Achieving Financial Freedom with Lisa Harmon

How much have we collectively spent on shoes we'll never wear and food we won't eat? I'm sure it is equivalent to the GDP of a country where the shoes are manufactured or the veggies grown. I am convinced if I had all the money I have personally spent on these items, I'd be be listed on Forbes richest list.

I – like most people - have wasted lots of money – on things like gambling, shopping, hobbies that never stuck, expensive vacations. But for me the big ticket items are shoes – and rotten veggies.

Mother nature thank you for your bounty but I can't finish a head of lettuce before it rots. Same with an avocado or heaven forbid a bunch of dill. Who needs that much dill? Dill goes bad in two days.

Onions, forget onions. The first time you cry your eyes out. It is delicious and you have to stay home because you stink. Next day you chop a little more off the onion and its too late. Good news, no tears, bad news, no taste.

All those half-eaten veggies that are rotting in your crisper (ironic isn't it?) are just money down the drain! So forget eating salads! Fresh salad is a waste of money and a pain to make. And salad is awful in most restaurants. Be prepared to spend fifteen dollars or more for a salad that is chopped up enough for human beings to eat. If you want your cucumber without the skin, good luck. Restaurants don't do that. A small amount of arsenic in a diet is acceptable. Especially if its not their diet!

And good luck trying to cut off that cucumber skin with the ancient knives they give you at the diner. That cutlery was brought to America by the first wave of Greek immigrants in the forties. If you want to save money, avoid salad! And while you're at the diner, don't play with the machines in the front foyer! You don't need a temporary tattoo or a piece of bubble gum the size and density of a golf ball.

Its hard not to become bitter as one ages. (How'd that get in there?)

Also a big waste of money: shoes. They're expensive. And if they're uncomfortable, you will never wear them. And depending on what you spent on them, you will hold on to them the appropriate amount of time before throwing them out without ever having worn them. That's a lot of money. Plus if you live in New York City that's a waste of valuable closet space.

I'd love to have all the money back that I've spend on unused footwear. In this category I would also like a refund (in today's dollars) for the pair of shoes my cat ruined after I wore them once – they were seventy dollars in 1989 so what's that now? About six hundred?

So that's my advice. Avoid these two common money pits: overly-large vegetables and uncomfortable footwear. You'll be on your way to financial freedom in no time!

This has been Achieving Financial Freedom with Lisa Harmon.