Cutting to the Bone

( Written when gasoline got over $4 a gallon)

So gasoline is getting beyond our budget, again. I figured it would, for a variety of reasons I’m not able to do anything about, so I don’t dwell on them. Not dwelling on events I can’t actively cause, or change, is a part of practicing my version of Roman Stoic philosophy. Changing things that are within my ability is the major focus of Roman Stoicism as I am attempting to live it. Of course, just changing things doesn’t always bring about the tranquility the Roman Stoics used to pursue, and I’m not sure tranquility is what I want in my life. Still, I need to start somewhere and tranquility isn’t such a bad goal.

If, and when, gasoline hits former Vice President Al Gore’s suggested price of $5.00 per gallon (“Earth in the Balance”, if my memory serves) I’ll have long since changed my habits to accommodate a life requiring as little of the substance as is possible. One drastic change came about several years ago after learning of the VP’s target price of $5.00 a gallon. I all but stopped voting for anyone with a “D” after his or her name. While that was a tough decision to make, (I tend to have mostly Democrat acquaintances and enjoy exploring the ideas they have, mostly about food production and religious issues) the change was made easier by the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party when gasoline prices hit $4 a gallon the first time. The Dem leaders started bellowing how unfair it was to the working class. I stopped dead in place when I heard that come over the radio. What? They were all for a fiver a gallon when it would be mostly in taxes!  Wasn’t that going to hurt the working class? Or was that the whole point of getting the price that high? Crush the working class; force them onto government doles to survive? Not that much of what the other party was/is doing seemed sane to me either.

The rest of the changes I’ve since made have been simple reductions in spending by way of behavior modifications. No more running to other towns to buy coffee and sit with friends to discuss everything under the sun, but we also didn’t bother to spend our time and money in Emmitsburg. We still go to Giants in Gettysburg, or Weiss in Thurmont, for groceries and will continue to do so as gas prices continue to rise. We’re simply working things around so we make the trips part shopping/part visiting. As time goes on, with ever-increasing costs, we’ll make the trips monthly, rather than weekly. We’re also beginning to eat what we grow in the gardens rather than give most of it away.

Another gradual change came about partly because of rising prices of gas and food. We now buy half a beef (for the cost of processing the whole animal) and freeze it. Wanda gets to enjoy steaks we pay $1.50 a pound for and see in the markets for as much as $10.00 a pound! I’ve taken to buying large cuts of pork (soon we’ll be buying whole joints of pig) and turning it into sausages we can’t find the equals of in supermarkets, for considerably less than store sausage costs!

We’ve bought canners and a dehydrator for processing the vegetables we grow. We’ve been, and will continue, planting open pollinated varieties of most things we grow so we can save seeds for following seasons. Purchasing hybrid seeds each year is wasteful not only because of their inability to reproduce viable seeds of a known standard for next year’s planting. They are also usually grown on farms dependant on fossil fuels for everything from preparing/fertilizing the soil to shipping seeds around the rock. Their prices reflect that.

As we hear the state wants to raise (as much as double) the price of keeping a vehicle on the road we’ll start taking vehicles off the road, saving on insurance and maintenance fees as well as the tag renewal costs! For every increase in state, county or town fees we’ll find some way of reducing our need for something else, preferably by directly eliminating spending in a given tax area when we can. We already spend much of our disposable income in Pennsylvania. It wouldn’t be so difficult to take all our business across the line if Maryland politicians can’t grasp that increasing taxes and fees often causes the reverse of their stated goals! And if Pennsylvania starts getting equally ridiculous with their sales taxes? Well, we’re already in a “cut to the bone” mode so we’ll simply hunker down to weather the storm until some sane administration regains control of either state. And if that doesn’t happen in my lifetime? Well, I have friends who’ve survived, even thrived in socialist/communist countries. They’re eager to teach me how to be comfortable even in a totalitarian state, which seems to be where we’re heading.

A few years ago I’d have been furious to find myself having to consider these “cuts”. Today, I’m almost eager to start making them deeper, to take ever more of my earned cash from grasping fingers that produce nothing and demand more and more. I can make a game of not spending, of hording, of hiding. Laughing at the tax grabbers, the do-nothings, could easily become a sport for me. Finding ways to be productive, yet giving nothing to the governments is a great way to exercise my inventive genius. (“Genius” is typed with tongue firmly in cheek.)

Another option we’re seriously considering is pooling our resources and joining with people of like minds. Over the last decade we’ve been asked to sell out in Maryland and joining some of the hippie communes that have survived from the late 1960s to this day. Pagan communities have invited us and even “whites only” pagan conclaves have offered sanctuary from the coming chaos they predict. (At first, I was surprised to learn there were pagans so racist, though I quickly realized that pagans are no different in their thinking than any other labeled group.)

Whatever we end up doing spending wise, I will continue to stand on the archery range as coach to the families who manage to attend the IWLA’s youth program. Unlike those in government, who always urge me to “think of the children” (so they can continue to rape the taxpayers), I actually do think of the kids and volunteer my time, equipment and what little expertise I have so the kids have a chance to grow in ways I did not discover until I was an adult.