I paid a small fortune to move 1 mile from my office, which gives me back a whole day of hours each week. (I spend half with my kids, and half sleeping!)
I would be resistant to raiding my emergency fund or maxing out my credit cards in this economy. If your credit gets cut off and your cash on hand is reduced, how will you pay your bills? Time to hit up that rich uncle for some seed money.
While it's important to reduce child abuse, this article complete misunderstands abusive behavior. Abuse is not about anger. It's not about "losing control". In fact, abuse is all about control. It's possible abuse my increase during financial upheaval but it's a result of the abuser feeling a loss of control, not of them feeling scared or anxious. Studies have shown that even when an abusive person claims to be completely out of control that they still do things to protect themselves like only hitting a person where it won't show when their clothed, stopping short of seriously hurting someone, or damaging other peoples' property but not their own.
If a parent is stressed out and snaps at their kids but recognized that their behavior was inappropriate, that's an anger management issue. If a parent beats their child for the same thing, that's an abuse issue. They are NOT the same thing and the treatment for them is not the same. Abusive behavior is not a mental illness. It's a social perception that the abuser has the right to abuse their spouse or child.
Gardening and tightwaddery go well together. We use egg crates to start seeds and only buy "heirloom" varieties that will come up true from seed to reduce seed costs. We swap seedlings with coworkers every spring so nobody ends up with more than they need (we start squash, others start peppers, tomatoes, etc.)
We don't have a lot of time to weed, so we only have a small garden to grow more expensive veggies and most of our money has gone to buy "edible landscaping" fruit trees and fruit bushes.
We've invited our neighbors to dump all their grass clippings, pine needles and leaves into our "lazy mans compost ditch" and dug an irrigation ditch to capture stormwater runoff to help the yard debris break down faster. The compost ditch will become our new garden in another 2 years.
Water is expensive here and rain barrels are expensive, so we've added plastic garbage bins (be sure to keep them covered and USE them or they'll be full of mosquito larvae YUCK). We also have a "greywater recycling bucket" where we capture around 6 gallons of waste water from the sink before it goes down the drain every day and dump it into the garden.
We did buy tomato cages (back when we were young and foolish) instead of using sticks, but we keep reusing them so I guess they've earned their keep. If you start small and expand a little every year, you'll get there without an overly sore back or a huge expense.
As an attorney who handles these kinds of cases once the social service agencies get involved (representing both children and parents), I think it fair to warn well intentioned people that they may be setting off the equivalent of a nuclear bomb when they tip off so-called "service agencies" they think a child is being abused.
I'm not saying not to call if you think a child is being severely abused (witness severe beatings, see constant suspicious bruises on areas of the body (such as the back) which aren't prone to childhood clumsiness, etc.), but to be careful about what you're unleashing upon an already-frail barely-functioning family. So-called "Social Services" departments usually have NO social services attached to them, only destruction. 99 times out of 100, either the agency destroys a family that only needed a little help to do better, permanently traumatizing the children and often destroying their lives, yanks a child that SHOULD be yanked but then hands the child back to a psycho-parent who should NOT get back custody, or the family retreats from potential support networks who could help them out of fear of well-intentioned busybodies 'sicing social service agencies on them and destroying their family.
This is not paranoid rantings ... out of HUNDREDS of court cases I have handled, I can only name ONE case where calling in the agencies improved a child's life, TWO cases where kids were handed back that should not have been, and over 250 cases where DSS just made lots of threats, shuffled the kids around from foster home to foster home (destroying their ability to form bonds with people), then handed them back to parents who either were not helped (nothing changed) or who were helped by people other than social service agency.
If you suspect a parent is functioning below societal standards or beginning to lose it, don't yell at them, give them "the talk" (you know, the "we're concerned ... do we need to call DSS" talk) or threaten to call the police or DSS. If you do this, either they will disappear and not be helped or you will unleash a series of events that will be the opposite of the good intent you have in mind.
