spending the beer money

SPENDING THE BEER MONEY
Thanks to a loyal minion comment, today we will be talking about the good side of yet another one of my attempts at matrimony doing a crash and burn. Which, by the way, I have a theory on. While I am far from perfect, I think in general most people still don't compare to my greatness. Thus, there is a huge amount of jealousy. They are forever lost in my shadow. Until I see proof otherwise, I'm sticking with that theory. Wife number four was the least required maintenance, at least financially speaking. Yet, she did drink a lot of beer. Granted, most of that beer was consumed instead of solid food ( in her words, a sandwich in a can ) so her portion of the groceries was darn cheap. But without that I not only have more food to eat for the same amount of money, I can now spend her beer money on preparedness items.
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I couldn't interest her in hard liqueur, which would have been cheaper than beer for the same amount of alcohol. Health concerns were raised, but I think she just liked beer. But beer had gotten pretty expensive recently. Five years ago, the local Habeeb Store took in the crap beer from the brewery and sold it cheaper than anywhere else. If I'm not mistaken it was around $7.50 a case for the Budweiser off brand. Something Ice. I can't believe I don't remember the name of the brand, I bought and carried enough of the crap over the years. Anyway, slowly but surely the case price kept going up. I would only buy a case at a time every four days. A six pack a day was enough. She could kill a twelve pack without a problem, but she turned pretty mean, and she wasn't the most pleasant person to be around even before she started drinking that day. So I tried to keep it at a six pack so she wouldn't turn on me like a rabid animal.
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When we left Carson, a case was going for $11. Still not bad, but since I will scour the ends of the earth for the best possible price and still bemoan the money spent, I hated paying that much. Up here I couldn't find a discount price ( the Indian store sells a heck of a cheap tobacco product but the beer isn't a bargain ) so I ended up just buying it at Wal-Mart for $12. With a twelve pack to round out the week, plus tax, it was about twenty bucks a week for beer. To put that in perspective, $80 a month for beer and $20 for cigarettes ( roll-your-owns are $24 for three cartons worth of material ) is a hundred bucks a month, or one sixth my take home pay. So I've just slashed my expenses by 16%. I'll still buy the same amount of tobacco and store it for post-collapse bartering. The saved propane and coffee should still bring the total to $100 a month.
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So, I've gloried in my new found spending power. Twenty bucks buys a fifty pound sack of corn at the feed store, eight pounds of pinto beans at Wal-Mart, and a four pound tub of lard, also at Wally World. Over a months supply of grub each week. With protein and fatty goodness, not just wheat. Yes, I am making lemonade out of lemons. Fear not for my sanity, my good minions. I am not totally glum. There is always a silver lining in the clouds. I'm going to make a new set of problems. Where to store all my new food.
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Sorry it wasn't very long today. Only a 45 minute lunch and fifteen of that was going to cash my paycheck.