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livingdebOne big criticism people have of early retirement is that your projected spending might not be right. The goal is to save enough money that you can live off the earnings forever, but what about inflation?
There are typically two answers I see addressing this fear. One is that just because you never have to work again doesn't mean that you won't ever find yourself working for money. And any extra money you earn is a cushion when you've planned as if you were never going to make more.
I suppose that could happen to me. Somehow.
The other is that you get better at being frugal. Once you are not working all the time, you have time to learn new skills, new strategies, new options.
I really don't see this happening to me. I am already doing all the strategies I can think of that I'm willing to do. Worse than that, I find myself wanting to spend more and more money over time, particularly on food.
I've long known that most restaurants and food processors do not cook the way I want. They use white flour when I use whole wheat pastry flour. They use high-fructose corn syrup when I use sugar. They use hydrogenated fats, or at least lots and lots of butter where I use smaller amounts of non-hydrogenated oils or butter. They use meat with nitrates in it. White rice instead of brown.
And I keep hearing about short cuts that are taken to make food cheap. Some of them are quite horrifying such as how chickens are treated, how antibiotics are overused to the point of breeding resistant bacteria (on animals that aren't even sick), and how the evil monopoly on many genetically modified foods has their products in all kinds of food and non-food products (such as corn in the gas).
I'm still going to eat out and eat convenience foods (and consume petrol) because basically I don't want to live the kind of lifestyle that vegans and gluten-intolerant folks have to live when I don't have to.
But surely there are some companies that do better than average?
Yes, and not only do they cost more, they are not usually my favorite companies. I recently did a Google search. And I've actually heard of some the restaurants on people's various better-food lists.
Chipotle is good, but Freebirds is yummier to me. At Chipotle I find the meat too spicy hot, so I counter that by getting the crispy tacos with sour cream.
Olivia is on the list. The only food I really like there is the waffle, totally dessert food.
Magnolia Cafe and Kerby Lane are good but usually crowded.
Ruby's BBQ is the worst BBQ in town. (I prefer Salt Lick and Rudy's.)
And then of course some super expensive high-falutin' places.
As for convenience food, I tried Amy's canned pasta (cheese ravioli, I think) one time and it was basically dessert.
But I think food is only going to get worse from here on out. I like Twinkies as much as anyone, but lately, everything I read about food is making me angry. Some web site showed a picture of two-year old burgers and fries from three different fast food restaurants and, at least in the smallish picture, they looked exactly the same as "fresh." That can't be good.
Taco Bell put whatever mysterious non-meat substance in their taco "meat." Can I really let myself keep eating that? In crispy taco shells that surely profit Monsanto?
What if I cook everything myself? I'm buying hamburger that's $8/pound at Whole Foods, and then mixing it half and half with textured vegetable protein. (Yes, I've also heard soy is evil, somehow. At least having come equipped with two X chromosomes, I'm built to deal with feminizing hormones.)
And sugar is processed with a bunch of chemicals, so I switched to brown sugar, but it turns out that they still process the sugar just as much and than add molasses to it. So now I get turbinado sugar. Why does it cost more to do less processing?
Well, it's still easier to get good ingredients than good convenience foods. And when you do your own cooking, then you don't have to rely on restaurants food processors.
One recent victory in this area is enchilada sauce. I finally got an acceptable recipe, and Robin tweaked it to make it even better. Next time I'll try my own version of that tweak (and if I like it, I'll make a blog entry). So that's good. Except that I like my enchiladas with beans and rice, so I have to make THREE things for one meal!
And now apparently I have to make my own ice cream. HEB Creamy Creations Light ice cream is no longer being made--it has been replaced by "Churn-Style" which is whipped up with extra air so they can sell me less for the same price; it's less satisfying so I actually eat more. Their light ice cream was the perfect compromise between ideals in convenience, price, taste, and calories. Oh, well, I guess the dairy products were full of hormones anyway. Right now I've got some Stonyfield organic dark chocolate nonfat frozen yogurt, which is pretty good but super expensive, though quite a bargain (even not on clearance) compared to the goat milk ice cream we got to sample last week.
So my point is that I sort of want to do all my shopping at Whole Foods and Wheatsville Coop (and Trader Joe's--scheduled to be built sometime near Town Lake) but that will not help me with my frugality goals except to the extent that the food is healthier for me personally (rather than just the farmworkers, the animals, the people who get bacterial infections, and the ecosystem).
I also have high-priced non-food fantasies (though I suppose these are not relevant). For example I sort of want to build a huge ballroom in central Austin and let the Austin Ballroom Dancers use it for free whenever they want. Also I want to build public ultimate frisbee fields, where ultimate players get dibs over soccer players. Also I want to hire someone to take care of my yard.