If you think the problem is symptomatic of stress and benign neglect and not because the parent is potentially a psychopathic baby-killer (if the latter, PLEASE call the police right away), be sympathetic about how hard it is to be a parent today and offer support and advice (to the best of your ability given the situation). For example, if a relative or neighbor is going through a tough time, offer to take one of their kids off their hands a couple of hours a week to teach them a new skill you enjoy teaching (piano, baseball, nature walks, etc.). Mom/dad get a break, the kid gets a new auntie or uncle, you get the joy of mentorship. Ask another relative or neighbor if they, too, would be willing to do this.
Don't force your yuppie-upper-middle-class-of-course-all-kids-should-have-private-school-and-dance-lessons-and-parents-should-never-ever-raise-their-voices sensibilities upon the parent. I doubt entitlement-issues are a problem with Wise Bread readers, but you'd be amazed at how many people have really unrealistic ideas about what constitutes "abuse" for a child (wearing hand me downs, not having snack food such as chips and lunchables in the house, etc.) DSS will manufacture confirmations of abuse when it doesn't exist after the 3rd or 4th bogus child abuse allegation by a vindictive person (twice I had cases where the only evidence of abuse were jealous wannabe-girlfriends repeated hotline calls trying to break up a relationship which were never substantiated, but the social workers decided to call it child abuse reasoning "if someone calls us, it MUST be abuse.")
If you want to help, invite the parent over for coffee and listen while they tell you their story. Most people are reluctant to discuss their problems, but if you provide a sympathetic ear, most eventually will. Even if they say nothing, just the fact of having a "normal" friend who listens to them will reduce their stress levels, which will translate into more patience with their children. If you know of resources that can help them stretch their meager resources further, educate them AND encourage them that there is no shame in accepting help when it is needed. If you have ever yourself or know of a respected friend who had once use these services, say so. In my area there are food pantries, free REAL parent education classes NOT offered by DSS (in other words, not simply the "are you beating your kids" type) offered by the "super mommy" groups, educational job training, etc. A lot of otherwise good parents start to lose it because they are ashamed to ask for help and the stress gets unloaded onto their kids.
The Mormon Church in our area has begun to offer excellent free "life skills" classes once a month ranging from budgeting to self-car-maintenance once per month to ANYONE, not just Mormons (highly recommended). If an asteroid were to hit the earth tomorrow, most disaster planners believe that 80% of the people who survive will be Mormons because they are always so well prepared.
If you are a typical Wise Bread tightwad, tell them your own tips for squeezing a penny until it cries and offer to help them learn how you do it. I have a dog-eared ratty old copy of the "Complete Tightwad Gazette" I hand to clients to skim through if lack of resources is the root of most of their problems and, believe me, it HELPS them. Don't scorn them if they are foolish with their money ... many weren't so lucky as to have positive frugal role models. Teach them "to fish" and become their frugal hero.
If the stressed parent is someone transient you see at a supermarket beginning to lose it, be kind. Smile at the parent (not criticize), say something sympathetic such as "I remember when my daughter would tantrum like that at the store" and then go on to offer some solution such as "I used to keep a little container of raisins in my purse and give it to them at the checkout line" or "I used to only be able to shop at 9:00 a.m. because any time after that my little guy needed his nap and would sprout horns." Smile at the child and say something nice such as "hey little guy, you look tired/hungry/sad/angry." The child will usually eye you suspiciously and begin to hic-cough but wail less insistently. In one fail swoop, you have offered the parent a mini-therapeutic session of empathy, redirected the child, and given them a tool to avoid the situation in the future. In other words, you will have just done a better job than most social service agencies, without unleashing destructive forces to destroy the family.
If after reading this you determine the parent has deteriorated to the psycho-parent stage and a call to the authorities is in order, keep your mouth shut about who made the call and be sure to protect your identity. The degree of parent who -NEEDS- social services intervention to help the kids is also the type of parent who will come after you with a crowbar in a dark parking lot some night. Every creature on the planet will kill when it's young are threatened. Only humans are nieve enough to think this instinct has been socialized out of a parent who is having their kid taken away by DSS. If you -don't- fear the parent like this, rethink calling and -do- think about how you can help hook the parent up with needed services and a support network to solve the problem. The goal should be to help the family, not punish or destroy it.
