Tighter Belts

It’s time to tighten our belts.

Jenny pulled out her calculator yesterday.  It’s one of those extra fancy ones that math teachers use...the kind where they put made-up symbols on the keys—symbols that have nothing to do with actual math.  I think math people put them there to frighten people like me so that we don’t borrow their calculators.

But it’s a big, scary calculator and big scary calculators don’t lie.  They give you the cold hard truth, and the cold hard truth was that we were over budget.

I know how it happened.  When Jenny came home from Winco on Saturday we realized we were under budget, and we had almost an entire dollar-fifty to blow on whatever we wanted.  We felt like we were living life high on the hog.¹  I suggested that we splurge and buy (from ourselves, since they we already in the fridge) some oranges to supplement our lunches and give a little boost to our vitamin C.  Everyone got to have one orange a day…those little ones that are called “Cuties,” named after famed horticulturalist Thomas Cutie.²

Unfortunately, the Cuties were a little more expensive than we realized.  When Jenny ran the numbers yesterday, she announced that we had a sixty-seven cent deficit.  When you have a budget of thirty dollars for three people for five days, sixty-seven cents is pretty big.  I know it’s over two percent, and I don’t even have a big scary calculator.  While I was tempted to just ignore it, I realized that some families would not have that luxury.  If they were to run out of food, they just wouldn’t eat.

We decided to cut back by four oranges.  Jenny and I both gave up ours for the last two days (Meredith, being a growing girl, did not have to endure this extra hardship).  It gave us a four cent surplus.³

Even with that, it’s going to be a close thing.  I think we have just enough milk.  The jars of peanut butter and jelly will definitely be empty by Friday.  There might be a spare crust of the third loaf of homemade bread, but not much more than that.  Even the sugar bowl is looking empty.

I’m typing this at a school where I just gave an assembly.  The assemblies are done and I am waiting for a meeting with the principal.  As I am sitting here in the cafeteria, typing away, the lunch lady just offered me an apple.  At first I refused because it felt like cheating, but I changed my mind.  After all, it was free. 

I’ve never been more excited about having an apple.  It’s funny how such a little thing feels like a big deal.  I can't even describe how grateful I am for it.   

She said it was a Gala variety apple.  It’s green and red, and somewhat small.  Some might even say it was cute.

I think it more than makes up for the orange.

Endnotes

¹ But we weren’t, since living high on the hog is illegal in all states except Washington and Colorado.

² Not really.  It’s because they’re adorable.

³ I told Jenny she could buy another bay leaf.