Frugal Zeitgeist

Black Friday and Cyber Monday

2009-11-29T18:56:00.005-05:00

So, who went shopping over the holiday weekend? Was it the madness that I think most of us have come to expect from Black Friday? If you went, what did you buy (if anything) and was the deal worth the hassle?

My Friday shopping consisted of a trip to Trader Joe's, where I hauled home some party snacks, a bottle of champagne for SO's brother and his partner (who invited me to the family Broadway show expedition for the second year in a row), and twelve bottles of wine for the party next weekend. I was expecting Trader Joe's to be a madhouse, but it was surprisingly quiet - so much so that it took no more than a couple of minutes to check out. On Saturday, I planned a four-mile run to hit a popular shop for teenage girls' accessories to get a gift card for the SO's daughter.

Which brings me to. . . confession time.

Ever since the job situation got very shaky a couple of months ago, I've been on spending lockdown. I went on a couple of trips that were already worked into the budget, but outside of those I've been extremely conservative with discretionary spending and managed to sock away some extra money into my emergency fund. In the last couple of weeks, though (not surprisingly, after I learned that my job is safe for a while), I've done some spending on a few things that were just for me. These were:

--Five camisole tops ($16 each, reduced from $40). I plead fairly innocent on these since this is about all I wear in the summer and when the building heat (which I can't control) is too high at home in the winter, and I was replacing several that had gotten really shabby.
--A silver necklace with a marathon motif ($28)
--A grab bag of skin and lip care products from Burt's Bees ($20)

I think it's important to understand and face up to my own motivations for spending money, especially if it's for things I don't need. The tops? Flattering as all heck. I could have made do without them, but they appealed to my sense of vanity. Similarly, I just qualified for Boston again, and it tickled me to find a necklace that reminded me of running a really good qualifying race. That also counts as a vanity purchase.

The Burt's Bees bag was reduced half price online, and I found an online coupon for an additional 20% off plus free shipping, bringing it to $20. I found another online coupon for a free bottle of hand cream, which my mom can use. Burt's Bees allows multiple coupons on a single order, so I got a decent haul for $20 in the end. This one was a mixture of tickling my own vanity and wanting to do something nice for my mom, since she never spends money on herself.

I think vanity shopping once in a while is okay IF you can afford it without running up debt or causing short shrift to long-term financial planning, but it's not something that I feel very good about indulging in on a regular basis. I think I've reached the fine balancing point where I feel like I've done something nice for myself without overdoing it, but any more would feel like too much. It's definitely time to get myself back on track, bring a pretty good year of saving and investing to a close, and celebrate the holidays for something other than shopping.

Dangerous bartender

2009-11-27T08:59:00.003-05:00

I'm not quite sure what possessed me to do this, but I just decided to throw a cocktail party next weekend. It's going to be low key: I invited about fourteen people over for drinks and nibbles, but since it's kind of last minute I don't expect that many people to actually make it. Small is probably good, though.

I love entertaining, but I don't do it nearly as often as I'd like because it's a lot of work the way I do it, and the expense racks up really quickly. For this one, I'm focusing on keeping the costs down mostly by using what I already have in the liquor department. I'm also kind of a stickler for putting drinks in the "right" glasses when I can, but my glass collection isn't very diverse or sensible. In this case, A + B = three different kinds of gin highballs, plus beer and wine. I have a heavy hand with the cocktail shaker, so I'm also making a bunch of snacks in hopes of not getting people too addled unless they opt to do it deliberately.

Are you throwing any parties during the holiday season? What do you do (if anything) to keep the costs under control?

Giving thanks

2009-11-26T09:35:00.004-05:00

Today is Thanksgiving in the US, which means that it's time to take a step back and be thankful for the good things in our lives. 2009 has been a tough year in many ways, but there are still so many reasons for me to give thanks. In no particular order, here's a short list:

My mom is healthy and financially secure.

Debt of any kind is not a great place to be at the moment: I'm thankful not to have any.

I'm healthy and fit.

I still have a job and health insurance.

My SO: Even though we drive each other wacko sometimes, the relationship remains strong and enduring as we approach the three year mark.

I have wonderful friends.

I'm continually both amazed and grateful that there are people who are interested in both reading my ramblings here and expressing their own thoughts right back. Thank you for being here over the past two-plus years!

Today I'm doing the traditional Resealing of the Countertops, and then I'm off for three rounds of Thanksgiving (but only one dinner, hopefully) at various friends' homes. If you're celebrating the holiday today, a very Happpy Thanksgiving to you.

What are you thankful for in 2009?

Giving it all away

2009-11-25T13:19:00.001-05:00

Not my giveaway this time. . . the lovely Fabulously Broke is giving away two tickets to see Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera for a pair of lucky New Yorkers! Make sure you enter the giveaway. I just did.

Here's what I did on my day off

2009-11-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

New design.

You like?

New Budgeting Technique: Use a Prepaid Debit Card

2009-11-25T07:25:00.000-05:00

This is a guest post from ACE Cash Express.

