modern life

Monday miscellany: Gig-worker taxes edition.

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Instacart, Uber, Amazon Flex, DoorDash – these and other gig-worker jobs were a nice side hustle for many people. Since the pandemic began, they’ve helped some laid-off workers keep the wolf from the door. When you spend all your time putting out that day’s fires, you might not have stopped to think how gig-worker income … Read more

Found money in 2020.

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This was not a good year for found money. In the last 12 months or so I picked up just $5.88.

Frankly I’m surprised I found more than a buck all year, given that I (and everyone else) stayed home a lot during the pandemic.

In addition, my gut feeling is that COVID-caused unemployment/fear of unemployment might also have made people clutch their coins a little tighter. It might even have made some folks  stoop to pick up that dime they dropped at the cash register.

Or the dime that someone else dropped. Maybe more money was out there all year, but other people found it before I could.

That’s fine with me. I don’t technically need this found money, being one of the lucky ones whose job did not fade away in part or in full in 2020. The reason I pick up cast-off coins all year long is that I donate them.

As always, I’ll round up the donation. This year it’s going up to $30, which is what I sent to the Food Bank of Alaska yesterday after a Facebook friend asked everyone to donate to FBA if they could. Doing this reminded me that I hadn’t counted my found money yet this year.

Now I have. Here’s the total:

 

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COVID fashion: Puttin’ on your grubs.

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When I got home from a dental appointment recently, I told DF that I couldn’t wait to put my grubs back on. They’re what I also call my freelancer’s three-piece suit: sweatpants, T-shirt and bathrobe. In other words, I was COVID fashion before COVID fashion was cool.

Sure, some people still dress up to work at home. (Although some dress up only from the waist up: Business upstairs, sweatpants party below.) My guess is that a lot fewer have been doing this as the pandemic stretched on and on.

And speaking of stretch: COVID has also given us “the quarantine 15,” as people exercised less and ate their feelings more. Stretchy waistbands are a crucial part of COVID fashion.

I’ve been seeing a lot of “athleisure,” “leisure wear” and “comfortable WFH clothes” ads. Again, I’ve been dressing like this since I went freelance full-time, way back in 2002. My grubs are not just comfortable, they’re frugal: no more spending money on shirts with buttons, pants with zippers or, heaven forfend, pantyhose.

Instead, I wear my grubs. Damn right they’re comfy.

Within half an hour of my arrival that day, DF handed me a few verses of a song parody: “Puttin’ on your grubs,” to the tune of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

Can’t help lovin’ that man.

I tinkered the verses a bit, making this our first satirical collaboration.

Before I share the words, I will share a bit of backstory. Like “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the song “Puttin’ on the Ritz” has an introductory verse that uses a different tune than the following verses. Listen to the following video clip as Fred Astaire sings that first verse: 

 

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Monday miscellany: Frugal February edition.

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Longtime readers know that I consider all months to be frugal. But since at least 2012 some folks have observed Frugal February, for one (or both) of the following reasons: Holiday bills have hit with a vengeance. Doing something for 28 days sounds lots easier than doing it for 31. Whatever the reason, Frugal February … Read more

Frugal stimulus spending.

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My fiscal stimulus* check got deposited a day earlier than the projected Jan. 4 date. Thus far I have used some of the money to:

Award $25 each to my great-nephew and great-niece, asking them to go forth and support the local economy.

Donate $25 to a GoFundMe for a Fairbanks woman in a tough situation.

Give $50 to the Food Bank of Alaska.

Buy $300 worth of gift cards at a small local restaurant. The young cashier was startled when I asked. “How much?” she said, and when I confirmed the figure she ran to get her boss. The supervisor thanked me several times and when I told him I’d done the same thing with the previous stimulus he said, “You’re helping us keep the lights on.”

Not sure where the rest of the money will go. But it will definitely go, i.e., it will definitely be spent. This is despite the advice I keep hearing to “invest it” or “save it.” Back in 2008 I resisted spending the fiscal stimulus, because I was anxious to rebuild savings depleted during my protracted divorce.

But that’s not what this money is intended to do. The idea is to give struggling businesses (local or national) a bit of a goose.

To be clear: I understand why some people would much rather build their own savings, or give the landlord a bit against the back rent, or pay down their credit card debt. I was there myself. But now I want to play some small part in helping others.

Some of you probably want the same. And I’d like to point out that it doesn’t all have to be bonbons and pretty shoes. You could also opt for frugal stimulus spending. That is, spending with an eye toward getting not just the most bang for your buck but also the most value from the result.

 

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Monday miscellany: Sleazy scammer edition.

