Casual Kitchen

YMOYL Chapter 3: Where Is It All Going?

2012-05-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

Programming note for new readers: This is an in-depth, chapter by chapter review and analysis of the book Your Money Or Your Life. If you haven't yet read the book, you're going to need to read along to know what I'm talking about. Join us! You can buy YMOYL here, and you can find the first post in the series here.

Finally, if you're enjoying and getting value from this series, spread the word! Share your thoughts on YMOYL on your site, or link back to the various posts here. As always, I'm grateful for your support.
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Chapter 3 of Your Money Or Your Life is all about organizing and understanding the information you gathered in Chapter 2. You've already written down all of your spending during the prior month. Now it's time to wrap your mind around it.

This is a complete inversion of the idea of budgeting, and it's far more sensible than the typical crapola financial advice, which says to create a budget first and then live under it.

Face it: most budgets are exercises in idealization. We usually fill them with overestimated savings goals and underestimated expenses. And then when the inevitable happens and we can't stick to our budget, most of us get discouraged and quit. Or worse, we quit and protect our egos by saying things like yeah, I tried budgeting, but I'm just not that preoccupied with money.

Instead, YMOYL does everything in reverse, and our intrepid authors are really onto something here. Rather than starting with some dumb budget that we spend hours creating and obeying, we start with real spending information we've already gathered. We take last month's money log, take the actual spending items that are in it, and then categorize them. Boom, you've got your budget--and it's 100% factual, not idealized.

Best of all, you now have a powerful tool to measure and manage your spending according to your priorities. Once again, what gets measured gets controlled.

Ignorance is now impossible. Once you've taken a sincere and honest look at a month or more of your daily money log, typical personal finance newbie statements like "Where does it all go? I hardly spend anything!" are now literally impossible for you to make. Impossible. You know where all your money goes.

This knowledge is an incredible trade-off for reading three chapters of a book and spending 30 seconds a day writing down your spending. And this act of self-discovery should feel immensely empowering to you. No longer does money just pass through your hands and through your life. No longer do you have a vague sense of where your life energy goes. You know exactly where it goes.

It is worth it? Okay. Now that you're looking at your true spending activity over the course of a month or more, what do you see? Do you like where your money's going? Which categories get the resources they should, and which get resources they shouldn't? Remember, every dollar spent is a unit of life energy you'll never get back.

You have to ask yourself the most important question of all--is it worth it?--on each of your key spending categories. If you have a noteworthy budget item like a big car lease, an oversize rent or mortgage payment, credit card debt, dinners out that you vaguely remember, and so on, do the math on how many hours of life energy that spending costs you. Is it worth it? You willingly engaged in this activity, you willingly documented it as a spending category, and now you have the power to decide whether to sustain this spending. This is the essence of conscious money management. We'll get deeper into this in Chapter 4.

No shame, no blame: By now, I think I've got a good group of conscious readers participating in this series, so I probably don't need to say this--but I'm going to say it anyway just in case: Remember, no shame, and no blame.

Do you hate the things you see on your daily money log and in your spending categories? Then be grateful, and consider yourself lucky. You had the courage to look honestly at the data, and now you have the opportunity to make life energy-creating decisions based on real facts. Give yourself a serious pat on the back for what you've done. After just a few short chapters and a few hours of work, you've taken a closer and more informed look at your finances than 99% of the people around you. And it's already paying off.

Once again, if you see a big source of life energy waste in your spending, be grateful that you've found it. That's an obvious place where you can start making powerful and substantial changes. Make them.

Now, let's talk about our next steps. What has this process taught you? What actions are you going to take as a result? And where can you create more life energy for yourself? Share your thoughts below.

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Appendix/Side Thoughts:
1) "Is this going to be what I do with my life? Is this what it's all going to be about?" This quote from page 79, where "Anita" has a sudden attack of consciousness about her shopping addiction, captures in two sentences the complete hollowness of consumerism. I'm not sure whether the anecdotes in YMOYL are real, fictitious, or a mix of both, but I thought this one really captured the truth.

2) For further reading: I'd like to suggest a companion book to YMOYL that readers should find helpful and inspiring: How To Want What You Have by Timothy Miller. Miller's book focuses on the ideas of attention, gratitude and compassion, all of which play a huge role in your personal happiness and satisfaction, and all of which are mental states that you can learn to cultivate, exercise and strengthen.

It was pure coincidence, but Laura and I happened to read How To Want What You Have at about the same time we read YMOYL, and the books turned out to surprisingly complementary resources. We found that How to Want What You Have took many of the key ideas of YMOYL beyond just the arena of money. I highly, highly recommend it.

3) "In fact, it's fun!" Permit me to take a quick break from compassion and gratitude... so I can enjoy a little sarcasm. Because I was laughing out loud at the "it's fun!" quote on page 79, and I was shrieking with laughter at unintentionally funny quote on page 84, where the authors tell us that perfecting your spending categories is "a lot of fun" and "better than most card, TV and board games all rolled into one."

4) Applying the 80/20 Rule: Finally, one thing I'd add to this chapter would be a brief discussion of the 80/20 Rule. The key implication of 80/20 thinking is that you can usually make gigantic improvements the output of a system with minor changes to a small number of inputs.

Let's put this in daily money log terms. Once we've completed the exercise of logging and categorizing our expenses, most of us will find one or two disproportionately large sources of life energy waste. The beauty of the exercises in Chapters 2 and 3 is that they'll clearly expose your biggest sources "not worth it" spending. Start there. Wrap your mind around the life energy costs of these spending categories. You may find that a few consciously-made changes could drive enormous improvements to your personal bottom line.

Long-time CK readers know all about my fetish for applying the 80/20 Rule to everything. 80/20 really does work, and it's particularly effective in the financial arena. What examples of 80/20 were you able to turn up while doing this exercise?

Next Week: YMOYL Chapter 4: How Much Is Enough?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday May 25, 2012

2012-05-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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What is a "headless fatty"--and why is it a staple of news journalism? (Charlotte Cooper)

The Mediterranean secret to getting your kids to love their vegetables. (Keeper of the Home)

Redefining comfort foods, from the author of FibroWHYalgia. (Rebuilding Wellness)

Consumers are people too. (Eating Rules)

Recipe Links:
Brilliant and easy: Cast Iron Chicken. (Christie's Corner)

A delicious, low-glycemic snack: Crispy Roasted Chickpeas. (Steamy Kitchen, via Owlhaven)

I didn't know guacamole could be made even more perfect! Tequila-Spiked Guacamole. (A Thought For Food)

Off-Topic Links:
Unsolicited book recommendation of the week: On Writing by Stephen King. An exceptional book. It's amusing, inspiring, sincere--and it delivers a ton of useful, practical advice. Highly recommended for writers and bloggers.

I value my time too much to let others control it. (Brave New Life) Bonus post: Macleod's company hierarchy and the corporate conscious.

How much is the senior prom really worth? (Surviving and Thriving)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

When Martina Navratilova Makes You Mad

2012-05-22T03:11:00.001-07:00

I was recommending Martina Navratilova's exceptional fitness and health book Shape Your Self to an acquaintance recently, and I received one of the most unusual excuses I've heard in a long time:

"Nahhh. I don't want to read her book. She's in such great shape. It'll just make me mad."

Look, agreed that Martina is an absolute physical specimen. She's won tennis titles over an astonishing four decades, and she won her last major pro tennis title at age 49. She's faced down breast cancer, for goodness' sake.

Heck, as an 18 year old, she defected from her home country, Czechoslovakia, which was under the control of the Soviet Union in those days. In other words, not only is she a physical specimen, she's really brave too.

And it's true, she looks as fit now--at age 55!--as ever.

So I can understand being jealous of somebody like Martina. But why get mad? What is there in a book where she gives away all of her secrets that could possibly make a person mad?

Readers, help me out here. Do you ever catch yourself getting angry or jealous when someone talks about the methods behind their successes? How do you avoid this, and more importantly, how do you help others avoid it too? Please share your thoughts!

Related Posts:
Avoiding the "Yes, But" Vortex
The Worst "Yes, But" of All
Yes-Butting and You: Answers and Final Thoughts
Anticipated Reproach, And Why Vegetarians Are Such Jerks
Best Practices to Raise the Level of Discussion on Your Blog

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

YMOYL Chapter 2, Part 2: Keeping Your Daily Money Log

2012-05-20T03:11:00.000-07:00

What gets measured gets controlled.

Those five words explain everything. They explain why The Daily Money Log is YMOYL's most powerful tool, and why recording your spending--every cent of your spending--is a critical step toward taking back your power over money.

But if it's such a critical step, why then do many readers refuse to take it? After all, it's ridiculously easy to come up with a long list of objections:

Tracking every penny just seems like too much of a pain in the ass...
Only total losers track their money like this...
I'll feel bad seeing how much money I spend...
My money log might reveal something embarrassing about my spending...
I'll feel dumb keeping track of my spending to this level of detail...
I'm just not that preoccupied with money...
I'm admitting weakness (or incompetence) if I do this...
I'll have to face the fact that I've been a failure with money...

