Poor, poor (but not pitiful) me.

(Happy Throwback Thursday! This piece originally ran on July 21, 2015. Right now seemed like a good time to remind ourselves that a lot of the things we think are necessities really aren’t.)

The response to my early-June reboot of “Surviving (and thriving) on $12,000 a year” was humbling. It was great to see reader comments about the impact this piece had on their lives.

When the post originally ran (January 2007) it got more response than anything else MSN Money published that year. The editor immediately said, “Write another one.” So I did.

The headline I chose was the one you see above; it got changed to “Living ‘poor’ and loving it.” (I refrain from comment.)

I’ve decided to re-boot the second piece as well, again in its original format vs. the MSN-edited version. Once again, asterisks indicate that updates can be found at the end.

Comedian Dick Gregory grew hungry and cold in an impoverished home. Yet his mother always assured the kids, “We ain’t poor, we’re just broke.”

 

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If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?

money © by 401(K) 2012

(Happy Throwback Thursday, everyone! This article originally ran on Oct. 25, 2012. Its sentiments are as valid to me today as they were back then. The comments section is pretty lively, too.)

My daughter didn’t want to start a pissing match when she responded to a post called “There is no monopoly on being rich.” She knew it was a possibility, however, and turns out she was right.

The site’s author, Sam, responded with an oblivious chirp of a comment that stated, among other things, “I have set backs [sic] and disabilities too, but I’ve decided to always look on the bright side. Why does something optimistic on my blog insult and aggravate you? If this short and sweet post makes you angry, then I fear your life is going to be even more difficult than normal.”

And one reader growled, “Who would want to hang out with someone like you? No wonder why you are having such trouble! … Why not create a blog as big as (Sam’s) and generate online income, that way, you wouldn’t feel as financially constraint. [sic] I’m sure it takes a lot of work, but if Sam and what looks like many others can do it, why can’t you? Finger cramping?”

So Abby wrote a piece for her own site called “Flame war, party of two!” It asks readers to weigh in on her comment, which says there kind of is a monopoly on being rich.

 

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Cards and consequences.

th-1(I’ve decided to re-publish articles now and again in honor of what the kids call Throwback Thursday. Enjoy.)

On Tuesday I participated in a TweetChat sponsored by Ally Bank, on the topic of “teaching kids the value of money.” One of the responses from another participant frankly startled me.

The question: “When is the right time to talk to your children about credit card debt?”

The answer: “I’d say when they have their own card (and a real sense of consequences), most likely as a freshman in college.”

After picking my jaw up off the kitchen table, I sent out this response: “Waiting till they have their own card is like waiting til daughter gets pregnant to say, “Don’t misuse that thing, y’hear?”

 

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Termination dust.

Termination dust.Today dawned a typical September day: gray and foreboding. The sky was the color of a galvanized trashcan and the air tinged with a chill that whispered of summer’s end.

When the clouds lifted a bit I saw termination dust sprinkled on the Chugach Mountains. That’s the local parlance for the season’s first snow. The tail-end of the tourist trade clucks and points, taking numerous pictures of the shining whiteness while buttoning coats up to their chins.

Residents pretend they don’t care, but it can drive a little shiver into your day. Sure, the snow is still way up there. But we know it’ll make its way down to the flats fairly soon.

Even DF, who’s pretty cheerful about everything and a skier to boot, gets a little glum at the prospect. In fact, he sings about it (to the tune of Chopin’s Funeral March): 

Woke up this morning, looked out the door and cussed:

There on the mountains — behold! the whitish crust.

Termination dust. Summer is a bust.

Hate facing winter again, and yet I must.

That made me laugh. I needed to laugh: Termination dust showed up on the very day that I got terminated.

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Herding trolls.

thYesterday was a Suzy Homemaker* day for me: I made deviled eggs, a batch of soft oat rolls and some oatmeal cookies, then invited my niece and her kids over for a round of Café Awesome. After that we went out to glean feral raspberries.

