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Imprinting summer.

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August got here somehow, without neither my notice nor my consent. I was shocked the other day when DF mentioned its being the eighth month of the calendar. Seems just the other day it was summer solstice.

Then again, time has become weirdly fluid since the pandemic began, and especially since the pandemic killed my dad. Some months feel endless and others disappear almost without a trace.

This has been an odd, mostly cool summer save for a stretch of high-70s and at least one 80-degree day. The thermometer in the illustration is on my niece’s back porch – and it was in the shade. Obviously people in the Lower 48 are struggling with much hotter temperatures. All I can say is that 80 degrees up here feels hotter than it sounds.

Today it’s supposed to hit the low 70s. This morning DF and I did our usual tour of the back yard, to water greenhouse plants if needed, check on the progress of the plants and see if there are any strawberries we could have for breakfast. That’s another weirdness about summer up here: We get strawberries into late summer, whereas when I was a kid the berries were finished by early June.

The berries here are bigger, too:

The sun was warm (it was almost 60 degrees at that point), and the gentle breeze lifted up all sorts of fragrances. Not sure how much actual aroma can be had from fireweed, poppies, and pea and strawberry blossoms but taken together with big swatches of clover, they made an irresistible and intoxicating mix. I smelled growth. Life. Sustenance. 

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Enter the Savings.com $8k giveaway.

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The Savings.com coupon website is giving away $8,000 worth of gift cards over the next four weeks. Nope, that’s not an extra “0” added by mistake. It’s Eight. Thousand. Dollars.

Although this #BTSSAVINGS promotion is technically for back-to-school shopping, there’s no rule against entering even if you don’t have kids at home – or have kids at all. Three of the four e-gift card types are pretty egalitarian in terms of who could use them.

Each week through Aug. 23, Savings.com will give away eight $250 e-gift cards from the following brands:

JC Penney  – where you can get clothing, housewares and more along with school clothes

HP – for school tech, or personal tech

Old Navy – which isn’t necessarily just for the kiddies, by the way; that’s where I found the light cotton, deep-pocketed summer slacks I needed for visiting my daughter in Phoenix

The Children’s Place – okay, this one is definitely just for the kiddies, but even if you don’t have children you could buy stuff to donate to a family shelter

Click on one (or all!) of the above links to enter. (Full disclosure: I receive a teeny-tiny finder’s fee for entries using these links.) If you’re unable to use one or more of the gift card types, just skip that particular merchant’s link. In other words, you won’t receive a card you don’t want. 

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34 discarded dimes.

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Recently I waited a long time at the supermarket, staring fixedly at the front of the store as the line inched along. That’s because an optometrist once told me to focus on things 20 or 30 feet away from time to time, as an antidote to all the screen work I do.

Thus I ignored the Kindle app* on my phone and focused on the Coinstar machine. In part that was because a big green rectangle is an easy thing on which to focus. It was also in pleasurable anticipation of stopping by that machine after I checked out.

As regular readers know, I glean lost coins in stores, on sidewalks, from vending machine change-return slots and, yes, from Coinstar machines.

These machines will spit out dented or otherwise compromised specie, as well as foreign coins. I’ve also found they’ll spit out U.S. coins if they’re too light to be recognized.

Which is what had happened: The rejected-coins cup was full of what looked like dimes. No other coins; just 34 dimes, all issued between 1946 and 1964. I e-mailed my PF blogging pal J. Money**, who’s also a numismatist with a site called Coin Thrill. Turns out these dimes are so common that they’re not worth much to collectors unless they’re uncirculated.

These were circulated. Very circulated. However, their condition doesn’t matter when it comes to melt value. 

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TikTok is not a fiduciary! A cautionary tale.

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Guys! Did you know that if you have an S corporation you don’t have to pay taxes??? You can give yourself and your children jobs without owing the government one thin dime!

Bonus awesomeness: You can call everything you buy “a company expense,” and even take a “corporate vacation” every year.

Pretty sweet, huh? Except it’s also completely wrong.

You can start an S corporation, no problem. But your business still has to pay FICA taxes on the salary you pay yourself (and your kids, if you wind up employing them), and those paychecks will be subject to income tax.

This and other sketchy financial advice is available free for the taking from TikTok. And it’s worth every penny you paid.

“Surely no one would take such ridiculous info at face value,” you’re thinking. “And just who gets all their advice from the Internet, anyway?”

