Please check you logic. Donating or giving away is not the same as trying to recycle a gift, which smells suspiciously like trying to fulfill an obligation with no effort.
When we are children, the delight of a gift is the utility of the item itself; we cannot get want we want otherwise. As adults, the charm of the gift is the consideration involved in obtaining the gift, and the thought that went into the process. Aunt Tilley spent a lot of time knitting those socks. That they don't fit or are of different colours is not the issue. When you see them in your drawer, you smile. This is why the gifts from our children so often delight us.
It is time to understand: the wonder of gifts is not in the receiving, it is in the thought and the search that sometimes, if we are lucky, amazes and fills with joy those whom we love.
"Gift" is sometimes used as a euphemism for advertising items handed out at trade shows and such. These are not gifts, and certainly should be regiven, as soon as possible, to nieces and nephews busily engaged in the business of adventure, for no specific holiday or event. Should they respond with some low utility item of questionable functionality and dubious finish from the week at camp, this is a gift and must be part of your estate.
You may wish to confirm with Miss Manners.
I was fired last spring. On my first day of freedom, I took a walk in a large open space near my house. I looked out over the ponds and streams and paths and realized that I could do anything I wanted to do at that moment. I figured out how to make my severance last a while and decided to explore careers that interested me. I had the luxury of doing some contracting, which has turned into my own little business. I don't answer to an evil boss anymore and I don't deal with toxic customers - they just aren't that important to me and my peace of mind.
People tell me I have their dream job now. I do because I didn't limit myself to only apply to jobs I thought I could get. I thought about what I wanted and made it an adventure. I made sure to check myself whenever I started to feel down or sorry for myself, and realize how lucky I really was for the opportunity.
From my experience the absolute best thing you can teach your young ones is that we live in a world of finite resources. Once they learn that basic premise they will be forced to learn how to value things in their lives, rank order them, and apply resources accordingly.
One of the supreme disservices I see parents commit is when they fail to imbue this premise of reality in their children. Without constraining resources, kids have a tough time understanding value. This becomes a serious problem later in life and decreases their ability to make it in this world on their own.
When it comes down to it the ONLY natural function of a parent is to prepare their offspring to face the world independently. Just look to the animal kingdom to see confirmation of this axiom of nature. Everything else...the love, affection, support, comfort...that's all nice, but tertiary.
The secret to teaching kids the wisdom that comes from simulating reality is to actually limit your child's resources. Put him/her/them on a fixed budget, or allowance. You can tie the allowance to work performed or give it for the sole purpose of teaching resource allocation. I am a fan of the former approach - teaching kids that you must earn the means to obtain your values.
Then...just sit back and wait. Your kids will go about their lives constantly ordering their world in their own way. They will learn that if they blow their allowance on something they don't truly value they have no option but to wait until their next paycheck to get want they really want. They'll also learn the big concept of deferring present consumption in order to obtain future value. I still remember the euphoric feeling of learning about interest and making money on money!
The biggest challenge for some parents is to forego the cheap, fleeting comfort of seeing an instant-gratification smile on their child's face. Be tough and do what is right for them in the long run! Don't give in to your own weakness for the need to satisfy and feel loved...you're only cheating your kids out of the tremendous development possibilities that reality affords!
Being a woman over the age of 50 I have learned to stop being so hard on myself. After seeing Jamie Lee Curtis' transformation in MORE magazine, I decided then and there to keep aging at bay by not having any kind of nip or tuck, instead using more natural, external and more importantly , internal potions and lotions...I feel better and am being told, look younger as well...I am forever grateful to Ms. Curtis, she saved me a lot of "OMG what's happening to my body?!" moments and instead, kicked in my sense of humor about my self image...Thank you Andrea for all you do !
Like Success Professor, we teach them to give 10% away off the top...good habit to get into.
