I have said it before and I will say it again…I think that I truly belong in South Carolina. The hot weather, the mostly mild winters, and the slower pace just sounds wonderful to me. But as this summer continues on strong I am reminded that I’m not sure that I could financially survive down there. I mean yes the housing costs are astronomically lower than that of Long Island, but these days I am thinking I have to figure in all the money we spend actually DOING things when the temperature rises above 70 degrees. Once the hibernation of winter has come to an end, and The Captain and I get back to the land of the living, I find that we spend MUCH more than I would like. What to do? What to do? 

Take the weekends for example. When it’s cold, and dinner time rolls around, we tend to order in, or make a mad dash to a local pizza place and do take out. On the other hand, when it’s warm out, we are much more inclined to make plans to go out to dinner with friends. And that dinner always ends up being more than take out. Especially since we aren’t the only ones out of hibernation. In the winter maybe it would be a dinner for 4, but in the summer (since we are blessed with wonderful friends) our dinner groups can get up to 10 people!

Let’s move to the week days! During the winter we very rarely venture out during the weekday evenings. It’s just to dark and cold. I usually make dinner every night and we stay in. But in the summer, even if I do cook we tend to venture out for even little things like Italian Ices, or ice cream. Or we run errands which means we buy food out. Things like that never happen in the winter cold.

Maybe when it’s nice for most of the year the novelty wears off? Maybe I feel like I have to squeeze everything into the small 4 month period of warmth? Either way, it’s something to consider. For now I think we’ll just continue to enjoy our summer in the same manner which we have been. Lots of eating out with friends, and ice cream trips! Gotta love summer!