What Ever Happened to Hobos?

Ok, this is totally random, but the other day I was thinking about how I dressed up as a hobo for Halloween when I was a kid. I wore a tweed cap, an old blazer of my dad's which I think I was allowed to tear up a little, and his old, raggedy boots. I also smeared eye shadow on my face to look like beard stubble, and carried a bandanna on a stick, which I used to stash the candy I collected. If you look at the Wikipedia entry for hobo, you'll see exactly the look I was going for. Except I also wore a pair of large plastic ears, I guess just to increase the pathos!

Now, a hobo is not exactly just a poor, homeless person. The term has slightly more romantic connotations, as hobos were known for riding railroad cars all over the country, and they had all these cool slang words and code symbols to help each other out. But still... hobos are poor and homeless.

So do kids still think it's fun to play hobo, or to dress up as one on Halloween? But certainly no kid ever says "hey, I think I'll be a grungy homeless person for Halloween," right? Nowadays it seems like they all want to be something far more glamorous, and the life of a poor, itinerant person is no longer romanticized. But I don't have kids, so I may be wrong... what do you think?

A Blue-Collar Revival?

I've been noticing this trend bubbling up for a while as a kind of a hipster thing: cool chicks and bearded dudes who decide to make a living selling crafts, or making artisanal cheeses, or leaving NYC to grow organic vegetables. Now, within the past couple of days, there have been two related articles in the New York Times:

Many Summer Internships Are Going Organic

Erin Axelrod, who graduated from Barnard College last week with an urban studies degree, will not be fighting over the bathroom with her five roommates on the Upper West Side this summer. Instead she will be living in a tent, using an outdoor composting toilet and harvesting vegetables on an organic farm near Petaluma, Calif.

As the sole intern at a boutique dairy in upstate New York, Gina Runfola, an English and creative writing student, has traded poetry books for sheep.

The Case for Working With Your Hands

High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers.” The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses.

When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.

I understand the desire to do tangible, physical work. I've never been paid to make or grow anything, but even food service work and retail sales can offer the uncomplicated pleasure of carrying out a task efficiently and well. To work on an organic farm or sell your hand-made knit hats adds the attraction of nurturing something, or having some independence and creativity, which is important.

But of course there is a certain degree of romanticizing going in these articles. These people think it's cool and fun to repair obscure vintage European motorcycles, but they probably don't want to fix Hyundais. When they become bakers, it's to make fancy pastries or nostalgic, authentic pies, not open a Dunkin Donuts franchise. And as the farm intern article points out, Ivy Leaguers on their summer off aren't necessarily willing to live in the same conditions as your usual migrant fruit pickers. And in general a lot of people are willing to do something "interesting" for a little while, but once reality sets in, "boring" starts to look rather attractive.

And I can just imagine how the parents of most of these people feel: "I paid over $100,000 to send you to Barnard and you want to milk goats?!?!?!?"

But, HELLO, there are a lot of people out there who work on farms and fix things and make things who aren't so self-conscious about what it means for global warming, or whether people think they're cool. They just want to make a decent living, and have some degree of satisfaction and status from it, even if the work isn't always fun. We seem to have trouble keeping some of those jobs on our soil. But as the writer of the "Working with Your Hands" article points out, there are some good jobs that can't be exported, and you don't necessarily need a college degree to get them. If more people are willing to consider such jobs, rather than shunning them as somehow beneath their dignity, that's a good thing.

People who provide a valuable service or product deserve respect, whether or not they are highly educated or have clean fingernails all day. Plumbers don't universally have lower IQs than lawyers. Not everyone who works in a cubicle is a miserable drone, and not every organic farmer is a saint. Not every CEO "deserves" a higher salary than a doctor or a teacher or a garbage collector. And ultimately, people should find their own right balance between happiness and material success or social status. If you can happily support yourself knitting beanies or typing emails or churning butter, organic or not-- I say go for it!

