Feeling rich is completely subjective. No matter how much money you have in your wallet, let alone in your portfolio, if you need quarters for your parking meter and don't have them, you're going to feel scarcity. Likewise if you're stuck on an airplane and you forgot to bring food, no amount of money is going to help the SouthWest snackpack satisfy your hunger.
While my frugal habits honed over my adult life have served me well, sometimes they have outlived their usefulness and limited my imagination. I make chicken schnitzel a lot, basically just a breaded, sauted boned chicken breast. I usually prepare 2 pounds once I'm at it, but it's a nuisance since it doesn't all fit into the pan I've always used, just a cheap supermarket 10" teflon fry pan. A few years ago I bought a SECOND more or less identical pan. What an improvement! I could start the second pan while the cutlets in the first pan were finishing up. For $15.99, I felt incredibly rich. Of course if I hadn't been so cheap, I could have splurged on a second frying pan 30 years ago, but better late than never. For me, wealth is having two identical frying pans. For the next person, it's something completely different.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
The Two Fry Pan Theory of Feeling Rich
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2 comments:
Many years ago, I learnt that one of my uncles in India had died. As customary, he'd been cremated on an open fire at the neighborhood crematorium. His son, my cousin, recalled the tears, not from his father's death, but from the smoke resulting from burning green (un-aged) wood. At the time, I lived in a ramshackle cottage surrounded by an acre-and-a-half of woods, and felt quite rich, having my pick of firewood from fallen branches over the past winter.
I, too, have 2 frying pans.It makes cooking a lot faster.
I feel rich because I have everything I need. The surplus is a nice bonus.
Marie
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