Thanks to consistently irregular weather and our nonexistent winter, I have ceased to embrace nature’s concept of “the seasons.” The only season that I can truly rely on is the town’s budget season, which always arrives on time and is reliably turbulent.
Over the next month, the town’s governing bodies, public servants and stakeholders will endure lengthy hearings (along with the occasional heckler) to nail down a complex budget and make sound financial decisions for New Canaanites.
Concurrently, I, the reluctant and wholly unqualified CFO of my household, will continue to engage in questionable personal finance practices to ensure that my “constituents” also are satisfied.
When things go awry under my roof (and that’s seemingly a weekly occurrence), I put on yet another hat as a grumpy, de facto facilities manager. In this role, I tackle a staggering, time-sensitive home maintenance to-do list. With each frustratingly new-and-never-before-seen problem or task, I gain unwanted insight into specialized trades and vocations that this lazyperson, I mean, layperson, never imagined. As a result, I have been known to go to extraordinary lengths to cross projects off the dreaded checklist — at any expense and at all costs.
Living in New Canaan is expensive, thanks to incredible schools, beautiful parks and other public services and resources that are expected of “The Next Station to Heaven.” What is not often addressed is the extra financial burden that New Canaanites endure: the additional 75-ish% upcharge on any service, repair or quote provided by nonlocals who want to cash-in. This “disposable income tax” is brazenly levied by service and trades people who are very well aware that some jobs just need to get done at any cost.