...and so on.

These objections, and the fact that they're so easy to make, are why I'm deeply interested to learn from readers what internal resistance you experienced when you read this part of YMOYL.

So let me ask you: What were your initial thoughts about keeping a daily money log? Were those thoughts negative or positive? Did you catch your ego spouting any of the objections above? What helped you get over yourself and get past your objections?

I've got a hunch that your thoughts may give other readers the encouragement they need to examine and overcome their resistance too.

Our experience(s) with the daily money log: This is the second time we've kept a daily money log. When we read YMOYL for the first time in 2002, we tracked our spending for an entire year. And it was one of the most enlightening and financially empowering experiences of our lives.

But it's not like we became instant money buddhas the day we started keeping track. We had our own psychological resistance to work through, and honestly, the daily money log at first seemed kind of silly to us. Worse, during our first few weeks we often devolved into conversations like this:

"And how much did YOU spend today, darling?"
"I spent nine dollars and twenty-nine cents. Aaaaaaannnnnd you?"
"I spent two hundred four dollars and sixteen cents. [pause] Darling."
[Stunned silence, followed by passive-aggressive annoyed stare.]

My memory gets hazy at times, so I might be exaggerating a little. But I doubt it. Clearly, we struggled with our own baggage and objections too.

The mechanics of the daily money log: There's obviously lots of ways to keep a daily money log, but we opted for the simplest solution. We just kept a sheet of legal paper on our kitchen table, and each day we'd (separately) write down what we spent. At the end of the month I totalled everything up, and then we'd start a new month on a new sheet of paper.

At first we kept track in kind of a half-assed way. Our hearts were (sort of) in the right place, but it took a little while for our data collecting habits to follow. We'd occasionally "forget" to record our spending, and then misremember it (in our favor, naturally) when we got around to writing it down. We still have our daily money log from back then--every single page of it--and you can clearly see our records were erratic during our first few weeks.

But we were simply building a new habit. It just took us a little while to fully groove this new daily pattern--and to stop feeling slightly silly about it.

After a few stumbles (and passive-aggressive stares) during our first few weeks, Laura and I got better at this new habit. We were soon keeping far better records of our spending, and taking a fraction of the time to do it. Soon enough, it became a simple 30-second exercise: the minute either of us walked in the door, we'd walk over to our daily money log, jot down our spending, and get on with our day. Simple. Within three weeks we were doing it without baggage and without a second thought.

After a few months, we started noticing some surprising side benefits: for one thing, we'd taken a quantum leap in our ability to collectively discuss and decide financial matters. This process of keeping track actually taught us how to collaborate on our money challenges.

So let's back up for a second and take another look at the list of objections above. And let me make a confession. It was easy for me to come up with all of those objections, because those objections used to be my objections. Every single one of them. And it was the process of keeping our daily money log that ended up curing me of them.

It was all exactly backwards from what I expected. I thought the daily money log would cause these fears and concerns. It turns out that it annihilated them. All that baggage and embarrassment we thought we'd feel turned out to exist only in our minds.

A few final thoughts:
Why is keeping track of every penny so important? Two quotes from YMOYL explain why. First:

Because it's the best way to become conscious of how money actually comes and goes in your life as opposed to how you think it comes and goes.

We'll get deeper into this idea in Chapter 3. And then:

People who have achieved a high net worth relative to income know how much they are spending on clothes, travel, housing, transportation, etc., and those who don't achieve high net worth relative to income have no idea how much they spend.

This is your life energy we're talking about here. Give it the attention it deserves.

"Every penny? That's ridiculous. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna do that." Yes, once again, that's your ego talking. And once again it's shielding you from the truth.

What's your ego afraid of? Is it afraid that you'll know more about your spending? And are you telling me your financial affairs can't survive a little scrutiny? Don't let your ego sidetrack you from the most financially empowering tool in this entire book.

What's the proper length of time to keep a daily money log? It depends, but I'd say at least six months. Clearly, you'll need multiple months of data to be able to look through various large expenses (like your auto insurance bill, annual professional dues or whatever) that aren't monthly in nature.

We didn't start our 2002 money log with a specific timeframe in mind. But after six months or so we really had our arms around our spending, and after a full year we made the decision to shut it down. While the book gives examples of readers who tracked their spending for many years, you clearly do not have to do this forever.

Your money log doesn't have to contain the detail that the book suggests. On page 70, our intrepid authors give an example of a typical day's money log. I'll confess: Laura and I never went into that much detail. We would simply list the spending for the day with a one or two word explanation, like "food," "gas," "mortgage," "cable bill" or whatever. Again, what we did was rarely more than a 30 second exercise. It was enough.

What if I can't get my significant other on board? This is a tough question, and quite frankly I don't know the answer. Laura and I were fortunate: we both wanted to take back our power over our money, and we were both seeking alternatives to consumerism and "making a dying." Readers, any advice on how to manage a daily money log with spouses who aren't on the same financial page?

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Appendix/Side Thoughts:
1) Stop picking on my ego! I hope by now most readers can see what I'm really doing with my repeated references to battling our egos. It's a rhetorical device, and I'm using it for the sole purpose of scaring off the readers who aren't ready to take ownership of their financial lives. I want those readers to go away. That way, I can focus on the readers who are here to make real changes.

2) Applying "what get measured gets controlled" beyond YMOYL: Note that the what gets measured gets controlled concept has applications far beyond money. You can apply it to practically every area of life.

Some examples. Take the calories you consume in your diet. Carefully measure and record them and you'll consume fewer. What about the calories you burn while exercising? Measure them, and you'll burn more.

Your weight. Your blood pressure. Your cholesterol level. Your fitness. The number of pushups and situps you can do. All of these things improve when you actively measure them. It's like Shrodinger's cat:* the mere act of observation significantly impacts the results.

Next week: YMOYL Chapter 3: Where Is It All Going?

* Readers, try to ignore the inconvenient fact that Shrodinger's cat dies half the time. I probably should have picked a better analogy.

CK Friday Links--Friday May 18, 2012 and a Giveaway!

2012-05-18T03:11:00.000-07:00

Readers, before we start off today's links, I've got a giveaway! Charmian Christie of Christie's Corner has graciously provided a lucky Casual Kitchen reader with a free copy of her brand new app: Kitchen Disasters and Fixes. To enter, just leave a comment below saying which of this week's articles you liked the best. Don't forget to provide a link to your blog or some way for me to reach you. I'll announce the winner on Sunday May 20th at noon. Good luck!
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And we think we consumers have no power over the food industry. (Bloomberg.com)

Why some bloggers decided HBO's series Weight of the Nation was offensive--before it even aired. (Health at Every Size and Appetite for Profit)

Great tips on grilling fish, including which types of fish to avoid, which are easiest, and what makes a successful marinade. (Beyond Salmon)

Is the food writing dream over? Don't let fear create your reality. (Monica Bhide)

Recipe Links:
Delicious, healthy and easy: Spinach Feta Risotto. PS: You can use regular rice too. (Ezra Pound Cake)

And a little extra bourbon for the baker. Chocolate Bourbon-Spiked Banana Bread. (Leite's Culinaria)

A striking low-carb and gluten free Lentil Granola. And yes, you read that right. (Stonesoup)

Off-Topic Links:
The old lie about writers developing a thick skin. (The Green Water Blog)

Why I can never, ever not work. (Academic Jungle, via Oil and Garlic)

That's why bad habits are so insidious. (James Altucher)

Don't apologize. (Erin Pavlina)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Uninstalling Limiting Beliefs With Healthy Food

2012-05-15T03:11:00.016-07:00

Sarah writes in (edited slightly for length):

As someone who is at this time below the poverty line AND eats healthy, I can assure you all, it is with sacrifice to the wallet. Take into account that my partner and I can't go through food as fast as a family of four could- So for example I bought bananas the other day- they were green, and today they already started to go bruised looking. Had I bought granola bars instead- I'd have a pack of them for a very long time-they won't go bad. Each town and city is different with costs and each family thinks about more then the initial cost.

You can eat healthy! But it does cost.

First, Sarah, let me encourage you to keep reading Casual Kitchen. You'll find a ton of resources here to help disabuse you of the belief that healthy food has to be expensive.

And let me say it one more time: Just because there are instances where healthy food costs more doesn't mean all healthy food costs more. This is a costly logic error, and it needlessly separates people from their money.

Consider the comparison of bananas to granola bars. Is that really proof that healthy food is expensive? Or is it merely proof that processed granola bars are expensive--and therefore not worth your hard-earned money? (PS: Here's a healthy alternative to store-bought processed granola bars.)

