My month-long experiment, aka NaBloPoMo, ends today. Thanks to all who read along.
Despite its having been a stressful month, I’m glad I took this plunge because it taught me a little something. Three little somethings, actually.
Donna Freedman
Meet my new boss (same as my old boss).
As I hinted in “Thanks a million,” changes are afoot in the way I do business at MSN Money. Specifically: Frugal Nation is no more. Instead, I’ll be writing three times a week (not five!) at MSN Money Smart Spending. [Edited to add: In September 2013 Microsoft fired all its writers on the same day and went to a partner content setup.]
Relieved? Yes. But sad, too.
After all, Frugal Nation was my baby alone: For more than a year I posted five times a week, offering “save money today” advice and also bigger-picture articles about money and how we use it, abuse it and sometimes deify it.
I hate shopping.
I’m beginning to understand why people have things delivered. Today I drove DF to work so that I could use the vehicle for the day. I figured I’d do a couple of errands and maybe meet a friend for lunch.
Somehow the errands took over, shaving off slabs of time like a knife on a shawarma spit. It felt as though I spent two hours just getting out of the car and into the stores.
I’d forgotten how much I hate shopping. Real shopping, that is, not the kind I did in Seattle.
Giveaway: “Fix It Make It Grow It Bake It.”
The subtitle of Billee Sharp’s book is “The D.I.Y. Guide to the Good Life.” If that sounds like you, then enter to win this book.
It’s designed to help you consume less and create more. Sharp’s philosophy is “applying effort, common sense and imagination to daily living,” which she says can ultimately free us from unnecessary expenses.
Or you could view it a how-to for spending more on the things that matter to you (organic food, non-exploitative manufacturing) by reducing costs elsewhere.
Buy once, cry once.
My father, a constant remodeler and handyman, has always favored Craftsman tools. His vise grip got used pretty hard, especially in its last few years of life when Dad was working at an automobile factory.
One day the tool shuddered, sighed and broke – you can ask only so much of even a good vise grip.
Sears replaced it for free (store policy), and he’s been using it ever since.
“There’s an old saying with tools: ‘Buy once, cry once’,” Dad said. “Of course, that applies to just about everything in life.”
Some things you just shouldn’t cheap out on, like tools, or shoes. Or condoms.
Caution: Hideous neologisms ahead.
If you’re looking for misuse of the English language but don’t want to hang around with politicians, doctors or civil servants, consider reading press releases. My inbox is full of the things and they frequently cause rude, rude noises to come out of my mouth.
“Guestspert”? Are you (bleeping) kidding me?
Whaaat? When did “e-tailers” become a word?
“Turntabalist”? Your parents must be so proud.
Sometimes, though, neologisms have their revenge: They become so ubiquitous that I find myself using them, either in print or aloud.
When I say things like “repurposed,” I want to smack myself. On purpose.
Or how about “I know, right?” and “going forward”? How did these get to be such earwigs?
A free anti-debt book, a $250 Visa and $500 cash.
Looking for a little financial inspiration? Today and tomorrow only you can score a free Kindle download of “Get Out of Debt Like the Debt Heroes: How 21 Ordinary People Paid Off Over $1.7 Million in Debt,” by Ben Edwards and Jeff Rose.
The e-book is intended as an inspiration, not as a goad or whip, to those in debt. Or in the authors’ words: “Getting out of debt is hard enough, you don’t need someone to judge you. What if instead you had a hero to inspire you!”
Let’s talk about dying.
I picked DF up at the airport last night. He’d spent nearly a week in the Lower 48 dealing with his father’s end-of-life issues. Hospice is now involved and his dad is being made comfortable. He feels extreme weakness but no pain and is receiving oxygen as needed.
DF spent most waking hours slogging through reams of paperwork and bushels of belongings. Bank, insurance and health records were every which way. The power of attorney (written some years back) turned out to be problematic so DF had to get it rewritten, re-signed and re-notarized.
One agency wanted to know the names of all doctors his father had seen in the past two years, and guess what? Nobody knew. Heck, there wasn’t even a record of the defibrillator he’d had implanted.
A graveyard of reading.
I went dumpster wading again today at the recycling center. In the mixed paper bin I spied half a dozen like-new comic books sitting atop magazines and flattened cereal boxes.
Although melting snow was dripping down from the top of the bin, these books were dry and clean. Of course I took them, and gave them to my nephew.
He doesn’t care where I got them. In fact, he’s still stoked about the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle I found earlier this week in the same bin.
Guess where I’m doing my Christmas shopping? (Kidding! Maybe.)
In which I cop to some odd habits.
Just read a lovely, raw, real piece called “Sometimes” written by a woman named Arnebya at a site called What Now And Why.
It’s lovely because it’s honest: Sometimes, I am jealous of my children. They have so much time and opportunity and I feel like I’ve wasted so much time and opportunity.
It’s raw because it’s, well, really honest: Sometimes, when I pull up to my house, I don’t want to stop; I want to keep driving.
And it’s real because she exposes herself fearlessly: Sometimes I want a drink so badly I consider leaving work early to sit in a bar alone, read my book, and catch a virus from the peanuts being eaten by many unsanitized hands.