours to get to work. I get off work at 5:30, so it would take me until 5:30 a.m. to get home. Allowing for sleep, the math adds up to either I am at work or walking to work. Okay, the math doesn’t add up at all so we know that walking to work is not an option. The closest public transportation is 40 miles in the other direction and doesn’t help me one bit. I am only mentioning the public transportation option because the paper is required to have a certain number of public service mumbo jumbo things each week.
So, to sum everything up, my suggestion is to not eat and to walk everywhere. I know that sounds pretty stupid, but so do the suggestions the “experts” are coming up with.
Award-winning columnist Joe Weaver, a native of Baltimore, is a husband, father, pawnbroker and gun collector. From his home in New Bern, he writes on the lighter side of family life.
