The Problems of Life

Today is a public holiday. No work. No meetings. No obligations.

So, of course, I am staying at home and working in a different way, and I haven't even managed to think of a treat I could give myself. Cue violins at this point. Even the sunshine, which is rare and precious this summer, is being used only to dry my washing.

There is, though, a certain sense of achievement in getting things straighter and more sorted out. Clutter is useful as a defence: as any teenager knows, there is no better way of staving off investigation of one's room than to have it look like a junk-hole. Now, with no avoidance necessary, I am gradually finding that orderliness in my circumstances leads to more clear space in my mind, which is good and bad.

But I discover that I really don't know how to run my life. There are two main obstacles, the food and the money, both of which other people seem to manage by instinct or something.

I am determined to eat well and healthily. That means buying fresh produce where possible, and that isn't an arduous task. But how the hell am I meant to keep track of the stuff? A good many items of the vegetable variety are unusable within a few days of purchase, so my meals need to make use of them. But if a pepper needs using today, and an onion tomorrow, and the carrots would have been better yesterday than today, and there are recipes which use either pepper or carrots with the onion, but not both, does one shrug one's shoulders and throw something out? Or is it the done thing to plan ones meals in detail for a week ahead before shopping? Does one develop a gut feeling for what there is and when to use it, or are there methods?

Then there is the budgeting. As it stands I am comfortable, with a useful margin between my income and my spoken-for expenses. However, I don't know how long that will continue, and I would like to see exactly where the money is going and predict it, so that I can tell what I need to do to be self-sufficient, and so that I can weigh up the risks and benefits of capital expenditure.

I need a sofa. How badly do I need a sofa? More than I need a storage cupboard? Or a small additional freezer? If I decide not to use any more of my savings, at what point will I have the money in hand to buy these things?

I don't know what anybody else does about this kind of thing. What I would like is a combination budget/accounts program on my computer, where I can put in notional expenses for prediction purposes, and turn them into actualities as the spending happens - ideally the predictions should get better on their own, as the application notes the expenses for itself. But it looks like it will be easier to write the program myself than find just that. And I've a good mind to.

While I'm at it, a rolling calendar combined with a recipe database would be nice too. Enter your ingredients as you buy them, together with use-by dates, and it would flag up in advance things that need using, with ideas for meals based on what's in stock. Why not?

I'd like to know how my mother manages, but it's a bit tricky asking her.