I usually spend four hours working on the blog entry. I try to post around noon, lunchtime. Although I can eat whenever I damn well please I have the noon is lunchtime mentality. Or it may be because Wanda goes to lunch at noon.
Every so often I think it would be nice to earn some extra money. Then I think on it a little more, I laugh and forget about it. I'm a trained Registered Nurse who has been away so long I wouldn't know an enema from IV bag. I couldn't work as a nurse. I don't know what else I am qualified for.
Does Wal-Mart still have greeters?
Yesterday, after the blog was posted and I ate lunch, I Goggled: How to make money writing a blog?
I pulled up a story by an actual writer who earns actual money writing an actual blog. She wrote: If you don't offer customers something they dearly want, whether it's to gain great pleasure or escape some great pain, you're not going to make any money. This is very, very deep.
Her other comment on why blogs don't make money: Because most of them suck. This isn't deep at all.
I don't write to earn money which is a very good thing. I write for my enjoyment and yours. I'm not asking for positive comments, or any comments for that matter. I'm just sayin'...writing this is fun. Sure, it would help to have a few more bucks, but I (we) get along just fine with what we have.
Some of the family called Irving the Barber Scottie. You regular readers may recall Irving was my father, maybe. See the blog entry of April 12, 2011. It was years before I learned Irving was not from Scotland. The term is a derogatory stereotype. It means someone cheap.
When it was time to pay a dinner check I heard Irving had the slowest hands in the world. He could never find his wallet or cash. His hand didn't leave his pocket until someone else picked up the tab.
I'm not cheap, I just hate spending money on myself. I don't know why.
For the past few years I've been using espresso beans from Starbucks. Last week end I bought beans from the independent coffee shop in Downtown Pittsburg. This morning I made my first latte using the new beans.
OH, MY GOD....WHAT A DIFFERENCE. THIS LATTE IS DELICIOUS.
I now have a serious problem. The Starbucks beans are $12.95 lb. The new beans are $15.95 for 3/4 lb. If I continue to use the new and better beans I'll be buying a 3/4 pound bag every month. That's a dozen a year. I'd only need nine from Starbucks. I know if I put my mind to it I can reconcile this.
There are about seventy-five tablespoons in a pound of coffee. I use two in each latte or thirty-seven lattes per pound. Each latte costs thirty-five cents. To be a full latte cost analysis I'll add milk. I'll pass on the Splenda, it's probably full of chemicals and killing me. I should quit using it. A gallon of milk is $3.49 and yields 16 cups. I use one cup per latte or twenty-one cents for the milk. Each made at home Starbucks latte is fifty-six cents.
Using the same formula for the new coffee bean source, each latte is seventy-six cents, twenty cents per drink. I drink two, forty cents more every day.
Damn right! I'm worth forty cents a day.
What about $2.80 a week or $12.13 a month? Well, we already spend $36 a month for organic strawberries at the Farmers Market and the carrots and broccoli aren't cheap. Maybe I'll treat myself every other month?
Wait......wait a second. When I go to Starbucks I pay $3.55 for a latte. Using the good beans at home I only spend .76 cents. That won't work, crap, I thought I was on to something.
I took a liberty or two with the cost breakdowns. I use three to four ounces of water in each latte. Sometimes I pour from the gallon bottles, other times the 16 oz. I did not include the cost of water.
Both coffee shops are an equal distance but we usually stop while running other errands. Since the gallon cost of fuel fluctuates and I'm not a PhD mathematician or an idiot savant, I did not include the gas.
I'm going to go make my second latte of the day...another seventy-six cents down one drain or another. Now I feel like a latte filter. The human body is really something.
See you Monday.
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