Most of us use debit cards that are connected to our checking accounts. And many of us have experienced the sting of overspending and getting hit with ridiculous overdraft fees. I’ve been thinking of a way to protect myself from those penalty fees and also to help me stick to my budget.

The solution I came up with was to start using a prepaid debit card. The beauty of this type of card is that I can auto-load a preset amount each month, it won’t let me spend more than I put on the card, and best of all doesn’t have any penalty fees, ever! I also like the idea that my bank account is a little more protected, because my prepaid debit card isn’t connected to it in any way.

I haven’t started using it yet, but I’m eying a prepaid debit card that’s sold near my home at a local ACE Cash Express store. I’m curious to know if you’ve had any experiences, good and bad, with prepaid debit cards. Please share in the comments.

And we have a winner!

2009-11-23T17:20:00.007-05:00

Seven people entered the f.z. custom card giveaway. As usual, I assigned each comment a number corresponding to the order in which the comments were posted, where the first comment = 1, the second comment = 2, and so on. Our winner for this giveaway:

Congratulations, April!

I've sent a message to the email address in your blog profile with instructions on how to collect your prize.

Don't fret if you didn't win; I'll post another giveaway soon.

In the meantime, in case you were wondering about yesterday's marathon: It went better than I anticipated. I clocked in with my best time ever, and I qualified for Boston again. Here's a short video that describes better than I can in words how I feel today.

Marathon mania

2009-11-21T10:27:00.002-05:00

I'm about to start trekking in the general direction of the marathon I'm running tomorrow. Will be back hereabouts no later than Monday to announce the results of the f.z. custom card giveaway. You still have time to enter: The deadline is Monday, November 23, at noon EST.

Have a great weekend!

But falling on your face is good for you

2009-11-19T20:10:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was talking with an old friend who lives far away. My friend is the devoted dad of a lovely toddler (whom I'm ashamed to say I haven't met yet), and he and his wife are the proudest parents in the whole wide world. The most recent saga about the little lady was that she had spent a couple of weeks using a very common word incessantly, without any apparent effort to link it to anything she was feeling, wanting, or looking at. The parents puzzled over this for some time until it dawned on them that the word she was saying over and over was apparently a dogged effort to say her own name.

So what did these wonderful, attentive, and by no means rich parents do?

They enrolled their daughter in enunciation classes.

The kid is TWO. I don't know much about kids, but I'm pretty sure that any conversation I've ever had with a two-year-old is pretty much a guessing game all around.

After hearing about this, I was very interested to read this article about the backlash against overparenting. Apparently since the onset of the recent (or current, depending on your outlook) recession, a third of parents have cut back their kids' activities out of necessity and then discovered that it worked for parents and children alike.

According to the article, we got to the wonderful world of overparenting largely because of fear. Fear is hard-wired into the human condition because knowing when to be afraid kept our ancestors alive. In prosperous times when we don't have to worry about starvation or a war spanning the globe, we find other things to worry about, and not all of those things are necessarily things that should consume us with worry. Many of us (most of us?) worry anyway, though, because that's what's in our genes.

And thus, the helicopter parent was born.

In all fairness, I really don't know squat about raising kids, and I would never argue with certain things that take little effort and reap big benefits, like making kids wear helmets when they ride their bikes. Based on what I've seen and read, however, I've come to the conclusion that constantly hovering over kids is counterproductive for a vast array of reasons. From a practical perspective, it's expensive and it's not always easy to discern the relationship between the spend and the result. I mean, enunciation classes for two-year-olds can't be cheap, right? Vying to give kids the latest and greatest toys and gizmos to stimulate imaginative play also costs big bucks, especially when kids of a certain age will generally prefer the box.

From a child development perspective (and you know I'm really going off into the weeds here, since I have NO personal experience or expertise), I think overparenting makes kids less adventurous and more fearful. I also think that shielding kids from unpleasant consequences makes it more difficult for them to develop good judgment. I see a connection between hypervigilant parenting and both a sense of entitlement and a sense of powerlessness, since it's hard to be self-reliant with mom and dad swooping in every time something goes awry. In short, I've come to believe that overparenting robs kids of survival skills.

There's a simple remedy to the problems overparenting is creating for this generation of kids:

Just back off and let them learn about the world in their own way.

It's easy, it's cheap, and according to a growing number of advocates, it's just about the best thing you can do.

There haven't been too many silver linings in the recession cloud that I've seen so far, but I do think that having to slow down and back off of heavy kids' activity schedules and just letting them be kids is a positive outcome. I'm hoping it's one that outlasts the collective economic woe.

What do you think?

**********************************************************
Only a few more days to enter the f.z. custom thank-you card giveaway! With only a few entrants so far, your chances of winning are extraordinary. Enter today, and show everyone the love for free. The deadline for entry is noon EST on November 23.

