While visiting my dad recently I enjoyed a whole bunch of regional delicacies. Although I get irritated with those who claim it’s my job to uphold the economy by spending lots of money, I do believe in supporting small local businesses.
Or so I said every time I visited a South Jersey custard stand. Rationalization is a wonderful thing.
In a recent post, “The true and simple rules for house-sitting,” I wrote about how startled I was to come home to a nearly dead potted tree in my living room.
There’s more.
I just bought $40 worth of Mexican food for the equivalent of $16.92. Or rather, I’ve arranged to buy the food in January, when I visit my daughter and son-in-law in Phoenix.
I’ve written before about social buying – the art of getting deep discounts on products and services through the power of bulk buying. In this case it’s $20 gift vouchers to a Scottsdale restaurant for $10 apiece.
Companies like Groupon and Living Social make daily deals available both at hot new businesses and well-established joints that you already love.
There’s no cost to join – and it sure is fun to spend considerably less on:
E-mails you don’t want to get from your house-sitter:
“I’m leaving a month early.”
“Do you have a plunger?”
Last week I got permission to pick grapes from a nearby fence. My first batch of jelly turned out a lovely wine-purple color and my apartment smelled like communion.
But it was a lot more work than blackberry jam: You pick, then crush, then simmer, then strain the pulp through a cheesecloth-lined colander, then add sugar and cook.
On Sunday I picked pretty much all the ripe grapes that were left. Yesterday I patiently pulled out the stems, made sure there was a one-to-four ratio of underripe to ripe fruit (I don’t use commercial pectin), washed them, crushed them, simmered them, and poured about half the results into a cloth-lined colander set over a bowl.
The yield was three cups of juice. I scraped out the drained pulp, poured the rest of the simmered grapes into the colander and walked away to do another chore.
And then.
CandiO wins this week’s dual giveaway of “Does This Make My Assets Look Fat? A Woman’s Guide to Finding Financial Empowerment and Success” by Susan Hirshman and the “Who makes this stuff up?” package of items from BlogHer 2010. Congratulations, CandiO, and have fun with that Jimmy Dean alarm clock. I’ll give you one hint … Read more
In the past few weeks I’ve been having good luck with online surveys. Not only have I earned more than $20 for relatively little work, I’ve been asked to test several products.
Can’t say exactly what they are – confidentiality agreements – but they’re all things I was happy to get. Even though none of them was a pony.
Over at CBS MoneyWatch, Stacey Bradford describes hearing a stranger boast that he has too much money and not enough time to spend it.
Anyone besides me want to smack that guy two or three times?
Not that kind.
This is the “Better Living Through Chemistry” package that I put together entirely with items that my freebie-lovin’ daughter obtained from tables at BlogHer 2010.
Here’s what you’ll get if you win:
Recently I linked to Laura Rowley’s excellent column, “Why the rich don’t feel rich,” in which she wrote about University of Chicago law professor Todd Henderson’s struggle to survive on a combined family income of more than $250,000. The column was a stark contrast to something that happened while I was in New Jersey last month.
I frequently stopped by to see my Aunt Dot, who’s 87 and very frail due to several medical issues. She and her son live on Social Security and disability plus her small pension. One evening I discovered that they had exactly one dollar in the house. Her check was due the next day and she planned to walk to the bank to cash it.
The bank is at least a mile from where Dot lives. And did I mention that she’s on oxygen?