Beliefs are funny things. We tend to "find" evidence that supports the beliefs we hold--and we tend not to find evidence that doesn't. Thus if you believe healthy food must be more expensive, and you don't have the instinct to look for evidence contradicting that belief, well, you've already put yourself behind the economic eightball.

Thus "healthy food will cost you" is a textbook example of a limiting belief. And this particular limiting belief causes consumers to overpay for foods they think are healthier. Even worse, it enables skillful food marketers to persuade consumers that high prices equals high health value. I feel good about myself paying double for organic onions.

By far the worst part, however, is how it causes consumers to throw up their hands and give away their power. Yep, I tried eating healthy and it just cost too much. Big Food's got me stuck eating processed junk.

Here's another option: Consider "uninstalling" this limiting belief. Or actively seek out evidence contradicting it. Not only will you find plenty of examples, you'll save plenty of dough too.

Better still: spend a half hour perusing the tag Laughably Cheap here at Casual Kitchen, and start cooking your way through CK's 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes. You'll find a mountain of evidence that healthy food won't cost you.

Readers, what would you suggest to help out Sarah?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

YMOYL Chapter 2, Part 1: Calculating Your Real Hourly Wage

2012-05-13T03:11:00.001-07:00

A quick programming note for new readers: This is an in-depth, chapter by chapter review and analysis of the book Your Money Or Your Life. If you haven't yet read the book, you're going to need to read along to know what I'm talking about. Join us! You can buy YMOYL here, and you can find the first post in the series here.
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I'm going to break Chapter 2 down into a two-part post. Today, we'll cover definitions of money and go over the "real hourly wage" calculation. Next week, we'll cover the "daily money log" portion of Chapter 2.

Money is a strange thing. We have baggage about it, we project our feelings and emotions onto it, and yet, honestly, many of us don't really know exactly what it is. Our society is already awash in pat definitions and ego-protecting perspectives for money, most of which encourage us to forget everything and buy stuff so we'll feel better about ourselves.

Forget all that. What we need is a way to think about money that helps us manage our financial lives more effectively. How can we take back our power over these little pieces of paper sitting in our wallets?

What does money mean to me? Before we get to YMOYL's definition of money, I want to ask readers what does money mean to you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

And since this is my blog, I'll share my definition too: For me, money provides time and flexibility. A simple example: using a time-based framework for money, you can take the amount of spare money you have, divide it by your expenses per month, and you'll know the number of months you can afford to not work for money. That time is yours--not your boss's time, your clients' time or your company's time.

Here's another way to think about money in time-based terms: every act of spending must be matched with time spent earning money to pay for that expenditure. Of course, it's a giant irony that many of the things we buy with money merely weigh us down and create the opposite of flexibility.

I also try (with mixed success) to see money as an intellectual challenge--like a game I can play for fun. This part of my definition of money is in many ways the most useful, because it helps me look at money in a less emotional, more carefree way. It's my way of taking back my power over money. Hey, whatever works.

Is my definition right? Is your definition right? These are the wrong questions. The right question is: is your definition of money effective? Does it help you take back your power over money, or does it "help" you give your power away?

Which brings us to YMOYL's definition of money:

Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for.

I can't say their grammar turns me on, but I'll give our intrepid authors credit for offering a solid, mind-opening definition of money. It frames money as a choice (do you choose to trade it away or not?) and it frames money in terms of time. And as we'll soon see, it's both useful and empowering.

Life energy? Isn't that a little, uh, airy-fairy? I'll confess, when I first read YMOYL ten years ago, I rolled my eyes at this point of the book too. I had to wrap my mind around this chapter--and in particular I had to wrap my mind around the "real hourly wage" concept--before I really understood what the authors were trying to achieve with their definition. Let's give the authors a little extra rope here.

Your REAL hourly wage: Okay. The most important idea in this post (and perhaps the most important idea in all of YMOYL) is on pages 57-66 where you calculate your real hourly wage. This is where you take your actual wage and adjust it for all of the various extra costs and time demands your work life places on you.

If there's one section of this book that will help you substantially rethink how to balance life, work and money, this is it.

Be warned, the number you arrive at may depress you. Initially. But keep in mind: the entire point of the real hourly wage calculation is to help you understand all of the costs you bear by working. It may give you certain information that encourages you to leave your current job--or at the least, consciously alter the expenses you choose to bear while you're at that job. Furthermore, it can be an extraordinarily useful number to help you choose your next job. As the book says, "a job that requires a longer commute or has more costuming expectations might be less remunerative in reality than one with a lower salary."

Before taxes or after taxes? A quick side note: I disagree with the book's calculation mechanics. They tell you to start with your gross wage. I think you should start with your after-tax wage (the "net pay" number on your pay stub). Think about it: almost all of your expenses are paid for in after-tax dollars, so it's not really fair math to use pre-tax dollars as your starting number. In essence, your pre-tax, gross wage is really a phony number. Only the government can get at your gross wages. You can't.

Understanding the true cost of your spending: Here's what's even more important about your real hourly wage: it helps you quantify your spending in terms of how many more hours you'll need to work to pay for any given purchase.

This is a staggering insight for many readers. You want to lease that new luxury sedan you just saw on TV? The down payment alone is gonna cost you 150 hours of life energy, and the lease (plus the added insurance costs) will hit you for another 20 hours of life energy every month. Every month. Hmmm. Maybe I'll keep my Honda for a couple more years after all.

How many hours of life energy does your house cost? Private school? Your timeshare? The $1,620 a year you spend on cable TV?

Let me say it again: this is an empowering framework for thinking about money. We are all making a trade when we work and spend. Now you know an extremely accurate way to measure that trade. Is it really worth it to you?

Big city living: The real hourly wage framework also reveals the true math of living in expensive cities. The bottom line? The economics can get ugly in a hurry. You may think the extra fifteen grand you "earn" in gross salary makes it worth it to live in metro Washington DC, metro New York or some other high-cost location. Sadly, this can be one of the worst lies of urban professional life. Once you look at your true costs in all their naked glory, that extra salary simply may not be worth it.

What path are you on? Does your job really help you build wealth? Do your lifestyle and spending decisions really make sense? Most people never think through this at all. Instead, they allow their expenses and lifestyle decisions to be set by passive factors like social conditioning, or competition with their friends and neighbors.

Let's be brutally honest here: that's a recipe for working twenty or thirty years and not having much money or life energy to show for it. The sooner you recognize this and get your mind around the exact math and economic implications of your life, the better.

Uh-oh. It's that pesky ego again: At this point, some readers will hear themselves saying things like "I'm not really preoccupied enough with money to bother with this" or "I deserve my lifestyle--why are you so uptight about spending?" or "What the hell do you know about working in a big city?"

If your ego whispers stuff like this, please think carefully about how active or passive you wish to be over the remaining years of your life. Do you really need protection from the truth of your economic situation? How much power do you really want to give away to your ego--and to your money?

Remember, your ego doesn't want you to see the truth. Ignore it, and choose a more empowered and truth-centered perspective for evaluating your current life economics.

Here's one extremely empowering perspective you can start with: The more conscious you are of your true job-related costs, the more you can manage them downward. Therefore, the higher you can make your real wage! Reread that sentence, and then try and tell me you don't have far more power over your financial situation than you thought.

Additional Time Till Civil: One last point. Take a close look at the checklist of life energy costs on pages 64-66. Look on page 65, below where it says "Daily Decompression." There's a few amusing line items here, including recreational substances and time till kids can yell again. Anyone who's ever worked would agree: these really are legitimate costs of working.

Let me make a confession: when I scanned over this list and saw Additional time till civil, I died a little inside.

Readers by now know that I worked in a high-stress, long hours Wall Street job for nearly 14 years before leaving full-time corporate work in 2008. On many days during my career, it literally did take me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour after I got home to become civil. My ego can be pesky too, and only now can I freely admit how skillfully it shielded me from this truth.

I'd give anything to have that time back.

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Appendix/Side Thoughts:
1) "Men do not desire to be rich, only to be richer than other men." This quote from John Stuart Mill (on page 54) could not be more fitting, both for this book and for our society today. It illustrates how comparisonitis is a nearly universal insanity in our culture.

2) One more simple framework for thinking about the high cost of spending: I thought I'd share a slightly different application of YMOYL's framework, one that my father repeatedly told me throughout my childhood: "A dollar spent is two dollars earned."

At first, I was like, "Dad, duh. A dollar is a dollar." That was before I started paying taxes.

Once again, you pay expenses with after-tax dollars, but your gross salary is in pre-tax dollars. Take a good look at your pay stub, and you'll see that once all of the various taxing authorities get paid (Federal, State, Social Security, Medicare, etc), you only end up with about half of your gross wages. Half.

(PS: Don't let this make you angry--that's just another example of giving your power away. Instead, let this provide you with still more incentive to save even more relentlessly, and more incentive to supplement your tax-disadvantaged salary income with tax-favored income sources like dividend-paying stocks, municipal bonds and so on.)

