The three Bs: bowling, beer, and broke
September 19, 2010
It’s not too much of a mystery what makes up a large part of why I live paycheck to paycheck. Every now and then I “like” to actually add it up and make a fuss that I’m going to pretend to be more thrifty—with the drinking, not the bowling. Bowling is what passes for my social life.
I bowl in two leagues per week and usually drink steadily during the evening (certainly by now you’ve gotten the impression that I like my beer). Most of the time I also eat supper at the bowling alley.
Fall leagues go for thirty or so weeks, roughly coinciding with the school year. I myself also bowl for thirteen weeks in the summer. I’ll base these calculations on thirty weeks. You’ll get the idea. And I’ll still be horrified by the actual numbers, just like I am with my age when I think about the actual number.
$750 = $25 x 30 Monday league fee
$810 = $27 x 30 Thursday league fee
$405 – $540 = $13.50–$18.00 x 30 Monday Summit EPA
$373.50–$498 = $12.45–$16.60 x 30 Thursday Surly Furious
$210 = $7 x 30 Monday Buffalo Chicken Wrap
$150 = $5 x 30 Thursday mini pizza with two toppings (in my top three favorite pizzas in the Twin Cities metro)
Ugh. Are you good at math in your head? Did you add it up already?
$2698.50–$2958.00 for 30 weeks in two leagues.
And that doesn’t include tips or the drink or two or three at karaoke afterwards on Thursdays.
That’s a chunk of change. How are you “frivolous” with your money in these tough times?
On my desk: postal mail followup
June 2, 2010
Most of what???s on my desk is not that interesting, usually, but right now it holds several examples of a dying entity???postal mail.??
I don???t received much paper mail. I don???t have credit cards so I get virtually no junk mail, and I get my bills electronically. There are usually two or three days each week where the mailbox is empty, and sometimes I get is the weekly shopping circular.
It???s been so long since I got personal paper mail that I forgot how much fun it is to open the mailbox and find something. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about having mailed a bunch of postcards to my Tweak Today friends. Today you can see a few of the things I???ve received in return???quite a few postcards and a punny sticker, and (not pictured here) a beer newspaper and the jam I wrote about yesterday.
It has been lots of fun.
May 30, 2010
A thing of the past: postal mail
May 15, 2010
Last Thursday I sent more snail mail than I have in probably the last five years. You???ve heard the winging and moaning from the postal service and it???s true. The telephone and email take the place of the letters I used to write.
My most prolific letter-writing phase was during my teenage years after we moved from Ohio to Wisconsin. I left behind lifelong friends and we all did a good job keeping up. At the time, long distance was a luxury not to be squandered, and cell phones were from the Star Trek future, so we wrote letters. (Dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, too, but that???s a different story.)
In college, I still wrote letters, still to my friends and with the addition of my parents, as I was now out of town. For a couple of years I was very creative with the packaging of the letters to my parents, doing anything thing I could to avoid using a regular envelope but still have it go through on one stamp.
I gradually stopped writing letters, or sending cards, or mailing anything. Even bills I now pay electronically. I can???t remember the last time I stuck a stamp on something.
Last Wednesday, there was a flurry of address exchanging on Tweak Today, and Thursday I mailed out seven pieces. There will be a second wave in a couple of days. It???s mostly Minneapolis postcards, but for the people I know a little better, it???s more customized. I mailed two Washingtons, a California, New York, England, Scotland, and France in the first batch. I will be adding another California, a Tennessee, Idaho, Ohio, and Netherlands. I typed a couple of the email addresses incorrectly so the messages were undeliverable, so those addresses will be delayed, but I???ll still do it.
The post office clerk got a big kick out of my taking a picture before I???d relinquish my mail to him.
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May 12, 2010
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 