It all comes down to two words: self-control and accountability. You have to decide that you are not going to let your life get out of control and you have to look for help - whether through plans,programs, or your own tracking systems that keep you accountable to the goals you want for your life. By networking with others with the same goals - saving money, making money, cooking healthy, eating healthy, you have a much greater chance at success.
Great post! The two are definitely go hand-in-hand.
Great tips, Margaret, and worth looking into. Of course, we have to worry about moose and bears, as well, though I've heard bears are better about paying their premiums. Nice pic, BTW.
Think outside the plot for your garden. Think about growing tomatoes near your front door if it's the only sunny spot in your yard. Think raised beds and no till gardening. Rototillers have been found to destroy the texture of the soil.
So many options including container gardening. Rabbits in my neighborhood don't eat the vegetables grown in large containers.
And try catching water in a rain barrel. Compost your non-meat foods to amend your soil.
One of my friends raised five children, worked full-time and has the most wonderful garden filled with grapes, asparagus, squash and much, much more. The garden was a means to feed their children and work side by side with their children - a life skills course that provided a bounty for the family in more ways than one.
Keep in mind that the bounty of the garden depends on what was chosen to grow. Zucchini are very prolific as are herbs. The key is to know what does well in your zone and what you like to eat.
Sure, there are costs and risks to gardening. Crops can fail, and you can spend $60 to produce a tomato, if that's the way you garden. But there are also plenty of ways to garden cheaply, year after year, and to minimize risk, as you point out. Experience pays big dividends in gardening.
I would also point out that the raw costs/savings when comparing gardening to shopping at the grocery store don't tell the whole story. You can save money on gasoline by shopping in your backyard. You save time too by going to the store less frequently. You get some physical exercise and a very cheap form of therapy. You get healthier, fresher produce which will never feature in a national recall or e. coli alert. If you happen to be one of the people sickened from store-bought spinach/peanut butter/apple juice/cantaloupe, how do you suppose your reckoning of the value of homegrown produce would change? How do you value produce that is two, three, or more times as nutritionally dense as the stuff from the grocery store? It's your own health you're talking about here, after all.
Finally, I would add that perennial edibles such as asparagus, rhubarb, fruit and nut trees, grapes, and berry bushes offer a superb return on investment over the long run, and with a lot less risk than annual crops. Perennials are an entirely different "game" than the typical garden annuals.
I agree, the return on a garden is questionable relative to the time, effort, money, and frustration (I loathe weeding). Even still, we do it every year and scratch our heads at times. Why do we do it? Because we love the process, especially as a family endeavor. Granted, we live in Vermont where EVERYONE gardens, even the manly lumberjacks, but it takes a lot of work to even get a mediocre garden (ours barely qualifies) together.
Then again, there is a lot to be said about the journey, and even though the end result may not make complete sense, if you enjoy the process, then it's time well spent. Besides the practical considerations, we feel that there are benefits to the tangible fruits (no pun intended) of our labors, not to mention any increase in self esteem at having done it ourselves, as well as the time spent together, as a family, outside.
To allegorize, you can either go buy the plastic, made in China birdhouse at Walmart and save time and money or sit down and make one with your kids. Sure, it'll cost you more in time and materials, and you might even injure your fingers and make a mess, but think of the quality time spent actually making it yourself. I think the same goes for gardening.
We can benefit from putting practical issues aside and looking at the real value of our experiences. After all, sometimes value can go beyond simply the cost of things, and there are valuable lessons to be learned when we challenge ourselves.
Great ideas on procuring funds. I think bartering is a great way if you can pull it off, and as we adapt to the changing times ahead, may become a preferred way to do business in the future.
Ah, my two favorite WB writers. The things we could accomplish if we were neighbors, or rather, the things I could learn, being both hopeless and cheap. Thanks for the insightful information.