Spreading the holiday cheer with a fabulous free giveaway

2009-11-17T13:30:00.002-05:00

There's no excuse for not sending thank-you cards this holiday season, especially with this great new prize from Digital Room: One lucky f.z. reader will walk away this week with a FREE pack of fifty custom thank you cards with envelopes!

The cards are 7x5" (folded, that works out to 3.5x5") with plain envelopes, and shipping is free. I'm receiving a set myself for hosting the giveaway, and I'm already going through summer vacation pictures and pictures of my neighbor's cats to find something that really expressive.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this blog describing a little bit about who you'll thank over the holidays or in 2010 and for what. If you link to this contest on your own blog, leave a comment to let me know and you'll score yourself a second free entry. I'll draw a random winner on November 23, and you should have the cards in plenty of time for the holiday season.

Please note that this contest is limited to US residents. If you want to find out more about the sponsors for this contest or other printing contests that I've hosted here, check out the Yelp review for UPrinting, or take a look at Digital Room's Custom Greeting Cards page.

Good luck, and let's get those entries rolling!

Hammer time

2009-11-16T17:39:00.002-05:00

Thank you so very, very much to everyone who expressed such kind thoughts on my last post. The outcome:

There was a massive layoff today.

I survived.

Most of my group didn't.

My SO didn't. His division was eliminated.

I'm very tired.

Giveaway post coming tomorrow, I promise.

The word "sever" is in there for a reason

2009-11-13T18:29:00.004-05:00

SILVER SPRING, Md. -- Paul Joegriner hasn't worked since March 2008, when he was laid off from his $200,000-a-year job as chief executive officer of a small bank. But you wouldn't know it by appearances.

His wife, Marzena, shuttles their two young children to private school every morning. The family recently vacationed in Virginia Beach, Va., and likes to dine on Porterhouse steaks. Since losing his job, Mr. Joegriner, 44 years old, has had several offers. He's turned each down in hopes of landing a position comparable to what he held before.

The family's lifestyle over the past year and a half has been propped up by a $200,000 severance package and another $100,000 in savings -- funds the family has burned through rapidly. By Mr. Joegriner's own calculations, the family will be out of money in six months if he doesn't find work.

"It will be D-Day," he says. "But on the outside, no one has any idea that we're in trouble."

You can read the full article here.

If the excerpt above wasn't indication enough, the article is about people who lost their jobs in 2007 and 2008, received hefty severance payments, and started burning through them like nothing happened.

In rare cases, this works out. One friend was whacked six weeks ago with a six-figure payout. His first interview was two days later, and he starts his new job at the same salary and with greater growth potential next week. The severance from his prior job means that three college educations for kids ranging from kindergarten to junior high are pretty much paid in full. I almost wrote Most people ain't that lucky as my next sentence, but in truth I don't think luck had a lot to do with it. Instead, I think it was a horrendously bad decision made by one company turning into a ginormous talent windfall for another. Luck, in some benighted way, may have been responsible for my friend getting laid off, but it was his own extraordinary talent that got him a better job than he had before. My friend is the exception, not the rule.

Since I think things would play out far differently for many or even most of us, several things about the Joegriner situation jumped out at me.

--Paul Joegriner made $200,000 per year at the age of 44, but his total savings added up to only $100,000. The severance was probably taxed as ordinary income. If they're broke now, for the twenty months of Paul's unemployment to date their burn rate had to be around $10,000 per month, and that's without factoring in unemployment benefits. Paul Joegriner claims that he never craved a lavish lifestyle, buying suits off the rack and living in a relatively modest community. I read his story differently. His low savings relative to income and burn rate suggest to me that these people have been habitually overspending for a long, long time.

--While job-hunting, Paul Joegriner has actually received several job offers but turned them down because he either didn't like the pay or didn't like the job description. I suppose I can understand turning down the first job, but the second? The third, which just came in September, after eighteen months out of work and in an increasingly desperate financial situation? This seems slightly insane to me.

--Buying coffee out every day instead of making it at home? Really? Seems to me that if things are as desperate as the man says, this isn't a good way to blow $655 per year.

--This guy spent his entire career in banking, most recently as a chief executive officer. If he can't run his personal finances responsibly, what does it say about his ability to run a bank?

The take-aways I have from the article are pretty simple:

While you have a job:
Save, save, save. A cash cushion of a year's worth of expenses is by no means excessive.

Trim your lifestyle
This one's going to vary from person to person, but if you have less than a year's worth of expenses in savings, this is the time to ratchet down your standard of living and crank up the savings rate. If nothing else, if something happens to your income, a more modest standard of living beforehand means less adjustment pain afterwards.

If you lose your job:
Forget your severance; start severing
Cut your spending till it hurts, and then cut some more. It's better to shift into survival mode early, because you might be there for a while.

Be flexible
It's an employer's market. Salaries have dropped, and applicants don't get to pick and choose between opportunities anymore. I'm not saying that the first offer that comes your way is always the right one, but if you're out of a job, this isn't the time to be fussy with your expectations.

Let's hear some talkback: Do you feel sympathy for Paul Joegriner? Why or why not?

