SLR Lust

If I was going to make a deal with myself to pack lunch to save money in order to buy myself something, this would probably be it: a digital SLR camera with a nice zoom lens. I grew up with a camera in my hands. When I was about 10 years old, my father bought me my first 35mm camera. His daughter would not be seen carrying around a Kodak Instamatic! He then packed a pad of paper and a pen in his pocket, took me to the park and taught me how to use the camera. He taught me about the relationship between shutter speed, aperture size and the depth of field. And I was on my way. He always had different cameras and he made sure I always had one. Before I went to college, he gave me an Argus C3.

He even repaired the soft brown leather case that was falling apart, by sewing all the seams with white dental floss. For the next 9 years, I took hundreds of photos with that camera. I loved that camera despite its one shortcoming—it didn’t have a light meter. I had to consider the film speed and then manually set both the shutter speed and the f-stop. It was a range finder, so focusing involved aligning the split image. Then I would hope I got everything right. Most of the time I did, but I knew I wanted an automatic SLR camera. When I graduated and got my first job, I was living at home and had very few expenses. When I got my first paycheck, I bought a camera—an Olympus OM10. I still own it, but I haven’t used it since I got my first digital camera. Several years later, I bought another Olympus camera—the XA. That 35 mm camera fit in my pocket and was my companion on so many bike trips! Once I entered the realm of digital photography, I opted for the pocket camera first. I love my little Canon and it is surprisingly versatile. I take it with my whenever I am hiking or biking, and I even take it out just to go take some pictures. This is when I start wishing I had the SLR. There have been times when I have come close to buying it. There are reasonably priced models specifically for the “hobbyist” but I just haven’t made the commitment. I keep telling myself it is something I want not something I need. Is it my cheapstreak talking or am I just too damn practical!

Lunch Math

More often than not, I bring my lunch to work. I keep telling myself that the reason I do this is to make sure I eat a balanced healthy meal. By brown-bagging, I am not tempted to overeat, or make poor choices, such as French fries, cookies or Snapple Iced Tea. It also makes it much easier to spread the food out. I can have part of my lunch before high noon, and then finish it later in the afternoon. This works well on days that I go to the gym, so I am not absolutely starving when I am just starting my workout. Then of course there is the politically correct/green rationalization. By bringing lunch, I am consuming fewer resources (by avoiding the packaging associated with take-out) and probably wasting less food (by packing leftovers instead of tossing them after they sit in the frig for several days).

Over the last week or two, I have come to the realization that there is another reason that I bring my lunch. I am cheap. I could have said frugal or economical or some other euphemism for cheap. But the plain truth is I do have a streak of cheap, and every time I buy lunch in midtown Manhattan I suffer from sticker shock. Now there is no shortage of lunchtime dining choices within a half block radius of my office front door. And many of them do offer healthy and delicious choices. There’s Hale and Hearty, serving soups and salads. And Chipoltle with their delicious burritos (an example of overeating: the burritos are BIG and I always eat the whole thing). But lunch costs at least $7, and usually $8 or $9. If I did this 4 days a week (I work 4 days/week, not 5), then that’s at least $30 a week, or $120 a month! or about $1400 a year!! Okay, so the lunch I pack is not free, but it certainly costs much less. Let’s say a brown bag lunch costs $2, and I do that 3 days a week, then I am saving at least $16 a week, or $64 a month, or at least $700 a year. And whenever I pack my lunch, DH gets a lunch too, so between the 2 of us, that’s $1400 a year.

I am hereby initiating Project Cheap Streak (PCS). I am going to use my cheap streak to encourage the adoption of healthy habits and brown bagging, by investigating what I could buy for myself for $700 (PCS7) or for my family for $1400 (PCS14). This could be interesting because I am not a material girl. I don’t usually go for expensive clothes or jewelry or make-up. But I’m sure I can think of ways to spend that kind of money. That doesn’t mean I am going to buy any of these things as a reward for packing lunch 3 days a week for the next year. It’s just a way to motivate me by thinking about the money as well as the good healthy food I will be eating.