Once again, in order to pay that dollar you're about to spend, you need to earn two dollars in wages. This simple phrase has been more valuable to me than an entire library of personal finance books.

3) A mistake only a geek could find: There's a somewhat embarrassing mistake in the 2008 edition. Note on the chart on page 62, where it cites a "real hourly wage" of $6. Then, directly underneath the chart, note where it says "Every dollar spent represents 15 minutes of life energy."

Wrong. If you earn $6 an hour, then it takes you one-sixth of an hour to earn one dollar. That's ten minutes, not fifteen. Oops.

I'm guessing that the "15 minutes of life energy" quote was just copied from the the 1990s edition, which used $4 an hour in this example. Of course $4 an hour actually does work out to 15 minutes per dollar. I wonder, though: what does it mean that there's a 50% increase in "real wage" inflation from one edition of YMOYL to the next?

Next week: YMOYL Chapter 2, Part 2: Keeping Your Daily Money Log

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday May 11, 2012

2012-05-11T03:11:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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The person who embarks on a journey toward raw food is very different from the person who comes out the other side. (Karen Knowler)

After her son wins a Hershey Bar at school, a blogger writes a manifesto against snacks in the classroom. Extra credit for CK readers who can articulate the other side of this debate. (The Lunch Tray)

The big lie called BMI. (Dietriffic) Related: Weight is just a number. (Casual Kitchen)

Why trying to regulate the food and ag industries is practically impossible. (A Sweet Life) Bonus post: Hmmm, maybe we should let our kids play in the mud after all.

Why do we try to persuade people to eat better by using crazy scientific terminology or hyperbolic headlines? (5 Second Rule)

Recipe Links:
Cheap, healthy and you can make it in five minutes. Mom's Four Bean Salad. (Eating Rules)

A real-live homemade Orange Julius recipe. Rocky Balboa would be proud. (Food Renegade)

A hilariously quick and easy Black Bean Soup. (Kahakai Kitchen)

Off-Topic Links:
What's the difference between a career and an avocation? Plenty. (Food Woolf)

Consumers are overwhelmed by marketers' relentless efforts to engage with them. (Harvard Business Review)

Forget what you've been told: Money really can buy happiness. (TED Talks)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Spicy Morning Oatmeal

2012-05-10T03:11:00.000-07:00

I make oatmeal for Laura nearly every morning. She has borderline high cholesterol (it runs in her family), so this is one of my many schemes to try to keep her alive.

But oatmeal can get incredibly boring, especially if you eat it every day. Heck, it's boring for me and I don't even have to eat it. That's why every so often I'll add something new to her oatmeal, or introduce some oatmeal variation to keep things interesting.

This time, though, I had the evil idea of messing with her head, so I decided to make her oatmeal spicy.

She loved it. Heh. The joke was on me.

Not only does this oatmeal variation mess with your significant other's head--a lofty goal in and of itself--it also cures boredom. For both of you. And there's an extra benefit: It clears your sinuses too! Highly recommended during spring allergy season or as a cold remedy at any time of year.

I hope you enjoy this unusual breakfast variation as much as we did.

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Spicy Morning Oatmeal

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon raisins (optional)
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
assorted other toppings: brown sugar, honey, nuts, fruit, etc.

Directions:
1) Bring water (and optional raisins) to a boil. Add oats, reduce heat, stir, and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 4 minutes, or until the oats are done to your liking.

2) Put oatmeal in a bowl, combine with cayenne pepper, stir well, add toppings of your choice and place in front of your unwitting significant other.
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How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Moroccan-Style Carrots

2012-05-08T03:11:00.000-07:00

This striking carrot salad recipe is real crowd-pleaser, it sets a new world record for laughable cheapness, and you can make it in just 10 minutes! Once you've tried this flavorful and memorable dish, you'll never go back to plain old boring cooked carrots.

By my math, this healthy and hilariously easy recipe can be made for as little as 25-30c per serving, proving--for the zillionth time--that healthy and delicious food doesn't have to be expensive.

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Moroccan-Style Carrots
(Inspired by Cara's Cravings, who adapted it from The Jewish Traditions Cookbook by Marlena Spieler)

Ingredients:
5-6 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into nickels
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1-2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Small handful of chopped fresh parsley
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Directions:
1) Cook the carrots in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes, drain and rinse with cool water.
2) Whisk together remaining ingredients and combine with carrots. Serve warm or chilled.

Serves 4-5 generously as a side dish.
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Normally this is where I'd include my recipe notes: three or four bullet points that explain any subtleties or tricky aspects of the recipe. Not today. Quite frankly, this dish is so easy and so simple that's there's just... nothing to say. Enjoy it.

Readers, if you have any modification ideas or additional suggestions, share your thoughts in the comments!

Related Posts:
Peanut Pineapple Stew
Savory Moroccan Chickpeas
Citrus Orzo Salad With Olives and Sundried Tomatoes
The 911 Frittata
Easy Braised Red Cabbage
North African Lemon Chicken

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

YMOYL Chapter 1: The Money Trap

2012-05-06T03:11:00.001-07:00

Isn't a lot of this anticonsumerism stuff, you know, kind of obvious?

This question is from a friend who's reading along with our virtual book club. My first reaction was to tell her how lucky she is. Seriously. If you instinctively view status-based consumption as an insane oxymoron, this book is gonna be a million times easier for you. Heck, your entire life is gonna be easier.

Remember though, this anticonsumerism stuff might be obvious to you, but it sure as hell ain't obvious to the rest of humanity. Which is why Chapter 1 contains twenty or so pages of discussion on things like the fulfillment curve, the ecological impact of our consumption, the idea of "enough," the concept of "making a dying" and so on. The authors walk you through all this before hitting you with the real meat of this chapter--the exercise at the very end where you add up your lifetime income and calculate your net worth.

Why do they take so long to get to the important part? Simple. Because most normal people won't do these calculations. The authors have to take extra time to sell the idea before they can actually get to it. Yep, even books on anticonsumerism need to sell their ideas.

I'm guessing that few readers here need to be sold on being mindful about money. So I'll leave the anticonsumerism discussion for the Appendix/Side Thoughts portion of this post and jump right into the key exercises, which start on page 27 of Chapter 1. This is where you do two things:

A: Find out how much money you have earned in your lifetime--the sum total of your gross income, from the first penny you ever earned to your most recent paycheck.
B: Find out your net worth by creating a personal balance sheet of assets and liabilities.

The authors say you can put this off until later, but don't. Do it now. And keep in mind the following quote, which is perhaps the most important in all of YMOYL:

The purpose of this exercise is to increase your awareness, not your arrogance or your shame.

Do not blame yourself for the information you turn up doing these steps. Do your best to accept and understand, and don't let your emotions--or your ego--sidetrack you.

Ego and emotion are dangerous here, because they'll both blind you from accepting the truth of your financial situation (for more on this, see below). And understanding the truth of where you are is a giant step towards getting to where you want to be. Don't judge yourself, and most importantly, don't let your ego get in the way of facing the facts. It will be worth it in the end.

Your lifetime earnings: As the authors say, the easiest way to get at your lifetime earnings is to pull out your last statement from the Social Security Administration (this tip works only for US residents, but international readers may have their own similar government agency). Every year the Social Security Administration sends you a document listing your earnings over the course of your entire life.

If you can't lay your hands on your Social Security statement, then dig out your old tax returns. Remember to use your gross income, not your income after you've subtracted out deductions. Finally, if you can't get your hands on the records you need, just estimate as accurately as you can.

Don't forget ALL your income sources: I'm doing the exercises in the book too, of course. And in our case, our Social Security files only give us a partial picture of our total income, especially in the years after Laura and I finished grad school in the late 90s. This is back when we read YMOYL for the first time--and it was the beginning of a period of our lives where we saved money extremely aggressively. (See? This book really works!).

So when I summed up our income this time around, I had to make sure to include our investment income: things like interest-bearing accounts, stock dividends and municipal bond interest. Social Security (and Medicare for that matter) don't tax--or even track--these forms of income.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but what the heck, I'll just say it anyway: this tax favorability is just one of many reasons why you'll want to join the investing class and supplement your salary with income-generating investments.

Clearing the fog: Okay. So why is calculating your lifetime income so important? The book says that it "clears the fog shrouding your past relationship with money." I agree. Even the most financially challenged among us will have little choice but to be surprised by the amount of money we've earned over the course of our lifetimes. Further, once you see the sum total of your lifetime earnings right there in black and white, you pretty much have to accept that quite a bit of money has passed through your hands. You earned all that money, by yourself.

Keep in mind the story on page 29 of the housewife who never valued herself as a breadwinner, but after doing this exercise saw herself as a capable wage-earner. This is exactly why this exercise is powerful.

