100% Pure Kona
I did something I'd been wanting to do for nearly a year. I am in the proud possession of, and currently enjoying while Alexa plays jazz and my cat snores, 100% pure Kona coffee.
But "proud" may be too loud a term. Here's the deal and why it took me almost a year to commit: this shit is thirty dollars a pound. COFFEE?!? THIRTY DOLLARS?!?!
I have always been a penny pincher. It was my husband's bane while I was married. I refused to pay retail for anything. I don't even want to pay full price for fucking CHEESE or BREAD. Shopping is not fun for me. Never has been....unless thrifting. I turn any kind of shopping into a sort of hunting game: what is the greatest savings I can achieve and still meet my goal of getting X Stuff? If I get a cute outfit, and someone compliments it, I often cannot suppress the urge to reply with "Seven bucks! Goodwill!" or "Macys online last gasp boots - twenty dollars, originally 90!" instead of a blush and a thank you.
I paid my own way through college. I've had a job since I was 16 years old. It's automatic to me to translate any purchase I make into the hours I had to work in order to buy it. I clearly recall one day my senior year of college, after working for minimum wage for 8 hours, then getting pizza and a six pack of beer for dinner: All my work today paid for this one meal. I have four dollars left. A part of this survival mode in purchases endures with me.
But here's the deal: It is good to be frugal, but there is a balance here. I've come to realize what seems so apparent to those who love me, but I can't see well myself. I often deprive myself of things in life because I don't think I deserve them.
This coffee purchase and the time it took me to make it is the perfect example. Using my college calculation of "How long do I have to work to pay for this coffee?" it is no longer a full day with four dollars left. I make quite a bit more than minimum wage these days. Not enough for a 30 dollar bag of coffee to be a regular thing, but certainly enough to not need to save up for 11 months to decide to treat myself. I have absolutely no problem shelling out cash to buy gifts for those I love, organically sourced and humanely raised cat food for the cat, donations to causes I find meaningful. So why the hell does it take me 11 months to buy myself an insanely expensive bag of coffee?
Because I don't think I deserve it? Well, f#@$ that. I do. I'm getting the f@#$ing coffee. So I did.
Friday night I bought the coffee. And I felt zero guilt about it. As I picked it off the shelf (admittedly Xing out the alternate version which was an additional five dollars more) I thought to myself, "You just bought (gift thing here) for (person here) with zero idea it was non deserving, so apply your same logic." It wasn't about the money. It was about valuing myself.
t's a cruel fact of being an adult rather than a child running around in an adult costume: no one tells us what's what and who we are and what we are worth. We decide on our own whether or not we are a princess, a knight, a genie, a time lord. There comes a time when all the external validation or invalidation in the world means nothing. There are no grades, no comparisons, no competitions to win to show whether or not I am good, bad, indifferent. I decide what I'm worth. So, am I worth Kona coffee on a Sunday morning?
Yes.
In the immortal words of Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski, "I'm finishing my coffee."
But "proud" may be too loud a term. Here's the deal and why it took me almost a year to commit: this shit is thirty dollars a pound. COFFEE?!? THIRTY DOLLARS?!?!
I have always been a penny pincher. It was my husband's bane while I was married. I refused to pay retail for anything. I don't even want to pay full price for fucking CHEESE or BREAD. Shopping is not fun for me. Never has been....unless thrifting. I turn any kind of shopping into a sort of hunting game: what is the greatest savings I can achieve and still meet my goal of getting X Stuff? If I get a cute outfit, and someone compliments it, I often cannot suppress the urge to reply with "Seven bucks! Goodwill!" or "Macys online last gasp boots - twenty dollars, originally 90!" instead of a blush and a thank you.
I paid my own way through college. I've had a job since I was 16 years old. It's automatic to me to translate any purchase I make into the hours I had to work in order to buy it. I clearly recall one day my senior year of college, after working for minimum wage for 8 hours, then getting pizza and a six pack of beer for dinner: All my work today paid for this one meal. I have four dollars left. A part of this survival mode in purchases endures with me.
But here's the deal: It is good to be frugal, but there is a balance here. I've come to realize what seems so apparent to those who love me, but I can't see well myself. I often deprive myself of things in life because I don't think I deserve them.
This coffee purchase and the time it took me to make it is the perfect example. Using my college calculation of "How long do I have to work to pay for this coffee?" it is no longer a full day with four dollars left. I make quite a bit more than minimum wage these days. Not enough for a 30 dollar bag of coffee to be a regular thing, but certainly enough to not need to save up for 11 months to decide to treat myself. I have absolutely no problem shelling out cash to buy gifts for those I love, organically sourced and humanely raised cat food for the cat, donations to causes I find meaningful. So why the hell does it take me 11 months to buy myself an insanely expensive bag of coffee?
Because I don't think I deserve it? Well, f#@$ that. I do. I'm getting the f@#$ing coffee. So I did.
Friday night I bought the coffee. And I felt zero guilt about it. As I picked it off the shelf (admittedly Xing out the alternate version which was an additional five dollars more) I thought to myself, "You just bought (gift thing here) for (person here) with zero idea it was non deserving, so apply your same logic." It wasn't about the money. It was about valuing myself.
t's a cruel fact of being an adult rather than a child running around in an adult costume: no one tells us what's what and who we are and what we are worth. We decide on our own whether or not we are a princess, a knight, a genie, a time lord. There comes a time when all the external validation or invalidation in the world means nothing. There are no grades, no comparisons, no competitions to win to show whether or not I am good, bad, indifferent. I decide what I'm worth. So, am I worth Kona coffee on a Sunday morning?
Yes.
In the immortal words of Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski, "I'm finishing my coffee."
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