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Lost your job due to the pandemic or looking for a side hustle through a work-at-home job? Be careful where you click. The increase in work-at-home jobs is a perfect fit for an Internet scammer, reports Kathy Kristof on the SideHusl blog.

“Crooks hide in the crowd, making their offers appear so similar to real ones that it’s hard to tell the difference,” says Kristof.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, job scams have cost U.S. residents at least $150 million in the first nine months of 2020. I say “at least” because who knows how many people who were victimized bothered to file an FTC complaint, or who didn’t know they could?

Here’s what the thieves want:

  • Personal information, such as a Social Security number
  • Passwords to accounts
  • Access to your computer (for example, the crook might send you a link to fill out an application – but it’s a spoofed site that will infect your computer with malware)
  • For you to cash a personal check or write them a personal check

To be clear: There are loads of legitimate work-at-home jobs out there. But you need to be cautious about any offer, even if you think it’s legit. Kristof’s article can help.

In addition, the Internal Revenue Service reports a new text scam: Messages saying, “You have received a direct deposit of $1,200 from COVID-19 TREAS FUND. Further action is required to accept this payment into your account. Continue here to accept this payment …” 

 

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Monday miscellany: Disastrous beginner mistake edition.

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The delightful but definitely NSFW (in a good way!) personal finance blog Bitches Get Riches has tackled a topic that needs a perennial takedown: what to do with retirement funds. “PLEASE tell me you’re not making this disastrous beginner mistake with your retirement funds” is an essential read if you’re just starting out, but also … Read more

Extreme frugality: Holiday attitude edition.

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(This is another in an occasional series of articles focusing on saving serious dough. A little background can be read here.)

Part of me thinks it’s a bit late to bring up the holidays, since some people have already finished their shopping and have their decorating plans well underway.

Then again, I expect lots of people have barely begun, because 2020 has sucked as relentlessly as gravity. Heck, April lasted something like 22 weeks and the pre- and post-election antics have left my head spinning. How about yours?

Money is a bigger-than-usual issue this year. #ThanksCOVID Layoffs, work slowdowns and dismal business returns have left some people frankly terrified. Should they spend on gifts and tinsel when they’re worried about being able to make the rent next month?

Spoiler alert: Some do. CreditCards.com surveyed 2,369 U.S. residents and almost half were willing to acquire debt (or sink deeper into it) to prepare for Dec. 25.

Here’s another sign of the times. Recently the Buy Nothing Facebook group to which I belong split into three smaller groups. One former member reports that her new group has very few giveaways but is replete with requests – many of them for food.

That led me to wonder how many of those Buy Nothing giveaway items are going to constitute a big part of Christmas for some households, both in that group and in my own. Certainly I’ve seen responses like, “This would be a great Christmas gift for my son” or “We’d love to get those decorations because we don’t have any and it’s been a tough year.”

So maybe it’s not too late for me to write about this topic. Maybe it’s the perfect time. 

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“I can’t afford to retire.”

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One day last week I was trotting around a big-box store, using the Shopkick* app. I hadn’t planned to buy anything; I was there simply to rack up hundreds of points by scanning universal product codes with my phone.

Out of habit, I checked the clearance rack and saw a slightly dented can of tomato soup for 55 cents. Since winter is coming and I loves me a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup, I grabbed it.

The last Shopkick scans were right outside the store’s beauty section, which has its own cash register. Rather than go to the front of the store and stand in line, I asked if I could pay there.

The cashier wore one of those clear face shields to protect against the virus. She looked tired, pale and a bit stooped. As she scanned my order she said, “It’s my 73rd birthday today.”

I wished her a happy birthday and she smiled just a bit. Then I remarked that I was on my way over to visit a retired friend in her 70s, and would now tell her to get off her lazy behind and get a job.

The woman smiled again, a touch wistfully. “I can’t afford to retire.”

Boy, did I feel like a horse’s patoot. Here she was, obviously fatigued and having to stand for her entire shift, and there I was, making a clumsy joke about working in one’s 70s.

I took a closer look and she seemed older than 73. DF’s mom is 20 years older than that, but doesn’t seem“old.” Sure, she has a lot of wrinkles and is increasingly frail – 93 years will do that to a person – but she still takes both a daily walk and a lively interest in the world. Heck, she gives her great-granddaughter art lessons every week.

The cashier, on the other hand, seemed beaten-down by life. Perhaps she’d had bad luck: illness, job loss, a divorce that didn’t come out in her favor. Possibly she’d earned very little during her lifetime due to social pressures to stay home with a family and/or social mores that didn’t encourage women to seek highly skilled (or highly paid) employment. Could be she’d made bad money decisions due to a lack of financial education.

Whatever happened has left her where she is: weary, and working because she has no choice. Which is why I wanted to share her story with you. The moral of that story is simple:

 

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