We have a bank with three sections...they give 10%, save 50%, and get the other 40% to spend. Of course, as adults we can't manage to save 50% most of the time, but they're kids and have few expenses, so that's why we do 50%.
six figures is such a joke. come here to manhattan, the average 22 year old fresh out of an ivy league university is making six-figures their first year working in banking or consulting. living in manhattan will change your views about income big time because of all the young people who are making a lot of money. most people wouldn't believe how many people here in their 20s are making half a million or more per year. six figures as in just needing to make over $100K is a joke, you can make that much just working in IT, but odds are you'll live outside Manhattan.
I've been an AMEX Platinum holder for several years now, I also hold a couple of credit cards that I use for certain things depending on their rewards and always pay off all my cards in full each month. No one in my family, including my parents, have EVER paid less than our full balance each month on any credit card/charge card. We treat them as alternatives to cash for which we can get rewards/cash-back as well as multiple layers of purchase protection, etc. My mortgage is my only debt and I easily pay it every month, but I would love the opportunity to put it on my AMEX. It is over $8k per month so that would be around an extra 100,000 points each year I'd get for no extra cost. You mentioned there was a one-time fee of $395 to enroll in the program, I haven't heard of that before for the other mortgage companies that allow payment through AMEX but even if it is the case it would still make sense.
had a 9v, needed AAAs, tried it, it works.
if you do like they say and bend the little metal piece over, they fit just fine.
i haven't tried the 12v yet, but i promise you the 9v hack works.
it's amazing! makes me so happy!
i don't know how long they last but whatever, they're cheap.
Sir:
You are so right! The city is absolutely pathetic. I am usually there 7 days/week even though I live in Chicago and it is getting more and more bizarre. (I work in Gary).
We are heading for a "crack-up." Before wholesale changes are enacted, I am just curious about what happened to the fool before Mayor Clay? Right in the middle of his term, he quit. I wasn't sure if he's the one who took the money...
Great post. I also teach my kids to never borrow against next week's pay check (or allowance), nothing in life is Free..there's always a catch and make sure you add another 10% to everything just as a cushion for unanticipated fees/expenses.
Thanks for the good thoughts. I would start with the following:
1. Give money away first
2. Save money second
3. Always spend less than you make
4. Be entrepreneurial - think about ways to make money.
I'm not fully sure how I became entrepreneurial at such a young age, but I'm very thankful for it. I was selling used golf balls by 8, had a sports card store in my parents basement as a teenager, and always looked for other ways to make money. I would want my children to have this kind of attitude.
Something else I noticed in comparing our old insurance to our new insurance is what specific items or types of care are subject to the deductible and what ones are not.
Our old insurance, everything was subject to the deductible. Our new insurance exempts office calls and lab work from the deductible so those are covered right off the bat. That was a big relief knowing that minor issues might have some coverage right away. I have not checked what else is exempt.
I went into a store, and asked the salesperson if there was a single item in the toy or kids clothing department "made in the US." She asked, in a polite but frosty Bengali accent, why this mattered to me. I explained that I prefered to pay money for good farming practices and good wages, instead of paying mostly for the oil to ship materials around the globe. "I would like to see more Chinese goods made for the Chinese, more Indian goods made for India, and more US goods made for the US market." The frost melted, and I got a HUGE smile. 18 months have passed, gas prices are higher, "cheap" goods are higher, and US-made goods are starting to pop up, from time to time, on the shelves. Some are even geared toward the general market or towards young folks, instead of the 65+ Union Guy In A Pickup who has, for the last 3 decades, been a lonely hold-out in the "buy US, buy Union" struggle.
As to that guy, and the gear made for him: I may think he has boring taste. I may think he picked his stance for self-serving reasons. I may not like it that his musical taste gets about as eclectic as Springsteen. But you know what? He was RIGHT. All these years. He was right, and I was oblivious, and thrilled to be able to afford strange, cool gadgets and trinkets--stuff I didn't need.
We built the county though wages paid for hard labor, by people who mostly bought what they needed, or really cherished. And now we're selling off houses, public buildings and even roads at fire sale prices, and buying landfill-fodder to prove that we had the "thought that counts." Pot up some cuttings, or plant some seeds, already, for a gift that means "I thought of you, and put actual time and sweat into the gift."