I Just Saved $5? $10? a Week... Depending on How Much New York Times Delivery Actually Costs

Sometimes it's so satisfying to find some small money leak that you can fix. I realized that just didn't need my weekend newspaper delivery any more-- I tend to be with Sweetie, and by the time I'm back at my place, the papers have been thrown out or stolen and I've already read Sweetie's copy. So why keep paying for that?? I switched to a Monday-Friday subscription. A few dollars a week may not seem like much, but it adds up over time, and why waste any money, however small the amount?

But how much money did I actually save? Here's an interesting tidbit I discovered along the way. According to the Times' website, the regular, undiscounted price for a 7-day a week subscription price is supposedly $21.20--the website quotes a $10.60 per week price but says it increases to the regular price after an introductory 12-week period. The Monday-Friday price is $11.20 ($5.60 intro). The Saturday-Sunday-only price is $11.40 a week ($5.70 intro). But I have only been paying $42.40 a month, or I guess every 4 weeks, as that is 4X the $10.60 rate above. I'm well past any initial promotional rate, so I don't know why this is the case. But it means my savings for canceling weekends is actually only $5. But at least I am still paying less than the cover price, which is $1.50 Monday-Saturday, and $5 on weekends, which comes to $14 a week. (The Times recently announced they'll raise the price to $2/$6 as of June 1, though home delivery prices supposedly won't change just yet. OOPS-- I wrote this a couple of days ago, but since then, I've gotten a delivery price increase notice!)

In any case, my original point still holds: it's nice to save a few bucks, however you can!

Feeling Flush

I'm not sure why, but I've built up quite a cushion in my Chase savings account-- just over $12,000 as I'm writing this. This is despite having made an extra mortgage payment of $2,000 just recently, and some transfers to other accounts. I use this Chase account to receive my direct deposit pay, and transfer money into my checking account to pay bills. I wondered if I'd made a mistake and forgotten to pay a bill, but apparently I'm all caught up!
The problem is that this cash is barely earning any interest. I think it's time to start shopping for some mutual funds again, and also transfer some money to my other savings account at FNBO, which earns more interest. I suppose I could also make another additional principal payment on my mortgage. In any case, not being able to decide what to do with over $10,000 is a nice problem to have!

The Pitfalls of Saving Money

I haven't had a chance yet to link back to this New York Times article, which hit the front page:
Even to Save Cash, Don’t Try This Stuff at Home

When the toilet in Carol Taddei’s master bathroom began to break down a few months ago, she decided it would be cheaper to buy a new one than pay for repairs. Ever frugal in this dismal economy, Ms. Taddei, a retired paralegal, then took her economizing a step further, figuring she could save even more by installing the new toilet herself.

Initially, things looked good with the flushing and the swishing. That is, until the ceiling collapsed in the room below the new (leaky) toilet. Rushing to get supplies for a repair, Ms. Taddei clipped a pole in her garage. It ripped the bumper off her car, and later, several shelves holding flower pots and garden tools collapsed over her head.

“It just kept getting worse,” Ms. Taddei said, ruefully describing what came out to be a $3,000, three-day renovation at her suburban Minneapolis home, finished by a professional from Mr. Handyman, a home repair service that takes emergency calls.

Reminds me of my Rule #9: DIY vs. PAY! Plumbing is not for everyone!

Frugal Zeitgeist was all over this one too-- and yet she is commencing some bathroom repairs anyway!

Checking in with Fifi

It's hard to believe it's been almost two years since I wrote about Fifi's bachelorette party. I haven't been seeing much of Fifi since then, but I had dinner with her recently to catch up... here's the scoop!

As is typical, Fifi and I met at a rather upscale restaurant she suggested. I always go along with it, because it's always someplace I've heard of and wanted to try, but sometimes I just sigh and think "why can't Fifi just eat a burrito once in a while!" We went to Applewood, a small restaurant in Park Slope that offers all organic, locally sourced ingredients. The entrees range from $19 to about $25, and though the food was good, it wasn't THAT good and the portions were on the small side. We got wine and dessert and coffee and the final total including tip came to $68 each. You'll hear me sighing about it once more when I do my May wrap-up and my dining expenses are over budget yet again! Fifi agreed that it wasn't quite worth the money, especially since she wasn't with her husband, who always picks up the check.

