#ghost poverty

[clatterbane]

I can't help but feel like I've been possessed by my mother with her own frugal ways tonight.

A new location of one of the cheaper Swedish supermarket chains finally opened very recently in the shopping center near us. They'd supposedly been ”coming soon!” all summer long.

So yeah, I was already checking out what they had on sale with the idea of going over the weekend. That didn't work out because he was busy Saturday and I just didn't have the spoons yesterday.

Anyway, my mom seemed to get a lot of enjoyment out of plotting her shopping rounds by poring through all the weekly sales papers and her extensive collection of paper coupons. (Then of course you supplement those deals by rummaging through every reduced section in town. Which I will also do, whenever I get an opportunity.)

My mobility hasn't supported that approach for many years now, even if I did get the same charge out of the whole thing. I don't even feel like doing the equivalent with comparison shopping for online orders. I usually just try to catch a good deal whenever I happen across it, assuming we would actually be wanting to use the thing anyway.

But yeah, here I am reworking my (app-based) shopping list for the newly planned trip to Willys tomorrow after he gets off work and can run my gimpy ass over there and help haul the booty home. Poring through their online sales paper, because of course the weekly specials flipped over at the end of the week. 😤😥

At least I have been cooking enough more again for this food acquisition mission to make some sense, is all I can say. And grocery prices in general here do get me more motivated!

[clatterbane]

New plan that I'm intending to get going, with the excuse of a Christmas treat: finally getting a small, relatively easy to maintain planted tank set up here, for some shrimp and most likely a betta. Because my cheap ass evidently needs some excuse beyond "I just think they're neat." 🙄

Considering one of these setups:

https://aquaremedyireland.com/product/shrimp-set-smart-2-30l-black/

(Not from this place; that was just a handy link in English.)

The model name is pretty coincidental. I was just looking for a tank of around that size, which happens to be a popular setup for mini shrimp. Currently going back and forth between the idea of also getting a matching stand (which is pricier than the tank itself), and just picking up a reasonably sturdy small table from IKEA. I could get, say, a Skruvby--which looks functionally very similar minus a cabinet door--for less than half the price.

It's both exciting and sort of intimidating to be starting over completely from scratch with aquarium stuff. All of it basically ended up getting abandoned back in Romford. Including the multiple tanks of various sizes.

I don't have 15+ years of accumulated equipment/supplies to dip into now and set up another small tank on the cheap, or really the means to get out looking for bargains or picking stuff up from the local Craigslist equivalent--and pretty much everything aquarium (or most other hobby) related is spendy as shit here, compared to when I was feeding my aquatic habit in the UK.

But yeah, it is what it is. And we can afford to get a damn shrimp tank up and running, even at full Swedish retail prices. Better just pretend it's Monopoly money, and pick up what I need.

(Also, gotta say that my tiny dyscalculic brain is also still more prone to sticker shock, seeing as it's around 100kr to $10 or £7.50. Gotta shift that decimal point one space over for those quick mental conversions! Otherwise you're gasping at a $25 loaf of bread. Could be worse, it could be either yen or, say, Jamaican dollars for the extra denomination mindfuck. Just remembering hearing one guy bitching about spending J$200 for a head of cabbage after some bad growing weather. 😱)

But yeah, besides just really looking forward to some new little water buddies? I'm enjoying mentally planning out the aquascaping and looking at some potential options. Also looking forward to the prospect of planning around something as polite as these little guys.

They couldn't really tear/gobble up their plants or root around in the tank substrate if they even wanted to, so you don't need to plan around that. (Yes, I am looking at you, messy carp beasts goldfish. 😒) Easier to get things looking nice with tiny guys who actually like to help by grazing on algae.

[clatterbane]

That said, I am just as glad that I hadn't gotten any further along in my current tattoo schemes before we ended up facing this unexpected $2000+ household expense.

The work I was in the middle of plotting would most likely run at least as much as the smaller type of fridge we've got now, and ouch. 😬 Poverty Brain has already been making me drag my feet on this for years, even now that I am in fine physical shape to heal more body art no problem.

[clatterbane]

Oh yes, I should finally be getting another laptop tomorrow! Probably one of these if they're still in stock locally by then: Acer Aspire 3 (NX.K7UED.00C) | NetOnNet

Mr. C decided to cave and take advantage of sales to pick up a new desktop, considering the main Linux box he's running now is like 10 years old. So, he suggested also picking up a laptop for me while he's at it! I hadn't actually replaced my last one with a thoroughly busted screen for several years now, so yeah I was down with that plan.

Still a little startled at the "well, may as well turn one fairly major purchase into two at the same time!!!" approach, coming from someone who is frankly a lot better with money than I ever have been. He's the one who's been earning it around here, so I guess that is actually a reasonable plan. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not gonna say no.

