Patience and Energy versus Money

TRUST ME. If you live here, sometimes you will have to decide whether your want to give up money or patience & energy to do things.  

A few examples:

If you have no car:

• Pay a high price for a good car or save money but spend a lot more time waiting for and dealing with taxi drivers who sometimes won't pick you up.  Before we had a car, we would lose about 1-2 hours a day due to extra travel time.
• Rent a car for at least $50/day or take a cab to the grocery store, then the mall, the phone company etc, then back home.  Like above, having no car, you need to add an extra 15-30 mins for every place you plan on going to.  Trust me, unless you have a LOT of free time, this will make your life very difficult.
  

Shopping ("the peanut butter here is a $1 more than at the "El Rey")

• Pay the extra dollar or spend time driving/walking/cabbing to the "El Rey" which may or may not have the peanut butter and you end up with nothing.
  

Renting an apartment:

• Pay higher rent and live in an apartment with security, swimming pool, back-up water supply and nearby conveniences or save a $100 on rent and live in an unsafe neighborhood, travel 30 mins through bad traffic to to get to a grocery store, gym, park, mall, etc  and have NO water when the city's supply runs out.
  
• Pay higher rent and live on a high floor in a building (or away from construction) or save money on rent, but have construction guys staring into your apt while they work AND have to deal with their loud noise on Saturday morning while you are trying to sleep in.

Buying things you need:

Paying $20 extra for the quality green vegetable supplements or save the money but be stuck with rarely having green vegetables with your food because very few restaurants use them or always having to get the poor quality ones from the store. 

Mini vacations after a few hard months of nonstop work:

Pay $60 more for a luxurious hotel near the beach or save the money but stay at an run down hotel with nothing to offer and take a 15 min cab ride to the beach or to the restaurants for all your meals and entertainment

You get the picture...but keep in mind that sometimes no matter how much money you pay, sometimes you might still end up getting bad service and spending a lot of patience, energy.

***I also acknowledge that a lot of people without much money have no choice so they have to be patient and expend energy.  If you have a choice consider yourself blessed.