Anyway, back to the rest of Fifi's life. Fifi recently got a promotion-- that's good. Fifi's job involves fundraising for a non-profit-- not so good. It's like pulling teeth to get money out of anyone these days. Fifi probably makes around what I make-- just under six figures a year unless there's a really big bonus.
Fifi's husband, who I'll call Bruno, seems to do quite well and supposedly his job is secure. I don't know how much he makes but I'm going to guess it must be over $150,000.

Since at least 5 years or so before they married, Bruno has owned a house in the suburbs. He bought it figuring that he and Fifi would someday get married and raise kids there, but in the meantime, he was quite happy there anyway, since he worked nearby and was also close to family. But Fifi doesn't like the long commute into the city and has always wanted to live in Manhattan. One of the conditions for them finally getting married after a long off-and-on relationship was that they would sell Bruno's house and move into the city within the next few years. Meanwhile, Fifi had a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn which she hung onto. Though she spent most of her time at Bruno's house, she still kept a lot of stuff at her apartment and spent the night there occasionally, with or without Bruno. The apartment apparently cost about $900 a month, which is cheap if it's your primary residence, but for someone with Fifi's finances, a pied a terre is probably not the best use of that money!

But now, Fifi will be giving up her Brooklyn apartment, and Bruno is selling the house in the suburbs. They decided to wait until they got the right offer, and despite the lousy real estate market, they got their price. They'd been looking at apartments to buy in Manhattan for quite a while, but have instead decided to rent a place for a year. They found a small 2-bedroom with fabulous views in a luxury building in Chelsea for about $4,100 a month. The landlord threw in a free gym membership, but Bruno won't be parking his car in the building's garage because that would be an additional $700 a month! He'll be taking the train for his new reverse commute.
But they are both excited about the move-- they've been walking around the neighborhood a lot on weekends, and have scoped out various restaurants and cafes that will be their new hang-outs.

If real estate prices continue to fall in Manhattan, Bruno and Fifi may have made a smart choice to rent for a year. I said so to Fifi, but she said that the real reason they're renting is that "this is the first time we'll ever be living together full time, without having my apartment to fall back on. This year will either make us or break us!" The response I kept to myself was "Wow! Maybe you should have tried that before you got married!"

Oh, and did I also mention that they just spent over $25,000 trying to get pregnant, without success?

It will be interesting to see how things work out for Fifi. I love her dearly, but we do not see eye to eye when it comes to managing one's finances. I think she senses this on some level, as I hear from another friend of ours that Fifi still has a lot of credit card debt that she is either hiding from Bruno, or Bruno is unwilling to pay off for her, I'm not sure which. Fifi never talks about that with me! Either way, I do hope things work out for her and Bruno, though I suspect there will be some more bumps along the road...

Ugh. Not Good News for Credit Card Users Like Me!

Overhaul Likely for Credit Cards

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

Great. Just great.

I currently use a card with a $60 annual fee in order to rack up a lot of frequent flier miles. It's been worth it over the years, as I've gotten a lot of free tickets, but it will be interesting to see how things change. I've never had the least interest in using my ATM as a debit card to make purchases, but I'll have to start if my credit card starts charging interest immediately... which would totally suck!

Madame X Is Moonlighting on "Real" Websites

Not content to just blog away in obscurity, I've decided to branch out into the world of legitimate journalism. That may not make me legitimate or a journalist, but hey, I'm proud that they'd have me anyway:

My first contribution was recently posted at FiLife, a personal finance web community affiliated with The Wall Street Journal. It's called "Can I Afford to Buy a Home, and Do I Want To?"

I've also contributed an article to More Magazine's new website, which just launched:
What We Talk About When We Talk About Money.


Check 'em out!

Wow. This is a Must-Read.

