Not working is the best

Not working is the best.

The. Best.

I spent some money today; it is the weekend after all. But I've also been very productive.

I called the Ticket Clinic and secured a lawyer for the ticket I got, on my birthday, for illegal use of the HOV lane. It cost $87. (With any hope, court fees will be nominal.) Even though this occurred pre-Heavy Thrifting, I'm glad to pay it off this month. It represents one of those financial irregularities, the kind that strike at whim, take $100 from your wallet and go on their merry way.

Like today, I went grocery shopping with a friend. As we were leaving, she backed into another car. No one was hurt, but in an instant she knew she was out a couple hundred dollars. Bummer, but it happens. There's nothing you can do about it except pay up and move on.

I think the ticket irregularity skews my data back in the right direction. It works because being written tickets is, at least for me, a semi-regular occurrence.  You never know when, but once and while, you're going to get written up for something. And you're probably going to forget about it and have to pay the late fee.

In lighter news, I finally cooked.

I wanted something enormous, delicious and healthy, so I made a vegetarian Thai green curry.  It's got it all: coconut milk, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby carrots and more. The total tab at Publix for the ingredients was $25.11. It was great for dinner and its going to be even better tomorrow once it thickens. And the next day. And all week.

Good thing I love vegetarian Thai green curry.

Comments

[Dan]

On the topic of cooking inexpensively, the NYTimes (boo! hiss! rival paper!) has an article about one guy spending an entire week cooking only foods he found in dollar stores [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/dining/26ninety.html]
While it may be a bit extreme, it doesn't seem to have turned out too bad and I know places like that exist down there. If I was able to find some saved by the bell shampoo (flavored by Zack-berries) then I'm sure you can find just about anything there.

You could even take some recipes from world famous chef Eric Ripert who is given a challenge to cook meals with dollar store goods. I'd actually probably eat those things, too: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/dining/26nside.html]

Any other creative, cheap cookery suggestions?

[brayden simms]

re Dan:

A word on dollar store goods: I'm not saying I've never imbibed, but I do seem to recall reading that a lot of our tainted goods end up in dollar stores. I believe, as a matter of fact, that the tainted toothpaste scandal a few months back was from dollar-store bought toothpaste. If the toothpaste is bad, I wonder about the actual food.

But yes, I've read that article and it's pretty hilarious. Hadn't seen the second one though. Props.

[Trace]

New fuel-saving driving techniques + increased tickets = savings??

Hmmm. Better stop at those stop signs, buddy.