It's a New Year.

I know it's a bit late to be saying it's a "new" year but that just shows you how crazy things have been here. My Mimi (french slang for the greatest Grandmother of all) passed away January 4th.
She was 91 1/2 years old, she still lived on her own in her own house that she had lived in for 69 years.
She had a home care worker only three days a week, the rest of the time she took care of herself and her home alone.
She was widowed in 1955 and never re-married. She never even dated anyone else, she still loved my Pepe.
She raised three very young children alone on a pension income.
She was EXTREMELY independant and strong despite her 5 foot frame and weight of 90 lbs.
She was a child of the depression and therefore a master saver/recycler.
She was a very proud, classy, yet humble, and faithful woman.
Irene Dupuis was truely amazing.
I want to be just like her for the rest of my days.

   Ironicly, I found myself thinking about money alot at the end of 2010. More specificly the lack thereof and how to save it.
Save?? Maybe even more specificly "How not to give it away." Because that's exactly what we do, we give our money away. We give it away so much that we don't even think about it. Truely, think about it. How much does it cost you every day to just live? Do you know?  To the penny, how much does it cost you just to exist every day? Not just housing but eating? Bathing? To get to work and home? To clothe yourself? To have lighting and heating?  To have entertainment? To communicate?  Do you know what you "need" vs what you "want"?
   I'm getting very picky about where my money goes.
   Let me back up a bit. Last year my daughter was diagoned with a peanut allergy. I had to start reading EVERY label of EVERY food product that we bought. But what I soon discovered is that a food company can change their ingretients at any time without notice according to whatever is cheepest or whatever they can use as a filler for their product. This caused me huge anxiety for the health of my daughter. I cannot trust CORPORATIONS to feed us.  I had little choice other than to start making alot of our food from scratch, which turned out to be GREAT! Our food cost went down and so did my weight.
    From that I started question where all of our money was going. Who do I want to give our hard earned money too? Which companies and was it worth it for a bit of convience? Sometimes yes, sometimes, alot of times, NO.  Is a bag of cookies really worth $2.47? Or is it worth the effort and cost of ingredients for me to make it myself? Due to my daughters allergy, it is VERY worth the effort and I, and only "I", controll the ingredients and therfore the costs too. Did you know that one cup of flour costs 22 cents? I'll bet you my Mimi knew that.
   So back to my question, do you know Where your money is going? Do you know how much it costs you to live just one day? It really is your choice.