People, and the dream world.

This post is a long time coming.

People are crazy. That is my statement and I’m sticking to it. It seems as though this world has become one big luxuries cruise ship and everyone is on it. At this point you are wondering what the heck am I talking about it, I’m talking about luxuries that have come around to being misinterpreted as necessities. I see this in all different backgrounds of America. The one I am most associated to is of course the orthodox Jewish community. So I will speak on that mainly, drawing references from my other experience as well.
Through the years there has been a trend of luxuries turning to necessities one example is undergarments. It was not so long ago that they were considered the clothing of the noble and upper crust society. Now it’s almost un-heard of for someone not to wear undergarments. Same thing could be said for silverware, once upon a time your hands is what got you fed, not a fork and knife. Keeping these examples in mind I would like to go onto some interesting comparisons in the year 2008. I overheard people complaining about their budget and how kosher food is just so over priced. Well, I happened to take a peak into their grocery cart just to have an idea of what they were talking about. Then I had an audible laugh. ‘ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!’ is what I wanted to say. OF course I didn’t. She had half a cart of T.V dinners, the other with coke and chips, hummus, and sporadic veggies that were overly priced since it wasn’t a produce store and it was a large food chain store. Let’s analyze this further shall we.
T.V dinners= A lot of money for a little food. = Over priced dinner= silly decision= waste of money.
MAKE A POT OF NOODLES and you’ll feed the whole family for half the price if not more of a T.V Dinner. Give me a break.
Coke and Chips= both go into a category of useless food items. DO you really need to feed your children this junk?! Even though I personally love coke, I’ve started to cut back really because of the health concern rather than anything else. BUT chips that is non excusable.
Hummus….WHAT, ever heard of a chick pea. Really, chick pea smashed with garlic=hummus…not the $5 kind, the $0.99 kind. Nothing wrong with cheaper!
Veggies not in a produce store….what do you just like throwing your money away.

I really hate it when people complain about prices and yet do nothing about it. I understand that in order to get vegetables you might have to drive 2 miles away. Yet, if it’s on your way to work, from work or on the path to another errand why not take advantage of it! Yes I agree driving to three different stores spending gas at $4.00/gal doesn’t make sense, but when you break it down unless you are driving 35miles out of the way it really does make sense. Over paying for someone else to deliver to your local supermarket does not make sense. Also, what is necessity? Yes, vegetables are more expensive. Yes, milk is more expensive, same as for eggs, BUT, pre-packaged hummus….common. Another delight, the people that buy pre-cooked food from the deli and then have the audacity to complain about it. Are you kidding me? Someone is making it for you, putting it in a box and you’re going to give him attitude.
In other words, when you complain that prices are going up and oh dear this economy, maybe it is worth it to analyze how you are spending your money currently, and maybe making some changes in that department.
It seems to me that we live in a society where no matter how much money a person makes; they feel like they should live like millionaires. There is people living pay check to paycheck complaining about it and driving BMW’s. Here’s a thought: don’t do that and you won’t be broke. Then on a smaller scale there are people complaining about food prices that are eating caviar, here’s a thought: Don’t do that and you’ll save that money for something that is really worth it such as milk and eggs.
If I were a financial advisor I would love to just analyze people’s budgets and make recommendations and see what happens from there.

You know the saying: You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink!
Need I say more?

Yup, I’ll save that for another post.