This topic has been on my mind a lot because the hammer falls at my workplace next week, and it's going to be ugly. There are no guarantees for anyone, including me.

My next post (hopefully this weekend) is going to feature a giveaway that's very timely for the holidays. In the meantime, however, good wishes for next week are always appreciated and will never go awry.

Branded

2009-11-11T18:45:00.008-05:00

As a self-professed frugal person, I don't really like to think of myself as being particularly brand loyal. Brand loyalty has some positive connotations, like high perceived value in a product or strong perceived price-quality ratio, but I think it has many more negative associations, like the notion that buying certain brands improves status or reflects a willingness to hop on the bandwagon with whatever trend is hot at the moment. One common derogatory nickname for people who are extremely brand loyal is sheeple, on the grounds that blindly paying for brand names is more akin to sheep following the herd than actually thinking for oneself.

Whether I like to think of myself as being brand loyal or not, however, the fact remains that there are areas where I am, in some cases extremely so. Here are a few products where my brand loyalty goes off the charts:

Running shoes: Asics Kayano
I discovered Asics Kayanos ten years ago. The Kayanos were the first running shoes I ever had where I could run long distances and not develop black toenails (sorry, I know that's gross) because the toe box is larger than in the shoes I used to wear. I also found that I had fewer problems with shin splints and foot pain than I had before I switched. Asics hasn't changed the last significantly in the ten years I've been wearing the Kayanos, so I feel confident about waiting until the newest model comes out and then buying four pairs of the latest retired model at half price. They've always fit.

Running clothes: Moving Comfort, Adidas
Loyalty towards Moving Comfort sports bras is an easy one: The Cameo model looks good and doesn't rip up my skin on long runs. With other sports bras, it's been one or the other, but never both. Similarly, both Adidas tights and Moving Comfort tights and pants do something unbelievably flattering for my butt. I don't know how they do it, but I'm grateful all the same. I can usually pick up all of these things on sale out of season, which goes a long way towards keeping the costs down.

Suits: Tahari
Tahari suits tend to be either very, very nice or very, very fugly, with little in between. The nice ones in petite sizes usually work for me (see the butt thing above) with no need for alteration and no ghastly surprises in the mirror. Mother's Day sales are a great time to shop for women's suits, especially if I can score a Friends and Family card from someone.

Paint: Benjamin Moore Aura
When I painted my apartment last summer, I defaulted to Benjamin Moore paint mostly because it was highly rated and because I live within walking distance of a Benjamin Moore store and wouldn't kill myself hauling paint if I bought it there. I bought regular satin for the white walls and ceiling and Aura for the accent walls on the grounds that I was doing a significant color change and Aura doesn't require a primer. The Aura was amazing: Not having to put on a primer coat was a godsend considering how physically demanding I learned painting is, and I found that I made fewer mistakes, and the mistakes I made were (mostly) easier to correct than with the regular paint. This stuff is quite expensive, but in my opinion well worth it.

Those are just a few examples of my own brand loyalty. What are some things for which you're brand loyal, and why?

Anticipating the sting

2009-11-08T15:15:00.006-05:00

Normally I get a nice little bump in my last five paychecks over the calendar year because I've already maxed out my annual FICA limit. That bump allowed me to sock away some extra cash in October and I'm expecting the same for November, but it turns out that I'm not going to be able to put away as much extra as I wanted without pretty much turning into Scrooge, because I have a bunch of different expenses all hitting at the same time. They include:

Doorman tips: $400
Holiday tips for building staff are customary and expected in New York. We have a small building staff, so I give each of them a holiday card containing $40 to $100. The porter gets the most because he does a demanding job heroically; the super gets the second most because I'm secretly not very impressed with him but at the same time need to be able depend on him to be responsive when I have non-emergency repairs. The doorfolk who are nice and friendly get more than the ones who sit there sullenly and don't make eye contact.

Food bank donation: $500
I raise money for the food bank from other people during the holiday season, so it's important to put my money where my own mouth is. This is a cause that really matters to me, so I consider it one of my fixed holiday expenses.

Other donations: $200
This is also the time of year that other people are doing fundraising, so I normally cough up $50 if it's a cause I believe in, sometimes less (e.g., a token $25) if I think the organization doesn't utilize its funds efficiently.

Homeowner's insurance: $250
Self-explanatory.

Passport renewal: $75
It's only once every ten years, but my passport expires in February so I'm already in the soup if I get asked to travel for work in the next couple of months. (We have a pretty strict travel ban on at the moment, so I'm not expecting it.)

Dentist: $200
Yay, I need another crown in December! I already maxed out my flexible spending plan, but about 70% will be covered by insurance as long as I don't get whacked in the upcoming layoff. If I do, this will cost a heck of a lot more.

