Nickled and Dimed 🪙

The expenses that I dread and absolutely hate paying the most are the little things. Like paying the full $2 to ride the Bus Plus downtown because my cellphone wasn’t working on the day I dropped the SuperDuty off to get the bedliner put in.

Another 70¢ isn’t going to put me in the poorhouse forever, I make good money, but I was still pretty upset about it on the day that I spent $621 to have them spray my truck bed with some plastic, covering the gooseneck bolts, for a better camping experience. But I didn’t complain about that.

Or today, I was annoyed how much the price of cookies went up when I purchased them for the team. $10 fucking bucks for two boxes of bakery cookies, each box only had 6 admitly delicious and well liked cookies in it. Made me team happy but I cringed about the expense, even though I make that amount more then 10,000 times each year.

Then the quick link broke off my bike, leaving me stranded, and having to take the Bus Plus to work form Rail Trail, and then take it back downtown and then local bus home. There goes another $3.90. Assuming I can’t build a chain out of parts I have – or another old quicklink I have around – I’ll go to bike store and get one for $5 or $10. Another expense. As I look my $60,000 SuperDuty truck, which I don’t regret buying that much despite the high cost of gas.

I was thinking how I am thinking of scaling back my summer vacation and doing future trips, with the high gas prices after buying a SuperDuty. But then I realize the SuperDuty gets about the same gas milage as my lifted truck, but with many more creature comforts. And it rides so nicely on the rural highways and has great features like hill descent and dual alternators and remote start for a ton of camp power. But gas so is expensive, don’t you know. Yet, in context $4.50 a gallon gas is only a $1.50 more then $3 gas, so when I burn through 10 gallons on a 150 mile trip, it’s only going to cost me $15 more. Rather then $30 dollars, it will be $45 dollars. And aren’t I still getting a lot of joy out of the trip? It’s not about commuting. Still the nickel and dims chew at my mind.

These little things annoy me as I feel like Is shouldn’t have to pay them if life only went a little smoother, inflation not so high. The thing I hate about nickles and dimes is they can grow so ordinary, become background noise and add up quickly. Everybody thinks about buying a $60,000 SuperDuty, but not so much about that extra bus fare or that $5 quick link. Yet, it’s so frustrating, to see my future being chewed away bit by bit over little expenses, even if I do make good money and can afford these bull shit expenses.