Save Money. Live Better

That's WalMart*s latest tag line.

Save Money. Live Better.

Just like NUTUBA over at http://nutuba.blogspot.com/ , it's hard to understand how someone can save money by spending money. I imagine the logic flows like this:

This GameBoy was $160 over at store A, but here at store W, it's $149. Think of how much money I saved!

Okay, let's be fair. I shop bargains. If I'm going to buy something, I want the best price. We all do. But I don't pretend I'm saving money by buying something cheaper. I'm merely spending less money. Tough semantics? Let's try another one.

The price of gas goes up. I stop driving my car, in favor of my bicycle. I'm spending less by actually using less. I'm saving money.

The Minister of Domestic Affairs also wants to spend less on gas, so she buys a new car that gets really good gas mileage. Saving money? Not really. Spending less on gas, I suppose.

In fact, when gasoline was $4 / gallon, we figured the amount of money she wasn't spending on gasoline was roughly equivalent to a car payment. That's cool!

But now gas is back down to $2....oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

So, Save Money. Live Better. I think we've beaten the "Save Money" part to within an inch of its life. Let's focus on the "live better" part.

I can only assume that the suggestion here is that we can live better with more stuff. Or we can buy more stuff (and live better) with the money we're saving by buying stuff.

Thomas Jefferson had lots of cool stuff. I've seen Monticello. I'm really familiar with UVA. He invented much of it, and created, or had his slaves create, much of it.

I have a lot of admiration for Mr. Jefferson, and recognize his limitations as a man.

He did have a mantra that I adopted in the early '90's...while on an aircraft carrier near the Gulf of Aden.

Spend some time every day devoted to the improvement of the mind, the body and the spirit.

My mantra was a little different: If you're not improving your mind, your spirit or your body, you're wasting your time.

There's been a lot of spinoff "mind body spirit" thinkers out there that embrace relaxation therapies that claim to help all three at the same time. Maybe there's merit to that, but I'm not afraid to approach these separately, knowing there's some synergy there somewhere.

Is gardening a waste of time? I can justify gardening as good for the body (health foods, days spent in sunshine), good for the mind (trying to outwit birds, rabbits, deer, and other garden pests) and the soul, understanding that the miracle of turning water into wine still happens to this very day, through the work of viticulturists....understanding that we cannot create life, only be stewards of a miracle that is given to us.

It's easy to justify a lot of activities as good for the mind, or the body, or the soul. And I can only think of a few that wouldn't qualify, without some creative explanation:

Watching trash TV. I'm guilty. I waste an hour a week on that. Granted, I'm usually shoulder-to-shoulder with my wife, and that's a really nice thing. But I could be reading, or cleaning, or cooking or practicing my guitar.

Blogging: Gadzooks...is this good for me at all? Maybe it's good therapy. Maybe it's just electronic narcissism. Help me here...

Buying stuff: We're so conditioned that he who dies with the most stuff wins, that we can't get past ourselves to stop the habits. I have plenty of stuff. I have plenty of stuff I wish I didn't have, and I certainly have plenty of stuff I didn't have to buy. I still buy stuff...a camelback for long bike rides, a Chinese-made fishing pole for my kids, a fondue pot, for that once every 3-year event.

Personal video games. Biggest time waster of all. I suppose I can let a Wii go...knowing that it's often played with other people around. That can be justified by calling it "togetherness." Drives me nuts, though, to be on a church camping trip, sitting around the fire, tuning up the ol' Fender, watching 9 faces completely taken by their own personal video game or blackberry.

Let us break bread toge....hey, you there, break bread before I break your iPod...