Christmas gifts: $350
Ugh. I was almost entirely off the Christmas gift train for years, but I always give my mom restaurant gift certificates for Christmas and birthdays because she NEVER lets me pay when we go out. Beyond that, I need to get a couple of things for my SO and his kids. SO is good about agreeing on modest gifts, but he doesn't want to waive gift-giving altogether. I don't overdo gift-giving with his kids because I don't want them to see me as a gift machine or make either parent feel like I'm trying to compete, but there's no way I'd ever not give them Christmas and birthday gifts. Finally, I need to pony up something fairly respectable for SO's brother and his partner since they always include me in the annual family Broadway musical event.

Marathon travel: $150
Car rental, gas, meals, and hotel. I'm sharing a room with one person and pooling car rental and gas with three.

That works out to just about $2000, but there's not much I can do to bring it down other than skipping the marathon (not gonna happen), going completely bare-bones on gifts and doorman tips, and cutting out charitable donations. The FICA bump covers close to everything, but even if it didn't I've made my peace with it.

Do you have any special end of year expenses? What are they and how do you plan to cover them?

The healthiest sickie around

2009-11-04T20:00:00.006-05:00

It's annual enrollment week at work, and I finally had time to sit down and read through the plan changes. At first I was really pleased: Despite all of the horrible things I've been reading in the press about skyrocketing employee insurance costs, the monthly cost of my plan isn't changing at all. Isn't that great?

And then I got down to the details.

The cost of generic medications is remaining the same, $10 a pop for a three month supply. For non-generics, however, it's a different story. Instead of paying a flat $45 for a three-month supply, employees are now required to pay a significant percentage of the medication's retail cost.

I'm on three generic medications and four non-generics which are still under patent, so there's no generic alternative. I phoned the pharmacy that processes my prescriptions to find out what the retail cost of the four non-generics is and found that my costs are indeed going up.

The magnitude of the increase relative to what I pay today?

More than four hundred percent.

Yeah.

I'm seeing a couple of different sources of irony in this situation. First, I'm lucky because I even have insurance, even though it's costing me more than two thousand dollars extra in 2010 just to get the same medication I take today. Second, even with the de facto salary hit I'm about to take, I'm also lucky to have a job right now.

Finally, you'd think that with seven medications, I'm probably a pretty sick person. Nothing could be farther from the truth: I have two auto-immune disorders that certainly could make my life miserable (the reason for three of the medications), but they're under control and most of the time I hardly even remember they're there. I also have extraordinarily sensitive skin that looks good because a few years ago my dermatologist hit on a combination of control meds (four in total) that works for me. My heart rate is 40, my weight is perfectly normal, and I'm running a marathon in a couple of weeks. If I'm sick, I've got to be the healthiest sick person around.

I've given polite but admittedly strained feedback about this change to my plan administrator, but I already know it's not going to do any good. In the meantime, I was looking forward to resuming online investing in 2010 after I top up the rest of my emergency fund, and I was even thinking about splurging on a little piece of jewelry if I qualify for the Boston Marathon in a couple of weeks. In the short term, I guess I'll be saving up an extra couple of thousand dollars to blow on medication instead.

For some well-reasoned and far more articulate thoughts on health care and health care reform than I can give you, I'd suggest stopping by my friend Shadox's blog. In the meantime, I don't recommend watching this if you get the vapors about crude language or gestures, but here are my thoughts on the matter, more or less:

What's your health insurance situation at the moment?

The Halloween grumpies

2009-11-02T15:41:00.003-05:00

I loved Halloween when I was a little kid. Like many of you, I have very fond memories of trick-or-treating through the neighborhood with my dad hovering in the background, while my mom stayed home to hand out candy to kids who came to our house. As I got older and began to make the rounds with my friends instead of my dad, my parents began to gently hint that there wouldn't be that many more years of trick-or-treating left. By the time I was in eighth grade, they openly disagreed with it on the grounds that I was too old, and in fact I did feel weird about it as a thirteen-year-old. It's all lost back in the fog of time now, but I think we all felt a little strange and quit early. That was my last year trick-or-treating.

In recent years, I've handed out candy at the door. It was great for a while, but in the last couple of years the cute little Power Rangers and witches have given way to much older kids, many of whom are a lot bigger than I am and don't really bother much with costumes. I've never, ever turned a kid away on Halloween, but the biggest kids make it feel more like a shakedown than a holiday.

This year, I managed to get myself invited out to the suburbs to help take a couple of great kids out. The kids are getting a little old for trick-or-treating themselves (fifth grade and eighth grade), and I mentioned as much to their dad. He laughed and informed me that he fully expected his kids to insist on trick-or-treating for years to come. He then mentioned to the eighth grader that I figured it was her last year going out, and she was horrified at the thought.

Are you kidding me? she asked. It's FREE CANDY! Why wouldn't I go until I'm TWENTY-FIVE???

Meanwhile, this kid towers over me.

I don't really approve, but I'm not the parent here so I decided not to say anything.

