Day 1

Wed. Feb 1st

I walked to work this morning. It was about 6:45AM and somewhere in between morning light and morning darkness. As I expected, it was actually a very pleasant experience. Yes it was somewhere in the mid 30s temperature-wise but it was not snowing or raining...very much a plus. I felt sort of empowered using my own two feet to get myself to work. I had a nice moment where I noticed two squirrels racing down the power lines above the street and smiled to myself. It was my own private moment seeing those squirrels; Something no one else got to see and something I would not have seen had I been driving my car. I exchanged pleasantries with two early morning workers I ran into--one at the post office where I dropped off my Netflix return and the other near my office where he worked swapping out bags in the garbage can on the street. The approximate one mile journey took me all of 22 minutes. I started the day in a great mood even though I had the lingerings of a sore throat and cold that I'd picked up a few days ago (most likely on my recent 18 hour flight back from a week vacation in Kauai). The work day went by very quickly. Quicker than I can remember a work day going in a long time.

Around 4PM, I took my mountain bike that I'd left in my office (cannot remember exactly how/why my bike was at my office not my house) out for the journey home. It was raining/attempting snow so obviously this journey was not quite as pleasant as the mornings walk. I stopped off at the grocery store which is about half-way between my office and home for a few things. Here's where I think I goofed all ready on day one of my own personal "Not Buying It" journey. I bought some non-essential things. #1 Emergen-C, those packets of vitamin C that you mix with water which I like to take when I am sick to try to get over my sickness as quickly as possible. #2 I bought paper towels because they were on sale 3 for $1.79! I mean come on, that's just over 50 cents a roll, how could a frugalist like myself pass up such a good deal! The other items I bought were 1 lime, 1 tomato, and 1 avocado which I thought would come in handy for tacos that I tend to eat about once a week.

Around two hours of my evening, I spent figuring out how to post a live blog. Hopefully once I get this blogging down, it won't take so much time. Otherwise, I fear the free time I've discovered by not jumping in my car every evening to run errands and such will just turn into time I spend in front of the computer blogging. Let's hope not.

Day One of Frugal February is in the bag. Only 27 days to go!