During the day I also put up the first of those Swagbucks “Five for Five” promotional posts and wrote and scheduled the other four. I arranged for a couple of interviews, did some research for next week’s articles, rounded up and washed jam jars, and made a huge batch of raspberry-rhubarb jam.

(Note to self: Nine cups of rhubarb means lots of chopping. Find an easier recipe.)

However, I also made the mistake of visiting the comments section of “How to make a quick $50,” that day’s MSN Money post. Suffice it to say that the process sucked far too much time out of my day.

DF sympathized when he got home: “Herding trolls again?

 

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Giveaway: “Deal With Your Debt.”

thOn Tuesday I participated in a Tweetchat sponsored by FT Press, an imprint of Pearson and publisher of books by my MSN Money colleague Liz Weston. If you missed the event, at least some of the Tweets can be found in the publisher’s Tweetchat room. A spokeswoman for the company says a .pdf summary of the questions and discussion is in the works.

To promote the chat, FT Press gave out a few copies of “Deal With Your Debt” to random questioners. (Did any of you win? Tell us!) Now it’s my turn to hand out the revised and updated version of this book, which I can happily say is written for people in the real world.

Just check the description: “Award-winning personal finance expert Liz Weston reveals why it’s simply impractical to ‘just pay off every dime’ and ‘live forever debt free’ — and why trying to do so can actually make you poorer. It’s smarter to control and manage your debt, and Weston shows you how.”

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Meet my new boss (same as my old boss).

thAs I hinted in “Thanks a million,” changes are afoot in the way I do business at MSN Money. Specifically: Frugal Nation is no more. Instead, I’ll be writing three times a week (not five!) at MSN Money Smart Spending. [Edited to add: In September 2013 Microsoft fired all its writers on the same day and went to a partner content setup.]

Relieved? Yes. But sad, too.

After all, Frugal Nation was my baby alone: For more than a year I posted five times a week, offering “save money today” advice and also bigger-picture articles about money and how we use it, abuse it and sometimes deify it.

 

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Beware false economies.

th-1While preparing to write “Craziest ways to save a buck,” today’s post over at my day job, I was by turns amused and a little disturbed by what young people consider “crazy” frugality.

The post was based on a contest offered by DoSomething.org. Students 25 and under are invited to send in their wildest money-saving tips. The prize is a $4,000 scholarship, so send any students you know over there to enter.

But is getting books and CDs from the library now considered nutty behavior? What about locking up a debit card, using coupons, carrying a water bottle, eating leftovers or doing laundry at a relative’s house – any of those sound wacky to you?

Worse than that, though, were the false economies. For example, more than a few students said they brought home condiment packets and napkins from restaurants to save money. But if you’re broke, what are you doing in restaurants? How much did you spend in order to get a few cents’ worth of free taco sauce?

Or how about some of these:

 

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13 ways to prepare for income reduction.

budget © by 401(K) 2012

A reader suggested an article on preparing for income reduction. Not layoff or job loss, but rather a partial loss of expected funds – salary reduction, an end to child support and the like.

“Where you still have a job, but really need to evaluate the ‘new budget’,” she says.

I’ve written on this subject before, calling it the “financial fire drill.” You figure out how little you can get away with spending – and you do it with an attitude of calm preparation, not fear of deprivation.

This baker’s dozen of tips will get you started.

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How you gonna keep ’em down on the content farm?

Recently a commenter left this message:

“Donna, is it possible for you to write more thoughtful posts instead? All you are doing is writing simple posts on ways to try to make you money and giveaways.

“That’s nice and all, but the writing quality is really low. There’s not much insight or value added.”

My first response was, “Feel free to skip the stuff that doesn’t work for you.”

OK, that’s a lie. My first, visceral response was, “Feel free to kiss my ass! Even when I’m doing a quick-and-dirty piece the writing quality is higher than you’ll find just about anywhere else on the Internet.”***

My second response? She’s right. And I know it. Not about the low-quality part, but about the fact that I haven’t been doing enough substantive writing lately. That’s because the work-life balance continues to elude me.

Specifically: How do you balance work and life once you’ve gotten a glimpse of what life could be like if it didn’t have so much work in it?

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