The finance entry. In which we talk about money, the lack there of, and why stuff costs so much.
Life can be an expensive jewel-encrusted whore sometimes, even if you have enough money to make your means. It's the daily things. The meals, the necessities, feeding you cat and washing your hair eat up your money like a vicious gobbling troll.
Take my kitty for instance. Cat food doesn't have to be too expensive, but we all know what happened a while ago with tainted food. We also know that most dry cat food is mostly carbohydrates, which leads to flabby tabbies and diabetes. So, because my cat is very much a part of my family, I decided to pick up a bag of the highest protein dry food available. It's called Blue Wilderness, and boasts no corn, soy or wheat, no animal byproducts, and the highest concentration of protein for a dry cat food. The first ingredient is chicken, and my little piggy-face loves it. It's also $16.99 a bag. Science Diet runs almost half that, but isn't nearly as healthful. Somehow it's hard to shell out nearly twenty dollars for a bag of cat food, even when you think about how much one spends on food for oneself during the week. But as I said before, I do consider him part of my family, so why would I only spend 10% of the food budget on him?
Food for yourself is another one of those paycheck devourers. Do you go to the farmer's market and buy it all fresh and awesome and maybe a tiny bit more expensive than Safeway? Or do you go to Whole Foods and pay the most exporbant prices humanly possible for organic, free-trade, grass-fed, free-range froo-froo chichi hippie food? Or maybe you just decide to live off of packages of ramen noodles for the rest of your life. Either way, you're gonna spend a good chunk of your monthly budget on keeping yourself fed.
Personal grooming is another nasty expense, and I'm not even a very vain person. I do, however, prefer to get my eyebrows waxed and not get my hair done at Supercuts. The mani/pedis are indulgent, but it's nice to have pretty nails and toe-nails, especially for summer. Right now I have, quite possibly, the cutest haircut in the entire world. Highlights of cinnamon and copper, in a short bob with lots of layers that curls symmetrically on the sides and feels like silk. Of course I have new shampoo to go with this new hair, and I'm having a ton of trouble trying to justify $32.00 for hair products when my mom just asked me if I could send her $100.00 monthly to help out with the bills. She'd probably ask for more if she could, but I think she feels guilty for having to ask.
Necessities are one thing, but what about when you want things as opposed to needing them? Silent Hill: Homecoming, the 6th installment of my very favorite video game series, is coming out at the end of September. Unfortunately for me, it's only coming out on the PS3 and Xbox360, neither of which I have. I've decided on the Xbox, which is going to be a 350 dollar expense, with 60 added on for the game, but then there are two Harvest Moon games coming out in August.
In the end, money and economics just confound me. When I was in high school I could never figure out why things cost what they did, and why we couldn't just get by with a barter/goods&services market. Of course I realized that it's all in supply and demand, but I still think that the monetary value attached to most things is unreasonable.