Especially during these times when banks appear to be paranoid about lending any money for any venture, no matter how good it is. I would also emphasize that using funds from your "emergency funds" is a dangerous thing as this is usually the time when life hits you with a real need. One would certainly want to maintain at least 2-3 months of living expenses.
I am interested in knowing how easy it is to get loans from the peer-peer lending sites.
I planted a green pepper plant and a six-pack of varied tomatoes last year. Due to a complete lack of knowledge of how to grow things in Texas, I didn't get any tomatoes until fall... but I did get three pounds of super-sweet cherry tomatoes (retail: $5/lb), 25 green bell peppers (retail: $1.99 each)... and I learned how to do better this year.
The biggest thing about "frugal" is thinking about the long term as opposed to short term. In the short term, you may have grown six seedlings and ended up with one plant. But next year you know to harden the seedlings off slowly as opposed to putting them all out at once in the dirt. You learn to start from seed ordered over the winter instead of buying started plants, even if they are tempting. And your first year investment pays off in knowledge, satisfaction, and nutrition later.
Besides, when I spend an entire weekend tending my little 8x8 plot, I'm not out spending money on other stuff. :-P Now THAT'S frugal.
It's always wise to approach anything that's supposed to create a return with caution -- but I give a huge thumbs down to this article's author and her attitude. Wise Bread isn't a website that I come to for this kind of negativity.
Another thing to consider when deciding which option to choose is that many banks have different limits for debit and credit transactions. For instance, my bank has a $200 per day limit on debit purchases, but a $3000 per day limit on credit purchases. Most of the time, a transaction amount remains subtracted from your total limit amount until the transaction posts to your account, which can also affect your choice of method.
I read the posts and short of the waiting game )as those of you with dental insurance have to find out if they'll do what they say) it sounds rather dreary for those of us struggling financially....
One thing I kept waiting to see was the fact that Dental Schools employ a "Dental Training School" where the public is welcome to go and get work done for EXTREMELY CHEAP OR FREE....they learn and we get what we need!. Is there a risk that you'll get a student who is rough? yep...but they also have licensed dentists on hand to supervise so any problems can be addressed immediately.
The last time I tried this, I found that not only did I get a full...FULL set of X-rays to take with me when I left, but the girl (student) was so nervous, I could practically fall asleep because I didn't feel a thing! Honestly, I've had more trouble with "experienced" dentists who get in there and act like they're rebuilding the Empire State Building!
Another benefit of this is that the faculty and students are all very nice, not jaded by years of "irritating" customers or insurance issues.
I've been a single parent for many years, when you have to budget on a shoestring....You look for the darn shoe maker.
I agree, Brent: we're not as flexible as we could be. And we are doing more to grow there. But for us, and I can say this with complete confidence and candor, flexibility is always going to be less important than offering the best possible advice that is truly complete. We can spend resources making your advice update instantaneously (which is incredibly processor-intensive on the servers, as offering good algorithm advice is reasonable complex) or we can spend our cycles making better and more complete features, and we've chosen the latter.
Which isn't to say we won't work on speed and flexibility as well. I just want to be very clear in both acknowledging the issue and letting you know where our priorities are. If we update instantly, but offer bad advice, that is more of a problem than offering good advice a little more slowly.
Peer to peer lending is actually a great way to get financing if you are unable to work with traditional lending sources.
I used Prosper.com to get financing to start my business, the experience was fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone looking borrow.
Unfortunately, the Peer to Peer networks have started to crack down on who is able to borrow due to the credit crunch and tough economic times. You now have to have a very high credit score to borrow from Prosper which is a shame. The service really helped me out since I was too young with no established credit to borrow traditionally.
I paid a small fortune to move 1 mile from my office, which gives me back a whole day of hours each week. (I spend half with my kids, and half sleeping!)
how is the picture related to the post?
I would be resistant to raiding my emergency fund or maxing out my credit cards in this economy. If your credit gets cut off and your cash on hand is reduced, how will you pay your bills? Time to hit up that rich uncle for some seed money.
