(TV/streaming video) New & Leftover Items, a Touch of 2024, and some Nostalgic Forensics

$1200

The post on Not One Damn Dime Day (and didn’t that sink below the waves quickly?) nudged me down a path we all at least look down from time to time, concerning leaky points in our budgets.

The point of focus, as it’s common, repetitive and something we should have considerable control over, is the workday lunch. As distasteful as such considerations can be (like a blow to the groin, as Homer noted, that works on so many levels), it has to be better to raise them with ourselves rather than wait for a parent, spouse or some other busybody to offer Helpful Hints. Then it becomes an imposition. Something to be resented. This could lead to spiteful, resentment-driven eating, weekend-long D&D sessions and frequent trips to comics and gaming conventions. A sad end, with flabby fingers clutching at a pudgy chest precariously bound by a Thundercats t-shirt that’s easily two sizes too small. Final thoughts of what you should have said in that discussion last week concerning whether or not the Flintstones were actually a prehistoric family or one from a post apocalyptic future where they attempted to recreate a mid-20^th century lifestyle using sticks, rocks and monstrously mutated fauna. A sad end as an ABC Afterschool Special that didn’t make the cut.

It’s a fairly simple calculation, especially if one is fine with some rough rounding. 364 days in a year. Knock out 104 for weekends (or the usual 2 days off per week that’s still fairly common even if one doesn’t necessarily get them consecutively and on Saturday & Sunday) and we’re down to 260. Take 10 more for random holidays then another 10 for vacation/sick/mental health days. That leaves 240 workdays and, presumably, 240 lunches (or dinner breaks or whatever you call them depending upon the shift you work) to provide.

Good lord. What pigs. Where do we put it all? Okay, wise guy. Drop the mirror.

As I run through the list of normal workaday lunch spots I’m likely to hit it’s a conservative matter to say that’s $7.50/day. Sure, there are cheaper days, but there are more than enough that ride the high side of that. On the face of it that’s $1800. However, if one decides to bring food from home each day that’s going to cost something. Often it shouldn’t cost much, though, as between leftovers and odds and ends that otherwise would sit overlong in the refrigerator, turn and be tossed, a great many of the central items in bagged lunches are use ‘em or lose ‘em prospects. Still, let’s say one picks up the equivalent of a big bag of Fritos and a box of wrapped snack cakes each week (managing to hide them from the ravenous, ambling mouths at home, situation-depending) and goes through some more bread and a can or two more of tuna, etc. Let’s go nuts and say that averages to $2.50/day in terms of extra expenses. So, that brings us down to a net savings per bagged lunch day of $5.

That’s $1200 over the course of the aforementioned working year.

That’ll mean more to some of you than it does to me. For some it’ll mean less. If you no speaky Englee it hardly matters at all. Still, it’s not a number I can just dismiss. For me that’s rent and a few of the smallest bills for a month. Or a really good family vacation unless you’re used to something much more extravagant than I am. If a really good family vacation is a weekend with Jim Beam or Jack Daniels, well, you're almost set for life with this plan.

Now, certainly, one needs to get out to lunch every so often. A physical break from work in the middle of the day is sometimes needed, and finding a refuge safe from the “just one quick question,” ”I don’t want to interrupt your lunch, but..,” and, perhaps the most insidious and indigestion-inducing one of them all, “Come see me once you’re done with lunch” – it’s not always an easy thing to do. (Workplace hideaways is probably a worthy topic point all on its own.) The bottom line is that you can’t spend your entire career running away. Buck up! Grow a pair! Okay, no need to butch up the ladies. Just find a place to go where they won’t be as likely to look for you.

Reserving the lunches out to special occasions (If you’re somehow free on Tuesday, though, Abbygal, I’m sure we’d still be up for going out to lunch then. That’s one of those special occasions) will still save some money and make those lunches out better ones. When one’s laying out money every workday, why, one could find himself in Taco Bell or Old Country Buffet once, even twice each week trying to do it on the cheap. Granted, OCB can be a cultural adventure. Co-worker M.O.M. once noted that he'd seen everything there but a shooting and a live birth, which captured it neatly. Still, one can only come for the show so many times before remembering that this was supposed to be about food. What next? Foraging through the dumpsters, battling seagulls and rats for scraps ? No, no, let’s save that for our golden years, once Bush & pals have eliminated Social Security and left our fates tied to yo-yoing portfolios. (That's the Ownership Society for you; you just have to remember that you're chattel and everyone gets along fine.)

So, I’m going to give the old “bring lunch with me” scheme a try again on Monday. Maybe I’ll even bring in a couple somethings to make lunch a little more entertaining. I'll report on the success or abject and humiating failure sometime Monday or Tuesday.