Back to food, here is a cake.
Cake of the Day
And here is a better look at the dragon couple:
There are typically two answers I see addressing this fear. One is that just because you never have to work again doesn't mean that you won't ever find yourself working for money. And any extra money you earn is a cushion when you've planned as if you were never going to make more.
I suppose that could happen to me. Somehow.
The other is that you get better at being frugal. Once you are not working all the time, you have time to learn new skills, new strategies, new options.
I really don't see this happening to me. I am already doing all the strategies I can think of that I'm willing to do. Worse than that, I find myself wanting to spend more and more money over time, particularly on food.
I've long known that most restaurants and food processors do not cook the way I want. They use white flour when I use whole wheat pastry flour. They use high-fructose corn syrup when I use sugar. They use hydrogenated fats, or at least lots and lots of butter where I use smaller amounts of non-hydrogenated oils or butter. They use meat with nitrates in it. White rice instead of brown.
And I keep hearing about short cuts that are taken to make food cheap. Some of them are quite horrifying such as how chickens are treated, how antibiotics are overused to the point of breeding resistant bacteria (on animals that aren't even sick), and how the evil monopoly on many genetically modified foods has their products in all kinds of food and non-food products (such as corn in the gas).
I'm still going to eat out and eat convenience foods (and consume petrol) because basically I don't want to live the kind of lifestyle that vegans and gluten-intolerant folks have to live when I don't have to.
But surely there are some companies that do better than average?
Yes, and not only do they cost more, they are not usually my favorite companies. I recently did a Google search. And I've actually heard of some the restaurants on people's various better-food lists.
Chipotle is good, but Freebirds is yummier to me. At Chipotle I find the meat too spicy hot, so I counter that by getting the crispy tacos with sour cream.
Olivia is on the list. The only food I really like there is the waffle, totally dessert food.
Magnolia Cafe and Kerby Lane are good but usually crowded.
Ruby's BBQ is the worst BBQ in town. (I prefer Salt Lick and Rudy's.)
And then of course some super expensive high-falutin' places.
As for convenience food, I tried Amy's canned pasta (cheese ravioli, I think) one time and it was basically dessert.
But I think food is only going to get worse from here on out. I like Twinkies as much as anyone, but lately, everything I read about food is making me angry. Some web site showed a picture of two-year old burgers and fries from three different fast food restaurants and, at least in the smallish picture, they looked exactly the same as "fresh." That can't be good.
Taco Bell put whatever mysterious non-meat substance in their taco "meat." Can I really let myself keep eating that? In crispy taco shells that surely profit Monsanto?
What if I cook everything myself? I'm buying hamburger that's $8/pound at Whole Foods, and then mixing it half and half with textured vegetable protein. (Yes, I've also heard soy is evil, somehow. At least having come equipped with two X chromosomes, I'm built to deal with feminizing hormones.)
And sugar is processed with a bunch of chemicals, so I switched to brown sugar, but it turns out that they still process the sugar just as much and than add molasses to it. So now I get turbinado sugar. Why does it cost more to do less processing?
Well, it's still easier to get good ingredients than good convenience foods. And when you do your own cooking, then you don't have to rely on restaurants food processors.
One recent victory in this area is enchilada sauce. I finally got an acceptable recipe, and Robin tweaked it to make it even better. Next time I'll try my own version of that tweak (and if I like it, I'll make a blog entry). So that's good. Except that I like my enchiladas with beans and rice, so I have to make THREE things for one meal!
And now apparently I have to make my own ice cream. HEB Creamy Creations Light ice cream is no longer being made--it has been replaced by "Churn-Style" which is whipped up with extra air so they can sell me less for the same price; it's less satisfying so I actually eat more. Their light ice cream was the perfect compromise between ideals in convenience, price, taste, and calories. Oh, well, I guess the dairy products were full of hormones anyway. Right now I've got some Stonyfield organic dark chocolate nonfat frozen yogurt, which is pretty good but super expensive, though quite a bargain (even not on clearance) compared to the goat milk ice cream we got to sample last week.
So my point is that I sort of want to do all my shopping at Whole Foods and Wheatsville Coop (and Trader Joe's--scheduled to be built sometime near Town Lake) but that will not help me with my frugality goals except to the extent that the food is healthier for me personally (rather than just the farmworkers, the animals, the people who get bacterial infections, and the ecosystem).
I also have high-priced non-food fantasies (though I suppose these are not relevant). For example I sort of want to build a huge ballroom in central Austin and let the Austin Ballroom Dancers use it for free whenever they want. Also I want to build public ultimate frisbee fields, where ultimate players get dibs over soccer players. Also I want to hire someone to take care of my yard.
Back to food, here is a cake.
Cake of the Day
And here is a better look at the dragon couple: