values

What will love cost you?

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Cupid wears a diaper, with no place to put a wallet – but if you’re looking for love there better be pockets on your garments. Deep ones: U.S. residents spent $928 million last year just on dating services.

Love is not only grand, but fiscally prudent. Cohabitation and marriage generally mean two incomes but only one rent/mortgage, fewer nights out on the town, less emphasis on recreational shopping and more focus on shared financial goals.

“There is a real benefit – I call it a financial inoculation against poverty – in being coupled up. You’re better able to withstand tough times,” says Carmen Wong Ulrich, author of “The Real Cost of Living: Making the Best Choices for You, Your Life and Your Money.”

Oh, but the cost of getting to couplehood. Prices for makeup, “manscaping,” marriage vows and mortgages really add up.

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The crap that crowds us.

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I’ve been on a major de-cluttering kick in preparation for “Superfluity,” my church’s annual rummage sale. The idea is to strip your life of superfluous stuff. You get cleaner digs and the church raises cash for its various social programs.

Although I knew my place was getting crowded, I had no idea just how much superfluity existed around me. As I fill bag after bag I can only say, “Holy crap.”

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The day I saved Heckboy.

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On my way home from the store recently I found nine cents, a My Coke Rewards cap and two ice-cream bars.

About that last: While waiting for the light to change I saw a discarded plastic grocery bag on the ground. As a rule I pick these up for my sister to use when she walks her dog. This bag held one of those Klondike Bar six-packs, with four missing.

The supermarket register receipt indicated they’d been purchased only about 15 minutes earlier, and it was a chilly day. You bet I took them home.

If you feel you must say “eeewww,” go ahead. I’ll wait.

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Selling unwanted gift cards.

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Here’s my feeling about presents: Once they’re yours, you get to use them any way you like. If you want to regift it, donate it to charity, sell it in a yard sale or run over it with a steamroller, that’s your business.

Which is why I sold two of the gift cards I got during the holidays. They morphed from $75 worth of might-not-get-used promissory plastic into $63.79 worth of Amazon.com gift cards.

Some would look at this as an $11.21 loss. Not me. I look at it as being that much closer to the crib I need to buy.

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Why gift cards work.

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My friend and former fellow MSN Money columnist Liz Weston really, really dislikes gift cards. She despairs of a world in which a shopper grabs a dozen plastic rectangles from the supermarket’s “gift card mall” and does a mental butt dance: Woo hoo! I’m all done my holiday shopping!

That image bothers me, too. Gift-giving should not come down to, “How fast can I get this over with?

Yes, I know you’re busy. So are a lot of people. But must generosity be reduced to a time trial?

That said, I think that gift cards can make good presents. It’s the intention that matters.

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Game shows, rescued pennies, bonus Swagbucks and how to have a cheaper Christmas 2011.

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Today’s post is a bit of a grab-bag.

To anyone interested in joining Swagbucks: I might be able to get you 100 extra points. On Saturday evening I took part in an online chat about shopping/rewards sites. Those “attending” were given a code to offer to new referrals in addition to the usual 30-point sign-up bonus.

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My first half-million.

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At some point on Tuesday, Nov. 1, this site achieved a milestone: 500,000 page views. To say I was surprised would be putting it mildly. To say that I’m happy would be stating it precisely. That’s because 18 months ago I wondered not just whether I could sustain a personal website, but whether anyone would care if I did.

If writers are the most insecure people on Earth, bloggers are proof that self-doubt has a sub-basement. Like the 2 a.m. disc jockey a whole lot of us wonder, “Is anyone even listening?”

 

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Heading home, and planning to stay there.

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I’m so tired. Madeline Kahn said it much more melodically as Lili von Schtupp in “Blazing Saddles,” but all I can do is say it outright.

I’d planned to stay in New York City (at a hostel, of course) for several days after SaveUp 2011. But I cut the trip short when I realized that I was dangerously tired.

Can’t-remember-things tired. Bumping-into-stuff tired. Tired past the point where sleep rests me. My brain feels like a glacier: cold and sluggish and with chunks calving off.

Lately I’ve felt unable to do what I consider good work on Surviving and Thriving. It’s taken everything I’ve got just to meet deadlines for the other three sites for which I write.

In fact, some days I feel like crying when I sit down at the computer. Not a good sign.

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