Yuppie Privilege Revoked
Been removing a few conveniences lately…
Today, I called PayTrust and canceled my membership, which means my bills will once again start coming to… my home, and need to be paid… with stamps. Of course, once I have $5K in the bank, I can activate Bill Pay there and forgo the stamp part for no charge, but not until there is $5K there so it isn’t a new monthly fee.
I am down to only paying about fix or six bills a month, so I am basically paying $8.95 to Paytrust, and $3 to Wells Fargo, so save less than $2 in postage and the inconvenience of having to pay bills. Oh well, too bad.
I also canceled Netflix, since I tend to see most movies in the theater, which means my NetFlix watching has mainly been movies I didn’t get around to seeing in the theater, weird independent movies, and TV series. So, I think I am better served without Netflix. The only problem is… I can’t find one of my rentals. I have to get it to them this week, or I own it, so I really should finish this post and go dig through things.
I also e-mailed Van Der Hayden Vineyards and canceled my wine club membership, so that is another thing that is leaving, but that is expensive wine coming quarterly. I’d rather make wines like that something for special occassions, and not just have bottles and bottled of it sitting around the house.
Selling gay pulp fiction on eBay, and always looking for the next thing that will end up on eBay.
Oddly enough, with all the little fixing ups I am doing around the house, I also just put it out there that my friend Darrel, who is looking for a place, could consider me a third roomate if they found a great palce and needed it. I’m not sure I’d be up for moving, but I am certainly up for being off the hook for an additional $300 a month, and if the bedroom were large enough, why not? I’ve never really done the roommate thing, but that is much saner than finding two strangers. Doubt it will happen, but I think they are trying to make a 3BR into a twosome, but that does make the rent high. We’ll see.
In the opposite direction, I am scrolling through craigslist to find new furniture for my apartment. So, I guess my bases are covered either way. I basically need to have the apartment visitor-friendly so that when I detox from my movies, theater, concerts, movies, plays, stand-up comedy, movies, spoken word, movies, book readings, movies, etc. mindset, I have a place where I can invite friends over. Right now, the living room is a bit… spartan.
Actually, that is the most amazing thing about this change of life. I look around… and wonder, where the hell has my money gone? The apartment isn’t quite done. My wardrobe, well, anything lacking in that department is more connected to the body I don’t want to dress nicely, but still it is an expense I haven’t incurred. My passport isn’t stamped with all these exotic locales. And, on top of my inflated salary, I spent a lot of the past year paying off DEBT on top of everything else. I’m not saving now because I’m just finishing off the debt. But… I am nearly at a loss as to how this happened. Could I really have seen this many concerts, plays, movies, and everything else? It doesn’t seem possible.
I think this whole thing will be worthwhile just for the sake of reality, if nothing else. i know I have said things in the past like, “Yikes, I only have $300 and it’s five days to pay day,” and meant it. And, for the life of me, i can’t imagine why that was a problem. I used to withdraw $100 or $120 whenever i went to the ATM, now it’s $20 or 40. So, novel aside, this is a change that needed to occur.
I think a lot of my friends must have thought I was crazy. I think I was crazy. But it is all coming back to normal. Soon, I will get bills in the mail, pay them; see concert listings and think it is too pricy to go, not to mention I just saw them last tour; and restaurants with $24 entrees may seem WAY over the top, let alone going to the French Laundry for another meal anytime soon.
Bills. Aparment projects. Wine clubs. It’s mainly just little bullshit like this that consumes my time lately. But I am, admittedly, running out of stuff like this to do. Back to the book soon, so i just want to have all of this minutiae cleared up by then.
And, no, it isn’t procrastination this time. The book will be top focus next week. So, I have this week to mess around.