Quite a few get at least some of it that way. According to a poll from CreditCards.com, 28% of Gen Zers look for advice from “social media platforms and influencers.” Of the other demographics, 24% of millennials, 10% of Gen Xers and 4% of Baby Boomers get advice there.

When we go online to search for money help, there’s a chance we’ll find good stuff right away, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission or Consumer Reports.

But there’s just as good a chance that we’ll run across:

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COVID-19 and retirement.

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In a piece over at Money Talks News today, I address a Pew Research Center study about COVID-19 and retirement. But I didn’t write the headline.

That’s because “7 unusual tactics to keep COVID-19 from derailing your retirement” was made up of tactics that I personally don’t see as all that unusual.

Then again, a lot of money tactics/frugal hacks that others think are offbeat don’t strike me that way.

Learning to cook. Delaying a purchase if it means saving either money or your budget. Stocking up on items at today’s prices ahead of the inflation that’s already taking place.

But as I learned from my early days at MSN Money: It’s always new to somebody. Maybe to a whole lot of somebodies.

During the 2008 recession, personal finance blogs were offering posts on topics like “how to pack a lunch” and “how to save money by going to yard sales and thrift stores.” These are things that strike me (and maybe you) as just basic adulting skills.

This morning DF and I were talking about these and other basic skills. I reminded him that a lot of success as an adult depends on what you grow up hearing. For example, no one ever said to me “it’s best to start saving for retirement early because of compound interest.”

I was well into adulthood before I learned this – and other people would probably have responded, “How could you not know this?” Because we don’t know what we don’t know, that’s why. What I heard growing up was, “Work hard, pay your bills and if there’s anything left over, put it in the bank.”

Had I known better, I’d be so much farther ahead when it comes to money. For that reason, I’m going to add a few more tactics that could help people with regard to COVID-19 and retirement. If they sound familiar or even oversimplified, remember: We don’t all start at the same place.

 

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Giveaway: Starbucks gift card and reusable straws.

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It’s brutally hot in the Lower 48 right now and I so wish that I could send some of the Alaska coolth down to guys. Unfortunately, I can’t do that. But I can offer up a brief respite, courtesy of a Starbucks gift card and some reusable straws.

Whoever wins this can purchase $15 worth of their favorite cold beverages: stuff like Blended Strawberry Lemonade, Pink Drink, Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew, Iced Chocolate Almond Milk Shaken Espresso, Iced Peach Green Tea Lemonade, Iced Guava Passionfruit or even a Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino.

That last one sounds more like a dessert than a drink, which is where those reusable straws come in. They’re not just reusable straws – they’re reusable spoon straws. You can scoop up the thick cold drinks or the bits of fruit/cookie crumbles that might otherwise get stuck in the straw.

My niece recently became a Pampered Chef consultant and I attended a virtual party out of a sense of auntly duty. But I have to say that some of that stuff looks pretty awesome, and I wound up buying one item as a Christmas gift and one item for me* along with the spoon straws. #SupportingTheFamilyEconomy

It’s a set of four (see illustration), so you and up to three family members/friends can all feel eco-friendly together. The little cleaning brush helps you sluice out those cookie bits, and the carrying bag (not pictured) keeps it all together.

The Starbucks gift card is a good match, I think. While I’m not a coffee drinker, I have to say that Starbucks has at times saved me from melting down during summer travels/conferences. Usually I ask the barista, “What cold drink would you recommend to your mom if she were very overheated and not a fan of coffee, or even mocha?” And they always surprise me with something that I might never have chosen on my own. 

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Extreme frugality: Putting food by.

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We spent parts of yesterday and today putting food by. Specifically, we turned seven or eight pounds’ worth of rhubarb into fruit leather.

First we chopped and simmered, then let the soupy stuff drain through a pair of colanders before glopping it into the dehydrator. We saved some of the juice to drink as a tonic; anything that tart has to be good for us, right?

The rest of the juice was frozen into chunks (which I insist on referring to as “Rhubik’s Cubes”) and set aside for my homemade smoothies. Made with free rhubarb and raspberries, marked-down “red band” bananas, half a cup of bulk-bought rolled oats, an egg and a big scoop of my homemade yogurt, these things are cheap as well as healthy. (And since I’m having the second part of my dental implant work done next month, I foresee a few liquid meals in my future.)