Knotweed (like rhubarb and sorrel) had oxalic acid. The sour taste is nice, but as the plant ages, the levels of oxalic acid can become unhealthy. We don't ever eat rhubarb leaf, and people who grew up with rhubarb usually don't eat it very far into summer. If anyone in your family has gout, you might want to be doubly careful. So I'd stick with the young knotweed. The older stuff makes reasonable, fast-decaying mulch that can be used to crowd out...more knotweed.
If you have stands of thick knotweed shoots, they make nice fritters. I peel them, cut them in strips, soak them in a bit of lightly salted water to decrease the bitterness, and then flour them very lightly and fry them. (There's enough sticky plant juice to hold a thin film of flour in place, no egg needed). I often do dandelion flower fritters at about the same time. Those are best with egg dip, and they are a lovely texture and mild, non-bitter flavor. Good with a bit of powdered sugar, or a bit of salt and pepper, or just plain. Unlike the leaves, the diuretic effect isn't too marked (but your... mpg... may vary!). Dandelion wine is an aquired taste, and too much work for me, when the fritters are so nice. Harvest clean, wide open flowers with no stem (the wide green part at the bottom of the flower is fine, in fact, that's the part with the best texture).
The absolute best everyday green (better than spinach, and plentiful) is anything in the fat hen / good king henry (chenipodium) family. image-google it; it's unmistakable stuff, and you can find relatives all over the world. You must cook it briefly, because there is some volatile compound with an unsavory smell, but that leaves in the first 2-3 minutes of cooking. Some varients are reputed to be mildly toxic, but the stuff that grows in PA, VA, MD, WV, NY, etc etc etc is stuff you can feed you family on for years, if need be. Keep pinching shoot tips (any part that's tender) and it will get bushier and bigger, so you can keep eating from it. Let it set some seed as fall nears, so you'll have some handy next year. It is introduced, but not a noxious invasive (i.e. it plays well with native plants, and does not crowd them out).
Garlic mustard pesto is strong stuff, but given garlic mustard's invasive status, I always make some, or at least chop some and toss it in soups or sauces. You can try a variety of strong or soft cheeses and a variety of nuts until you get a personal favorite.
I keep meaning to dig the burdock while it is in its first year, for the root, or in the second year, before flowering, for the stem-base (a bit like cardoon, which is a bit like fancy, bitter, complex artichoke). Instead, I end up yanking it out with burrs on it after the cats come home with burrs in their belly fur. That's another totally overlooked "everywhere veggie."
I have one made from a styrofoam cooler, stuffed with more styrofoam and fabric, towels, to use as insulation. Works great for beans and stews, I decorated the outside with fabric to make it a little more pleasing to the eye. I've also used one of the silvery heat reflecting emergency blankets that you can buy in the camping section. I did put a layer of terrycloth towel over that to protect it from the intense heat of the pot. Works great!
Good to hear! I usually have to remind myself (especially this past week), so I'm glad that I wasn't completely self-serving when I wrote this! Hang in there... (You always do.)
I'm not sure that your lifestyle is frugal. Rather, you have made wise choices. It sounds like you have a similar lifestyle to me and my partner. We don't do without - season tickets to the (amateur community)theatre, drive older but well maintained 3 and 4 cylinder cars for city use, and eat out regularly. Am I boosting? No! What I am saying is that rather then sacrificing, we research and choose the most economical way of doing what we want to do.
Personally, I have to say how much I really NEEDED this today. Most of the time, I'm rolling with things OK, but today I was having a particularly hard time feeling like a trooper.
does anyone know whether 'umbrella' (excess liability coverage) policies can be obtained to cover the excess?
Please check you logic. Donating or giving away is not the same as trying to recycle a gift, which smells suspiciously like trying to fulfill an obligation with no effort.
