Yesterday was Valentine's Day, the day above all others to give flowers. I like flowers. I like giving flowers. In fact, I've been accused of giving flowers to others more for me than for the recipient before. I just like flowers.
Flowers, however, don't quite fit into the savings challenge, so I had sworn off buying any and tried to make a substitute. I found what looked like a pretty easy origami-type flower so I started making some flowers.
Isn't that neat? Seven flowers. The culmination of at least eight man-hours of pretty intensive folding and unfolding and refolding and gluing and holding together and lots of throwing away of post-it notes. Total cost: 66 cents for the pipe-cleaners.
I was pretty proud of it. Then there was dinner to worry about. I went to buy what I needed from the store for dinner and dessert. The cook at work had given me the idea for dessert and thank God she did, because it was far and away better than the dinner.
When I walked into the grocery though, I was tempted by a big sign declaring the lottery at $171 million! and I still had one dollar bill floating around in my wallet waiting to be put to good use. It was pretty early in the morning so nobody was at the counter to take my dollar so I stood there a minute, waiting patiently. They of course had there big Valentine's display up with giant balloons and stuffed animals and rows of flowers, bunched by the dozen. My proud thoughts of my seven hand-crafted flowers quickly faded and I regretted not having an even dozen. I kept looking at the beautiful flowers, red and pink and white roses, cursing the savings challenge.
Then, I noticed off to the side, cast aside by the floral department worker as not Valentiney enough, perfect little tulips standing alone, and on sale. I left the lotto counter still holding onto my dollar; those $2 off tulips were pulling me away. I shouldn't have done it, I had spent so much time on not spending any money on flowers, but in the end, we ate our dinner with tulips and not hand-crafted works of art as centerpieces.
I spent $4.99 on flowers. $26.38 altogether. And the sacrifice continues.
Flowers, however, don't quite fit into the savings challenge, so I had sworn off buying any and tried to make a substitute. I found what looked like a pretty easy origami-type flower so I started making some flowers.
Isn't that neat? Seven flowers. The culmination of at least eight man-hours of pretty intensive folding and unfolding and refolding and gluing and holding together and lots of throwing away of post-it notes. Total cost: 66 cents for the pipe-cleaners.I was pretty proud of it. Then there was dinner to worry about. I went to buy what I needed from the store for dinner and dessert. The cook at work had given me the idea for dessert and thank God she did, because it was far and away better than the dinner.
When I walked into the grocery though, I was tempted by a big sign declaring the lottery at $171 million! and I still had one dollar bill floating around in my wallet waiting to be put to good use. It was pretty early in the morning so nobody was at the counter to take my dollar so I stood there a minute, waiting patiently. They of course had there big Valentine's display up with giant balloons and stuffed animals and rows of flowers, bunched by the dozen. My proud thoughts of my seven hand-crafted flowers quickly faded and I regretted not having an even dozen. I kept looking at the beautiful flowers, red and pink and white roses, cursing the savings challenge.
Then, I noticed off to the side, cast aside by the floral department worker as not Valentiney enough, perfect little tulips standing alone, and on sale. I left the lotto counter still holding onto my dollar; those $2 off tulips were pulling me away. I shouldn't have done it, I had spent so much time on not spending any money on flowers, but in the end, we ate our dinner with tulips and not hand-crafted works of art as centerpieces.
I spent $4.99 on flowers. $26.38 altogether. And the sacrifice continues. 
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