Add us to the list of having made significantly more donations to charities, political campaigns, our colleges /grad schools and causes that are important to our kids.
Food bill seems actually a bit higher, b/c normally DH gets taken out for business dinners, which isnt happening now.
I am watching the Tulsa rally now. I hope all employers are watching this and making sure all of their employees who are at the rally are quarantined for 14 days and get tested before allowing them back to work. In Feb, before shelter in, my employer required us to report if we were traveling and if we were traveling to any hot spot then we were required to stay home for 14 days before we were allowed back to work.
Trump is the President of US and his safety is very important to our country. I am wondering why there isn’t more precaution to ensure his safety. I really thought they would at least put up some plexiglass around him since mask is optional. This is when I do wonder about people’s judgement.
There are plenty of Secret Service people all over the place. But, coronavirus does not seem to be a main concern tonight.
We had a new roof put on last year and splurged (lol) on expensive covered gutters. I complained about the expense but we will never have to clean our gutters again. Well worth it, I say that now!
A PGA pro tested positive for the coronavirus yesterday. This is an article about it. https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/29339948/how-pga-tour-pro-nick-watney-positive-covid-19-test-revealed-need-ongoing-adjustments
The interesting part is that he saw he had an elevated respiratory rate via a fitness band many golfers wear called a Whoop band. I’ve never heard of it and thought I knew a fair amount about fitness trackers.
@oldfort - yup. Those are our ‘depressed’ spending categories.
I’ve cancelled two of my regular annual spa trips. H has cancelled (or more precisely, simply hasn’t booked) his annual fishing trip and the discussion of adding a second came to a full stop. We have no travel on the books.
This time of year we usually go to 2-4 outdoor concerts a month. The few that were booked have been cancelled. No spending on fancy dinners. Gas bill is almost non-existent.
H and I did splurge on a haircut and I have a botox appointment coming up. But, I won’t be adding anything to the botox menu the day of the appointment - staying with areas that can be addressed while wearing a mask.
Sadly, healthcare costs are down. Not because we are healthier but because we’ve put off a number of regular preventative visits. I have several scheduled in the next few weeks - will see how the first goes and if it feels comfortable.
Also this time of year we tend to spend on activities where we include the whole family. Wine train - cancelled. Big blowout party for extended family - not planned. Taking kids on a vacation - not planned.
I’ve found myself wearing the same clothes for weeks on end (wait…I wash them but just to right back to wearing the same things). I’ve got three piles - one for cooler days, one for in-between days and one for the now warm days. So basically jeans, a performance fabric pair of pants and a pair of shorts or skirt. Add 10 top pieces and I’ve been set. I did just order two lightweight cardigans from Amazon
Food spending is up a bit. But when factoring in the lack of meals eaten out - we’re still spending less on feeding ourselves than BCT (before COVID times).
We have spent on some outdoor projects but since it’s either hard to find help or it’s not the type of job where you can SD - those have been limited to what H and I and an occasional neighbor can manage on our own.
My 10 year old dryer broke. I had it repaired instead of replaced. Simple fix. If H wasn’t buried Adam’s apple deep in the mire that is PPP loans, EIDL loans and other processes to keep the business afloat - he would have diagnosed and repair it himself. Two days later the washer was showing signs of illness. H and I did diagnose that problem - a $65 set of shock absorbers is on the way. I like that old set and the two times repair people have been by they basically said ‘hang on to these, the new stuff is crap’.
Speaking of crap - my 3 year and one month old fancy schmatzy Samsung refrigerator has stopped freezing. Long story short - not unexpected. Ooodles of complaints, a class action lawsuit a FB page with 20k+ members fighting the company because of the known design flaw. BCT H would have said - let it go, never buy this brand again but don’t spend the next year of your life fighting this issue. Now, I decided to fight and it seems it will be a short fight and one in where I will come out ahead. So, no new 3K fridge will be put on the CC.
I jokingly say I expect my CC fraud department to contact me and say ‘it appears your card has been compromised. We’ve notice a decided lack of usage over the last few months - this can’t be you’ 
Oh, and we put the home mortgage into forbearance - because we could and there is really no penalty. Payments get add to the end of the term, no additional interest
So in the end. Other than basic bills and a splurge on more expensive cuts of meat - we are WAY, WAY down in our spending.
