Shoulding.

Some days, I wish I wrote an inspirational blog about being poor.

About how the love of family and friends means more than financial stability!

About how with just a little bit of effort everything will start looking up!

About how simple living brings with it a freedom wealth can never provide!

About how a non-consumer lifestyle promotes sustainability!

All true, no doubt.

But today I went to Dollar General to buy a can of soup and I'm not feeling the love.

In my last post, I talked about shame and guilt. Those, I'm feeling.

So I offer a short list of things I now do because of our financial situation - things I SHOULD have been doing all along for the good of our family and the planet and puppies and kittens everywhere. That "SHOULD" hits me over the head like a ball peen hammer every time. I am well aware, rationally, that these practices would most likely not have made an appreciable difference in our bottom line over the last ten years. But I still feel bad.

• Turning the water off in the shower as soon as I'm wet, and not turning it on again until I am fully soaped and scrubbed.
• Drinking nothing but water.
• Using coupons.
• Letting errands build up and running them on a fuel efficient route.
• Using every drop of a body care product - even if I don't like it - before I buy another (more on this soon).
• Letting the lawn grow unfashionably shabby.
• Being unfashionable shabby, in general.
• Claiming PGT's too-dingy socks as our new "fitness wear."

If you do these things with money in the bank, you feel all virtuous and green and responsible.  If you do them overdrawn, you kick yourself for not having done them all along.