Reason #1 Why I Should Take Up Knitting
Every year we pre buy our heating oil for the upcoming winter. The oil company sells it at a discounted rate and you determine how many gallons you want to buy based on how many gallons it costs to heat your house for the season, or more accurately how much spare cash you have laying around to hand the oil company months in advance of actually needing to use the oil.
When the prices go up in the cold winter weather, for no discernable reason other than they can charge you more because you need it, you have already bought your oil at the "cheaper" price. Unless of course the price of oil drops below your pre buy price,but just typing those words makes me laugh, as if that ever happens. And the words "discounted" and "cheaper" sound ridiculous given the astronomical price of oil.
Yesterday I read in the local newspaper that one oil company is having their pre buy at $1.99 a gallon. What? I about dropped dead right on the spot. Last year I pitched a fit about having to spend $1.59 as the prebuy price. Though I was thankful later on in the winter when the price per gallon soared over $2.00.
But my thankfulness was quickly replaced by anger again once I realized we had burned through all of our prebought oil with plenty of winter still looming ahead.
I am seriously considering taking the children and going on a two month vacation somewhere warm. It would be cheaper than heating this house. Except for the fact that Rob still needs to go to work. But can't he just bring a sleeping bag to his office? We all need to sacrifice. I'll go on a warm tropical vacation for two months and he can work long hours, sleep on the floor of his office (it has a door and a window), shower at the gym he joined but never uses, and use his weekends to do projects around the house using his physical laboring and a flask of alcohol to keep warm It sounds fair to me.
A friend called me later in the day and told me she was driving by another one of the local oil companies and they had their prebuy oil price listed as $2.59 a gallon. Sixty cents more a gallon? Clearly we will be investing in warm winter clothes, slippers, and fingerless gloves. I may even renew our newspaper subscription so that we can stuff our clothes while we huddle together for warmth.
I won't be buying that beautiful chair that is still calling me from the furniture store, as much as I love it. It would be a shame to buy it just to have to chop it up for kindling.
When the prices go up in the cold winter weather, for no discernable reason other than they can charge you more because you need it, you have already bought your oil at the "cheaper" price. Unless of course the price of oil drops below your pre buy price,but just typing those words makes me laugh, as if that ever happens. And the words "discounted" and "cheaper" sound ridiculous given the astronomical price of oil.
Yesterday I read in the local newspaper that one oil company is having their pre buy at $1.99 a gallon. What? I about dropped dead right on the spot. Last year I pitched a fit about having to spend $1.59 as the prebuy price. Though I was thankful later on in the winter when the price per gallon soared over $2.00.
But my thankfulness was quickly replaced by anger again once I realized we had burned through all of our prebought oil with plenty of winter still looming ahead.
I am seriously considering taking the children and going on a two month vacation somewhere warm. It would be cheaper than heating this house. Except for the fact that Rob still needs to go to work. But can't he just bring a sleeping bag to his office? We all need to sacrifice. I'll go on a warm tropical vacation for two months and he can work long hours, sleep on the floor of his office (it has a door and a window), shower at the gym he joined but never uses, and use his weekends to do projects around the house using his physical laboring and a flask of alcohol to keep warm It sounds fair to me.
A friend called me later in the day and told me she was driving by another one of the local oil companies and they had their prebuy oil price listed as $2.59 a gallon. Sixty cents more a gallon? Clearly we will be investing in warm winter clothes, slippers, and fingerless gloves. I may even renew our newspaper subscription so that we can stuff our clothes while we huddle together for warmth.
I won't be buying that beautiful chair that is still calling me from the furniture store, as much as I love it. It would be a shame to buy it just to have to chop it up for kindling.
10 Comments:
We can pre-buy oil cheaper if we buy it in the summer?!?! (You get to play the part of God in this revelation scene.) See, our tanks don't even have a guage so we never know how much we have or how much we need. And then there's the fact that we're buying a woodstove this year, which throws the whole equation off. Basically, we're screwed when it comes to ordering oil.
Ahhh but there are soo many more reasons to take up knitting! Do it!! Jump in!
I have a really neat pattern for fingerless mittens!!
Cute cute cute!
HAahahahahhah
And hey then when your doc asks what you do with your spare time you can tell her you knit!! (it's a great stress buster!!)
And you can meet even more imaginary internet friends! Knit bloggers like Yarn Harlot! And me!!
Will need to tell my sis this - she lives in the U.P. (MI) and is broke most of the winter for the cost of their oil...
I have some rickety old chairs I would donate to your fuel needs ;-)
eli
We got the pre-buy ad from our oil company last week. It was $2.09 I think, with only 2 weeks to decided if you'd take them up on it or not. I threw the ad away before I got any more depressed thinking about it. Guess I'll be learning to knit and burning furniture too!
This is one of the few times I am happy to be living my crappy army quarters. At least they pay for my heat.
As for the knitting, I have a few nice warm afghan patterns that knit up fast and easy! Don't get me started on the cost of wool, though!
It is so hard for me to be thinking about winter when it is so nice outside!
Boy, does that cost of oil sting! It's even worse when you are heating a house that no one is living in! We have been heating my Grandmother-in Law's house for five years now, with no one in occupancy.
The house is in the mountains of Virginia though. I'm sure the winters there get nowhere near as cold as yours! lol!
That Sorka sounds a little nutty about knitting. Thankfully, I'm not obsessive about any particular hobbies.
There are certain types of exercise that warm people up so that they can use less oil and have more money for chairs...
Since we live in Maine and it is even colder here I refuse to talk about heating. But since it was a quiet comment section, just thought I would say you have won the award this week for the blog I am most likly to tell the wife she has to read first. Rare I am that amused by a blog two posts in a row, but you have been cracking me up. Juust a small attaboy.
I have a friend from Africa who packs up the kids in January, kisses dh good-bye, and heads to the sunny beaches of Africa for about two months. He comes for the last two weeks, then they all come home together.
I'm jealous every year!
When we lived in England, we had to buy oil for heat. My husband was deployed one winter. Luckily, a neighbor thought to come check our tank and tell me that I had about a week's worth of oil left.
I was so happy to get back to the land of central heat! BTW, I think your getaway plan is perfectly reasonable. Now that we have moved to a much colder climate, I may consider joining you!
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