Balance Beam

As I was working in the kitchen earlier today, I was contemplating a sales ad sheet that I'd moved on my desk. My eye fell upon a certain fruit cup that John likes for his lunches.  My frugal heart truly believes that putting individual servings of fruit in a reusable jar and putting that in his lunch is the very best thing to do.  However, here's another place where I compromise with my husband.  Why?  

Because NOT having the occasional fruit cup that is pre-packaged and overpriced makes him feel  we haven't made a bit of headway financially over all these years.  In vain do I tell him that we've done what we have just because of such swaps as these.  So I bought him fruit cups now and then, though I daresay they tasted no better than those portioned out at home.  

He also liked those little individual cups of cottage cheese. One day I discovered he really liked fruit with a serving of cottage cheese on top.  Can't buy those in a cute little individual cup...so I compromised again.  I bought cottage cheese and went back to portioning out cans of fruit into individual jars with a scoop of cottage cheese from a tub.  Even buying canned fruit and a tub of cottage cheese was less than buying just the individual fruit cups.  I went right back to saving money.



It's a balance beam I must walk.  Purchase overpriced individual cups of fruit and so I pinch a few pennies elsewhere.  Say we eat a bit more chicken than we'd normally eat that week.  It's not a big deal in the end. But as I walk that balance beam I am always looking for how I can improve my balance.  Sometimes, it means I find a way to give my husband something in a way that doesn't feel like I'm just being cheap.

Recently we contracted to have pest control come in to clear up the ants we've had nearly over run the house.  It's not an expensive service but it costs something all the same.  I was curious where in our budget this money would come from...A few days later, John and Sam determined that the problem with our new TVs HD function was actually a receiver problem with out satellite box.

Now John has all the info required to handle the transaction but he loathes talking to service people especially over the phone.  He hemmed and hawed and fussed a bit and in an unguarded moment, while I was busy with something else that was rather detailed, I said quickly in irritation, "Do you just want me to handle it?!"  His "Yes!" was so quick that Samuel laughed out loud and said "Boy did he bring you right in on that one Mama!"   Truth, he did and even I had to laugh at how quickly he relinquished the task.

But I also realized that calling was to my advantage in another way.  It availed me the opportunity to  do what I'd postponed doing for several weeks: renegotiate our service with DirecTV.  I got our receiver replaced and asked then if there were any discounts available.  I was offered a savings of $5 a month.  Well, I was pretty sure there was a greater savings somewhere than just a mere $5.

So I thanked the young man and asked if I might speak to a supervisor.  I told him I'd appreciated his service but I knew he didn't have the authority to do a deeper discount and I was looking for more savings.    By the time I'd gotten off the phone with his supervisor, I'd had some further discounts applied to our account and  I'd downgraded our package, saving us almost as much as it will cost us annually to pay for the pest service.  John will be inconvenienced with the occasional loss of a college football game come Fall.  John was so amazed at how much I was saving us all because of a 10 minute phone call that I don't think he much cared about losing the opportunity to see a game or two.

Now, I find that John is much more cold natured than I.  This is partly due to a thyroid disorder and partly due to my stage of life.   I have found it necessary to turn the heat higher here in the winter months than what we've been accustomed to having it set upon.  I figure come summer, we will just turn the AC up a degree or so and the savings should all balance out.

And that's what it's all about, walking the balance beam called budget!