Now, on to calculating your net worth. What have you got to show for all of that money that's passed through your pockets over all those years?

Add up all your assets, then add up all your liabilities--and then subtract. The difference is your net worth. Pretty simple, and the book (on pages 31-37) is extremely clear on what to include and how to do it. Be especially careful not to get delusional and "forget" any of your liabilities.

You might be devastated by what you see. You might be pleasantly surprised. You might already know your net worth because you've made a healthy practice of tracking it as part of your current financial habits. Whatever the case, recognize that this is just the first step in a process. Don't be self-critical. (I know the book tells you this over and over again. Well, I'm telling you this over and over again too.)

And if you're not happy with what you see after doing these exercises, be grateful. You've been dodging the truth about your financial situation, and this is a giant step towards facing it. And owning it. Criticizing yourself for past financial mistakes is pointless. It's crying over spilled milk, and it stops you from objectively and honestly learning from those mistakes. And it will divert you from your goals.

As the book says, no shame, no blame.

But what if you can't handle the real numbers? I'm not going to lie to you. If you can't handle the idea of accepting and understanding your financial net worth, and if you reject the truth of your financial situation as it stands right now, then you have some serious mental blocks about money. You've got some work to do before you're ready for this book or this virtual book club. I'm sorry.

At this point, I have two burning questions for readers, and I really want to hear your thoughts in the comments section below:

1) What were your feelings and reactions after calculating your lifetime earnings?
2) And once you had arrived at your net worth, what were your feelings then?

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Appendix/Side Thoughts:
1) A quick side note on your net worth: I believe you should calculate your net worth at least once a year. Laura and I generally do an extremely thorough calculation during the first few days of January, as soon as all of our year-end statements are available online. We use the calculation as one of our steps in our financial goal-setting for the coming year. This has worked extremely well for us over the years, and it's increased both our financial mindfulness and our wealth.

2) Diminishing returns on the fulfillment curve: If there's one gigantic insight from the fulfillment curve chart on page 24, it's that it explains why you were happier when you were young and broke, and why your belief back then that "if only I had more money I'd be happier" was deeply mistaken. Money can be weirdly ironic sometimes.

3) The concept of "making a dying": An important YMOYL metaphor that refers to the long hours, stress and irritation of a typical life focused on work-and-spend. This concept impacted Laura enormously, and it really helped her crystallize many of her views on money. What about you?

4) Gazingus pins: Another important metaphor in YMOYL. Gazingus pins are any tempting item you can't help but buy. For some people it's shoes, for others it's clothes. For some, it's--I don't know--Fabergé eggs. We'll be hearing this term again.

5) "Once we're above the survival level, the difference between prosperity and poverty lies simply in our degree of gratitude." I don't really have a point to share here--this was just a meaningful quote that deeply resonated with me.

6) Finally, thoughts on "knowing" the obviousness of ideas about anticonsumerism. I want to take a minute to remind readers how often our egos shield us from the truth by telling us we already "know" something--when in reality we don't really know it. I've written before how phrases like that's obvious or I know that already actually signal a lack of comprehension and knowledge.

This helps explain how so many people can say things like Yes, I know that money can't buy status, and Yes, of course I value my life over money ...while they run up their credit card debt to pay for status-based purchases.

Remember my friend who used the ego-protecting phrase "I'm not preoccupied with money" as a defense mechanism to avoid facing his money problems? One of the most common money stumbling blocks is that our egos tell us we "know"--but our actions indicate otherwise.

Even worse, this is an invisible stumbling block: people can't see it even when it's right in front of them. Why? Because whenever there's an inconsistency between the facts and your ego's interpretation of the facts, your brain will try always try to protect your ego by telling you that there's no inconsistency. In psychology there's a word for that: rationalization.

So when someone asks you "is more better?" or "do you like making a dying?" try to be sure your actions are consistent with the "obvious" answer you give.

We'll get much, much deeper into this in Chapters 2 and 3. For now, though, just keep these ideas in the back of your brain--preferably someplace where your ego can't get to them.

Readers, if there's anything you read here or in the book that strikes you as interesting, wrong, naive... or even ridiculous, please say so in the comments! What are your thoughts and reactions so far?

Coming up next week! YMOYL Chapter 2: Money Ain't What It Used To Be

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday May 4, 2012

2012-05-04T03:11:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Is it realistic--or narcissistic--of us to think that animals should all die of "natural causes"? (A Mindful Carnivore)

Why the golden age of food writing is right now. (Chow)

How losing weight can strain a marriage. (344 Pounds) Bonus post: Five ways to kill off those afternoon cravings.

Raising fearless eaters. (Owlhaven)

Recipe Links:
Belizean-Style Habanero Pepper Sauce. (Rice and Beans)

Genius in its simplicity: Ginger Brulee. (Stonesoup)

Off-Topic Links:
Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn't do it for money. (Seth's Blog)

The seven deadly sins of change. (The Change Blog)

How a book about tennis turned out to be the most useful book I've ever read about writing. (Quick Writing Tips)

A striking infographic on the environmental impact of the internet. But there's one problem: it contains a gaping logic hole. Gaping. Can you find it? I'll give a free prize to the first commenter who comes up with the correct answer. (Wordstream)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Thanks

2012-05-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, the world just doesn't contain enough gratitude--and today I intend to do something about it. That's why I'd like to issue a sincere and heartfelt thank you to some of the great people out there who stood behind Casual Kitchen over the years and helped make it what it is today.

Mary at Owlhaven for her insights, links to CK, and her own provocative posts in response to things I've written here. To me, that's what blogging is all about.

Julia at Grow. Cook. Eat. for keeping me well-stocked up with interesting Friday Links ideas, for her insightful and intelligent comments, and for her excellent book The Farmer's Kitchen.

Monica at A Life of Spice for her inspiring writing, her openness with grappling with the various frustrations of writing--and lots of retweets.

Joanne at Eats Well With Others for never missing a post--and also for stepping in to answer a reader's health question that was beyond my expertise.

Mollie Katzen for her unfailing support of Casual Kitchen on both Facebook and Twitter--and for changing the way I eat with her exceptional classic The Moosewood Cookbook.

Jules at Stonesoup for her collaboration, her links to CK, and her brilliant approach to minimalist cooking. Jules has enormously influenced both my thinking and my approach to recipe development.

Chacha at Ombailamos for consistently brilliant comments and insights, and for slogging through and commenting on even my longest and most challenging posts.

Stuart at Addicted to Canning for all of his excellent comments, for being a big source of Friday links ideas, and for taking "laughable cheapness" to a wholly new level.

Kris at Cheap Healthy Good for literally years of support and link love for CK.

Mike at Dad Cooks Dinner and Dave at Food and Fire for your comments and thoughts--and for teaching me most of what I know about how to grill.

Melissa at Alosha's Kitchen for sharing ideas, articles and a goldmine of recipes. Thanks also for your feedback and great discussions--especially in reaction to some of the most controversial Friday Links articles.

It's not always easy or fun to run a blog, and I know I speak for many of my fellow bloggers out there that blogging can sometimes feel like a discouraging, humbling and lonely thing to do. That's why the occasional comment, linkback, retweet, encouraging word--and yes, even the occasional affiliate purchase--makes all the difference in the world to the bloggers you follow.

I'm grateful for every one of my readers, and for all of the people I've met, corresponded with and interacted with during the past five-plus years of writing Casual Kitchen. Once again: I thank you.

Readers: who would you like to thank?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Your Money Or Your Life: Intro, Prologue and Preliminaries

2012-04-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

"People who follow the program in Your Money or Your Life, on average, lower their expenses by 25 percent within six months and almost to the person they say their quality of life has gone up. When folks really catch fire with the program, they often save 50 percent or more of every paycheck."

If you're wondering why it's worth your time and attention to read Your Money Or Your Life, and why I'm doing an in-depth, chapter-by-chapter series on the book, well, the paragraph above pretty much says it all. YMOYL does lots of things: it discusses mind-opening philosophies of consumerism, it helps you think about the real purpose of your work, it helps you think through the importance of income and spending in life, and it helps readers reach a new level of peace and serenity with money.

These philosophical aspects of the book may really resonate with you, or you may find them kind of squishy and woo-woo. Either way, it's fine. The truth is there's a far more important and pragmatic reason to embrace this book: because it works.

The simple fact is this: if you work through each chapter of YMOYL and do the exercises honestly and sincerely, money will cease to be a drain on your life, and you will accomplish savings rates just like the ones cited above. That's right, 25%. Or 50%. Or more. And your quality of life will go up.

This book radically reshaped our financial life when we first worked through it back in 2002, so it is with direct personal experience and great sincerity that I say that this book really does what it promises to do.