When we are children, the delight of a gift is the utility of the item itself; we cannot get want we want otherwise. As adults, the charm of the gift is the consideration involved in obtaining the gift, and the thought that went into the process. Aunt Tilley spent a lot of time knitting those socks. That they don't fit or are of different colours is not the issue. When you see them in your drawer, you smile. This is why the gifts from our children so often delight us.
It is time to understand: the wonder of gifts is not in the receiving, it is in the thought and the search that sometimes, if we are lucky, amazes and fills with joy those whom we love.
"Gift" is sometimes used as a euphemism for advertising items handed out at trade shows and such. These are not gifts, and certainly should be regiven, as soon as possible, to nieces and nephews busily engaged in the business of adventure, for no specific holiday or event. Should they respond with some low utility item of questionable functionality and dubious finish from the week at camp, this is a gift and must be part of your estate.
You may wish to confirm with Miss Manners.
I was fired last spring. On my first day of freedom, I took a walk in a large open space near my house. I looked out over the ponds and streams and paths and realized that I could do anything I wanted to do at that moment. I figured out how to make my severance last a while and decided to explore careers that interested me. I had the luxury of doing some contracting, which has turned into my own little business. I don't answer to an evil boss anymore and I don't deal with toxic customers - they just aren't that important to me and my peace of mind.
People tell me I have their dream job now. I do because I didn't limit myself to only apply to jobs I thought I could get. I thought about what I wanted and made it an adventure. I made sure to check myself whenever I started to feel down or sorry for myself, and realize how lucky I really was for the opportunity.
From my experience the absolute best thing you can teach your young ones is that we live in a world of finite resources. Once they learn that basic premise they will be forced to learn how to value things in their lives, rank order them, and apply resources accordingly.
One of the supreme disservices I see parents commit is when they fail to imbue this premise of reality in their children. Without constraining resources, kids have a tough time understanding value. This becomes a serious problem later in life and decreases their ability to make it in this world on their own.
When it comes down to it the ONLY natural function of a parent is to prepare their offspring to face the world independently. Just look to the animal kingdom to see confirmation of this axiom of nature. Everything else...the love, affection, support, comfort...that's all nice, but tertiary.
The secret to teaching kids the wisdom that comes from simulating reality is to actually limit your child's resources. Put him/her/them on a fixed budget, or allowance. You can tie the allowance to work performed or give it for the sole purpose of teaching resource allocation. I am a fan of the former approach - teaching kids that you must earn the means to obtain your values.
Then...just sit back and wait. Your kids will go about their lives constantly ordering their world in their own way. They will learn that if they blow their allowance on something they don't truly value they have no option but to wait until their next paycheck to get want they really want. They'll also learn the big concept of deferring present consumption in order to obtain future value. I still remember the euphoric feeling of learning about interest and making money on money!
The biggest challenge for some parents is to forego the cheap, fleeting comfort of seeing an instant-gratification smile on their child's face. Be tough and do what is right for them in the long run! Don't give in to your own weakness for the need to satisfy and feel loved...you're only cheating your kids out of the tremendous development possibilities that reality affords!
Being a woman over the age of 50 I have learned to stop being so hard on myself. After seeing Jamie Lee Curtis' transformation in MORE magazine, I decided then and there to keep aging at bay by not having any kind of nip or tuck, instead using more natural, external and more importantly , internal potions and lotions...I feel better and am being told, look younger as well...I am forever grateful to Ms. Curtis, she saved me a lot of "OMG what's happening to my body?!" moments and instead, kicked in my sense of humor about my self image...Thank you Andrea for all you do !
Like Success Professor, we teach them to give 10% away off the top...good habit to get into.
We have a bank with three sections...they give 10%, save 50%, and get the other 40% to spend. Of course, as adults we can't manage to save 50% most of the time, but they're kids and have few expenses, so that's why we do 50%.
Thanks for your entry--the carnival of homeschooling is up at my blog. Come visit!
Thanks for pointing out the error...something didn't look right!
