Archive for February 27th, 2007
27
I’ve decided to have me some fun with this simulation billionaire experiment and to go about it with a complete lack of common sense. After all, the objective is to see how long it will take me to spend a billion dollars, not to see if I can capably handle being a billionaire. In fact, I can’t be Mr. Fiscally Responsible if I want to get this money spent. This isn’t a test to see if I will make the right spending decisions.
Although I have some restrictions placed on me and have to "clear" purchases over half a million with my watchdog, I’m free to spend spend spend. Wouldn’t we all like to have a bottomless bank account and be able to just buy whatever whenever? But in reality, there are consequences to spending money irrationally, particularly where no new money is coming in to replace what is being spent. Obviously, it would take a while to reach the bottom of a billion dollar bank account unless, for some reason, you bought yourself 40 $25 million dollar properties in Beverly Hills, Bel Air and the Caribbean for example. That would bring you to the bottom of your billion dollar bank account. But why would you need 40 homes each worth 25 million? And after you’ve blown all your money buying 40 lavish homes, how are you then going to pay the hefty property taxes?
My point is, crazy spending is stupid in reality and you usually pay a price for failure to manage your money wisely whether your yearly income is a 5 digit number of 7. But for the purpose of this billion dollar spending experiment, I don’t have to worry about the consequences of my spending.
The last time I filled you in, I was going to be buying groceries because it’s always been a fantasy of mine to be able to go into a supermarket and buy 10 of everything on the shelf. Well, I’ve completed my shopping and would like to report that after filling my virtual shopping cart with a variety of meats and other items ranging from Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn, Natural Light, 3-Count Boxes (Pack of 12)
As an aside, I do have to wonder why it is that certain meats are so horrendously exorbitant? And I know what you’ll say. If you’re such a big cook you should know. But I never said I was a big cook, or even a good cook and certainly never that I was trained in cooking or educated in food matters. I said I love to cook. But as to the matter of meat and why, for example the item described as, Six 10 oz. Black Angus Close-Trimmed Filet Mignons that’s being sold on amazon.com costs $128 dollars, I’m going to suppose it’s not because the animal slaughtered to provide the meat was descended from a line of aristocratic cows. I did try to find some info and the closest thing to a possible explanation I could find was that meat costs are calculated by measuring "the total costs (including profits or losses) for slaughtering, processing, and performing a multitude of marketing functions for a defined quantity and quality of product. (Info from: ers.usda.gov) But if you know the real answer as to why some beef can be so expensive, please feel free to enlighten me.
In the meantime, I might suggest that if you are not simulating your way through life and know you can’t afford to live as if you have a bottomless bank account, you don’t buy a 4lb USDA Prime 21 day aged beef boneless rib eye roast
The rich have the means to afford to spend money on a lot of ridiculous things. In reality, given what I make per year, it would be insane for me to buy Russian Beluga caviar for $165 per ounce just because I wanted to try it. The connoisseurs of caviar will know better of course, but I might suggest that, while, possibly, the more expensive caviar is superior in taste to the less expensive, you can probably get a pretty good idea what caviar tastes like, if you’re curious, buying. I’ll guess that since caviar is technically fish eggs and there are hundreds of species of fish, there are also hundreds of varieties of caviar and that each might have a distinctive taste; but just to get a general gist of the taste of caviar, if you absolutely must, if you’re not rich in reality or simulacra opt for something generic and under $10 bucks. Live within your means as they say. And don’t feel envious of rich people who can afford to guiltlessly experience the intense explosion of complex flavors that caviar is said to produce. Call it Iranian Imperial and charge $999 for it all you want, it’s still fish eggs. Remind yourself of that every time you hear the officious word "caviar". Last time I checked fish eggs do not come with any proven phenomenal health benefits, although, apparently, caviar can help cure depression. A funny thing I read: apparently, Beluga sturgeon populations have been declining at an alarming rate. Is it just me being ignorant or, does it only make perfect sense? If you’re killing the fish to take the eggs out of them that would make more fish…. Or is that not the way it works?
In any regard, I’m looking forward to "imaginatively" receiving my groceries and preparing dinner for Heidi on Sunday. My next spending adventure has yet to be decided, but after the experience shopping for the groceries online I don’t think I’ll be doing any more online grocery shopping for sure. It’s as much a tedious task, if not worse, than going to an actual grocery store. Besides I’ll definitely not be running out of groceries for a while.