On Friday evening before I left the house to drive to a sister’s for the regular Friday night family dinner, I posted an unusual-for-me mild rant on social media about how I would rather see photos of babies and puppies than read posts about a certain deadly viral disease (that will remain unnamed on this blog.)

Posts on social media about this disease range from educated and informed to fearful and panic-stricken — the latter mostly among the less educated and more politically conservative of my on-line social community. Some posts have been riddled with dead-wrong fear-mongered crap.

But what has been bothering me is the raging politically-motivated rants about it. Really, I just sick of it. I just want to hear about your kittens, family, and good things in your life. Not the flabbler-flub regurgitated from a certain cable news station that I refer to as “faux news.”

Anyway, while I was at my sister’s…
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I have mentioned for the past several months that I have been working with my local fire department, of which I am a proud Life Member, on organizing the 21st “Senior Safety Saturday” which turned out this year for a number of reasons to be “Senior Safety Sunday.”

Kinda funny how that happened, but that is another story.

So this past Sunday, I wore my Chippewa Firefighter Boots, tactical pants, and my local FD shirt and joined 12 firefighters, two lieutenants, and 60 more volunteers (friends of yours truly) who…
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My spouse and I live a comfortable life. We have a nice home and the things that make life comfortable. We don’t play “keep up with the Joneses” and don’t give a rat’s patootee if we do not lease the latest yuppie-mobile or have the most recent smartphone (or even a smartphone at all.) We seldom go out to eat, and I pack a lunch each day to bring to work. Sure, we could afford these things, but we’re not interested.

Also, being children of parents who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s means that we grew up in an environment of “waste not, want not” — meaning that we watch what we spend, only spend what we have (that is, no carrying credit card balances), keep a healthy emergency fund, and are generally frugal.

The other day through careful and tedious negotiation, I reduced monthly household expenses by $105. It is hard to do that as expenses and fees for service continue to rise, but it is possible. This is what I did.
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