Month: January 2011

The Ten Percent Solution

I’m within ten percent of getting my budget to work. I confirmed this after two frustrating weeks of trying to upgrade to the next generation of personal financial software, which I’m discovering is not so different from the previous generation of my personal financial software. My budget was ten percent bloated on that one, too. I’ve resolved to somehow change my budgetary wandering ways.

I recently patronized the restaurant pictured above, and the revelation I received there could hold the answer to my dilemma. A small table sits in an awkward location connecting two parts of the dining room. The kitchen is adjacent to it. The persistent clinking of glasses and dishware, the murmurs of cooks and waiters, the constant hustle to serve an endless stream of customers, and the discomforting flushes emanating from the neighboring bathrooms conspire to make this a less-than-idyllic setting for a dining experience. To appease customers relegated to this forlorn table, a sign posted above it humanely announces a “Worst Table 10% Off” discount. The waiter affirmed the veracity of this incredible value, and it set my budget-busting wheels a-spinning.

By not snagging this table, I had narrowly missed a way to fractionally reduce my spending. I could have recovered a portion of my ten percent deficit by momentarily putting up with swearing cooks, harried waiters and the flushing of nearby commodes! So…why not redeem this lost opportunity by applying the ten percent reduction principle to all my future expenses, thereby achieving the so-far evasive goal of slashing my budget?

I’ve devised a plan:

Henceforth, I will reduce my job-related transportation expenses by disembarking from my train one stop earlier, thereby reducing my ticket expense by at least ten percent (and, incidentally, increasing my daily walking exercise routine by 15.8 miles).

Henceforth, when giving gifts, I will curtail spending wasted resources on fancy gift-wrap, choosing to use free plastic grocery bags instead. (Oops, I do this already….)

Henceforth, on the same theme, I will reduce by ten percent the actual number of presents I choose to give throughout the year—which will also effectively reduce my circle of friends by ten percent.

Henceforth, I will follow the trailblazing practices of UPS, making only right hand turns in order to reduce fuel costs. Calculating my fuel cost to the grocery store suggests I will save 4.5 cents. (My return trip home, however, will cost $6.32; making all right hand turns will result in traveling an additional 57 miles since I will be led down streets to a neighboring town before I arrive home.)

Henceforth, I will purchase only long-sleeved shirts and long-legged trousers. Over time, as my clothing develops holes in the knees and elbows, the sleeves and pant legs will be unceremoniously lopped off, providing me a breezy-cool summer wardrobe—and save myself the expense of buying summer clothes!

Henceforth, I will rent out ten percent of my house to the ever-increasing populous of neighborhood kids (for which, I will charge them ten percent of my mortgage payment). Their resultant 150 square feet of rental space may be used as they desire: a clubhouse and fort, or perhaps a small, kid-staffed veterinary facility to resuscitate highway-mangled rodents, frogs, and night-traveling marsupials.

I’m so confident in the success of my anticipated budgetary surplus that I’ve hired an investment consultant to handle the increased savings, which, unfortunately, sets my budget back–by about ten percent.

Surf and Turf at Morro Bay

Where the ocean meets the shore, they wrestle for supremacy.

Day and night, in stealth maneuvers, they steal from each other; tides yield temporary victories, first to one, then to the other.

In storms, the sea makes power grabs for more sand and rock while the shore resists.

The ocean knows that, though it may be a long, long time in coming, it will prevail.

Note to self: Next time in Morro Bay, bring burdens to the shore where, like the sand and rock, they will wash away.

Eight Days in December

For seven of eight days in December, it rained every day in Morro Bay – not the sort of weather to be caught in. A person would surely not go camping in this weather – unless said person had planned a camping trip for months in advance, arranged time off work, and reserved tickets for the evening Hearst Castle tour.

In that case, such a person would obviously switch from lodging at a campground to a cheap motel – but not us. Instead, we made the best of our eight days of camping.

Here’s the countdown:

  • 8 nights in the camper
  • 7 days visiting the Black Horse Espresso and Bakery in San Luis Obispo
  • 6 the number of those who played Chickenfoot dominoes in the camper
  • 5 the number of the Hearst Castle evening tour we enjoyed
  • 4 the number of our kids and their spouses who joined us for several days
  • 3 movies at actual theaters (not Netflix!)
  • 2 breakfast meals we enjoyed at The Coffee Pot in Morro Bay

     – and –

  • 1 sunny day (pictured)

Curious Apparition

The mural on the motel wall

Decades had passed since their wedding night at the humble motel in the cheap part of town. Ben and Anna had preserved the memories of their first night together, as if snapping an entire 12-shot roll of film on their Instamatic camera.

Now they wanted to see the place again, after so many years down life’s road together. Life had been busy – Ben, compactly-built and full of vigor, had become a practicing attorney. Anna, tall and lively, had successfully trained as a registered nurse. They had each rigorously worked their way through school. The eventual satisfaction of the professional payoff had been fleeting; their jobs were demanding, kids came along early, and time evaporated quickly.

Appointments to serve on various boards had rewarded them with satisfying recognition, and they had managed stepping into increasingly larger houses as family and prestige required and finances permitted. But the departure of each son and daughter, now in turn leaving the residence for places of their own, made its rooms increasingly echo, leaving little else behind but memories and the fading bumper stickers that heralded their status as honor roll students.

Life accelerated hard and had landed them, at times, where they had not expected. Friends and family had moved away. Without them along, the vacation cruises had been a bit flat. Plans for trips to serve in developing countries gathered dust. Their overly-enthusiastic faith in the stock market yanked the financial carpet from beneath their feet.

Their bucket lists containing all they wished to accomplish in life remained, they believed, largely undone.

This day, for better or worse, Ben and Anna would recall where it all started in the motel room decades ago.

Pulling into the motel’s drive, they recognized the building on the left. Newly painted in beige with lively colored trim, it had fared well over the years, giving temporary shelter to lives on-the-go and in-the-making.

Next to it, it seemed, was a newly constructed addition. Or was it? It shared the older building’s substance and color, but it seemed curiously flat. Slowly, they perceived its meaning. A mural had been whimsically painter over the bare wall on the existing building, depicting an expanded motel. The mural’s fantasy ended only when parked cars beneath interrupted it.

Momentarily, Ben and Anna caught their breath. On the mural’s second floor stood a man of Ben’s stature, arm raised to waive, several decades younger. On his right, tall and attractive, Anna stood beside him. They appeared optimistic, eager, as if challenging the future.

The mystery of how the mural came to be remained unsolved. But Ben and Jennifer puzzled over the greater mystery all the long way home. Was the mural an apparition of what had already been, or a vision of what could yet be?