What do we want to be? A few thoughts on labor.

(In honor of Labor Day, I decided re-run this post from Sept. 5, 2010.)

When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to earn money. Penny candy was only part of the reason. Working was a sign of being grown-up. I’d already figured out that being a kid was for losers. Adulthood was where it was at.

That’s why in elementary school I would pick and sell flowers and strawberries. It’s why I rejoiced when it snowed — the local doctor would pay a dollar to have his steps and sidewalk shoveled. It’s why I started baby-sitting at age 11, when I was hardly older than some of my charges.

It’s the only possible reason I could have enjoyed my first “real” job, at age 13: Picking tomatoes in a greenhouse that felt like an incinerator. It was a half-hour bike ride away, through temperature and humidity that raced each other into the high 90s. The plants were taller than I was and their leaves brushed me on all sides. I came home slimed with sap; the shampoo bubbled green when I washed my hair.

But oh, the joy of making $1.35 an hour.

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How frugalists rock Earth Day.

(Happy Throwback Monday! It would have been Throwback Thursday per usual had Earth Day been responsible enough to occur on a Thursday. This post originally ran on Earth Day 2023, which was April 19.)

Everywhere I looked online this morning were reminders of Earth Day 2023. My initial reaction was to remember my high-school Ecology Club. That’s when I believed, truly believed, that we’d have this all figured out pretty soon.

Boy, was I young.

That thought was followed by this one: Frugalists are eco-warriors.

Because we are. We really are! Although our goal is to be good stewards of our finances, we wind up being good stewards of the Earth. The steps we take to save money help us ameliorate our impact on the environment.

Here are seven ways we do that. Note: These aren’t universal. Few people likely do all these things or even most of them, but I know that my regular readers do at least some of them.

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Do we need a little less Christmas?

santa-claus-for-christmas_w128(Happy Throwback Tuesday! It should be “Throwback Thursday,” but I’m in charge here. This Christmas article originally ran on Dec. 27, 2012, and I believe its message is still relevant. In these inflationary times, it might be more relevant than ever.)

A reader responded to “I’m dreaming of a stripped-down Christmas” with a description of her 7-year-old’s Yuletide experience:

“There are so many gifts from extended family, it actually stresses him out to open them – usually there’s a good one in the first two or three and he wants to stop and play with it, not have it taken away and have to open 10 more things.

“It looks like ingratitude, and that’s a little of it – we’re lucky to already have everything we need and most of what we want, so he’s not that into new stuff – but it’s mostly sheer overwhelm at being the center of attention and having so many people around and then having to switch focus every moment.”

I saw a bit of that myself on Tuesday as I watched a young child open a massive pile of presents. He was a little stressed and cranky by the time he was through. In fact, he had to be coaxed into opening the last few packages.

When my oldest great-nephew was a toddler he was well-nigh buried in loot on Christmas morning. At one point he was nearly in tears, saying “No more!”

No more. Would that have happened when you were small?

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Catching up for Mother’s Day.

It’s been a minute. A lot of minutes. Life keeps getting away from me. Days go by and I don’t post on this site, then I get anxious because I haven’t posted for a while. And then the anxiety prevents me from thinking of anything to write.

“Tomorrow,” I promise myself.

Riiiight.

Another dilemma: What to write? Sometimes I think I should post only about personal finance in general and frugality in particular. This is true even though my personal writing topics tend to get more reaction and feedback. Then again, sometimes money and frugality are extremely personal topics. 

I’ve been doing this since May 2010, and while I don’t want to give it up, I do want to feel less pressured to write. Interesting how the only person putting pressure on me is me.

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Meet a reader: RoInRocketCity.

This is the third in my “Meet a reader” series and as with the first two, I’ve had the chance to meet with Ro in real life.

That happened at the 2016 Financial Blogger Conference in San Diego, where Ro was living at the time. We had a too-brief meetup, and I’m afraid I was a bit distracted because my daughter, who was also attending, was sick. (Those waxing-and-waning symptoms turned out to be sepsis. Yikes.)

