Just a heads-up that my head is stopped up and thus my writing may stop dead, at last for a while. I have the crud that’s going around: a serious, wracking cough, some sinus involvement (but no fever) and extreme weariness.
The cough hits me like a fungo bat between the eyes (yay sinus involvement), and it’s strained my torso muscles so much that it hurts to get out of bed.
I’m acutely aware that my Aunt Elna used to fracture her ribs by coughing too hard. Really, really don’t want to do that.
Bloggers and readers in the Phoenix area: Wanna talk about money, midlife, millennials or ‘most anything else? Hope you can attend a meet-up on Saturday, Feb. 21.
The do will be hosted by me and my daughter, who blogs at I Pick Up Pennies. When I say “hosted,” what I mean is that we’ll be there and we’ll save you some seats.
Regular readers already know about my daughter’s blog, I Pick Up Pennies. They probably also know about her 19th year, when she nearly died from a rare neurological disease.
Since then Abby has gone through a lot of physical and psychological torment. She spent a couple of years on disability due to a lack of jobs that meshed with the residual effects of Guillain-Barre syndrome. (The fact that she found not her “dream” job but the World’s Best Boss is miraculous.) Post-traumatic stress disorder and a mental health issue that’s finally been diagnosed as Bipolar II have made it hard to get through some days.
Her husband lost his job shortly before the wedding, and his own health issues have worsened to the point where he is now on disability. The two of them bought a house before they were really ready (i.e., before they had a big enough down payment) in order to take in his bankrupt parents.
A careless driver hit them and totaled the car that was supposed to have lasted them another four or five years. Home, car and other issues have continued to pop up (almost $17,000 in 2014 alone). In the past few years she has endured five miscarriages and is considering whether or not to try again.
So how’s she handling all this? With an astonishing perspective, if her current blog post is any indication.
I did my first-ever guest post on my daughter’s site, I Pick Up Pennies. Always meant to, just never got around to it until this weekend.
“Want to save money? ‘Chop’ your kitchen” was generated by my fondness for a Food Network program called “Chopped,” which requires chefs to create meals from mystery ingredients. Some of them are delicious and traditional (steak, poultry, seafood) and some are just cruel (durian, goat brains, duck testicles).
Not that I think you should save money by eating fowl balls, mind you. Instead the post suggests that you “chop” your pantry, fridge and freezer, i.e., find ways to use what’s on hand instead of calling out for pizza. The food waste in our country is astonishing. What could eating in more often do for your budgetary bottom line?
Think those leftovers look forlorn? Get creative!
During my recent trip to Austin I continued my habit of picking up stray coins. A penny at the drugstore checkout. Two pennies and a nickel behind a bench at the bus stop. A dime on the airport floor.
No matter where I go, I’m an inveterate coin-grabber. Except maybe Phoenix, Arizona, where picking up a coin in high summer can burn like the dickens. I learned this important safety tip from my daughter, who lives in Phoenix and blogs at…
(wait for it)
I carry an old prescription bottle in my suitcase just for found money, which amounted to 24 cents on this trip. When I got home the coins went into an old pink vase that my daughter once got from the “free” box at a yard sale. My change purse gets emptied into a pink piggy bank that was a Christmas gift from Will Chen at the Wise Bread blog; this money gets wrapped every so often and deposited into savings.
According to a November 2013 survey from Coinstar, the average respondent figured he had a little over $26 in spare change lying around the house. In fact, the average trade-in at a Coinstar kiosk is $56.
A post on my daughter’s website might get under some writers’ skins. Not mine – and not just because she’s my daughter.
“Why I refuse to have a donate button” helped me clarify something that’s been twigging me lately: the proliferation of “please pay me” buttons on personal websites.
Newspapers and other sites are experimenting with paywalls to recoup at least some of the costs associated with professional writing (and, presumably, professional standards). So why not bloggers?
To my daughter, at least, the pay-to-read mentality comes across “as either grandiose (let’s face it, none of us is the NYT) or greedy.”
“Asking readers for money just seems crass,” Abby writes. In part that’s because she associates pay-me buttons with paid content, aka “sponsored posts,” aka “stuff some company pays you to run.” While she acknowledges that not everyone would feel this way, Abby says she’s less likely to return to a blog with a donate button unless “there is a good reason why the person actually needs help.”
To some extent I can see the purpose of a button: It’s like paying for a magazine subscription. Sites that put out great stuff have writers who put great effort into the posts.
Lots of sites don’t.
Is arranging for regular delivery of items you use often – pet supplies, diapers, medical supplies and, yes, TP – a frugal hack?
Usually. Merchants like Amazon, Wag.com, Target and Drugstore.com will cut you a break on the prices and let you set the terms/quantities.
Although a super-couponer can often beat the subscription prices, not everyone’s willing to do that consistently (even with help from a site like CouponMom.com or a grocery app like Favado).
So it’s better to get a pretty good price all the time then a swell deal every so often.
For more on this, see my latest post on Money Talks News. “Does it pay to have diapers, toilet paper, dog food delivered to the door?” explains the ins and outs (and a few other advantages) of subscription services.
Although I’d taken a bit of a break from Money Talks News recently to work on a personal project, I’m now back in the saddle. Here’s what else has run lately:
A couple of weeks ago I found a vintage copy of Elisabeth Bing’s “Six Practical Lessons for an Easier Childbirth” in the mixed-paper bin at the recycling center. It made me smile, and not just because of the awful 1970s hairstyles and maternity clothes. After four pregnancies in a row had stopped developing, my daughter was expecting again and this time a heartbeat was detected.
An omen, I thought.
Except that it wasn’t. At a second appointment on June 5, no heartbeat could be found. This embryo, too, had stopped developing, probably the previous week. Except for a very brief spell of crying as she got dressed, Abby described her reaction as “numb, with a slight underlying sadness.”
After all, she’d been through this four times already. Who wouldn’t want to numb herself?
After four miscarriages, my daughter and her husband have been almost afraid to hope. Recently they found out she was pregnant again, and for the past couple of weeks they’ve been holding their breaths.
Well, she’s also been throwing up. But holding her breath in between.
Earlier today she had another ultrasound. I’ll let her tell it — go read, “Houston, we have a heartbeat!”
I spent part of Mother’s Day running errands, including stopping by a charity yard sale, going to the credit union, doing a little Dumpster wading and buying a few groceries. Mostly it was an excuse to be out and about on yet another perfect day.
We’ve had a run of them lately: sunny, sunny, sunny days with temps reaching as high as 70. In southcentral Alaska in May, that’s petty darned warm. In fact, it set a record, and I’ve got the sunburn to prove it.
So does my great-nephew:
(His mother really does feed him, and you should see how he chows down at Café Awesome. He’s just a beanpole.)
Yes, I know the rest of the world considers that mild. I lived on the East Coast and in the Midwest myself. Just be happy for us that we’re getting marvelous weather.