Making LIfestyle Trade Offs

The stock market is making no sense to me at the moment. I keep reading that the stock market is not the economy, which, OK I sort of get. But then again, not really.

Thus, even though we are now pretty much back to our pre-COVID portfolio, I'm still somewhat mistrustful of it remaining that way, so instead of ramping up our spending in light of several new revenue streams coming on line now that my hubby is turning 65, we're making some trade offs instead so that the additional revenue can sit safely unused until the world calms itself just a bit more.

Here are some of the changes we're making as a result of shifting priorities during this time of COVID.

• As much as we've been home since early March, I've discovered that I really don't enjoy cleaning our house. I like to keep it tidy and organized and decorated, but that is pretty much where it stops. So we recently hired a housecleaner to come in every four weeks to do the deep cleaning, and after just one visit I'm in heaven. So nice to have the entire house spic and span clean!

The subsequent tradeoff is that I'm going to stop coloring my hair for the near future in that I'm actually rather liking the dark blonde with silver highlights that is presenting itself at my crown. Yep, the money saved from this will completely cover the cost of the housecleaner. Oh woman, vanity truly is thy name! 😄

 

• We are craving having somewhere outside to go hang out on a regular basis, so we recently joined a second wine club in our area.* This one offers outdoor dining, plus two free glasses of wine daily for wine club members. Daily! Which, LOL, we won't be availing ourselves of. What we are planning is to have dinner there weekly, on the night they offer wine club members half price on all food. The food is excellent, and with free wine and half price food, we can enjoy a lovely outdoor evening each week for less that $20.

* For those of you that are curious, the grapes for both wineries we now belong to are sourced from Paso Robles, one of our states most robust wine regions.

The subsequent trade off is that we won't be dining out for dinner at full price restaurants as often. Which is fine, because if full service dining was expensive before COVID, my guess is that it's going to be even more expensive now due to all the safety provisions that are being put into place.

• We have really enjoyed packing up our dinner and eating it somewhere scenic and outdoors.

The subsequent trade off is that I'm having to adjust my weekly meal planning to accommodate pack and go type meals, which take just a bit more time than meals eaten at home.

• Home cooking rocks, as do farmers markets, so our grocery budget is now being spent at it's fully budgeted $100 a week, instead of coming in under budget due to shopping at primarily just two places. Instead, I've enjoyed visiting a variety of grocery places each week, so that I can shop sales, but also purchase specialty items. For example, Whole Foods has amazing fresh baked sourdough bread, Sprouts is great for produce, Trader Joe's has the best cheese, and farmers markets have the best tamales, hummus, and pita, hands down

The subsequent trade off is not so much money as time - this all takes more time and effort than confining my shopping to just two stores. But hey, where else do I need to be these days???

 

• With our travel budget slashed for the next year or two, we've decided to shift the amount we aren't spending over to our Hobbies account, and begin taking golf lessons. I was gifted a set of women's golf clubs by a friend looking for a home for a set they no longer needed, and my husband already owns a set, so our getting started fees should be minimal. Shoes and gloves for me is about all, and not even gloves if I can use my bicycling gloves. I'm looking forward to it in that it will get us outside even more than we are already outdoors.

The subsequent trade off is less international travel for now. But we'll still be able to travel in our RV as much as we wish, plus fly back east to visit our family whenever we wish, so I'm fine with it. And if golfing takes off, then we'll allocate some of our new revenue stream to it at the point we feel comfortable returning our Travel budget back to it's pre-COVID amount.

Additional zero cost lifestyle changes we're making as a result of COVID are daily weight strengthening sessions in our garage using free weights we already own, after-dinner trips to the beach to  sit and enjoy the sunset, more frequent visits to our adults-only HOA pool, and trips to the beach to play in the surf with our boogie boards, something we hadn't done since we were teenagers. 

If COVID has done nothing else, it has forced us, helped us, to re-focus our priorities. Which I do think is the point when the going gets rough. It's an opportunity to peel back the layers of life and begin again with that which matters most deeply to each one of us.

What about you? What lifestyle tradeoffs have you discovered you are willing to make as a result of the pandemic?