While it's important to reduce child abuse, this article complete misunderstands abusive behavior. Abuse is not about anger. It's not about "losing control". In fact, abuse is all about control. It's possible abuse my increase during financial upheaval but it's a result of the abuser feeling a loss of control, not of them feeling scared or anxious. Studies have shown that even when an abusive person claims to be completely out of control that they still do things to protect themselves like only hitting a person where it won't show when their clothed, stopping short of seriously hurting someone, or damaging other peoples' property but not their own.
If a parent is stressed out and snaps at their kids but recognized that their behavior was inappropriate, that's an anger management issue. If a parent beats their child for the same thing, that's an abuse issue. They are NOT the same thing and the treatment for them is not the same. Abusive behavior is not a mental illness. It's a social perception that the abuser has the right to abuse their spouse or child.
Gardening and tightwaddery go well together. We use egg crates to start seeds and only buy "heirloom" varieties that will come up true from seed to reduce seed costs. We swap seedlings with coworkers every spring so nobody ends up with more than they need (we start squash, others start peppers, tomatoes, etc.)
We don't have a lot of time to weed, so we only have a small garden to grow more expensive veggies and most of our money has gone to buy "edible landscaping" fruit trees and fruit bushes.
We've invited our neighbors to dump all their grass clippings, pine needles and leaves into our "lazy mans compost ditch" and dug an irrigation ditch to capture stormwater runoff to help the yard debris break down faster. The compost ditch will become our new garden in another 2 years.
Water is expensive here and rain barrels are expensive, so we've added plastic garbage bins (be sure to keep them covered and USE them or they'll be full of mosquito larvae YUCK). We also have a "greywater recycling bucket" where we capture around 6 gallons of waste water from the sink before it goes down the drain every day and dump it into the garden.
We did buy tomato cages (back when we were young and foolish) instead of using sticks, but we keep reusing them so I guess they've earned their keep. If you start small and expand a little every year, you'll get there without an overly sore back or a huge expense.
=(
This is probably what I feel one of the worse parts... it's not the kids' fault !
Sadness...
As an attorney who handles these kinds of cases once the social service agencies get involved (representing both children and parents), I think it fair to warn well intentioned people that they may be setting off the equivalent of a nuclear bomb when they tip off so-called "service agencies" they think a child is being abused.
I'm not saying not to call if you think a child is being severely abused (witness severe beatings, see constant suspicious bruises on areas of the body (such as the back) which aren't prone to childhood clumsiness, etc.), but to be careful about what you're unleashing upon an already-frail barely-functioning family. So-called "Social Services" departments usually have NO social services attached to them, only destruction. 99 times out of 100, either the agency destroys a family that only needed a little help to do better, permanently traumatizing the children and often destroying their lives, yanks a child that SHOULD be yanked but then hands the child back to a psycho-parent who should NOT get back custody, or the family retreats from potential support networks who could help them out of fear of well-intentioned busybodies 'sicing social service agencies on them and destroying their family.
This is not paranoid rantings ... out of HUNDREDS of court cases I have handled, I can only name ONE case where calling in the agencies improved a child's life, TWO cases where kids were handed back that should not have been, and over 250 cases where DSS just made lots of threats, shuffled the kids around from foster home to foster home (destroying their ability to form bonds with people), then handed them back to parents who either were not helped (nothing changed) or who were helped by people other than social service agency.
If you suspect a parent is functioning below societal standards or beginning to lose it, don't yell at them, give them "the talk" (you know, the "we're concerned ... do we need to call DSS" talk) or threaten to call the police or DSS. If you do this, either they will disappear and not be helped or you will unleash a series of events that will be the opposite of the good intent you have in mind.