Great observations about methods of calculating mileage. Thank you for the comments!
six figures is such a joke. come here to manhattan, the average 22 year old fresh out of an ivy league university is making six-figures their first year working in banking or consulting. living in manhattan will change your views about income big time because of all the young people who are making a lot of money. most people wouldn't believe how many people here in their 20s are making half a million or more per year. six figures as in just needing to make over $100K is a joke, you can make that much just working in IT, but odds are you'll live outside Manhattan.
I've been an AMEX Platinum holder for several years now, I also hold a couple of credit cards that I use for certain things depending on their rewards and always pay off all my cards in full each month. No one in my family, including my parents, have EVER paid less than our full balance each month on any credit card/charge card. We treat them as alternatives to cash for which we can get rewards/cash-back as well as multiple layers of purchase protection, etc. My mortgage is my only debt and I easily pay it every month, but I would love the opportunity to put it on my AMEX. It is over $8k per month so that would be around an extra 100,000 points each year I'd get for no extra cost. You mentioned there was a one-time fee of $395 to enroll in the program, I haven't heard of that before for the other mortgage companies that allow payment through AMEX but even if it is the case it would still make sense.
had a 9v, needed AAAs, tried it, it works.
if you do like they say and bend the little metal piece over, they fit just fine.
i haven't tried the 12v yet, but i promise you the 9v hack works.
it's amazing! makes me so happy!
i don't know how long they last but whatever, they're cheap.
Sir:
You are so right! The city is absolutely pathetic. I am usually there 7 days/week even though I live in Chicago and it is getting more and more bizarre. (I work in Gary).
We are heading for a "crack-up." Before wholesale changes are enacted, I am just curious about what happened to the fool before Mayor Clay? Right in the middle of his term, he quit. I wasn't sure if he's the one who took the money...
Great post. I also teach my kids to never borrow against next week's pay check (or allowance), nothing in life is Free..there's always a catch and make sure you add another 10% to everything just as a cushion for unanticipated fees/expenses.
WHEN YOU OR YOUR KIDS HIT THEIR HEAD, PUT VINAGER ON A CLOTH AND PRESS IT TO THE HURTED ZONE, IT WILL PREVENT THE BUMP.
Thanks for the good thoughts. I would start with the following:
1. Give money away first
2. Save money second
3. Always spend less than you make
4. Be entrepreneurial - think about ways to make money.
I'm not fully sure how I became entrepreneurial at such a young age, but I'm very thankful for it. I was selling used golf balls by 8, had a sports card store in my parents basement as a teenager, and always looked for other ways to make money. I would want my children to have this kind of attitude.
Seems like most of the people who are against these methods are people who get paid to remove dents.
Something else I noticed in comparing our old insurance to our new insurance is what specific items or types of care are subject to the deductible and what ones are not.
Our old insurance, everything was subject to the deductible. Our new insurance exempts office calls and lab work from the deductible so those are covered right off the bat. That was a big relief knowing that minor issues might have some coverage right away. I have not checked what else is exempt.
I went into a store, and asked the salesperson if there was a single item in the toy or kids clothing department "made in the US." She asked, in a polite but frosty Bengali accent, why this mattered to me. I explained that I prefered to pay money for good farming practices and good wages, instead of paying mostly for the oil to ship materials around the globe. "I would like to see more Chinese goods made for the Chinese, more Indian goods made for India, and more US goods made for the US market." The frost melted, and I got a HUGE smile. 18 months have passed, gas prices are higher, "cheap" goods are higher, and US-made goods are starting to pop up, from time to time, on the shelves. Some are even geared toward the general market or towards young folks, instead of the 65+ Union Guy In A Pickup who has, for the last 3 decades, been a lonely hold-out in the "buy US, buy Union" struggle.
As to that guy, and the gear made for him: I may think he has boring taste. I may think he picked his stance for self-serving reasons. I may not like it that his musical taste gets about as eclectic as Springsteen. But you know what? He was RIGHT. All these years. He was right, and I was oblivious, and thrilled to be able to afford strange, cool gadgets and trinkets--stuff I didn't need.