Even so, it’s always fun to meet someone who’s been commenting on your stuff – especially since Ro has been a commenter since my MSN Money days. She always had (and has) thoughtful things to say.

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This isn’t your grandparents’ recession.

Image by Ingrid Felix Victoria from Pixabay

(Happy Throwback Thursday! Given recent inflation rates, and some pundits’ responses to the very real struggles that some people face, I thought this post needed re-saying. It first ran on April 25, 2011; a version of the piece, written by me, originally appeared on MSN Money’s Smart Spending blog.)

When the going gets tough, it’s tempting to invoke our grandparents and their tribulations during the Great Depression.

I’m about to commit cultural heresy: A lot of their advice wouldn’t help us.

My paternal grandparents, who were 17 and 18 when they married in 1935 and had a baby the next year, knew an awful lot about living on an awful little. They’d make most of us modern frugalists look like Rockefellers.

But allow me to point out an irritating fact: The world was different then. When you look at our grandparents’ lives in context, you’ll see that it was easier to manage on relatively little. Not more comfortable, or more fun – just easier.

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Nope, I haven’t retired.

It’s been way too long since I’ve published anything here, but that doesn’t mean I’ve retired from blogging. Blame a mix of deadlines and personal stuff, plus the need to enjoy the last days of summer; even though it’s been raining almost nonstop, I still love these days of near-nonstop light.

I’m also getting ready to go to the Financial Blogger Conference, which is in Orlando* this year. Hearing all the horror stories about flight delays or outright cancellations, I’m hoping for the best. But I am also planning to observe the mantra of the stranded seal hunter: Go with the floe.

Taken together, this has meant an undeclared sabbatical. I don’t want anyone to think I’ve given up on this site, because I haven’t retired either from it or from writing for a living. It’s just that other things get in the way of my wanting to post here regularly.

That whole work-life balance thing: If I could figure it out, I’d become a millionaire teaching other people how to do it. But I haven’t. And as far as I can tell, few people have.

That’s because we want to do it all – at least in theory.

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Giving Cards: Want $20 to share?

The other day I was offered a great opportunity to share with readers: the chance to do something wonderful on someone else’s dime. Giving Cards, a movement designed to inspire thoughtful giving, will gift five readers each a $20 prepaid Visa card and a specific mission: “Think ‘big’ with ‘small’.” You might think $20 isn’t … Read more

Meet a reader: Cheryl from Florida.

Recently I announced my intention to borrow a strategy from The Frugal Girl, who posts a regular feature called “Meet a Reader.” This seemed like a natural fit for my site, since (a) I like talking with readers and (b) you guys are always talking to one another in the comments.

(Love it when that happens, by the way. And long may it continue!)

So I asked who might be interested in participating* in this feature, and was delighted that a dozen people either volunteered, or suggested a reader they hoped I’d interview. In addition, I made my own list (there was some overlap).

Random number generator decided that Cheryl would be first. Some of you may remember her from a previous piece I wrote, “Cheryl paid off her mortgage.” I was fortunate to meet her in person when visiting my dad, and figured a phone conversation would be as stimulating as the one the three of us had in person at a Dunkin Donuts in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

It was.

Here, edited a bit for brevity and clarity, is how it all shook down.

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Thanks, Dad, for useful life skills.

(Note: A version of this article was published in MSN Money’s Smart Spending blog in 2009. I am re-running it for Throwback Thursday, because tomorrow is the first anniversary of his death from COVID-19.)

Years ago my dad had two teaching jobs: elementary school all day, and an evening gig with adolescents deemed too unruly for regular high school. One evening, a student flipped a penny at him. Dad picked it up and put it in his pocket. The teens laughed, and another one flipped a penny. Then another one.

When my father had 12 cents in his pocket, he said, “Guys, I want to thank you. All I need is 38 more of these and I’m going over to the Fairfield and have a draft beer – on you.”

He could see the horror in their faces: Man, I’m not gonna buy the TEACHER a beer! Not another penny was flung.

That was an example of what he would call a “useful life skill”: realizing that sometimes nontraditional tactics are needed to solve nontraditional situations.

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