too frugal

TOO FRUGAL


I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to my pleas on the old Bison articles. I have so many e-mails I haven’t gotten to many of them. Please bear with me as I try to get back to everyone. One loyal minion even sent files of all issues by year. I didn’t think about it, but perhaps I should just offer them by year rather than month. Two or three bucks for a years worth of my wisdom, how can you beat that? Answer, you can’t, especially with a sharp stick ( the stick would break ).

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I believe that Mother Nature, that syphilitic whore, has decided to stop messing with me personally and quit with the endless cloudy days. We are on our third day of sun, and the lows are out of the single digits ( it seems North Carolina took over our weather ). I am so happy about this wonderful development that I am celebrating and declaring to all my legions of doom that henceforth the Bison shall be published seven days a week since I can now write on the computer at home and pre-post them for the weekend ( by the by, any Lord Of The Ring fans out there? I ran across a reference in a book I just read-The Zenith Angle By Bruce Sterling which was very good- about either Crows Of Doom or Ravens Of Doom and I couldn’t find it again. I remember the “My Precious!” from the movie. But I only read The Hobbit as a kid, not Lord. Anyway, which is it, ravens or crows, and is there any further info? I would love to start ripping it off to describe the survivalist extreme ).

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I started reading “Reich Of The Black Sun” this weekend. He packs it with so much information I had to take a break from it and read the above mentioned Sterling book. Neal Stephenson made the best break away from cyberpunk, but Sterling isn’t doing so bad. Anyway, while I don’t swallow the premise of “Reich” whole, it is a very interesting theory. Basically, the Nazis had a uranium bomb long before wars end and the US, hopelessly behind the curve, got two bombs out of the submarine ( U-237 I believe- the one propaganda has as merely containing a communications code machine ) and used them on Japan, then used the rest of Germanys fuel stockpile to finish their arsenal. We had opted to go with plutonium which yields more weapons grade material but which requires a reactor. Plutonium does not. He goes into detail about the rubber plant that was next to uranium deposits, which used as much electricity as Berlin, was situated next to concentration camp labor yet which never manufactured a single ounce of rubber. Rumors of test explosions, etc. It nicely covers strange questions such as why Patton attacked an otherwise worthless target at wars end, and of course then begs brand new questions such as why the Germans didn’t use the weapons on the advancing Reds. Recommended for getting your brain thinking in new directions. Just don’t take it too seriously.

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After much blather and unnecessary subjects being covered, today’s article on being too frugal. I know, how is that even possible? How can you be too frugal, the smartest way to arrange your economic affairs? Well, besides my bike, I have another example for you. To cover my butt and make me look really smart, in my defense I must say that I did act on the information at hand when I bought and then kept my bicycle. It was an aluminum frame, so it would never need replacing. In the end the bike shop parts and labor were quite high, over four hundred bucks, but it allowed me to stretch out the “payments” and I was thinking of it as an investment. Replace crap Chinese parts with quality Taiwanese parts and in the long run spend very little money annually for transportation. I had no way of knowing I would run into the parts replacement issue. When you replace your car with a bike, which you eventually will as the oil runs out and you are permanently unemployed, keep that lesson with you. Only buy Wal-Mart Beach Cruiser type units if you bike short distances. The other way I would get myself in trouble being too cheap is as follows.

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As you might remember, I am paying on two lots of land in Elko. I own outright the one ten miles up the road, but it is too isolated to commute ( a further five miles north of the freeway on extremely bad roads ). It is there as an unemployment insurance. The one I live on now is four miles to towns edge. That is a hundred a month and overpriced at six grand. I owe $4800 principle on it. The one two and a half miles further down the road was less than three grand and I only owe $1200 on it. I really, really want to move down the road, paying off the land and dropping the current one. My bills go from six hundred a month to $425. I can build permanent buildings such as storage sheds. I drop the stress of owing anyone any money. Yet… I can’t quite force myself to do it. I go from one mile to the river to over three. The road for a mile and a half to the lot is not plowed by the county. In high winds or mechanical breakdown I have increased my commute fifty percent and make it that much tougher to get home. I go from a driveway 150 feet long I must shovel snow to seven hundred feet. I either take a chance being snow bound or I go internal combustion engine dependence.

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Being dependant on a snow plow, or a snow blower, and putting half again as much miles on the truck. It goes against my long term plan of being able to weather Oil Down. Just like my reluctance to use a generator, although that is mostly my enjoyment of the peace and quiet. I hate the debt, but in the end it is only a two grand difference ( $3600 difference in the land, but if I bought a moped-strap on two cycle bike motors are not reliable enough- and a snow blower the dollar difference shrinks ) and I don’t belong at the mercy of gasoline. I can always change my mind if unemployed, so for now all I sacrifice is a lack of stress. Or, I should say I would exchange stress over debt for stress over my oil dependent machines breaking. I’m trying not to be too frugal that it bites me in the ass.

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