We built the county though wages paid for hard labor, by people who mostly bought what they needed, or really cherished. And now we're selling off houses, public buildings and even roads at fire sale prices, and buying landfill-fodder to prove that we had the "thought that counts." Pot up some cuttings, or plant some seeds, already, for a gift that means "I thought of you, and put actual time and sweat into the gift."
Knotweed (like rhubarb and sorrel) had oxalic acid. The sour taste is nice, but as the plant ages, the levels of oxalic acid can become unhealthy. We don't ever eat rhubarb leaf, and people who grew up with rhubarb usually don't eat it very far into summer. If anyone in your family has gout, you might want to be doubly careful. So I'd stick with the young knotweed. The older stuff makes reasonable, fast-decaying mulch that can be used to crowd out...more knotweed.
If you have stands of thick knotweed shoots, they make nice fritters. I peel them, cut them in strips, soak them in a bit of lightly salted water to decrease the bitterness, and then flour them very lightly and fry them. (There's enough sticky plant juice to hold a thin film of flour in place, no egg needed). I often do dandelion flower fritters at about the same time. Those are best with egg dip, and they are a lovely texture and mild, non-bitter flavor. Good with a bit of powdered sugar, or a bit of salt and pepper, or just plain. Unlike the leaves, the diuretic effect isn't too marked (but your... mpg... may vary!). Dandelion wine is an aquired taste, and too much work for me, when the fritters are so nice. Harvest clean, wide open flowers with no stem (the wide green part at the bottom of the flower is fine, in fact, that's the part with the best texture).
The absolute best everyday green (better than spinach, and plentiful) is anything in the fat hen / good king henry (chenipodium) family. image-google it; it's unmistakable stuff, and you can find relatives all over the world. You must cook it briefly, because there is some volatile compound with an unsavory smell, but that leaves in the first 2-3 minutes of cooking. Some varients are reputed to be mildly toxic, but the stuff that grows in PA, VA, MD, WV, NY, etc etc etc is stuff you can feed you family on for years, if need be. Keep pinching shoot tips (any part that's tender) and it will get bushier and bigger, so you can keep eating from it. Let it set some seed as fall nears, so you'll have some handy next year. It is introduced, but not a noxious invasive (i.e. it plays well with native plants, and does not crowd them out).
Garlic mustard pesto is strong stuff, but given garlic mustard's invasive status, I always make some, or at least chop some and toss it in soups or sauces. You can try a variety of strong or soft cheeses and a variety of nuts until you get a personal favorite.
I keep meaning to dig the burdock while it is in its first year, for the root, or in the second year, before flowering, for the stem-base (a bit like cardoon, which is a bit like fancy, bitter, complex artichoke). Instead, I end up yanking it out with burrs on it after the cats come home with burrs in their belly fur. That's another totally overlooked "everywhere veggie."
I have one made from a styrofoam cooler, stuffed with more styrofoam and fabric, towels, to use as insulation. Works great for beans and stews, I decorated the outside with fabric to make it a little more pleasing to the eye. I've also used one of the silvery heat reflecting emergency blankets that you can buy in the camping section. I did put a layer of terrycloth towel over that to protect it from the intense heat of the pot. Works great!
There's an old story about a guy returning VERY expensive cigars after smoking them and getting a refund.....then getting arrested for arson ;-)
Good to hear! I usually have to remind myself (especially this past week), so I'm glad that I wasn't completely self-serving when I wrote this! Hang in there... (You always do.)
Linsey
I'm not sure that your lifestyle is frugal. Rather, you have made wise choices. It sounds like you have a similar lifestyle to me and my partner. We don't do without - season tickets to the (amateur community)theatre, drive older but well maintained 3 and 4 cylinder cars for city use, and eat out regularly. Am I boosting? No! What I am saying is that rather then sacrificing, we research and choose the most economical way of doing what we want to do.
Very interesting, especially the inner tube company and the paper exporting project. Posts like this really get my creative juices flowing.
Personally, I have to say how much I really NEEDED this today. Most of the time, I'm rolling with things OK, but today I was having a particularly hard time feeling like a trooper.
Thanks for a great roundup.