Many months ago, our coffeepot died. One foggy morning, I stumbled into the kitchen, pushed the start button, and headed to my favorite chair to wait. The usual beep came far sooner than I expected and when I walked over to happily get my coffee earlier than usual, I was greeted by an error button. It was finished. Kitchenaid wasn’t all that helpful. They’d be happy to offer me a new coffeepot at the low low price of $124. While I figured out what I wanted for replacement, we still needed our regular morning caffeine fix. Hubby dug the french press out of the back of the cupboard and every morning since, we’ve enjoyed freshly pressed hot coffee from it.
In this case, we discovered that we’d been using something convenient at the expense of value and quality. Sitting in our stash all along was something simpler, with no electric parts to break, that you can take anywhere, and provides a really good caffeine jolt whenever needed.
Coffee tends to get a bum rap when talking about frugal living. “The Latte Factor” is a term freely thrown around about the small amounts of money that we tend to spend here and there, not considering how much those small items add up and ultimately blow the budget. It is unfair and insulting to assume that if a person walks into a coffee shop and buys coffee once, twice or twelve times a week, they aren’t putting consideration into that. There is a place for all of the simple pleasures in life – hot coffee, books, home decor, cute clothes, haircuts, and good wine. To assume that enjoying those things means that there isn’t a level of consciousness in the spending for them is unfair.
It takes a whole lot of venti mocha lattes to equal the price of an iPhone or cable tv or a long list of other things that are becoming the way the truth and the light in this fast paced world. I’ll take sitting quietly drinking a latte with a friend over texting, tweeting and facebooking with an iPhone. The fact is, we all value different things. Some of us live without cars, riding bikes or walking everywhere. Others have mommymobiles for driving the kids from school to activities to Costco. There is no one size fits all way to live life. There are broader strokes that can apply to all of us. Be conscious. Consider expenses. Enjoy the simple things. Live, laugh, love. Appreciate. When all of those things are happening, it doesn’t matter if one person spends $40 a month on coffee or another spends that going out on a date night or another on a haircut.
There is one thing that I know is true. When it rains – even a light rain – puddles form. If it keeps raining, those puddles get bigger. Raindrops add up just like pennies do. Enjoy your latte. Save your pennies. As adults, many of us see puddles as obstacles. Either of my children would argue they are opportunities. To slow down while walking through that parking lot and enjoy a moment of sheer bliss as they lift those little feet up off the ground and come down as hard as they can to make as big of a splash as a 30 pound kid from 2 inches off the ground can. Just enough to soak the bottoms of their jeans and mom’s flip flopped feet. Enough to remind us that raindrops make something tangible to enjoy. So do pennies if we let them grow into something bigger. There is nothing quite like enjoying a warm cup of coffee while watching puddles form.
Fingerpaints
Whipped cream fights (shaving cream is fun too!)