Here's how the story begins (all emphasis mine):

If there was anybody who should have avoided the mortgage catastrophe, it was I. As an economics reporter for The New York Times, I have been the paper’s chief eyes and ears on the Federal Reserve for the past six years. I watched Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben S. Bernanke, at close range. I wrote several early-warning articles in 2004 about the spike in go-go mortgages. Before that, I had a hand in covering the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Russia meltdown in 1998 and the dot-com collapse in 2000. I know a lot about the curveballs that the economy can throw at us.

But in 2004, I joined millions of otherwise-sane Americans in what we now know was a catastrophic binge on overpriced real estate and reckless mortgages. Nobody duped or hypnotized me. Like so many others — borrowers, lenders and the Wall Street dealmakers behind them — I just thought I could beat the odds. We all had our reasons. The brokers and dealmakers were scoring huge commissions. Ordinary homebuyers were stretching to get into first houses, or bigger houses, or better neighborhoods. Some were greedy, some were desperate and some were deceived.

So, the author starts a new family with a second wife, and buys too much house-- his budget is stretched to cover alimony payments so he gets a no-doc mortgage. Then his credit cards get maxed out, not just because he and his wife are spending a lot, but because his overdraft protection hits his credit card with a minimum $100 charge every time he's overdrawn! Before you know it, he's broke:

I felt foolish, ashamed and angry as I confessed to Bob. Why had I been trying to live a lifestyle that I couldn’t afford? Why had I tried to keep up the image of a conventional suburban family man, when nothing about my situation was conventional? How could I have glossed over the fact that we had been spending about $3,000 more than we were earning, month after month after month? How could a person who wrote about economics for a living fall into the kind of credit-card trap that consumer groups had warned about for years?

But guess what, it gets worse. Bob the mortgage guy helps him "solve" his money problems by consolidating his debt into a new, even bigger adjustable rate mortgage that could potentially hit rates of 11.5%:

The paperwork was so confusing that I was never exactly sure who was paying what. I hazily understood that I was paying most of the fees, one way or another, but I couldn’t figure out how, and I couldn’t see any better alternatives. After it was all over, I figured we had paid about $5,800 in fees to Bob’s mortgage company and the settlement company, on top of the sales commission that came out in higher interest rates every month.

I won't spoil the rest of the story for you-- it's a long article, but read it all!

My Personal Credit Crisis, by Edmund L. Andrews. The web article is a preview from the 5/17 New York Times Magazine.

Marginal Tax Rates

Consumerism Commentary has a helpful summary of the 2009 tax brackets. As Flexo points out, the way tax brackets work is often misunderstood, and people often just think their income is all taxed at a higher amount than it really is. I decided to put together a tax chart that shows how the actual tax amounts break down, in this case for a single individual like me.

Here's how the rates are explained:

Unmarried individuals (other than surviving spouses and heads of households):

If Taxable Income Is:	The Tax Is:
Not over $8,350	10% of the taxable income
Over $8,350 but not over $33,950	$835 plus 15% of the excess over $8,350
Over $33,950 but not over $82,250	$4,675 plus 25% of the excess over $33,950
Over $82,250 but not over $171,550	$16,750 plus 28% of the excess over $82,250
Over $171,550 but not over $372,950	$41,754 plus 33% of the excess over $171,550
Over $372,950	$108,216 plus 35% of the excess over $372,950

Here's my spreadsheet of how it works out for income at each of those breaks, plus some higher levels (click for larger image):


As is often pointed out, the highest marginal rates used to be much higher a few decades ago, and now people at the highest income rates pay quite a bit less than they used to. What if we added some higher brackets? Here's one scenario of how that might work, with the blue showing what would change and who would be affected:


My estimates for the percentage of the population affected were based on Wikipedia's stats on household income in the USA. A lot of households in the higher income ranges actually have two income earners, so this is far from precise. I'm not sure what percentage of taxpayers are single earners as opposed to married filing jointly or head of household, etc.

