Dollar Menu or Nothin'

Dollar Menu or Nothin'

Posted by Brian • November 24, 2016

Original Release Date: March 9, 2010

I remember being very insecure about the drawings of the lockers in the background of tis page. They're a minor detail and I spent way too much time re-drawing and fretting over those things.

Trying to be thrifty means learning to build meals from the dollar menu instead of going for the high-priced combos. Sure, it's not as extravagant or glamorous, but it gets the job done.

Speaking of being thrifty, this was one of the thriftiest times of my life that I can remember. It was one of the coldest winters I can remember. There was a stetch of almost a month where the temperature never got above freezing, which is unusual for southeast Missouri, where there's the odd 40-degree day here and there, no matter how cold the winter gets. On top of that, my apartment had an extremely old, extremely inefficient heater, and it was costing me more than $120 a month to keep an 800-square foot apartment at 60 degrees.

With Amanda's help, I cut off two rooms of my apartment using blankets and plastic sheets. (We also covered the floor of what was my studio space because my downstairs neighbors smoked, and all the smoke rose through the floorboards.) So I had a kitchen, a bathroom, and a tiny studio/living room/bedroom. I turned the heater off and used exclusively space heaters the keep the place warm. It was cramped for a few months, but it worked, and I saved a lot of money on heating. I still had to order off the dollar menu, though.