As for the spread of COVID at large gatherings I think we can sum up the general opinion and attitude:
If the large gathering is in support of something I believe in, in support of something that gets my goat or raises my ire and sense of righteousness - then the risks are addressable and can be explained. The risks are either acceptable - because of the value of the event - or while still not really acceptable - I can find a way to massage the situation to a point where I still feel good about saying the moral necessity of the highly likely spreading event overrides the risks. Oh, and in MY case this is not hypocritical or contradictory.
Now in YOUR case …well…you want to go and hurt people because you just don’t care. And you my dear ‘other’ are a hypocrite.
We definitely spent more on beautifying our “nest.” I finally bought a bed for the guest bedroom (even though we might not host anyone for a whil), and Mr. installed the new Toto Aquia toilet in the basement bathroom. OMG, what a great toilet! Covid-compatible because it does not spray or splish-splash when flushed. I love this model. Now thinking about deck resurfacing and new roof and maybe a solar panel on the garage…
Maybe this doesn’t belong here, but I don’t want to start a new thread. I am watching this scene in Tulsa, there are people carrying guns (like machine guns, or just big guns) outside of the convention. There are people who are protest about black life matters. It is not going to be good when the rally ends and all of those people come out. It is a recipe for a bad riot with a lot of destructions.
Holy… our new daily coronacounts are at the same level they were in March. This is definitely due to protests because we have not opened the two biggest counties for that long… but no similar uptick in hospitalizations or deaths. Hope the youngsters don’t pass the gift to their elders.
Building a house and while we’re adding a whole house dehumidifier to the HVAC system, I’m skipping the variable speed compressor, etc., because we still have the Maytag washer and dryer that we bought… December of 1984!
I’ve replaced wear items on both of them but that’s the point: you can replace them for less than the cost a new washer or dryer. Evidently that’s not true of the later ones, because I’ve passed no end of the ‘smart’ ones set to the curb for trash pickup.
Electronics go out, you’ve a big, fat boat anchor which is a little too green to make sense.
@Southmom RE: smaller than expected crowd in Tulsa…while the COVID messaging possibly got through to some of those planning to attend, there was also a social media campaign among teens and young adults, in particular, to request tickets with no intentions of attending. The anticipated number was inflated by this effort for sure.
Can’t remember if I saw it here or somewhere else, but…
… are NYC contact tracers really prohibited from asking whether or not the subject attended one of the protests?
If true, that seems so… so… anti-scientific.
It seems silly to me, if true. A contact tracer wants to establish a trusting bond with a contact, so I could see why they’d have to ask a sensitive question carefully. For example, they’d want to tread lightly about asking about immigration status or something of that nature. But a person who went to the protests deliberately in public was out there supporting what they believed; why would they be reluctant to disclose this?
Usually when I look at photos of protests I feel like most of the protesters are wearing masks. That seemed to be much less true of what I saw coming out of Tulsa.
There are certainly some not following the rules in NY, but they aren’t at massive indoor events at least.
I didn’t watch the rally, but I have the TV on now, and some of the people departing are wearing masks. Good for them, and for protesters wearing masks, too.
If ‘establishing a trusting bond’ is the fig leaf for not asking, it’s more than silly, Fang.
We’re in the ‘the economy takes one for the team’ season these days, the ‘not wearing a mask means you’re contributing to the spread and deaths of others’ according to a lot of posts here.
The protests aren’t contributing to the spread, but almost everything else other than holing up in the closet and shopping by proxy is. Not complicated at all.
Not 1 out of 10 people is going to continue with this, especially not me. I found myself in a grocery store, lightly populated, this afternoon. Wearing one the N95 masks I keep around for woodworking projects. Might have been because I was in shorts and realized I looked like a greyhound at the dog track or could have been because I was the only person in my line and I’m looking at the cashier through a plexi-glass shield.
Pulled it off and said screw it. Not going to do this until it’s painfully obvious there’s not going to be a vaccine in a time period I can stand to suffer through.
Kill me now, I’m going to back to living as I have for the last 60 years.
Y’alls mileage will certainly vary but I fear I’m in the majority on this one.
Mask wearing numbers didn’t seem all that great to me inside the rally. Everyone should have had a mask on! Thank goodness the numbers attending all this in Tulsa seems much less than initially predicted.
I’m saying it makes no sense. It’s not good policy and it makes no sense.
@catahoula Regarding the instructions to NYS contact tracers not to ask if someone has attended a protest…
Ideology trumps science 