Before we get into the book itself, let's first tackle a few likely reader questions about this upcoming series:

What's the format? I plan to write one post per chapter, with today's post covering preliminaries, the intro and the prologue. So, with another nine chapters to go, this series should run for some 10 weeks--perhaps more, if we come up with issues or side topics worthy of further discussion. I'll run one post each Sunday, and I'll clearly label it with "YMOYL" so readers who aren't interested can easily skip it.

Is there that big a difference between the 1992/1998 edition and the 2008 edition? Can I still use my old copy? I've been reading both copies side by side and they are largely similar. There are some chapters (e.g., Chapters 6 and 9) that have been rewritten to some extent, but I will make sure to highlight any key differences between editions in my discussion. Thus either version is fine.

Can I read the series without buying the book? Hmmm. Well, I can't stop you. But you'll get far more value if you have your own copy and can read along. Hey, why not borrow a free copy from your local library? Seems fitting somehow.

Who's the intended audience? Any reader interested in being more conscious and capable in spending, earning and managing money will benefit from this series. You don't have to have any special knowledge or investing experience or anything like that. Just an interest in the book and a willingness to invest time and attention into improving your financial situation.

That said, I really don't want dilettantes nosing in on the comments of these posts when they clearly haven't read--and don't plan to read--the book. If that means I write this series for a very small handful of readers, that's fine. I'd much rather have a tiny audience of readers who want real results and are willing to put the concepts of this book to work than have 10,000 readers read this series unseriously and not have it impact them at all.

Moreover, a year from now, I want that small handful of readers to be able to tell me, in clear and specific terms, that:

1) they're in dramatically better financial shape,
2) they can say exactly how much extra money they put away each month,
3) they can tell me exactly how they've mapped out their road to financial independence.

Again, it's fine if you just want to dip in here and there, skim a few posts, not really read the book, etc. It's okay. Just keep in mind that my intended audience isn't you.

Okay! Now, to the book--and to today's portions: the Introduction and Prologue.

Introduction:
Keep in mind that the introduction of any book is essentially a sales document. It's designed to reel you in and keep your attention, and quite frankly, it's a one of the weakest parts of YMOYL. The 2008 introduction focuses on many of the standard alarmist statistics that have characterized the US economy for years: a low or negative savings rate, too much consumer debt, and the sense that everything feels like it's on a greased road to hell (see below for how this differs from the 1992 introduction).

However, all of this leads up to the key thesis of the book: that the rat race sucks, and what most of us are doing--working to spend to work more to spend more--isn't working.

What does work is stepping off the treadmill, becoming less status-conscious, and redirecting and saving all the money you would otherwise spend on materialistic purchases. In short, choosing "your life" rather than "your money."

If you've decided to participate in this virtual book club and you've made it this far into this post, you should be nodding your head right now. Yes, that's what I want! But how do I step out of the rat race? And how, exactly, do I put "life" before "money"?

Well, like I said, the introduction is supposed to reel you in. I hope it did. Now we've gotta read the rest of the book to learn the answers.

Prologue:
The purpose of this book is to transform your relationship with money.

Yep, that's about it in an nutshell. A few thoughts on what's important here in the prologue (and readers, if you find anything striking that I left out, share your thoughts in the comments!).

How the incredible material progress of the industrial era ended up leading consumers astray in the modern era: Interesting to read how the very same forces of mass production--innovations that helped improve everyone's access to basic products--kept right on chugging along... until it started producing stuff that today we buy but don't need. The economy kept making stuff, and consumers kept climbing the standard-of-living ladder. Pretty soon we'd gone from "fulfilling needs to enhancing comfort to facilitating luxury--and even beyond to excess."

Now we consumers seek status by buying possessions, and we willingly take on still more costs so we can maintain a professional life that can fund our status. And in the section titled The Not-So-Merry Money-Go-Round, there are some wincingly condescending euphemisms the authors use to describe modern professional life. Phrases like "job costuming" or needing to "recreate" and "vacate" from our jobs with "escape entertainment," and how "we must spend so that our neighborhood, house, car, lifestyle and even life mate reflect our position in the world." Ouch.

But it gets worse: because all of the aspects of our "status" are intertwined, it all combines to persuade us to derive more and more of our identities from our jobs. Thus begets the cycle of work and spend and work and spend.

Obviously this is insane. But the truth is, most people don't really think about this stuff at all. And so, because the authors need to make this concept extra-super-duper clear for non-thinking readers, they use a rather negative and condescending framework for considering work. But don't hear the wrong message: the authors aren't saying work is bad, they are saying working in order to spend, in order to maintain your identity is bad. There's a big difference.

On thinking in new ways: there's a brief section on how to think differently, replete with the "9 dots test" that always seems to show up in books and articles on out of the box thinking. Despite the stupid test, the point still holds: you will need to think differently throughout this book, and you'll have to shake off many assumptions, unconscious habits and mental scripts that are lurking in your mind about money and status. Be ready.

The concept of FI: FI is an important jargon term in YMOYL. It stands for Financial Independence, but it also represents financially independent thinking, financial intelligence and financial integrity. Combine all these attributes, and you essentially have a non-consensus, anti-consumerist way of thinking about money and spending. We're going to hear a lot about this concept in the coming chapters too.

On the excuse of not wanting to dwell on money: Finally, a quick anecdote from my own life that ties in with the last couple of pages of the prologue. I have a friend (who I'll leave unnamed, obviously) who was always money-challenged. Whenever the subject came up, he always used the exact same default mental script: "I don't like to spend all day thinking about or dwelling on money. I'm just not preoccupied with that stuff."

This is actually a textbook money excuse that's part defense mechanism and part delaying technique. Worst of all, this guy had it all exactly backwards: because of his inattention, his money worries actually kept him up at night, wasting a tremendous amount of his time and energy. The thing is, once you invest a moderate amount of time rethinking how you handle your money and your spending, you'd be shocked how quickly the process goes on autopilot. You will find yourself spending far less time on your money matters than ever before, while you gain economic ground every month:

At first, some of the steps may look as if they will be time-consuming to put into practice consistently--however, people who have been doing the steps for some months report that they are actually spending less time on their money matters than before the course. The fact that their checkbooks always balance, that they don't ever have to rush to the bank to cover overdrafts, that they spend no time on unrealistic budgets, that they have no more arguments with their spouses over money, that they don't have to spend hours wondering "where it all went" ... are just a few of the ways applying the steps consistently produces savings of our most precious resource--time.

Next week we'll really get into the meat of the book. Stay tuned!

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Appendix/Side Thoughts:
A quick PS to readers: What follows are some short ideas, notes and side thoughts that were beyond the scope of the post itself, but that I still considered worth sharing. I'll probably have an Appendix/Side Thoughts section after each post in this series. If you're too bleary-eyed to continue, feel free to skip the remainder of this post.

1) On changes in blurb copy between the 1992 and 2008 editions:
Sometimes blurb copy tells you more about the publishers' perceptions of their own book than it tells you about the book itself. And it's interesting to read the sounds of rebellion and revolution in the blurb copy of the 2008 edition:

"antidote for our corporate culture"
"It's time to stop trying to 'get ahead' in a race that's both fixed and futile"
"liberates us from our self-imposed impoverishment"

The above blurb quotes from the 2008 edition are way more aggressive than the tame and tepid blurbs in the 1992 edition.

2) On changes in tone from the 1992/1998 introduction to the 2008 introduction:
As we mentioned above, the 2008 edition starts off with an alarmist discussion of the new global economy while the introduction to the 1992/1998 edition features a rather sedate discussion of voluntary simplicity and a shift in how we think about consumption. Heck, the 1992 edition even contains an "admonishment page" that tells readers not to make excuses--and warning them that "ONLY BY ACTUALLY, REALLY, HONESTLY DOING THE STEPS WILL THE PROGRAM WORK." That's just hilarious.

Maybe it's just me, but in the 2008 revision, you get the sense that somebody in marketing decided to tone down the admonishment and punch up the prose. Perhaps the publisher didn't want to repel so many potential book buyers.

3) On author Joe Dominguez and why his career path resonates with me:
A few words about co-author Joe Dominguez, who died of cancer in 1997: He and I actually had a similar career path, although he left his Wall Street career in 1969 at the ripe old age of 29. I wasn't quite that fast: I left my career in 2008 at age 38.

He was an investment analyst (so was I), and he worked in the industry just long enough to save up enough money to get out--and stay out. I love that. Then, he essentially did non-profit work for the rest of his life, getting the message of Your Money Or Your Life out to the world via low-cost seminars, classes and workshops. He was a man completely uninterested in the trappings of wealth or status, he dedicated his life to helping people, and in developing his conceptual framework for our modern consumption-based society, he was decades ahead of his time.

Rest in peace Joe. You made a difference in my life.

Coming up next week: YMOYL Chapter 1: The Money Trap

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday April 27, 2012

2012-04-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

Readers, don't forget--we'll be starting up our book club series on Your Money Or Your Life this coming Sunday! Don't forget to get your copy of the book. The first post will cover some preliminaries, and then a discussion of the introduction and prologue of the book. Also, if you'd like to suggest questions or specific topic or issues for discussion drop me a quick email, or leave your thoughts in the comments.

