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  3. When you’ve committed to a month of no spending, the scariest sound in the w

When you’ve committed to a month of no spending, the scariest sound in the w

游客2024-09-18  53
问题     When you’ve committed to a month of no spending, the scariest sound in the world goes something like this: glug, glug, glug, followed by my wife saying, "Oh, God. Honey? We need to call a plumber!"
    Our experiment in money-free living had been getting on beautifully. We were happily eating our way through the kitchen, borrowing instead of buying, and feeling the burn from our free seven-day trial gym membership. I was still a no-spending newbie, but already I was one with the Zen of money-free living. Take a deep breath. There’s always a way around opening your wallet.
    The idea to stop spending had been percolating for a while, but it was a trip to Target one afternoon that finally broke me. With our four-year-old, Sebastian, in tow, Ruth and I loaded up on packs of underwear, bath mats, barbecue gear, Spider-Man toys, kitchen gadgets, and a plug-in thingy guaranteed to kill mosquitoes. As we approached the checkout aisle, I thought, we don’t need any of this junk, and we abandoned the cart, saving a good $300.
    That got me thinking about all our pointless expenses: DVDs by mail, lunches out, car washes, "bargain" toys, fancy coffee drinks, and just about everything I’ve ever bought on eBay and Amazon. Especially given the current economic climate, not to mention the state of our landfills, it all suddenly felt like excess. With a promise that we’d stop if it was killing us, I convinced the family to take the giant leap into frugality.
    The rules were that we would buy nothing for 30 days except absolute essentials, like fresh milk and fruit: and even there, after one too many "essential" trips to the market those first few days, I capped expenses at $ 100 for the rest of the month. A handful of key outlays like our mortgage, utilities, and Sebastian’s preschool tuition were excused, but restaurants, parking, clothing, toiletries, Internet access, babysitting, and, yes, gasoline, were now in the no-buy zone.
    I realize many people live like this all the time, by necessity, not by choice, and I anticipate letters saying, "You had to give up your Frappuccino. " But this wasn’t an exercise in "playing poor". Our month of no spending was a financial wake-up call, a chance to recalibrate our relationship with money at a time when everyone I know has money on the brain.
    Do we really need all the things we buy? Does acquiring stuff have actual value in our lives? Can’t we be just as happy—or perhaps even happier—living on much less? Our adventure kicked off with a rousing start. After that first day, I wrote in my journal: Feeling supercharged. We have so much. What could we possibly need to spend money on? [br] Which of the following statements about Paragraph Four is CORRECT?
选项 A、Buying things on eBay and Amazon could save people a lot.
B、There was no need of saving with current economic conditions.
C、The author paid more attention to his child’s expenses.
D、The author succeeded in persuading his family to follow him.
答案 D
解析 细节题。由题干定位到第四段。该段末句提及With a promise that we’d stop if it was killing us，Iconvinced the family to take the giant leap into frugality．[D]是对原文的同义转述，故为答案。由该段首句That got me thinking about all our pointless expenses…and just about everything I’ve ever boughton eBay and Amazon．可排除含义相反的[A]；由该段第二句Especially given the current economicclimate，not to mention the state of our landfills，it all suddenly felt like excess．可排除含义相反的[B]；[C]在第四段并未提及，故排除。
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