dollars and sense

There's an interesting shift happening here, and I want to record it as it happens, but it is subconscious, so I'm not completely clear... However, switching to Taiwanese dollars from US dollars has changed the way we do money. That and the hesitance to use a credit card because they routinely charge an extra 4% for the privilege. Two things to set the picture.

1. The Taiwanese dollar is 32-1. That means that $100 here is worth $3.20 at home.

2. Things cost about the same here and at home, except for rent and health care, which is national, and therefore quite reasonable, compared with our overburdened system at home. Otherwise, food, gas, clothing, phone, internet, etc. etc. are all the same.

Ok, so here's the thinking. At home, I pretty easily spend a hundred dollars. I can do it at the vitamin shop, I can do it in the grocery store. I can do it at TJ Maxx. Around this time of year, I justify doing it rather more frequently, adding up 'good deals' until they reach $100, and I have the feeling that I've done well. I've gotten a lot of gifts for my bucks. Of course, we try to have a hand-made gift as the focus of the season each year, but even that requires some luxurious spending in materials, justified because we are not spending the money on individual purchases at some other store.

Here, I spend a hundred dollars pretty easily too. It is a little harder to drop a thousand. I really notice it when I have to take out one of those blue bills, and I think quite carefully before I do it. I can count on one hand the times I've been to a grocery store and spent more than a thousand. Often, if it's more than $500, I'm a little surprised at myself and catch myself wondering if I've been excessive.

If I buy too much flour, it gets buggy before I can use it. Same, too, at home, but somehow here it seems more wasteful. There is no place to store an open package of something here without inviting guests, mini-ants and maxi-cockroaches (with wings.) We've had to put things in our fridge (which, since we had to buy it the first week we were here, is rather small) and in the set of storage containers we got at the Ikea shopping trip.

Last night, I went on Amazon and ordered books that Joplin can bring back when he goes to Philadelphia in a few weeks for Thanksgiving and Daithi and Lisa's wedding. I spent $136. I thought carefully about each book. I discussed them with Joplin. I still spent $136. Just like that. If I do the math, it is $4384. That is a bucket load of money, and I'm not comfortable with it, not at all.

You see, we've decided to take our lifetime-dream trip to New Zealand. But things down under are so incredibly expensive that even with camping in a tent the entire time, it will cost $6000 to do it. That's US dollars. We're a hemisphere closer, but still a hemisphere away. We figure that if we live on half of Joplin's salary of $82,000/month ($2560) that we can save nearly enough money between now and when we go at the end of January for Chinese New Year.

I wrote out a budget, and with all our expenses, we can save the right amount, and still have $4000 each month leftover for extras. Well, I spent that $4000 last night.

But the point is not in the figures. The point is that it is even possible to think that we, who live a simple but very comfortable life in Vermont, could have cut our spending down so considerably that we can even think of doing this trip. And the point is, it feels good. It's like loosing weight. When you think of America being the world's largest consumer, by far, it feels like heading in a healing direction to learn how to live on much much less. And I think it will take a year to learn it well enough that I'll even have a slim chance of bringing it home with me. I'm afraid that I'll walk back in my lovely front door, and shift right back into easy-buy.

I grew up without money. I didn't like it. I'm very comfortable with having more than enough, enough to share generously. So maybe my learning point is that if I spend less generously on myself, my family and my lifestyle, I'll have more to share with others. I'll have to go on translating US dollars into Taiwanese dollars so that I have the shock effect of spending a thousand bucks whenever the bill goes over $30.