The last of the fruit leather finished dehydrating this morning. Like the other batches, it was rolled up inside paper scavenged from two sources: cut-apart cereal box liners and waxed paper saved from my sister’s annual tin of homemade peanut brittle. Flavored with sugar and a bit of ginger, the leather is a tangy, chewy treat that I must stop sampling or there will be none left for winter.

A previous batch of rhubarb had been turned into a compote sealed in pint jars, to be added to future dishes of yogurt. Not sure how many hours it took to do all this, but to us it doesn’t matter. We don’t put a dollar value on our gardening and food preservation, for two reasons: 

  • We don’t get paid for every minute we exist, and
  • We enjoy the process of turning home-grown produce into something we can enjoy next winter.

Some people would rather buy their veggies than grow them. I get that. Not everyone has the physical ability, the time or the real estate to garden. And fact is, the average person buys most of their stuff. We pay someone else to raise meat and produce, bake our bread, sew our clothes, build our homes.

For us, gardening is entertainment – and we don’t have to dress up or drive anywhere to enjoy it. Watching tiny green shoots grow into delicious foodstuffs is a reliable annual miracle. If you’ve ever grown so much as a pot of herbs on the windowsill, you understand what I mean.

Preserving the results is a natural progression. Making raspberry jam, cutting up carrots for canning, picking peas to freeze, plucking greens to dehydrate, slicing beets to pickle, peeling apples to cook into sauce – it’s all fun for us, even when we get tired toward the end.

The greeny smell of dehydrating kale, the sneezy scent of cloves, the sharp bite of vinegar, the soothing aroma of slowly simmering apples all keep us going: This is sustenance. This is satisfaction. This is safety.

 

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Monday miscellany: WFH and PF edition.

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(Edited to add: The Freelance Writer Academy now offers scholarships! See below.)

Almost one in four U.S. residents joined the WFH (work from home) club at least part of the time since the pandemic was officially called in March 2020. According to a recent Bankrate.com poll, more than half of those (57 percent) said that working from had a positive effect on their personal finances.

Among those effects: fewer lunches out, no commuting costs, less need to dress up and fewer impulse purchases. Some also didn’t have to pay for child care, although how they got much done with kids at home is a complete mystery to me.

In fact, one of the least-favorite parts about working from home was simply the distractions while they were trying to work. Those surveyed also said they missed interaction with coworkers, and cited fewer chances for salary increases and promotions while at home.

Their favorite parts: more freedom, family time and sleep.

It’s worth noting that a lot of those who did well with at-home work were already doing well. More than a quarter of those surveyed (28 percent) earned $40,000 to $80,000 a year and more than half (54 percent) earned $80,000 or more. 

 

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Bringing in the weeds.

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We had a cooler-than-usual May, which made us reluctant to put things out early. It’s only in the past week that our planted lettuces were big enough to start semi-harvesting.

(Why “planted” lettuces? Because we’ve been startled by rogue lettuces – and Asian greens and quinoa – popping up everywhere. More on that in a minute.)

Longing to eat something, anything, that was fresh, I started bringing in the weeds in the first week of June. Some were actual weeds, such as the fireweed in the illustration. Epilobium angustifolium was consumed by Alaska Natives long before we got here. I’d been reading about its edible qualities and decided to give it a shot because nothing else was fresh at that point. (Except dandelions, and I find them too bitter.)

So I picked some of the smaller plants, sautéed them in olive oil with garlic and ate them on some of DF’s amazing rustic bread. They tasted mostly like oil and garlic. No surprises there. Underlying it was a slight sweetness, similar to cooked spinach.

Here’s an amuse-bouche view of how they turned out:

At first glance, my friend Linda B. thought it looked like an insect. It does, kind of.

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Bobblehead me.

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You know you’ve arrived when The Motley Fool casts a bobblehead in your likeness.

My daughter says it just cements my street cred. My partner considers it very cool, although he thinks I should have been wearing one of my “Money Nerds Unite” T-shirts from the Financial Blogger Conference*.

I just think it’s funny as hell, especially since they even put a teeny-tiny copy of my second book in its li’l plastic hand.

The Motley Fool is a private financial/investing advice company. One of its sites, All-Star Money, is a daily digest of personal finance articles that resonate with the curators. I’m happy to have been noticed three times thus far.

One of those notices – “Extreme frugality: Be a frugalvore” – took me to the pinnacle of All-Star Money: being chosen as the Article of the Week. One of the honors accorded thereto is having a bobblehead made. These guys know how to party. 

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