My Turn

Hello, this is Brent. It's about time that I wrote a blog about how this whole experience is going for me.
To be honest, so far things are pretty easy. I mean, I miss the flexibility of being able to buy whatever we want but on the other hand, life gets boring when you have to rely on money to do anything. Last night we were both tired and realized that in the past that meant that we would order out and maybe rent a movie. But now both of those options are off limits! So instead we made some really good honey almond chicken and watched (To my chagrin) Little Women.
So, maybe after this year I will not be quite as good at playing "Scene It" but I will be a much better cook. (Probably more healthy too)
I do miss comic books (I'm now three weeks behind...someone please tell me what's happening to Spiderman!) but I have discovered that the local library is building it's comic book and Manga collection. In fact, I am thinking about donating some of my old comic trades to promote the spirit of donating! (Really I just want them to get more books because I will read all the ones they have in a few months)

We have only been doing this whole "no new stuff" thing for a month but the thing that has stood out to me is that Americans tend to pay for entertainment. What do you normally do for free? There isn't much. You pay for almost any concert, movie, play, round of golf, bowling...you name it.

So our challenge this year is going to be finding fun things that are free. And unfortunately they are few and far between! People could spend a lot less money if there were things to do that didn't involve money. More concerts in the park and parades and plays...in Albany where I grew up there was a play in the park every summer. They were good ones too, musicals like Camelot and lots of Shakespeare. There were seats that you could pay for but then there was a whole hill above them that you could sit on for free. It was always packed and always a lot of fun to go see.

That is the type of thing that we need more of. Then we wouldn't have to drop $30 every time we wanted to have fun.

So we will search for free fun things to do, and then maybe we can tell other people about them!
We will keep you posted.

-Brent