In most of the country — not here — summer means sandals and flip-flops. We’ve still got a month or more of naked toes. That’s why you need this week’s giveaway.
Donna Freedman
To budget or not to budget?
My monthly health insurance payment has risen by $40, starting now. The increase was anticipated, or at least announced. I’d managed to block the amount, though, so I was still surprised.
My bimonthly electric bill was $22 higher than the previous one, thanks to a Seattle City Light rate increase. An extra $11 per month won’t kill me. But it got my attention.
How to go to the movies for free.
Here’s today’s word, and it’s a funny one: gofobo. (Try saying it five times, fast.) This movie-mad site offers access to free screenings, contests and events.
I’d been planning to write about free movies but my daughter beat me to it. Well, at least she got me off my dime. Which, of course, means saving you some dimes. Lots of them. I’ve paid as much as $10.25 for a matinee ticket in Seattle.
As Abby notes in the blog post linked above, gofobo is chronically last-minute; you might have 24 hours or less to respond.
“Still, what’s the worst that happens? You get an offer on a movie you can’t go to,” she writes. “I’d say that’s one of the smaller tragedies in life.”
About that $10.25 ticket: It was a business expense. Otherwise I would have used a freebie. Here are some other ways to get them.
The unbearable heaviness of student debt.
Maybe you read the article about the doctor with $555,000 of student loan debt. In addition to that horrific sum (which started out as $250k in 2003) were a few other scary numbers:
- A laid-off factory worker whose $300 unemployment check is garnished down to $180 because of the PLUS student loan she took out for her son.
- A woman who after 14 years of deferment and forbearance (and bankruptcy) saw her Sallie Mae loan leap from $28,000 to more than $90,000. Her monthly payment was once $230; now it’s $816.
- An estimated $730 billion of outstanding federal and private student-loan debt exists, and just 40 percent is being repaid. The rest is in default, deferment or forbearance.
Gargantuan loans taken out with no clear idea of how they’ll be repaid. Sound familiar?
Actually, there’s a crucial difference between subprime mortgages and student loans: You can’t return your diploma to the school and walk away from college debt. In fact, such debt can’t even be discharged in a bankruptcy. With few exceptions, student loans stay with you until you pay them back.
Old chestnuts contain a kernel of truth.
I know that I’m getting older because I have begun to find value in bromides. That’s why I’ve decided to highlight one every so often, starting today. After all, Ben Franklin made a decent living at it – not that my site is comparable to Poor Richard’s Almanack, for a number of reasons:
- I don’t use a pen name.
- I get to write what I want rather than what I think will sell.
- I’m allowed to curse.
- I know how to spell “almanac.”
Let me emphasize that an axiom is no substitute for independent thought. If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, pious aphorisms are a way to appear profound when what you’re actually expressing is “Because I said so.”
Hey, you, take off those shoes!
Wish I had a piece of the hosiery industry in Anchorage, where you remove your footwear after you enter someone’s house. Knowing you’ll be unshod regularly means making sure your feet are decently covered.
Once when I was an Anchorage Daily News reporter I took off my shoes at an interviewee’s home and discovered a rent in one sock. It’s hard to look professional when your big toe has its eye to the peephole.
Obviously Alaska is not the only place where indoor shoe-wearing is frowned upon. People in other cultures live this way too – and so, increasingly, do U.S. residents, as a quick Internet search indicates. Sometimes it’s because they want the carpet to last longer. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want spike-heel scratches on the hardwood.
And sometimes it’s to keep you from tracking in poisons.
What can be more essential than giving?
Christina at the Northern Cheapskate blog recently wrote about needing a new toaster cover. The old one doesn’t owe her a thing because it’s more than a decade old, a “well-intentioned gift” from her mother that initially left Christina embarrassed. It was an old person’s item. Women in their early 20s didn’t use toaster covers.
Eventually she appreciated the gift. Still, the idea of “needing” a new one made her laugh: “The toaster won’t feel ashamed if it sits on the counter in its natural state.”
It’s more than just a toaster cover, of course.
Win this bear.
You don’t have to throw baseballs at weighted milk bottles to win this rather pensive ursus maritimus.
Two little boys, all alone.
I was at the post office today mailing two long-delayed giveaway prizes (sorry, Diana and Denise — they’re on their way!). A young man came in carrying an infant car seat. While waiting in line I saw him smiling at the baby and making the occasional funny face. What a loving father, I thought.
As I got into my vehicle I saw two little boys, aged about 3 and 4, in the adjacent vehicle. One of the children caught my eye and smiled. The car’s windows were rolled down. No adult was in sight.
I started to back out of the parking space — and then pulled forward once more. It just didn’t seem right to leave two kids unsupervised.
Eventually their dad returned. You guessed it: He was the guy carrying the car seat.
“What took you so long, daddy?” one boy asked fretfully.
Good question.
Summertime, and the readin’ is easy.
I’m in a couple of personal finance blog carnivals this week: “Malachi and mud” made the cut at the Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted this week by Funny About Money. My piece on the potluck as frugal hack was chosen for the Carnival of Money Stories at Suburban Dollar. I didn’t cite the title because … Read more