Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Budgeting

I am experiencing an interesting change in focus. Previously, I put my $XXX a month into the house account (as did my husband) and he paid the bills. When bills went up over time, we increased our contribution. The rest of our personal funds went into our personal accounts to use as we wished.

Now I still have the house account, but of course the contributions will be my own. I've done the numbers, and the numbers say things will be OK. But we know what numbers are. They are only real numbers if they match reality. That means, if you budget XX toward groceries, you'd best only eat $XX worth of groceries. If you budget $XX for the electric bill, you'd best make sure the electric bill stays $XX.

When the temperature hits 97F in the second week of June and you have fans running in both the cat facility and the house, this blows $XX right out the window (literally).

Today, I had a great trip to the vet. I always have a great trip to the vet, even if I have a sick cat (I took Rudy in today for his snotty nose), because the entire staff at Cornerstone is so wonderful. I bought this farm from my vet, and the staff was happy to hear I would be keeping it after all.

Today, E. had brought in eggs from her chickens, and asked if I needed some. I had just purchased a half dozen and told her first "no," then, "well, maybe a half dozen because I won't eat a dozen and a half eggs." So we split her dozen to share with someone else and I took 6 home.

It occurred to me, as I was looking in my refrigerator deciding what to eat tonight, that in the "real world"--of which I have not really been a part for a decade--when one offers you free food, you graciously take it. And if you don't normally eat a dozen-and-a-half eggs before they would no longer be fresh, perhaps you would in fact do so now, if that is the very good food you happen to have in your refrigerator. Because that would be dinners you did not have to buy. And there are countless ways to fix eggs.

So tonight, I had two nice eggs scrambled with a little bit of milk, and some cheese melted in. I almost cracked three eggs instead, but stopped. I haven't been that hungry lately, and why compost perfectly good food if I didn't finish it? That leaves an egg for another day.

They were very good. Thanks, E!

And Bear liked the scrapings from the frying pan. My house cats are snobs and won't eat such things.

I considered getting chickens again (around here, people give chickens away, and we have had them in the past--they are the nicest birds!), but quite frankly the cost of feeding them and keeping them warm in winter is more than the cost of the eggs themselves. So I'll hold off on that for awhile.

1 comment:

georg said...

Take the chickens in the spring. Enjoy the eggs all summer. Eat chicken come fall. I think it might be a good idea to keep chickens.

Do your cats eat raw egg? Most of our kitties prefer their egg cooked- but Tom would know what to do if you handed him the egg in its shell and happily devour the whole thing (well, okay, he won't eat all of the shell). Tom might eat the whole chicken too- he still has all claws even if he's down to one fang.