I kind of regret having the addition built onto my house……That really cut into my savings, it cost me a little over $200,000

I’m really glad to have my children living there……….but had I known the economy was going to have such a slump I wouldn’t have done it.

Just with the difference of interest paid on my accounts, brings my income down by 2/3’s.  I had felt very secure in having enough money to live my life out without any worries……..

Now I’m trying to find ways to cut my expenses down.

It’s not easy.  I feel so sorry for people who have been living on credit cards and now will have nothing.

I’m glad my parents taught me years ago to never live on Credit.

Our Family’s credo was…….If you can’t afford to pay cash, you can’t afford it.  The only thing’s I’ve ever bought on time was a House or a Car.  The one time I  bought a car on credit, I Paid it off as quickly as I could.  I hate bills……….

I’m a firm believer in living within my means. (The Old Fashioned Way)

That belief comes from being a child of the Last Depression in this Country.

Over the course of the last six years, I put myself into a self- imposed recession in my life, because I wanted change from where I was, to where I chose to be. Which meant a process of eliminating excess, adjusting to the change and rebuilding a new form of life. I make less money now, but have more than I did before. I do not regret what I had at one point in my life, nor do I regret what I have now.

A major change or adjustment takes vision and faith in your choices. And not getting caught up in fears and worries in looking back at what was, or what might not be in the future. This is temporary in our lives, not the whole of life. I take it one day at a time, I never have lived on extended credit outside of a mortgage or car, if I could not pay for what I wanted, I let it either go, or be part of a larger vision in life, that is part of my bucket. Bought and paid for some frivolous things, but it was fun, and that was yesterday, no regrets. Tomorrow will be a new canvas to draw on in my life, and would not be there if not for yesterday.

I’ve been living a practical life for the past few years, and it is humdrum, given that I love luxe.  I still follow all of the personal maintenance I believe in, but it is stretched out further between appointments.

 Nancy Mitford wrote a scene in Love in a Cold Climate.  Linda, a British "Hon," has landed in Paris and begins an affair with a Duke, Fabrice. Fabrice insists Linda return to England at the onset of World War II, and he goes out and buys her things he believes will get her through the war including a mink throw and velvet boots.  "He seemed to regard the acquisition of clothes as one of the chief duties of woman, to be pursued through war and revolution, through sickness, and up to death. It is as one might say, "whatever happens the fields must be tilled, the cattle tended, life must go on."  He was so essentially urban that to him the slow roll of the seasons was marked by the spring tailleurs, the summer imprimés, the autumn ensembles, and the winter furs of his mistress."

I was reorganizing things tonight in this little triangular antique semaniere (no regrets there) where I keep hair accessories, scarves and gloves, and while I got rid of a few things, for the most part, the rest remained as active wardrobe.  I stay on top of weeding out, and try not to buy "regrets."  Before you issue a sour "Well good for you," (and I hope you’re laughing,) it got me thinking about an article I’ve been trying to find ever since I read it.

It was in The New York Times Sunday magazine, and it was a two-paged piece about how expensive it is to have an affair.  It was dead-on truth listing expenses for anyone engaged in a relationship that wants to put her (or his) best bits forward.  Workouts with personal trainers, spray tans, waxings, expensive lingerie, a lot of very costly shoes that may never touch the ground, Wolford lace-topped hose, jewelery, makeup, teeth bleaching, anything involving a plastic surgeon including surgery and the regular "needled touch-ups," plane tickets, hotel suites, private beach houses, on and on.  When you saw it all laid out over two pages (with the average price of each thing,) it was appalling.  And if things go wrong? You’re left gasping; walking around like a shadow, and paying off some very expensive bills.

It left me wondering tonight.  How does love weather the recession? That former sheaf of cellophaned wrapped orchids may well become a a daffodil secretly picked in a public park…and I hope equally cherished and pressed between the pages of a beloved book.