I am still not totally used to the idea of having a reliable actually middle class household income, even with only one person bringing any in these days. And Ghost Poverty Brain is still kinda stuck in overdrive, after things did get relatively tight for a while with the move and the ongoing medical expenses before I got properly covered under the local healthcare system. Cost of living is not exactly low here, even coming from freaking London. Easy for my brain to have little conniptions. 🥴

But anyway, laptops yay!

[clatterbane]

I did go ahead and pull the trigger, and finally put in an order for a decent-looking knee scooter a little while ago! 😎

That's through amazon.de since I kept finding much better selection and deals buying from Germany. And that model actually looked comparable to ones going for the equivalent of €700+ through medical supply type places here. For a damned modified kick scooter. 😒 Gotta love disability tax.

Cheap ass that I am, I put that off for more than long enough. But, it should hopefully soon be easier to get around inside the house some, now that I do seem to be OK putting full weight on that foot. *fingers crossed*

I'll probably mostly continue to use the chair for now, even at home. But, this should be a particularly handy option for, say, popping to the bathroom at night and doing things that are require or are much easier standing up.

Also let me build up some better strength and balance again, with any luck. Frustratingly, I just had to back off with the crutches before I hurt myself with it, and have been trying to work more on the balance, etc. in the meantime. Not that surprising after over a year of barely standing up at all, but still disappointing. A scooter ought to provide A LOT more stability, though.

Intending to try and start out slow with it, but hopefully there will also eventually be the option of also using it for some shorter trips out.

I also added some (probably much needed 😑) extra cushioning for my knobbly knee and nerve damaged bony shin:

Pretty long shipping estimate on the scooter itself. But, of course now that I finally bought the thing, I'm feeling pretty impatient to try it! 😅

Been hoping to get up on something like that for around a year now, since I found out they're even an option. (From other amputees, naturally.) Almost hesitate to say how relieved I am that the remaining "good" foot seems to be cooperating better after all this time! *knock wood*

[clatterbane]

Speaking of my own personal DIY stimulant self-medication approach?

Which has honestly been working out even better for me here, btw! 😁

[Source.]

I just seem to have, erm, invested another roughly $120/£85 in coffee and paraphernalia. 🤡

I was originally planning to just order one of their assortment packs to try. Which should last us a while! But, then I also saw they had a pretty good deal going on an AeroPress, which I had been wanting to try anyway. So, why not. In for a penny, and all that.

That would be on top of the moka pot--as artistically rendered above!--along with a hopefully half-decent hand grinder and milk frother already on the way from elsewhere, yeah. 🙄

On the plus side, we should soon be pretty well set up to make stronger more espresso-like coffee/drinks from that at home. Quickly, and much more affordably than buying an actual espresso machine of even vaguely reasonable quality. Which was kinda my idea, going in.

And, it struck me that I've probably been saving more money than that a month, just by (finally) getting off the cigarettes what I realized is now over a year ago! 😊 Even with vape supplies running higher here than in the UK, because taxes AFAICT.

That is still pocket change by Serious Coffee Person standards, and we can kinda afford it. But, for my cheap ass, which certainly does not intend to head down any Serious Coffee path? Ouch. 😵

[clatterbane]

Just reminded again by this post, that this is another area where it's probably a good thing that Mr. C and I were starting out on similar pages. Lagom financial security?

He also grew up without much money, though in a more Swedish "actual safety nets in action" sort of way.

Including ready access to quality educational resources, for a more win-win situation all around. 😯 (Well, alongside not being obviously disabled in ways that made building/maintaining a good tech career harder.)

But yeah, we're apparently both pretty much hoping for "able to have what we need, and also a lot of the things we just want within some reasonable expectations". Which is basically the current state of affairs, as continues to be hard for me to process sometimes.

Honestly never really expected to find myself there, and I also can't help but get nervous and feel vaguely guilty at times. Especially as someone who has spent more of my adult life than not unable to consistently do paid work.

But yeah, at least that is a major area of life where we do seem to have very similar goals and ideas. Which is an excellent thing, if you're going to be working on the life partner buddy system!

There are actually a number of areas where I think it's really, really helped our relationship work better, that besides largely compatible personal weirdness? We do seem to be actually starting out from some more similar cultural assumptions. Not around everything, of course! But, definitely the stronger emphases on equality and, you know, actually trying to get along with other people and work toward some kind of consensus.

Maybe not surprisingly something I've been thinking about more since I've been plopped down in Sweden, and hope to find the energy and words to ramble more about.

[clatterbane]

Other items I can evidently keep going "But, did I really need that?" over: a £12 lap desk, and maybe £30 worth of art/craft supplies. 🙄

When (a) we're not actually poor, and (b) I've mostly been spending money on food/household supplies or medical stuff. With the occasional book, music, game, or clothing purchase.

(Not to mention (c): one of the reasons I've been stuck in a rolling burnout is putting basically all my limited energy into basic survival-level stuff, with things I actually enjoy doing staying pretty much bottom priority for too long now.)

But yeah, how unreasonable to try and break out of that some. 😑