Expat Survival Challenge: Day Deux

After blogging, tweeting, and logging off to join the world of eye to eye personal contact yesterday, I had a thoughtful conversation with friends about the recent disaster in Haiti. Why does it always seem to take a tragedy to remind us how fortunate we are? The reality that 80% of Haitians live on no more than $2.00 a day, and over 50% on $1.00 (or less) boggles the mind, but has served to reinforce my resolve to waste less and to do more! I began my personal "Expat Survival Challenge" today by organizing my pantry and taking stock of what I had onhand. I discovered quite alot there really, couscous and polenta, rice, beans, and pasta, and there were plenty of staples in the frigo as well. I pondered how I was going to calculate my real savings during this challenge, do I add money I didn't spend but wanted to into the "saved" column? Do I simply add the cost of everything I consume item by item, and do I begin with new purchases and forget the price of what I have already in the cupboard? All this ruminating was making me hungry and thoughts of my daily pain au chocolat were dancing through my mind. I began rummaging through my coins, picking through the 5 and 10 centimes pieces that seem to always be in abundance, gathering together one euro, the cost of my daily snack. As I regarded the coins in my open palm, preparing for my habitual walk to the boulangerie, I remembered this was what many people had to exist on for the entire day! This was a game for me, a neccesary one to be sure, but still a game. I could easily afford a pain au chocolat, today and tomorrow. But what if I had cookies instead, with my afternoon tea? What if I put the euro I would have spent in a seperate little tin, to aid in calculating what I saved being frugal? Then it hit me-perhaps I could make a small impact if I donated half of what I saved! It isn't much for an island so devastated, so in dire need, but it's all the raindrops collectively that fills the bucket. I put the water on for a cup and arranged the cookies on a plate. I rummaged around for an old tea tin I had saved for a previously unknown purpose and dropped the centimes in, replacing the lid and jiggling the coins around, enjoying its music with a sense of contentment. It was the first step on a long journey to leave old habits behind and walk a new path, a more Ormanesque way of approaching financial stability married with a sense of commitment to something far more important than myself . I am excited to discover how much I will save in my little tea tin in the coming weeks and months.