The kids put on their costumes at six, and Dad and I went out to make the rounds with the neighbors and their kids. The kids ranged in age from a tiny little thing in a stroller, dressed up like a pumpkin (hilarious and very, very cute) to the oldest, both in the eighth grade and very quickly fed up with being stuck with a bunch of littler kids. At their age, my parents would have been way too embarrassed to take me around trick-or-treating on the grounds that I was too old (they only grudgingly agreed to let me go out with my friends as it was), but in this case the parents wouldn't let the oldest out of their sight.

I know, I know. The world is a more dangerous place than it used to be.

Meanwhile, nearly every parent was dressed up in a costume of his or her own, and several of them were towing wagons filled with coolers. I edged close to the wagons to see what was in them and discovered that the coolers were full of cheese, crackers, and bottles of wine. The parents themselves were clutching plastic cups filled to the brim, and several of them made repeated trips to the wagons in short succession. As we meandered through the neighborhood, I noticed that although a few of the kids said Thank you! at every house, this was by no means universal and the parents only prompted sporadically when the kids forgot. Our paths crossed several times with those of some big, rambunctious high school age kids and I wondered if the people whose bells they were ringing felt as shaken down as I think I would have.

There were also houses where no one was home but a bowl of candy was left out front. (This is what the people I was with did since no one was home while we were out.) I don't think you can really expect kids not to empty close to the entire bowl into their bags, but I saw this happen more than once right in front of the parents, and the parents didn't say anything. I didn't say anything either, because I didn't think it was my battle to fight.

I like kids. Don't want my own, but I do like them. Either I've got a serious case of memory blinders on, though, or Halloween culture has changed significantly. There's much more greed and much less courtesy than I remember, and I found it a little distasteful. It makes me not want to shell out money to participate next year.

Am I off base with my perspective here?

I'll bring home the bacon, but you have to cook it

2009-10-30T18:34:00.002-05:00

The other day, I read an article that was in no way a surprise, but interesting nevertheless. It was about how women are increasingly becoming the primary income earners in their households.

To summarize, the number of wives earning more than their husbands has been on the increase for several years, but this trend has jumped significantly since 2007, largely as a result of the recession. One reason for this change is that men have been impacted much more than women by the waves of job losses over the past year. Women now make up half or slightly more than half of all adults employed in the United States.

So where does this leave the men?

In many cases, still job-hunting. Other men are starting their own businesses. Some men are embracing domestic duties, taking a leading role in chores and childcare. Although the situation of wives stepping up to be the primary income earner doesn't necessarily sit well with everyone, poll evidence suggests that more and more couples are becoming increasingly accustomed to and comfortable with the idea of women being the family breadwinner.

One reason why women may be impacted less by layoffs than men in the United States is that women still earn less on average. One unintended consequence of women being the family breadwinner is that many families are making do with less income, leaving them more vulnerable to financial disaster if something happens to Mom's job.

Personally, I haven't seen this situation much in either my work life or among my friends. I work predominantly with men, most of whom either have wives who work part-time or stay home with the kids. Among my married and cohabitating friends, both partners generally work and I don't have a clear idea of who makes more. In the rare cases where one partner works part-time or is out of work altogether, it's usually the woman. (For what it's worth, I'm only referring to straight friends in this last instance. I haven't seen this situation with my gay friends to date.) According to some of my friends, however, many of their colleagues are women with male partners who are stay-at-home dads, to everyone's apparent satisfaction.

If you're married or living with someone, who is the primary income earner in your household? Are you happy with the way things are, or would you rather change? Why?

We have a winner!

2009-10-29T18:35:00.004-05:00

Thanks to the good people at Random.org, we now have a winner for the UPrinting Postcard Giveaway. The drawing went like this:

I assigned a number to each comment, where the first comment = 1 and the last comment = 7. I then used a random number generator to produce a random number between 1 and 7, inclusive. This was the result:

Comment #3 belonged to Songbird. Songbird, please email me as soon as you can and I'll hook you up with your prize.

Check back tomorrow for a new post. In the meantime, I hope to have another giveaway up in the next couple of weeks.

There's gold in them thar beads

2009-10-26T19:40:00.006-05:00

This weekend, a Michael's craft store (the only one, as far as I'm aware) opened in Manhattan. I had heard about Michael's from other bloggers and was curious to have a look, so I scooted on over late in the afternoon.

The place was a madhouse, which I suppose is more or less status quo for opening day, but I noticed a few things:

1. The place was full of all kinds of craft supplies, from framing to scrapbooking, knitting, baking, candlemaking, beading, flower arranging, and jewelry-making, including pendants to celebrate just about everything (nothing for running or marathons, though).

2. Everything was really, really cheap.

3. Stuff of every kind was flying off the shelves. I never knew there were so many people in New York who are into crafts!

I couldn't believe the prices. They must depend on being a volume business. I mean, what serious crafting person stops at five dollars' worth of ribbon and beads? I know I wouldn't.

I deliberately didn't take any money or credit cards with me when I went because there's not a thing I need, but as I walked through aisles and aisles of domestic arts, my nesting instincts kicked in big-time. There's a big part of me that is very home-oriented, and I'd like to be the kind of person who could make nice wedding favors or fancy cakes.

