Proving Time Magazine Wrong

I went to the grocery store early this morning. I had to. I was out of milk and I wasn’t done drinking coffee. I have to have milk in my coffee. I used to have to have cream in my coffee, but I’m both older and fatter and have now switched to milk. I cannot stand to drink coffee black. I am addicted to coffee and I’m okay with that.

There wasn’t much more than milk that I truly needed at the grocery store, but while I was there, and since milk is in the back, I had to walk through the place. I could use some more veggies for my large salad bowl, from which I lunch during the week. So I purchased some broccoli and cauliflower pieces. Pomegranates are in season and are wonderfully tasty. I purchased celery and onions for when I make stuffing/dressing/that-concoction-that-goes-inside-turkeys later in the week. I thought it too early to purchase the bread. I know stale is good, but moldy is not so good.

Early in the morning, meat that didn’t sell the day before is marked down. It is a way to eat cheaply and I’m nothing if I’m not cheap. Everyone is on a limited income, even Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have limits. They are very high limits, but their money has an end point. I, too, am on a limited budget. It is a much higher limit than say my kids’ incomes or even our own income years ago. But it is still limited.

However, in all honesty, I could afford to pay for the higher-priced, fresher items. I come home and put everything in the freezer, thereby negating the whole “fresh” thing. But I don’t need to purchase the yellow-price-tag-marked-down-sticker stuff. It is morally okay if I do? Should I leave those items there for someone who is less well off financially? Does it mean if I buy these marked down items that someone else goes hungry? Does everyone have to have meat at every meal? Am I being piggy?

Am I obsessing about something that makes no difference? I have worried about this more and more. I am debt free in America which means that I’m way at the top of the affluent line. I could be in debt easily. I could purchase a bigger, more expensive home. I could buy a fancy sports car instead of driving my six year old mid-sized sedan. I could spend lots of money and be in debt. But I don’t. I like not having debt. It took me a long time to get there.

But since I’m “affluent” to the degree that I can afford many more luxuries than I could thirty years ago, does that mean I have a responsibility to allow other people first grab at the cheap seats? If I don’t buy the marked down items, will some “poor” person come after me and pick it up? Will a different affluent person come along behind me and pick it up? Do I allow the stuff to sit there in the hopes that someone else more needy gets a chance at it or was that needy person supposed to be there in the early morning because that is when they mark down items and if you want to buy that stuff that is when you need to be there?

Who really cares about any of this? Is this just an intellectual exercise to prove that I have too much time on my hands?

But it is a concern. Silly as it may be. What is the right or correct method of behaving? Is it okay to be cheap even when you don’t have to be cheap? Is there any reason I should leave the stuff behind? Should I feel guilty when I don’t? Am I just trying to make my life more exciting and this is the best I can do?

I wish I had an answer. But at least I know that as I ponder these inanities, I am important in my blog.