entertainment

Summer on the wane.

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thThe raspberries are winding down. I was picking from a pint to almost a quart every day for a while. Lately they’re ripening much more slowly and the ones that do ripen seem a bit collapsed and/or partly eaten.

Birds, I figured – until the day I saw wasps and honeybees landing on berries before I could get to them. They’d grab hold, lock on, and start sucking/chewing away.

This was so entertaining to watch that I had a hard time blaming them for bogarting the berries I really, really wanted for the freezer.

Can’t really blame them: I, too, want to extract every last bit of sweetness before the season ends.

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Thrift shops, free museums and a $100 Tweetchat.

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th-1Today is Thrift Shop Day, and the Savers/Value Village folks say we’re all about saving the Benjamins. The company’s new survey revealed that 47 percent of U.S. residents shop at la segunda, and more than one-third of us say they shop secondhand more often now than they did three years ago.

Is it the economy? Or is it that more and more people are realizing how much fun it can be to prospect for marked-down items, some of which you won’t find anywhere else?

Well, 52 percent of those surveyed say “it feels like a treasure hunt” and 35 percent love finding “truly unique” items. If you’re a retro-fashionista, secondhand stores are the place to find vintage shoulder-pad suits, cargo pants or the perfect bridesmaid’s dress to wear to the prom or (with appropriate attitude) to a wedding.

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Go to the movies on me.

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thSummer blockbusters mean lots of things: excitement, drama, peril, animation, pratfalls, talking animals, jokes about body parts.

They also mean a nice break from reality in a dark and air-conditioned room. In some areas of the country that’s a really welcome respite.

But given that the average cost of a movie ticket is more than $8, movies can put a hurt on the budget.

That’s why this week’s giveaway is a $10 Fandango gift card.

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6 financial lessons from “Godzilla.”

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th-2To be honest, I’d hoped for more from the “Godzilla” reboot. The trailer sure made it look like a big ol’ popcorn romp.

Sure, plenty of stuff happened: buildings stomped flat, nuclear facilities collapsing, trains bitten in half, EMPs causing quarter-slot machines to malfunction.

But despite high production values and a handful of really swell actors (Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn) the film had a marked sense of detachment, as though nothing we were seeing really mattered much.

On the bright side, Linda B. and I saw the film on cheap day ($5.25 all shows) and we paid with discounted gift cards, which brought the cost down further. Not that it matters: I’m taking the price of the ticket as a business expense  because – as usual – I  found money lessons in the film.

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The prom bubble has burst. Sort of.

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thAccording to a Visa survey of 4,000 people, families will be spending 14 percent less on the prom this year.

“I think people are realizing that prom is a dance, and you don’t have to spend like a celebrity to have a great time,” says Nat Sillin, head of U.S. financial education for Visa.

While I’m glad to hear spending is down, I’m still a little startled by the average price tag: $978.

Regionally speaking, the West Coast region pays the most and the Midwest the least (although more than last year). The Northeast registered a 27 percent spending drop since last year and the South 23 percent.

Here’s how that shakes down per family, per region:

  • Western, $1,125
  • Northeastern, $1,104
  • Southern, $926
  • Midwestern, $835

Doesn’t that sound like an awful lot of money for a high-school dance?

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Tight belts, Capt. America and a Swagbucks promo.

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thI’ve got two new pieces up at Money Talks News, one of which is serious and one of which has comic-book references. Both can help you marshal your finances.

“How to survive when your income drastically drops” is an article some people would just as soon not read. After all, who wants to think about hours cutbacks or having a spouse lose a job?

But stuff happens whether you want to think about it or not. Put another way: You have the option of a little prep work now or a lot of regret later on.

“8 personal finance tips from ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’” is another of my “PF is where you find it” pieces. Having done money-advice pieces based on “Parsifal,” “Gotterdammerung” and “True Grit,” I figured it was time to take on the latest in the Marvel franchise.

“The Winter Soldier” was great fun, by the way – as much political thriller as straight-up action flick. In fact, at least one reviewer warned fans of the first film that the sophomore effort contained less action.

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The opposite of obligation.

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imagesEver seen the Pixar film “Up”? In the how-Carl-and-Ellie-met montage is a moment when the two of them sit side by side, reading and holding hands.

That was DF and me on Sunday, reading and hand-holding in adjoining easy chairs. For him it was “Mozart in the Jungle” and for me it was one of the “Anne of Green Gables” books. (I’d never read the series as a kid and recently I found several titles in the recycle bin.)

It was so nice to see DF rooted for a while. Usually he’s in constant motion: cooking, working in the yard or garden, hanging out laundry, tidying up. Even when he sits still he’s often working: paying bills, balancing his checkbook, dealing with his father’s estate. Yet there he was, reading a non-work-related book and smiling.

And me? The day before I’d written a post for Surviving and Thriving and finished my Monday post for MSN Money. Thus I felt temporarily free to follow the adventures of Anne Shirley, even though unread personal finance books are currently stacked eyebrow-high on the desk.

For the first time in who knows when, we were observing a Sabbath. I don’t mean that in a strictly religious sense, but as a day of rest. A chance to recharge. A dozen hours of peace. The opposite of obligation.

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Want to see the summer blockbusters? I can help.

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thLast night I hit the midnight movie with my friend Linda B., who agrees with me that there’s no sense seeing “Iron Man 3” during the day when we’re well-rested.

There’s just something fun about being there at 12:01 a.m. the day it opens, especially for a popcorner like this one.

I hope to see a lot of other movies this year, with Linda or with my niece and her boys. Maybe you want to go to the movies, too, but are horripilated by the price of the tickets.

I can help: This week I’m giving away two $15 gift cards to Regal Cinemas.

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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Free Comic Book Day.

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STK525975Late yesterday afternoon the UPS left leaving an envelope whose contents — “Superman: Last Son of Krypton” and “Beware the Batman” — sent me rocketing back to my childhood.

They’re two of the books to be given away tomorrow for Free Comic Book Day 2013. Every first Saturday in May the comics industry gives away millions of titles for free at comic shops across the country.

Some 4.6 million comics will be handed across counters this year, which is a 30% increase over 2012.

Comics have moved beyond the POW! ZAP! these days. SpongeBob Squarepants has his own comic series. So does “Sesame Street.” The wildly popular series “The Walking Dead” began as a comic book, although purists would probably call it a graphic novel.

The free-comic lineup is quite the mixed bag: books based on the usual superheroes like Superman, Batman and The Hulk, plus titles whose heroes range from Judge Dredd to MegaMan to the children’s book character Pippi Longstocking. (Go here for a full list of offerings.)

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Yammering through jazz night.

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thThe other night we went to hear a local jazz quartet. Or, rather, tried to hear them, being bracketed on either side by people who decided to talk during the music.

To my left were a couple of women who looked barely old enough to drink. They yammered for long, squealy stretches about jobs and friends, and the photos on their smartphones, and the Facebook updates they were posting.

To DF’s right were two women whose voices were audible but whose words I couldn’t quite make out. Thankfully, they left toward the end of the first set; at that point DF told me they’d spoken in detail about how best to avoid the locals during bike trips to other countries.

You go all the way to Guatemala or Sierra Leone and you want to AVOID the locals? I thought. Why did you even go? And why are you HERE when you obviously don’t care about the music?

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