The only problem is that I'd be buying things for a life I don't live.

I can knit well but I don't have the time to do it, or the patience anymore. I studied Japanese flower arranging for two years, but fresh flowers aren't on my shopping list right now and won't be until I'm a little more certain about my job situation. I can sling a pretty good dinner on the table for friends, but I only manage to pull that together once every six months if I'm lucky. In a perfect world, I'd do all of those things and more, all the time. In real life, it's not going to happen very often. As far as other crafty things go, I pretty much suck at it. Learning them would be fun, but it's not a priority at this point in my life.

At least accepting that I can't do it all helps money stay in my pocket.

What do you want to do in future that doesn't fit into your life or budget today?

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Want free postcards printed with the design of your choice? Enter the drawing here by noon EST on October 29 for your chance to win!

More free stuff, for one week only

2009-10-22T17:37:00.005-05:00

The good people at UPrinting are back with some more neat stuff to give away. One lucky reader will receive one hundred free postcards in the design of his or her choice with free ground shipping in the US. (Canadian residents, you are also eligible to win but unfortunately you will need to pony up for shipping and taxes.)

The postcards are size 4x6 on 14pt cardstock gloss with full color on both sides, and you can use them to advertise your business or anything else you like. I'm receiving a batch for posting this offer, and I'm planning to get them printed with either a picture of a flower I took at a famous West Coast rose garden this summer, or possibly a monkey. I'll send them out to friends and family over the coming months, and hopefully they'll bring a smile or two to the recipients.

This contest expires at noon EST on October 29, so if you want a chance to win, please leave a G-rated comment below detailing what you would do with a hundred free postcards. If you post this link on your own blog, drop a comment to let me know and I'll give you a second entry.

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to seeing your ideas.

Food is love

2009-10-21T10:00:00.004-05:00

I blew in Tuesday night from San Francisco, and what a fantastic trip it was. A week of rest from running actually made for a good half marathon, despite the horrific lung clearing I did all the way through. I crossed the finish line about five minutes slower than my normal finish for a half marathon in New York on a significantly more challenging course, so there was definitely nothing to complain about. I don't know exactly how many people competed in the half marathon (there were about twenty thousand including about three hundred men in the half marathon and full marathon combined), but I'm pretty sure I finished in the top three or four percent overall for the half, and maybe even a little bit better than that.

Lest that sound more exciting than it actually is, there were a lot of walkers on the course.

Best of all, the finishers' medal wasn't a medal as such: Instead, the giveaway at the end of this race was a really, really nice sterling silver Tiffany necklace. It was fun seeing how many necklaces we spotted throughout the city in the couple of days afterwards.

We ran in the mornings every day we were there, but the rest of the trip was mostly about the food: We hit the farmer's market and sampled tamales featured on Cheap Eats, drank many, many cappucinos and lattes, visited Saulsalito and the wineries in Napa Valley, and finished up with a really wonderful dinner at one of Thomas Keller's restaurants.

My friends are a little more normal about money than I am, and I decided that as long as I stayed within my planned budget, I wasn't going to worry about where the money was going. I budgeted $700 for everything excluding the flight and was pleasantly surprised to come home with $93.

Here's where the money went:

Hotel: $248
Organic dried fruit from the farmer's market: $10
Gift chocolate for a dinner party next week: $10
Candy for SO's kids: $14
Gourmet honey for SO: $16

The rest went towards car rental, trips to and from the airport, and food. Didn't track a cent of it.

I feel totally recharged from getting away from all the stress and worry, and I wouldn't change a thing about this trip. I'm not sure I want to get back to reality, but reality looks just a little bit better than it did last week.

Will catch up with comments later this week; thanks for your patience in the meantime.

How many shopping days left until Christmas?

2009-10-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not thinking about Christmas shopping already. There is a little bit of retail therapy that's been on my mind lately, though, and I thought I'd share it with you.

When I get stressed, lots of ugly physiological things happen. One that bothers me the most is that I get horrendous knots (tissue adhesions, I guess) in my back. I don't know the exact cause, but I do know that I get them more when I'm carrying around a lot of worries. Professional massage is one very effective way to get rid of them, but as much as I'd love to make a habit of massages (I've only ever had two), it's not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

When I was was going through nine months of physical therapy for a running injury in 2007, I remember having a terrible, painful knot on my back. While I was waiting for the physical therapist to start working on my injury, I sat perched on a table, craning my elbow around my neck to self-massage the sore spot with my fingertips. My PT saw me doing this and asked what the problem was. I told him, and he said Wait one minute. He left and then came back carrying . . . well, this:

This is what's known as the Back Knobber 2. It's a plastic hook with a ball on each end, and it's meant to hook over the user's back so he or she can effectively self-massage a knot out over the course of a few days. I tried it for five or ten minutes before each of my sessions that week, and in just over a full week the knot was completely GONE.