If you think the problem is symptomatic of stress and benign neglect and not because the parent is potentially a psychopathic baby-killer (if the latter, PLEASE call the police right away), be sympathetic about how hard it is to be a parent today and offer support and advice (to the best of your ability given the situation). For example, if a relative or neighbor is going through a tough time, offer to take one of their kids off their hands a couple of hours a week to teach them a new skill you enjoy teaching (piano, baseball, nature walks, etc.). Mom/dad get a break, the kid gets a new auntie or uncle, you get the joy of mentorship. Ask another relative or neighbor if they, too, would be willing to do this.
Don't force your yuppie-upper-middle-class-of-course-all-kids-should-have-private-school-and-dance-lessons-and-parents-should-never-ever-raise-their-voices sensibilities upon the parent. I doubt entitlement-issues are a problem with Wise Bread readers, but you'd be amazed at how many people have really unrealistic ideas about what constitutes "abuse" for a child (wearing hand me downs, not having snack food such as chips and lunchables in the house, etc.) DSS will manufacture confirmations of abuse when it doesn't exist after the 3rd or 4th bogus child abuse allegation by a vindictive person (twice I had cases where the only evidence of abuse were jealous wannabe-girlfriends repeated hotline calls trying to break up a relationship which were never substantiated, but the social workers decided to call it child abuse reasoning "if someone calls us, it MUST be abuse.")
If you want to help, invite the parent over for coffee and listen while they tell you their story. Most people are reluctant to discuss their problems, but if you provide a sympathetic ear, most eventually will. Even if they say nothing, just the fact of having a "normal" friend who listens to them will reduce their stress levels, which will translate into more patience with their children. If you know of resources that can help them stretch their meager resources further, educate them AND encourage them that there is no shame in accepting help when it is needed. If you have ever yourself or know of a respected friend who had once use these services, say so. In my area there are food pantries, free REAL parent education classes NOT offered by DSS (in other words, not simply the "are you beating your kids" type) offered by the "super mommy" groups, educational job training, etc. A lot of otherwise good parents start to lose it because they are ashamed to ask for help and the stress gets unloaded onto their kids.
The Mormon Church in our area has begun to offer excellent free "life skills" classes once a month ranging from budgeting to self-car-maintenance once per month to ANYONE, not just Mormons (highly recommended). If an asteroid were to hit the earth tomorrow, most disaster planners believe that 80% of the people who survive will be Mormons because they are always so well prepared.
If you are a typical Wise Bread tightwad, tell them your own tips for squeezing a penny until it cries and offer to help them learn how you do it. I have a dog-eared ratty old copy of the "Complete Tightwad Gazette" I hand to clients to skim through if lack of resources is the root of most of their problems and, believe me, it HELPS them. Don't scorn them if they are foolish with their money ... many weren't so lucky as to have positive frugal role models. Teach them "to fish" and become their frugal hero.
If the stressed parent is someone transient you see at a supermarket beginning to lose it, be kind. Smile at the parent (not criticize), say something sympathetic such as "I remember when my daughter would tantrum like that at the store" and then go on to offer some solution such as "I used to keep a little container of raisins in my purse and give it to them at the checkout line" or "I used to only be able to shop at 9:00 a.m. because any time after that my little guy needed his nap and would sprout horns." Smile at the child and say something nice such as "hey little guy, you look tired/hungry/sad/angry." The child will usually eye you suspiciously and begin to hic-cough but wail less insistently. In one fail swoop, you have offered the parent a mini-therapeutic session of empathy, redirected the child, and given them a tool to avoid the situation in the future. In other words, you will have just done a better job than most social service agencies, without unleashing destructive forces to destroy the family.
If after reading this you determine the parent has deteriorated to the psycho-parent stage and a call to the authorities is in order, keep your mouth shut about who made the call and be sure to protect your identity. The degree of parent who -NEEDS- social services intervention to help the kids is also the type of parent who will come after you with a crowbar in a dark parking lot some night. Every creature on the planet will kill when it's young are threatened. Only humans are nieve enough to think this instinct has been socialized out of a parent who is having their kid taken away by DSS. If you -don't- fear the parent like this, rethink calling and -do- think about how you can help hook the parent up with needed services and a support network to solve the problem. The goal should be to help the family, not punish or destroy it.
