The Cost of Living: 8th - 14th July 2017

I've been thinking a fair bit about necessity this week. As I said in my monthly 'cost of living' post for June, I've been preoccupied with the amounts I'm spending on individual categories of things - food, non-essential items, etc. The next link in this chain of thought is to question what it means to say that a purchase is or isn't "necessary". I haven't been very critical in my stance on this issue. Is there a clear division between what is and what is not necessary? After all, necessity is a relational term: something is necessary for or with respect to something. I have been thinking only in terms of need, but there again, "need" has a certain fuzziness. I need food, obviously, and I need to pay rent and bills, almost as obviously. Though even these are two different kinds of "need". If I didn't pay my rent or bills, I would soon become homeless, but I wouldn't die. At least not as immediately and certainly as I would if I didn't eat. Not everyone who is homeless dies, though it shortens your lifespan by exposing you to other risks. Are homeless people free? Another fuzzy term, that. "Free".

A way in to thinking about this problem is through the concept of meaning. Everybody seeks meaning in life (or so we're told). This seems to have some truth to it. More and more people are waking up to the power of anti-consumption, frugality, and minimalism to bring meaning and peace into our lives. With this comes the focus on experience over ownership, and (at least for me) the valuing of time over money. Experience gives us meaning in a way ownership often does not, but both these things cost money. Or do they? Some experiences are much more expensive than others. Some cost nothing at all.

With all this in mind, it's very hard to say what's really necessary and what is not. Perhaps that's completely the wrong way to think. I wonder if I've been thinking to crudely about all this. Spending money is not automatically "bad", which is kind of the tag I've hung on it in my mind. It needs to be considered what I spend it on - and, just as importantly, why. All this is obvious and prosaic, I think, but needs saying anyway.

Here are this week's numbers: 

Saturday 8th

Breakfast: Coffee

Lunch: A soup made of scraps

Tea: Broccoli, lentils and stir fried kale Sand for a upcoming 'zeke fridge' project: £5.94 Food (mushrooms, potatoes, cornflour): £3.83

Day total: £9.77

Sunday 9th

Breakfast: Mashed potatoes

Lunch: Stir fried broccoli, mushrooms and kale

Tea: Lentils and kale

Shelves - more microgreen growing space needed: £64.07

Day total: £64.07

Monday 10th

Breakfast: Mashed potatoes with basil and rosemary
Lunch: Chips and coffee £4.90
Tea: Sweet and sour lentils with pea shoots

Food (bread, basil, sweet and sour sauce, all reduced): £3.98

Day total: £8.88

Tuesday 11th 

Breakfast: Mashed potatoes
Lunch: Nope. Mashed potatoes is actually a great thing to have for breakfast. Not quite as effective as porridge, but fills you up for hours.
Tea: Can't remember.  Think I just snacked on microgreens.

Food shopping: £2.55

Day total: £2.55

Wednesday 12th 

Breakfast: Toast and strawberry jam

Lunch: Lunch provided at a meeting. I'd ordered vegan options in advance. Cous cous and some shabby salad.
Tea: Vegan board and coffee at The Koffee Pot in Manchester. The "vegan board" was bread, hummus, falafel and various pickled vegetables. Served on a board. Reasonably tasty. Their vegan breakfast isn't bad, either. £10.00

Food shopping: £1.84
Google drive 1TB montly bill: £7.99

Income from books sold on amazon last week: £18.00

Day total: £1.83

Thursday 13th

Breakfast: Coffee.

Lunch: Hash browns.

Tea: Linda McCartney veggie sausages (which are vegan). They come in a cardboard box. No plastic. Commendable.

Food shopping: £4.05 Day total: £4.05

Friday 14th

Breakfast: Rambo radish microgreen sandwich

Lunch: Lentils and broccoli

Tea: Snacks

Coffee: £2.00
Food shopping: £2.42

Salary: £249.49

Day total (excluding salary): £4.42

Total spent this week: £95.57 (minus non-salary income)

WEEK END BALANCE: +£153.92

Next week I have the privilege of one of the greatest achievements of the modern world: paid leave from my employment. I worked 21 hours this week. It was exhausting, tedious and almost entirely pointless. Except that it stopped me from being homeless. So it goes. 

Follow @apossibleworld
Related posts

"I have everything I need"
The Cost of Living: 1st - 7th July 2017
The Cost of Living: June 2017
A Case of the Mondays
Marx, Money and Me
Another perspective on freedom
Paying Not to Die
Sacred Economics
******
Please consider disabling your adblockers when reading this site.  I make every effort to ensure no inappropriate, rubbish or offensive advertising appears here, and nothing that is contrary to the spirit of this blog.  So it's really nothing to be afraid of.  Cheers.