I just spent a few days in Chicago at the SaveUp 2010 conference, sponsored by Savings.com. All of us DealPros shared tips on holiday shopping and celebrations.
I took notes.
family
Think you’re broke? You probably aren’t.
Recently I linked to Laura Rowley’s excellent column, “Why the rich don’t feel rich,” in which she wrote about University of Chicago law professor Todd Henderson’s struggle to survive on a combined family income of more than $250,000. The column was a stark contrast to something that happened while I was in New Jersey last month.
I frequently stopped by to see my Aunt Dot, who’s 87 and very frail due to several medical issues. She and her son live on Social Security and disability plus her small pension. One evening I discovered that they had exactly one dollar in the house. Her check was due the next day and she planned to walk to the bank to cash it.
The bank is at least a mile from where Dot lives. And did I mention that she’s on oxygen?
Is the TV-free life for you?
That’s the question I ask in my current Living With Less column over at MSN Money. “Can your life be richer without TV?” refers to wealth both actual and abstract.
Non-watchers told me they save money (sometimes a lot of money) on cable costs and tend to spend less (sometimes a lot less) because they and their kids aren’t bombarded with ads and product placement. They find their lives are richer in other ways, too.
And they get more sleep.
Unemployed? Market yourself as a ‘caretaker.’
My extended family has loads of skill sets and garages full of equipment. They’re either professional electricians, plumbers, carpenters or mechanics or else they know enough about it not to wind up in the ER.
They’ll drywall or paint or landscape or bring over their log-splitters. They’ll help you wrestle a heating oil storage tank into place, or wire a surround-sound system for your man-cave. They’ll cut down a tree or spread bark mulch or dig a hole right where you want it.
It’s a loose system of favor-trading. You need something, you ask. The guy or gal who can do it will eventually ask for something in return. Nobody keeps score. It all evens out – and even if it isn’t strictly “fair,” everyone is pretty happy with the arrangement.
I miss that kind of networking. Then again, I’m the one who moved away. It’s my own fault if I have to hire someone to do the kind of thing cousin Denny would have traded for.
Where did Wednesday go?
Yesterday I didn’t post at all, and it felt odd. Much of the day was taken up with deadlines: my Living With Less column for MSN Money and a guest post for Get Rich Slowly. I took a two-mile walk. I spent some time with my aunt. I scanned a ton of family photos at Walgreens, and had a plate of ravioli at a pizzeria while I waited for the prints to be ready.
Those photos, particularly the ones of my mother, are generating a lot of melancholy. It’s going to take some time for the emotions to shake down. When they do, I’ll be writing about what I’ve learned – and what I hope to continue to learn – from looking back.
If life is the currency, I’m already rich.
J. Money has started a “Million Dollar Club” at his site, Budgets Are Sexy. Nicoleandmaggie from Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured isn’t rushing to join.
(I’m not really sure which of the two bloggers wrote this, so I’m going to guess that it was Nicole. I have a 50% chance of being right.)
Nicole and her spouse are making some smart choices, such as paying the mortgage off early, being canny about retirement funds and living on less than one salary. In this post she noted that throwing every extra dime and spare minute toward millionaire-hood would get them there faster.
But.
Sour flies, greenheads, ticks: Bug-eyed in South Jersey
There is a cricket in my dad’s house. Upstairs. I sleep upstairs. I had planned to sleep peacefully upstairs, but three or four times per night the critter tunes up: Eek-eek-eek.
My eyes fly open and my heart starts pounding. The noise isn’t scary, just unfamiliar – and unfamiliar sounds trigger the hyperarousal has been my companion ever since my daughter’s illness. It’s the one part of post-traumatic stress disorder that I haven’t been able to shake.
I’ll calm myself down, finally doze off and it happens again. Eek-eek-eek. My dad’s home has a nice big downstairs and a huge basement, but naturally Cri-Cri just had to choose the penthouse.
I’ve got nothing against crickets – outside.
Deplaned.
It’s a little after 1 a.m. and I’m writing from my dad’s place in South Jersey. Already sweating, and boy, are those crickets loud. You forget.
Had to rewrite a paragraph for the next “Living With Less” column — didn’t want the editor to have to wait until tomorrow — so as long as I was up I thought I’d let people know what gives here in the land of tomatoes and prisons.
For starters, I had an excellent experience flying on United Airlines. Not a single flight attendant cursed or leaped out of the plane, beer in hand.
A sad journey.
Less than two weeks after getting back from Alaska I learned that my Aunt Bea has an advanced, inoperable cancer. I’d planned to go to New Jersey to see my dad in the middle of September. After thinking this over for a few hours, I decided to move up the trip by a month.
The day after tomorrow I’ll be on a plane to Philadelphia. About an hour from there is my home town, Fairton, known mostly for truck farming but more recently for prisons — two have been built there since I left. I’ll visit with Bea and also with her sister, my Aunt Dot, whose deathbed I raced to in early April. Well, Dot made liars out of the doctors yet again.
Sure, I could wait until next month. But I’d rather go for a visit than a funeral, so I have been making arrangements:
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.