The thing that I am content to live without -- for now: a personal cell phone

When your income is modest, but your goals are large, you find yourself analyzing every expenditure. This is a good thing. Being purposeful with spending that hard-earned income insures that your money is being used according to your values and goals. Intentional spending is empowering. By choosing where our money has gone, our own family has been able to achieve quite a lot on a middle class income.

There are a few things that our family has decided we can be content to live without. Over the next few weeks, I'll give you a glimpse into a few of them.



By looking around the train station, airport, bus stop, grocery store, or mall, you'd think it was a complete impossibility (in our modern life), to live without a cell phone.

I've never had a cell phone. And I'm really okay with that. You'd think I'd feel a few pangs of cell phone-envy whenever I glimpsed a happy texting, chatting, surfing person on their phones. I've never sent or received a text. I often joke with my kids to just send me a text to our landline, when they get to their destination.

All three of my kids have pre-paid phones. And as a worrying mom, I wouldn't have it any other way. But neither my husband nor I have personal phones. We feel okay, not being "connected" 24/7.


I've weighed the pros and cons of having my own phone, and here's what I always come back to:

PROS: if I had my own cell phone

• I could be reached in case of an emergency anytime, anywhere.

• I would have a phone for personal travel, both locally and for trips.

CONS: if I had my own cell phone

• I'm a single-track person. I don't multi-task all that well. When I'm shopping, driving, meeting up with a friend, cooking, or cleaning, I do best if I stick to my task at hand. I really don't want to drop what I'm doing to take a non-emergency call. And I don't do well talking on the phone and continuing with my work. Frankly, I am a bit annoyed when someone else tries to multi-task while talking to me on their cell phone. I have a couple of people who regularly call me while they're driving and running errands. I feel that I don't really have their complete attention for that phone call.

• When I am out taking care of my business, I prefer to do my work in quiet. Now that my kids are grown, grocery shopping is something of a joy, to be out and quietly making my selections.

• If I had a cell phone, my kids might rely on me to solve everyday problems, more often. Although I am constantly involved in my kids' lives, I think having me not being totally accessible at all hours of the day, has encouraged them to find solutions to their own situations. This has been a very good thing. Not that I want my kids to struggle or suffer, but this paid off big for two of them, one day, when they got lost in downtown Seattle. They were on foot and went the wrong direction. I wasn't available to help them. So they found their way on their own.

• The expense. A basic phone with pre-paid plan would be a minimum of $10 per month. This amounts to $120 per year. That money can be used elsewhere, for the time being.

Beyond these pros and cons, this is my biggest point. I am home almost all day, every day. We have voicemail, for those instances when I am not at home. Anyone can call me, at any time of the day, and leave a message. I simply don't NEED a cell phone for the majority of my hours. 

I don't travel to desolate places, or in the wee hours of the night. When I am out taking care of business, I am within a short walk of a nearby phone, and I am visible to passers-by, should I have car trouble or get lost.

Not having a personal cell phone actually keeps us current with car maintenance, which in the end keeps our cars serving us longer. And through the years, I have developed a good sense of direction, as I've had to rely on my own intelligence to find my way.

I don't have a career that keeps me out of reach of a traditional phone, or in need of making business contacts, all day long.

A cell phone for me, would duplicate the services of our land-line, which despite a growing trend of ditching the land-line, we still find it to be more useful than each having our own cell phones (try plugging your computer into the cheapest pre-paid Tracfone, for dial-up).


I do have to admit, there is the occasional time, when I am running errands or returning from my once-per-week job, around the same time that I know my daughters will need a pick-up from the park and ride. I don't know the exact time they will reach the park and ride, so our arrangement is for them call me at the 10 minute point before the destination. Then I can run over to get them. Well, if I am away from the house, I need to go back home to touch base with them, so I know when to pick them up. The worst case, so far, has meant that they needed to wait for 20 minutes, until I could get them. I don't view that as a horrible crime as a parent. Waiting builds patience and appreciation for others' time and schedules.

For the problem of wanting a cell phone while traveling -- my kids have been generous in lending one to their father or me, when one of us is traveling. I email friends and family in advance, regarding the phone number of one of my kids' phones, in case of an emergency.


Will I ever buy a phone for myself? Well, yes, I'm sure that time will come someday, as family finances become looser, or if I land a job that requires a personal phone. But for now, I'm content to live without one.

Waste Nothing: Freezing whipping cream

So, for me, saving the whipping cream usually comes about as a markdown find on cartons of whipping cream. Although, on holidays, there's often a few dollops of whipped cream left from the big meal, or part of a carton sitting in the fridge. This can be saved. I have three ways that I freeze whipping cream, for use later on.

• I freeze whipping cream, unwhipped, in ice cube trays (as I do half & half), to add to soups and sauces. Once frozen, I keep in a large plastic bag in the freezer.

• I also freeze whipping cream right in the carton, a pint at a time. I use this to make ice cream later on. Frozen, then thawed, whipping cream will work best in frozen desserts, if the whipping cream is cooked in a custard base. This minimizes any textural changes from freezing the cream.

• And I freeze already whipped cream, in dollops, to top desserts in the next 6 to 8 weeks.

To freeze whipped cream, here are my mom's instructions:

Line baking sheets with foil.

In a large bowl, for every pint of whipping cream,
add 1/4 to 1/3 cups of confectioner's powdered sugar.

Whip with mixer just until stiff. Add 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and adjust sweetening as desired. (If you began with 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar, you may find you'd like just a bit more sweetening.) Whip in the vanilla and any extra sugar.

Scoop large dollops of whipped cream onto the foil. Whipped cream will lose just a bit of its volume in the freezing process, so make the dollops just slightly larger than you think you'd like.

Freeze tray of whipped cream for about 2 hours. Working quickly, peel the dollops from the foil and place in a large ziploc bag.

These dollops of frozen whipped cream
will be saved for Easter dinner.

One pint of whipping cream will make about 18 medium-sized dollops.


To use frozen dollops of cream, place a dollop on a single serving of pie, cake or other dessert. Allow to stand for 10 minutes, to soften. Then serve.



I'll be using one of the pints that I bought on markdown last week, to make ice cream for my daughters' birthday in March. Looking at my recipe for custard-based ice cream (and having bought pints of whipping cream for 59 cents each), I should be able to keep the cost to under $1 for a quart of homemade ice cream. Not bad!

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