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet!

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Sometimes you just can't win with free school meal programs: you stigmatize the poor kids, and overfeed the rich kids. (The Lunch Tray).

It’s nearly impossible to make a living as a food writer, and it’s only going to get worse. (Food52)

Can't sleep? Try these foods and tips. (Mairlyn Smith)

I gave up sugar. Here's what happened to me. (A Sweet Life)

Recipe Links:
Make your own homemade BBQ Rub. (Food and Fire)

Intriguing and easy: Artichoke Soup. (Ahaar)

A healthy salad that tastes even better the next day: Asian-style Zucchini Avocado Carrot Salad. (Owlhaven)

Off-Topic Links:
Book recommendation of the week: The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier by Bonnie Trenga. One of the most original and creative books on writing I've ever seen. Highly recommended for bloggers looking to improve their writing craft and style.

Why NBA basketball star Dwyane Wade was right when he said Olympic Athletes should be compensated. (Blog Maverick)

Do you have a double standard? (George Verdolaga)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Ask A Mindful Carnivore: Books For Further Reading

2012-04-26T03:11:00.010-07:00

After writing my rabidly positive review of The Mindful Carnivore, I asked author Tovar Cerulli to recommend a few readable and accessible books to Casual Kitchen readers interested in learning more about the complex debate on hunting. Today's post is a sort of "Reverse Ask CK" where *I* got to ask a question--and I struck gold with Tovar's response.

Hi Tovar,

Out of all the books you drew from to write The Mindful Carnivore, could you suggest three or four readable titles that you think would be the most interesting for readers at Casual Kitchen? What would you recommend for further reading?

Hi Dan,

If I had to pick three highly readable books from across the spectrum of themes, I’d suggest:

* Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America by Richard Nelson (about deer, including history, agriculture, hunting, anti-hunting). If I had to suggest just one book, this would be it.

* A Hunter's Heart: Honest Essays on Blood Sport edited by David Petersen (an interesting collection of essays on hunting).

* Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv (an excellent book on the importance of connection to nature).

Of course, I’d also suggest some well-known food-specific books like The Omnivore's Dilemma and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Tovar

Related Posts:Review: The End of Overeating by David Kessler
The Tired & Hungry Cook's Companion
Ask Casual Kitchen: Best Investing Books
Review: Cooking Green by Kate Heyhoe
Cookbook Review: The Cornbread Gospels

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Book Review: The Mindful Carnivore

2012-04-24T03:11:00.007-07:00

"Oh, in my most righteous vegan phase, I had been certain that hunting, like other forms of animal murder, was wrong."

Let me say one thing up front. If you're the sort of person who doesn't really want to think about the food you eat, don't read this book. For everyone else, The Mindful Carnivore will most likely be the most provocative book you'll read all year.

It will ask you to consider some striking ethical questions. In adopting veganism or vegetarianism, are we arrogantly setting ourselves above the predator-prey relationship? Does being vegan allow us to evade the inconvenient truth that millions of animals are killed every year via farming, even when that farming is done in the most ecologically ethical manner possible?

Is really possible for humans to think they can step outside of their place in the world's food chain? Or, is it more realistic and more honest to accept the realities of predation in our environment, and can respectful hunting for food and sustenance help humans gain a better connection to our environment?

Can hunting even be a sacred activity, an act of human humility and honor?

Tough questions. And The Mindful Carnivore asks and answers them. It's one of the most unusual and intriguing books I've ever read.

Many CK readers will recognize author Tovar Cerulli from past Friday Links posts. His blog, A Mindful Carnivore, covers subject matter that's unique in the world of food blogs: he's a former vegan who ultimately decided--in contradiction to a lifetime of certainty about its wrongness--to return to hunting.

And through hunting, he discovers an even deeper respect for animals and nature. It's a striking evolution of character, and Tovar tells his entire story in an honest and exceptionally well-written memoir.

So, let's ask the question: Is hunting fundamentally unethical? Is it sport at the expense of animals' lives?

Read this book and you'll see why hunting is neither. Ethically speaking, Tovar makes an overwhelming case that it's far superior to buying your meat shrinkwrapped at the grocery store. And more interestingly, he makes nearly as strong a case for hunting as a moral and habitat-friendly activity that, counterintuitively, protects animals. You'll have to read the book yourself to see exactly how.

This was an excellent read, and I walked away from it with a totally new and nuanced view on hunting. I give Tovar a ton of credit for writing a thought-provoking, educational, subtle, and agenda-free book. I highly, highly recommend it.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

2012-04-22T03:11:00.000-07:00

A quick programming note: Beginning next Sunday I'll start our multi-part book club series on Your Money Or Your Life. I don't want to flood readers with posts, so I'll put the Retro Sundays posts on hiatus for the time being and run YMOYL posts on Sundays in their place. Stay tuned!
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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Let Them Eat Cake! Thoughts About Wealth, Power and the Food Industry (April 2010)
A few centuries ago only the wealthiest among us were able to secure a balanced diet. How is it that today, the average person's problem is getting too much food?

Almost Meatless: Cookbook Review (April 2009)
A brilliant cookbook centered on low-meat cooking. I considered this to be by far the best cookbook of 2009. Here's my rabidly positive review.

Austrian Cuisine: Viennese Potato Soup (Wiener Kartoffelsuppe) (April 2008)
An easy, comforting and absolutely delicious recipe.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday April 20, 2012

2012-04-20T03:11:00.023-07:00

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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A compelling rebuttal to last week's link claiming vegan diets are not "least harmful." (Animal Visuals) Bonus post: A longer rebuttal for readers with extra time. (Gaverick Matheny)

Is it actually worth it to own your own grain mill? Yes, if you bake a ton and can get a cheap bulk supply of wheatberries. (A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa)

The next time you hear about some scientific study claiming a link between some random food and some horrible health condition, remember this graphic. (PhD Comics)

Seriously, if your kid eats a piece of candy after almost every meal how can it be considered a special “treat” anymore? (100 Days of Real Food)

Recipe Links:
Finally! An easy method for fail-proof Poached Eggs. (A Life of Spice)

Snazz up your green beans for an unforgettable side dish: Green Beans Poriyal. (Chow & Chatter)

A hearty, healthy and laughably easy recipe--just don't forget to take a photo! Kale and Tortellini Soup. (Cook, Pray, Love)

Off-Topic Links:
Not only is urbanization better for the environment, it leads to more productive societies too. (Marginal Revolution)

A great minimalism/decluttering tip from Trent: Put a sell-by date on it. (The Simple Dollar)

An excellent checklist to follow if you want to make sure your next book is worth reading--and worth being reviewed. (Aleph Blog).

The ultimate guide to writing better than you normally do. With extra irony. (McSweeneys, via A Life of Spice)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

On Timeshares, Beware

2012-04-19T03:11:00.004-07:00

This a short and totally off-topic post on the pitfalls of buying timeshares.

Out of pure curiosity, Laura and I sat through a timeshare sales pitch back in 2009 during our last trip to Hawaii (it was at the Wyndham resort in Waikiki).

I get why timeshares are popular with certain types of vacationers. If you find yourself enjoying the same place year after year, or if you really like the various network of locations that a timeshare company offers, they can be--in some cases--a way to save some money on travel.

But there are problems you have to watch out for.

First, taxes and maintenance fees usually grow far faster than you expect. In the prior three years, the fees at the timeshare project we looked at in Waikiki had a double-digit growth rate per year. At that rate in 30 years the annual fees would exceed the entire purchase price of the timeshare!

Second, you have to calculate out the price of the timeshare on a per-square foot basis and compare to market prices. In other words, take the price of the two weeks of time you're going to buy, multiply by 26 to annualize it, and then divide by the square footage of the unit. The unit style we looked at was triple market prices. Triple.

Third, if you think you can resell your timeshare at some point in the future and recoup your investment (or more delusionally, make money), remember the part above about paying triple. And then read this article from SmartMoney magazine. People struggle even to give these things away, especially during an economic downturn. It's those pesky and steadily growing maintenance fees: they simply destroy the value of the asset.

There are other problems to watch out for with timeshares, but to me those are the three biggies. If you pay triple market price for an asset, and if it has a negative dividend with a huge growth rate... Well, in the future you may find yourself wanting to give it away too.

Readers, what do you think about timeshares?

Related Posts:
How to Defeat the Retail Industry's Ninja Mind Tricks
Brand Disloyalty
Six Good Things About the Awful Economy
A Simple Way to Beat Rising Food Prices

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Attack of the Cheaps! Eight Great (And Temporary) Ideas to Save $500-$700 a Month

2012-04-17T03:11:00.002-07:00

Whenever Laura and I return from a trip away, especially when we've been to someplace expensive, we always, always get an attack of the cheaps. Always.