I have a really large, painful knot on the right side of my back right now, and I'm sorely tempted to order this doohickey. It retails for around $30 on Amazon and is often (but not always) available with free shipping. I've had trouble getting myself to order it because I don't think I'll use it that often, but right now the knot I have really hurts. If it's still bugging me after a weekend of fun in San Francisco, I'll probably end up buying it.

What's on your mind to buy right now? Are you buying it now or waiting, and why?

Not attracted by the Law of Attraction

2009-10-17T08:00:00.002-05:00

Okay, a couple of caveats up front: First, I've never read The Secret and I have no plans to read it. All I know about the so-called Law of Attraction is what I've read on Wikipedia. Aside from being my favorite resource for playing Where are they now? with 1970's TV stars, I realize that it's hardly an authoritative source about anything, especially since this particular article is already flagged as being problematic in its current form.

Having said that. . .

I think this Law of Attraction stuff is a load of hooey.

According to the Wikipedia article, proponents claim that the roots of the Law of Attraction lie in quantum physics. Under this theory, thoughts contain energy, and this energy attracts whatever it is the person is thinking of to draw it nearer. In order to control the law of attraction, practitioners must do the following:

1. Know exactly what you want.
2. Ask the universe for it.
3. Feel, behave and know as if the object of your desire is already yours (visualize).
4. Be open to receive it and let go of (the attachment to) the outcome.

Following this line of thought, thinking of things in terms of not having them becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To me, this is a dressed-up version of closing my eyes and wishing really, really hard for a pony. Believing that wishing will provide is natural for little kids until they figure out that it doesn't actually work, but I have a very hard time believing that adults willingly buy into this.

I think there's a much more reliable way to attract success and make all your wishes come true. All you have to do is:

1. Set S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) goals
2. Work hard, but only at the right things (i.e., don't waste time on busywork)
3. Know what finished work looks like and deliver it only when finished
4. Follow through on commitments
5. Mean what you say, say what you mean
6. Use tact and good judgment
7. Respect others
8. Make friends wherever you go
9. Rinse and repeat

If that doesn't get you on the road to success, you can see this video for a backup plan. The key words that brought it to mind were If you vote for me, your wildest dreams will come true:

(In case you're wondering, thanks to this, Pedro beat the popular girl and won the election for school president. It's all in good fun, folks.)

What do you think: Am I being too judgmental about the Law of Attraction?

It's got to be midnight somewhere in the world

2009-10-15T20:08:00.003-05:00

I realize it's a few hours early, but since I have to be out the door at 5:30 a.m. and it's been a while since anyone entered the banner giveaway, I took the liberty of ending the contest at 9:00 p.m. EST and drawing a random winner. The winner of a 24" x 36" vinyl banner from Uprinting is Cat!

Cat, please send me an email at frugal (dot) zeitgeist (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll tell you how to claim your prize.

In the interest of full disclosure and in accordance with a new law passed a couple of weeks ago, I must also tell you that Uprinting is also giving me a banner for hosting the giveaway. I'm having a Canadian flag printed on it in anticipation of my citizenship party next summer.

I've pre-written a couple of posts that will publish while I'm away, so keep on checking in. I'll be back to answer comments after I get back from San Francisco.

Still sick, but things are looking up

2009-10-14T21:12:00.009-05:00

I'm better than I was on Monday, but the crud settled deep in my chest and the timing could not be worse: I'm leaving on Friday morning for a long weekend in San Francisco. I'm going out with some friends to run the Nike Women's Half Marathon, and we have a full itinerary that includes a trip to wine country, dim sum in Chinatown, and dinner at one of Thomas Keller's restaurants.

I seriously thought about cancelling the trip once job stability went down the crapper and my closest colleagues started disappearing, including the best boss I've ever had. In the end, however, I decided to go regardless of what happens. It's not going to be cheap as long weekends go, but the money we'll spend over four and a half days is not going to make a bit of difference in the big picture, even if I get laid off tomorrow. Too much of my energy has gone into stress and worry lately, to the point where one of my friends scolded me the other day for being a Debbie Downer. Fair criticism or not (and I think it probably was, although the delivery could have been better and she ended up being very apologetic), I think the way I've been letting the work situation affect me certainly helped me get sick. It's not really necessary: Even if I'm not quite as prepared as I'd like to be, I wouldn't go broke tomorrow.

In addition, the job situation looks more stable than it did a few weeks ago. There's an org chart and my name is on it, with a defined area of responsibility and a team of six. In my extended group, I also got flagged as the lead for counseling and performance management for my region (there are three) because my new boss heard that that's one of my strengths. I'm not looking too far ahead, but so far all signs are pointing to surviving the upcoming layoff tsunami - and that's all the more reason to get my perspectives in perspective and celebrate.

Are you celebrating anything right now?

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LAST DAY! Advertise your business, a special event, or just yourself: Win a custom-printed 24" x 36" inch banner printed with the design of your choice. Enter before October 15 for your chance to win!