Not surprising, I knew this, but...

ye gods are you ever punished for not owning a car.  Price-wise, I'm talking. And maybe only here in Omaha where there are a great many places you can't get to by bus without a LOT of walking. My practice of buying the 42 pound size of cat litter, for example, is truly endangered by not having a car. I can't find any bus route and walking schedule that is at all realistic for that. A taxi would negate the bulk price benefit.  I knew that people without cars have a much harder time of everyday things, here in Omaha. Now I'm experiencing it and feeling vaguely guilty that this is a *choice* I have. (Though to be honest, my car is now elderly and if it dies, I would have to rely on this current plan anyway - I cannot take on a car payment. And my experience with used cars - before 2011 when I bought this one new - and particularly for the $$ I have to pay for one outright - was not good. Egads, forsooth.) So - back to smaller sizes of cat litter, I guess. The biggest available in my grocery store, to be loaded into the taxi trunk on the semi-monthly Big Grocery List trip.

This economic factor is one that is quite well known in the alternative transportation modes world. It interlocks with all the other economic justice issues that keep people poor and struggling.  I am very lucky to have the income I have, small as it is. And the health I've got, iffy as it's been (cholesterol levels, I"m looking at YOU). Cutting down on my eating to stretch my money farther because it's just plain HARDER TO GET - that won't hurt me a bit, nor will the much-increased exercise. I have been affluentin' myself to death here. No amount of list-making, resolution-vowing, self-promising can put the brakes on a late-night trip to the store for ice cream like a mile-and-a-half walk to that store, and the walk back.

All that said, I'm sitting here grinning because Yah, I knew this would be a learning experience. And Yah, I had NO IDEA...