It all comes down to two words: self-control and accountability. You have to decide that you are not going to let your life get out of control and you have to look for help - whether through plans,programs, or your own tracking systems that keep you accountable to the goals you want for your life. By networking with others with the same goals - saving money, making money, cooking healthy, eating healthy, you have a much greater chance at success.
Great post! The two are definitely go hand-in-hand.
There's probably a reason we all don't live on the same block. Global domination? Not quite in reach. A mean BBQ? Totally doable.
Linsey Knerl
Great tips, Margaret, and worth looking into. Of course, we have to worry about moose and bears, as well, though I've heard bears are better about paying their premiums. Nice pic, BTW.
Think outside the plot for your garden. Think about growing tomatoes near your front door if it's the only sunny spot in your yard. Think raised beds and no till gardening. Rototillers have been found to destroy the texture of the soil.
So many options including container gardening. Rabbits in my neighborhood don't eat the vegetables grown in large containers.
And try catching water in a rain barrel. Compost your non-meat foods to amend your soil.
One of my friends raised five children, worked full-time and has the most wonderful garden filled with grapes, asparagus, squash and much, much more. The garden was a means to feed their children and work side by side with their children - a life skills course that provided a bounty for the family in more ways than one.
Keep in mind that the bounty of the garden depends on what was chosen to grow. Zucchini are very prolific as are herbs. The key is to know what does well in your zone and what you like to eat.
Happy planting.
Sure, there are costs and risks to gardening. Crops can fail, and you can spend $60 to produce a tomato, if that's the way you garden. But there are also plenty of ways to garden cheaply, year after year, and to minimize risk, as you point out. Experience pays big dividends in gardening.
I would also point out that the raw costs/savings when comparing gardening to shopping at the grocery store don't tell the whole story. You can save money on gasoline by shopping in your backyard. You save time too by going to the store less frequently. You get some physical exercise and a very cheap form of therapy. You get healthier, fresher produce which will never feature in a national recall or e. coli alert. If you happen to be one of the people sickened from store-bought spinach/peanut butter/apple juice/cantaloupe, how do you suppose your reckoning of the value of homegrown produce would change? How do you value produce that is two, three, or more times as nutritionally dense as the stuff from the grocery store? It's your own health you're talking about here, after all.
Finally, I would add that perennial edibles such as asparagus, rhubarb, fruit and nut trees, grapes, and berry bushes offer a superb return on investment over the long run, and with a lot less risk than annual crops. Perennials are an entirely different "game" than the typical garden annuals.
I agree, the return on a garden is questionable relative to the time, effort, money, and frustration (I loathe weeding). Even still, we do it every year and scratch our heads at times. Why do we do it? Because we love the process, especially as a family endeavor. Granted, we live in Vermont where EVERYONE gardens, even the manly lumberjacks, but it takes a lot of work to even get a mediocre garden (ours barely qualifies) together.
Then again, there is a lot to be said about the journey, and even though the end result may not make complete sense, if you enjoy the process, then it's time well spent. Besides the practical considerations, we feel that there are benefits to the tangible fruits (no pun intended) of our labors, not to mention any increase in self esteem at having done it ourselves, as well as the time spent together, as a family, outside.
To allegorize, you can either go buy the plastic, made in China birdhouse at Walmart and save time and money or sit down and make one with your kids. Sure, it'll cost you more in time and materials, and you might even injure your fingers and make a mess, but think of the quality time spent actually making it yourself. I think the same goes for gardening.
We can benefit from putting practical issues aside and looking at the real value of our experiences. After all, sometimes value can go beyond simply the cost of things, and there are valuable lessons to be learned when we challenge ourselves.
I'll check it out.
Great ideas on procuring funds. I think bartering is a great way if you can pull it off, and as we adapt to the changing times ahead, may become a preferred way to do business in the future.
Ah, my two favorite WB writers. The things we could accomplish if we were neighbors, or rather, the things I could learn, being both hopeless and cheap. Thanks for the insightful information.
