The Police were my favorite band in high school. I saw them twice in the '80s, both times from far reaches of cavernous stadiums, because there's no way I could have afforded the rich kid seats.Twenty-five years later, when they came through the Bay Area on their reunion tour, my wife and I splurged. As established Yuppies, we could now afford the rich kid seats. The concert was an exorbitant, decadent delight. We sat a few rows back from Sting, and had enough lunch money left over for beers.
Still, the excess of it all made me feel uneasy. I'd never spent so much on two hours of entertainment, and didn't think I was the type to do so. Humble beginnings, and all that.
To assuage my guilt, my wife and I came up with a system that lets us temper our consumptive ways, without having to renounce the pleasure altogether. It also encourages the positive habit of cooking at home.
A sticky note on the fridge lists the next decadent pleasures we want but don't need, and the cost of each. Every night we cook at home, we draw a tick mark beside the next un-purchased toy. Each tick is worth $20, which is about how much we save on average by not going out.Once we've earned enough ticks to pay for the gadget, we get to buy it, guilt free. The gadget is essentially monetarily free too, because the money we pay is money we didn't spend at restaurants. It's even better than free because cooking at home is healthier and yummier anyway.
Later, we tweaked the system to have it pay off our parking tickets, which happen to be part of the cost of living in San Francisco. This greatly lessens the sting of the ticket: instead of being a complete waste of forty dollars, it becomes the trivial penance of putting off the next fun purchase by a couple more days. (As the photo above shows, the system also covers moving violations.)
Do try this at home, folks, and please, always remember our two mottos:
- "Happiness Through Gadgetry."
- "You don't have to put on a red light."
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