Donna Freedman Last month several dozen personal finance bloggers collaborated in a Valentine-themed giveaway sponsored by Rather-Be-Shopping.com, a site specializing in online coupon codes. The contest generated so much response that site founder Kyle James decided to do it again.
This time the theme is “spring and saving money.” The prize remains the same: $500 cash via PayPal. [Edited to add: Although the giveaway is over, the information below can help you with your spring cleaning. Read on!]
I’m sitting near a blazing fire watching Chamber of Commerce snow fall. The flakes are fat and fluffy and seem to dance on their way down, the way the bits of white inside a snow globe frolic back and forth before settling.
The house is perfumed by the corned beef simmering in a Dutch oven and by a batch of kale and sausage soup (heavy on the potatoes, moderate on the garlic and with a judicious amount of Frank’s Red Hot pepper sauce). If I concentrated, I could probably scent the last of the homemade yogurt that I drained through a cloth-lined colander a little while ago.
But the dominant fragrance is of freshly washed laundry hung on racks set up between me and the fireplace insert, which is cranking out so much heat that the clothes and towels may be dry before I finish writing this.
Domestic contentment – made even more delightful by the fact that it is shared domesticity. When DF got home from church (he’s the cantor for 8 a.m. Mass) he dove right into chores: two loads of laundry, putting the corned beef on to cook, cleaning the tub, general tidying. I can track his progress by the whistling or occasional scraps of song he emits while moving from job to job.
Where was I? Cutting up soup ingredients, placing some vegetable scraps into the freezer for making stock later on and relegating others to the compost, putting the yogurt into a container and storing the whey in a jar. Oh, and smiling. Smiling.
I love a man who whistles while he works. And I especially love a man who doesn’t regard the domestic arena as expressly female.
Before I moved back to Anchorage I often took my niece and her two boys out to eat. I still do, sometimes, but lately have been focused on setting aside dollars for a trip the four of us hope to take this summer.
One recent Sunday when DF had business out of town I invited Alison and the boys over. I knew I’d need to feed them but our kitchen is stocked for frugal grownups. What did we have that would appeal to a couple of hollow-legged boys?
Then I flashed back on a game my daughter used to play: “Dinner and Movie.” She’d make up a menu based on what was in the fridge and we’d play restaurant, then watch something I’d videotaped (remember videotapes?) or just watch TV.
Thus was born “Café Awesome.”
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When I was a kid I felt sorry for people with “hay fever,” the catch-all name for seasonal allergies. Those greatly magnified images of pollen on the Contac commercials gave me the creeps: Imagine all that pointy-edged stuff digging its way into your nose and eyes! (It didn’t occur to me that I’d inhaled the same li’l monsters.)
A few years ago I discovered that you can develop seasonal allergies after childhood. Lucky me.
So if you’ve noticed sniffles, itchy eyes and raw throat in the springtime but figured it was just an end-of-winter cold you couldn’t shake, you might have developed allergies as well. You can find out for free on Saturday, March 9 if you live near a Sam’s Club with a pharmacy.
I’ve been mulling over a comment left on yesterday’s post, “Beware false economies,” which included examples of frugality that could actually cost someone money, health or reputation. A reader posting as “ImJuniperNow” said these examples confirmed that “people believe ‘frugal’ or living within or below one’s means equals doing without.
My immediate reply: “Good point! Just as some people believe that dieting or exercise must be unpleasant if it’s to be effective.”
After some reflection I believe it’s more than the “no pain, no gain” mentality. The attitude is more one of crime and punishment:
If you gain weight, you are bad and must suffer in order to take it off.
If you don’t have enough money in this Land of Opportunity, you are less than worthy and must endure privation. That is, until you can get another line of credit.
I’ve written before about the Financial Blogger Conference, a four-day event that brings together beginner and veteran personal finance writers. This year’s event takes place in downtown St. Louis from Oct. 17 to 20.
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While preparing to write “Craziest ways to save a buck,” today’s post over at my day job, I was by turns amused and a little disturbed by what young people consider “crazy” frugality.
The post was based on a contest offered by DoSomething.org. Students 25 and under are invited to send in their wildest money-saving tips. The prize is a $4,000 scholarship, so send any students you know over there to enter.
But is getting books and CDs from the library now considered nutty behavior? What about locking up a debit card, using coupons, carrying a water bottle, eating leftovers or doing laundry at a relative’s house – any of those sound wacky to you?
Worse than that, though, were the false economies. For example, more than a few students said they brought home condiment packets and napkins from restaurants to save money. But if you’re broke, what are you doing in restaurants? How much did you spend in order to get a few cents’ worth of free taco sauce?
Or how about some of these:
As in, my relatives are never cold. Specifically, my great-nephews are never cold. I was visiting them on a 10-below-zero night when a friend called to say that Jupiter was quite visible in the night sky.
The boys stampeded out the front door – in their PJs – and stayed out there for at least five minutes, looking. At least they put on their boots.
I used to be that kind of badass. But I find I’ve lost my happy thoughts after 11 years Outside – which is how Alaskans describe Everyplace That Isn’t Alaska. (It gets the upper-case even in the newspapers.)
Yesterday we went to the Metropolitan Opera’s live movie theater broadcast of Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal.” It was a semi-frugal experience: The discounted movie tickets that I bought through MyPoints reduced the $22-per-head cost, and I used my giant $3-per-refill cup.
In another year DF will be old enough for a senior discount, which will shave another $2 off his ticket. But what’s an extra $2 when you get more than five hours of scorched-earth opera?
By that I don’t mean that the music takes no prisoners, but rather that the set is a post-apocalyptic expanse of cracked clay – except for Act II, in which the principals spend most of their time standing in 1,200 gallons of blood. You learn the most interesting things during the intermission interviews.