Especially during these times when banks appear to be paranoid about lending any money for any venture, no matter how good it is. I would also emphasize that using funds from your "emergency funds" is a dangerous thing as this is usually the time when life hits you with a real need. One would certainly want to maintain at least 2-3 months of living expenses.
I am interested in knowing how easy it is to get loans from the peer-peer lending sites.
i live in southern parts of karnataka, hw can i advise these to others where some of the foods and veg listed out by you re not avilable? but its good
These battery hack videos are complete hoaxes. I can't believe people still fall for them.
Even a small investment can yield outsized gains.
I planted a green pepper plant and a six-pack of varied tomatoes last year. Due to a complete lack of knowledge of how to grow things in Texas, I didn't get any tomatoes until fall... but I did get three pounds of super-sweet cherry tomatoes (retail: $5/lb), 25 green bell peppers (retail: $1.99 each)... and I learned how to do better this year.
The biggest thing about "frugal" is thinking about the long term as opposed to short term. In the short term, you may have grown six seedlings and ended up with one plant. But next year you know to harden the seedlings off slowly as opposed to putting them all out at once in the dirt. You learn to start from seed ordered over the winter instead of buying started plants, even if they are tempting. And your first year investment pays off in knowledge, satisfaction, and nutrition later.
Besides, when I spend an entire weekend tending my little 8x8 plot, I'm not out spending money on other stuff. :-P Now THAT'S frugal.
It's always wise to approach anything that's supposed to create a return with caution -- but I give a huge thumbs down to this article's author and her attitude. Wise Bread isn't a website that I come to for this kind of negativity.
Another thing to consider when deciding which option to choose is that many banks have different limits for debit and credit transactions. For instance, my bank has a $200 per day limit on debit purchases, but a $3000 per day limit on credit purchases. Most of the time, a transaction amount remains subtracted from your total limit amount until the transaction posts to your account, which can also affect your choice of method.
Interesting post-- I would recommend the first four ideas and avoid the last four ideas-- avoid like them like the plague . . .
I read the posts and short of the waiting game )as those of you with dental insurance have to find out if they'll do what they say) it sounds rather dreary for those of us struggling financially....
One thing I kept waiting to see was the fact that Dental Schools employ a "Dental Training School" where the public is welcome to go and get work done for EXTREMELY CHEAP OR FREE....they learn and we get what we need!. Is there a risk that you'll get a student who is rough? yep...but they also have licensed dentists on hand to supervise so any problems can be addressed immediately.
The last time I tried this, I found that not only did I get a full...FULL set of X-rays to take with me when I left, but the girl (student) was so nervous, I could practically fall asleep because I didn't feel a thing! Honestly, I've had more trouble with "experienced" dentists who get in there and act like they're rebuilding the Empire State Building!
Another benefit of this is that the faculty and students are all very nice, not jaded by years of "irritating" customers or insurance issues.
I've been a single parent for many years, when you have to budget on a shoestring....You look for the darn shoe maker.
I agree, Brent: we're not as flexible as we could be. And we are doing more to grow there. But for us, and I can say this with complete confidence and candor, flexibility is always going to be less important than offering the best possible advice that is truly complete. We can spend resources making your advice update instantaneously (which is incredibly processor-intensive on the servers, as offering good algorithm advice is reasonable complex) or we can spend our cycles making better and more complete features, and we've chosen the latter.
Which isn't to say we won't work on speed and flexibility as well. I just want to be very clear in both acknowledging the issue and letting you know where our priorities are. If we update instantly, but offer bad advice, that is more of a problem than offering good advice a little more slowly.
Peer to peer lending is actually a great way to get financing if you are unable to work with traditional lending sources.
I used Prosper.com to get financing to start my business, the experience was fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone looking borrow.
Unfortunately, the Peer to Peer networks have started to crack down on who is able to borrow due to the credit crunch and tough economic times. You now have to have a very high credit score to borrow from Prosper which is a shame. The service really helped me out since I was too young with no established credit to borrow traditionally.
Great post!