Well, we're experiencing an attack of the cheaps right now, because we recently wrapped up a trip to Honolulu, Hawaii. It's a wonderful city, but each time we visit we're stunned by the extremely high cost of living there. Food in grocery stores costs double what we pay in New Jersey. Rent, housing prices, gas and other costs are similarly off the charts. And the cost of restaurant meals bugged me so much that I wrote an entire post about how to find cheap eats in Waikiki, Honolulu's key tourist district.

But enough complaining. After all, there can be benefits to catching the cheaps too. Uh, like saving money. And sometimes you discover that you never even missed the things you cut back on. So why not catch this cheapness wave, ride it, and share my "attack of the cheaps" ideas with readers? And why ask readers to share their own "attack of the cheaps" ideas too? Pretty soon we'll all be putting away some extra dough.

By following the tips below, you could easily reap savings of $500-$700 per month. Each is easy to implement, and none represents any huge downsizing or embarrassingly overt reduction to your standard of living. Best of all, however, each of following tips is temporary and reversible. They're not one-way acts of permanent abnegation that make you feel like you're denying yourself forever. You can try them out for a while, see what you think, and reap the savings until you reverse the decision.

Finally, readers, be sure to share your favorite "attack of the cheaps" ideas in the comments!

1) Downgrade (or better yet, cancel) your cable or subscription TV service for 3-6 months. Added bonus: evade commercials and infotainment that's just going to make you want to buy more stuff. Savings: $35-$200 a month.

2) Put all book purchases and magazine/newspaper subscriptions on hiatus. Take advantage of your local library for the next couple of months, save a few trees and enjoy a brief respite from the media. Savings: perhaps $30-$100 a month.

3) Forgo juices, sodas and other beverages for one week or one month and substitute simple tap water at just pennies per gallon. Protip: Keep in mind how profitable these beverages are for the companies that make them. Savings: $20-50 a month.

4) Embrace partial vegetarianism and go meatless for 1/3 to 1/2 of your meals. I've found that you can reduce your food bill by a third or more this way. Savings: $100-200 a month--or more, depending on your food bills and the size of your family.

5) Experiment with meatless weekdays for a month. This might be the easiest way of all to cut excess calories and excess costs out of your diet. Savings: similar to #4, $100-200 a month, possibly more.

6) Pack your lunch for one month--or longer: If you're a habitual eater-outer at work, this tip will save you a ton of money. Try making and freezing a batch of my burritos and storing them in the office fridge. Or make a double batch of dinner on Sunday night and pack the leftovers for a week's worth of lunches. Savings: $120-200 a month, or a cool two grand a year.

7) Set aside your credit cards and go cash-only. There's something about using 100% cash that limits your spending. It makes spending more of a tangible and conscious act. Plus, if you put a certain amount of cash in your pocket and start to run low, you naturally cut back. Hey, when you're out of dough, you're out of dough. Savings: hard to quantify--perhaps $100 a month, but possibly far more.

8) Track your spending closely for one month. This tip, stolen from the exceptional book Your Money Or Your Life, will reveal surprising information about exactly where your money goes--and you'll see proof of the saying "what gets measured gets controlled." Savings: equally hard to quantify, perhaps $200 a month or more.

Add up the savings from these tips and you can get to $500 to $700 a month. Sustain this level of savings for just a few months and this will translate into an extra $1500 to $2000 sitting in your bank account. Sustain it for a full year and you'll be looking at an extra six or seven grand. Not too shabby for a few temporary spending measures!

Readers, this list is far from complete. What have I missed? What tips do you rely on to save money after a period of overspending?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

2012-04-15T03:11:00.002-07:00

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Ask CK: The Purpose of Friday Links (April 2011)
Looking back, I might have been a little too harsh on this reader, who whined that my Friday Links posts offered too many things to read. Also in this post: bonus thoughts on SEO and why I never do it.

Garlic Sauteed Cauliflower (April 2011)
Instead boring steamed cauliflower, try this easy variation, which scores several grades higher in flavor and class.

Mujadarrah: Vegetarian Comfort Food From the Middle East (April 2010)
A flexible, easy and laughably cheap recipe you can make in well under 30 minutes.

How to Fight Back Against Overpriced Cereal (April 2009)
See how stealth price hikes, unpronounceable ingredients and aggressive marketing to children entice us to build unhealthy consumption and eating habits. Part 2 of my series criticizing branded boxed cereals.

Applying the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking (April 2008)
You'd be surprised how certain small and nearly effortless changes can have enormous results. This post still reigns as one of CK's all-time most popular, with ideas you can apply to practically any area of life.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday April 13, 2012

2012-04-13T03:11:00.022-07:00

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Fascinating. A vegan diet may not be the least harmful, once you consider all the animals inadvertantly killed during crop production. (Oregon State University)

Ten reasons to take a few hours on your days off to stock your freezer with delicious, freezer-friendly meals. (Budget Bytes)

Eat like an economist, order the ugliest-sounding thing on the menu, and avoid restaurants with beautiful women. From the new book An Economist Gets Lunch. (New York Times, via Grow. Cook. Eat.)

A great idea from Jules: If you think of soup recipes in terms of "templates" it's way easier to cook with whatever ingredients you have on hand. (Stonesoup Diaries)

No one's coming to save you from your weight problem. (344 Pounds)

Recipe Links:
An instant keeper: Thai Red Curry Chicken. (Alosha's Kitchen)

Great for using all those leftover veggies in your fridge: Loaded Stuffed Peppers. (Cindy's Table) Bonus Post: Green Pea Pesto!

Off-Topic Links:
Book recommendation of the week: The Mindful Carnivore by Tovar Cerulli. This brand-new book is an insightful memoir of a vegan who gives up a plant-based diet to embrace, of all things, hunting. Well-written and truly provocative. PS: I'll run a full review post on Tovar's book in the coming weeks--stay tuned!

Striking--and freeing--thoughts about the rat race. (Techcrunch)

An even more striking anti-media screed by actress Ashley Judd, in which she calls out women for being mysognistic "denigrating abusers" of the female body image. (The Daily Beast)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

A Quick Question For Readers on YMOYL

2012-04-12T03:11:00.003-07:00

A quick post today with a question for readers: I'm considering doing an in-depth, multi-post review here at CK of Your Money or Your Life. Obviously, it's not the first time somebody's worked through this book on a blog, but based on reader reactions to recent posts like Extreme Savings and Zombies and the Advertising-Consumption Cycle, it seems like a careful readthrough of YMOYL could fit well with many readers' interests.

It's been more than ten years since Laura and I first read this book, and I for one would love a refresh. Not only that, but the earlier editions of this book were written in a completely different financial era, and some of the book's investing recommendations simply won't work in today's low interest rate environment. I've got my hands on a copy of the newest edition of the book, and it might be interesting to look at both editions side by side.

As to format, I'm considering running one extra post per week here at CK, each post covering one chapter. Readers can read along week by week and share thoughts and ideas, while those readers who aren't interested can simply skip those posts.

Readers, what do you think? Do any of you have interest? Any objections?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Thinking Though Pink Slime

2012-04-10T03:11:00.008-07:00

I have mixed feelings about the "pink slime" controversy, especially after learning of last week's bankruptcy filing of AFA foods, which will probably kill 850 jobs in Pennsylvania. I suspect there will be more job losses in the coming months from other meat processors.

For me, yes, the concept of producing meat in this way is profoundly unappetizing to say the least. And certainly the phrase "pink slime" itself has been manufactured to sound as vile as possible. Well-played.

In fact, Laura and I had a gigantic conversation over the past several days about whether we should finally fully embrace vegetarianism. The pink slime controversy was what got us talking, and quite frankly it almost pushed us over the edge.

But just to be devil's advocate for a moment: You could also argue--if you've made a commitment to eat meat in the first place--that getting every last bit of usable meat from an animal is more respectful, more environmentally sound, and less wasteful than simply throwing away all the trimmings and cuttings. Even Marion Nestle, one of the food industry's fiercest critics, argues that the use of these trimmings recovers 10 to 12 pounds of edible lean beef from every animal, and saves some 1.5 million animals from slaughter each year.

So let's ask the question in a different way: Are we needlessly wasting animal parts in order to protect our sensibilities? In other words, is it narcissistic of us to waste meat merely because a particular process for not wasting it appears gross to us? They say if you like sausage you should never set foot inside a sausage factory. Are we making the same shallow argument with pink slime? These are incredibly difficult questions.

Readers, I don't have the pink slime story figured out by any stretch. But one thing I almost always find with controversial issues like this is things are not always as they seem. I'm just trying to think through the issue, and I'm hoping I can get some feedback from the always insightful readers here at Casual Kitchen.

So readers, what do you think? Is there another side to the pink slime controversy? Or is it a black and white story with no gray areas?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!