There are a lot of other variables to consider-- this is based on taxable income, and people at higher income levels are more likely to itemize and have more deductions to reduce their taxable earnings. It also doesn't take into account other forms of income such as capital gains, which is taxed at lower rates-- at the higher levels of wealth, much more income is likely to come from investment gains than a salary. And of course any state and local taxes would be in addition to these rates.

Regardless of all the subtleties, though, it's important to understand the basic concept! As Flexo points out, sometimes people "mistakenly believe that earning $1 over the barrier into the next tax level would result in a significantly higher tax bill because all income would be taxed at a higher rate, but that’s not true." And someone with a salary of $100,000 might think they're "in the 25% tax bracket," but even that level of taxable income only results in about 22% going to federal tax, and of course if your gross salary is $100,000, your actual taxable income will be far less if you factor in deductions and 401k contributions.

Keep all that in mind, though I doubt it will make you that much happier the next time April 15 rolls around!

When To Buy Organic

Here's a helpful tip from the April issue of Cooking Light magazine. As part of an article about organic produce, they tell you which non-organic fruits and vegetables are more likely to contain pesticides so you can buy only the organic options that are worth the extra money:

Best produce to buy organic:
Apples
Potatoes
Lettuce
Cherries
Bell peppers
Celery
Strawberries
Spinach
Carrots
Peaches
Nectarines

Skip organic and save money:
Pineapples
Eggplant
Onions
Broccoli
Asparagus
Bananas
Avocados
Mangoes
Kiwifruit
Cabbage

They also recommend these other ways to save: buying directly from a local farm or farmer's market, or buying private-label organic products at supermarkets like Safeway, Stop & Shop, Kroger, Publix, Wal-Mart, and Whole Foods, all of which offer their own organic food lines.

Money at the Deli

I never seem to tire of the weird money-related things that happen in delis. Yesterday when I was getting my lunch, the woman in front of me was complaining about the prices at the deli. She said to the cashier "I know it's not you, it's the owner, but your prices are ridiculous!" He just laughed and rattled off a response that included "shukran" (thank you in Arabic), "shalom" (peace in Hebrew) and "adios" (goodbye in Spanish). Typical New York dialogue!

Then the guy behind me asked for a pack of Camel Lights, and the cashier told him it would be $11. The customer didn't bat an eye, so I guess he's used to it, but no one else in line seemed to be! Last I'd heard, cigarettes were still under $10, so my jaw dropped, and someone further back in line said "ELEVEN DOLLARS! HOLY SH*T!" The cashier was laughing again, and this time his response, all in English, was "yeah, people come in, they complain, five dollars too much for a sandwich, but cigarettes eleven dollars, they don't care!"

For $4.60, I got a tuna sandwich and a little entertainment...

April '09 Recap

April was another good month. The market was up, and another tax refund hit, so I had a nice net worth increase of 6.91% to $334,329, on the high end. Here's what makes up that number:

Cash & Bank Accounts $47,832
Stocks/Mutual Funds $12,701
Bonds $4,860
Retirement $178,309
Credit Card -$1,028
Home Equity $75,000-$91,655
(I've been putting the home equity in as a range until I have more hard data on prices in my area.)

Expenses weren't too bad this month either. Here's the full, un-rounded dump from Quicken:

Bank Charge $60.00
Business expense $8.00
Charity $100.00
Dining:
--Breakfast $30.45
--Dinner $335.95
--Groceries $162.79
--Liquor $104.43
--Lunch $123.63
--Dining - Other -$20.00
Total Dining $737.25 (as always, the bane of my existence, over budget, though part of the reason was a $120 dinner with my sister and her family.)
Education $41.00
Entertainment:
--Movies $5.41
Total Entertainment $5.41
Gifts Given $4.88
Household:
--Laundry $8.50
--Household - Other $88.06
Total Household $96.56
Housing $2074.17
Investment Exp -$19.99
Medical:
--Dental $5.56
--Flex spend $41.66
--Health Insurance $74.20
Total Medical $121.42
Misc:
--Personal care $54.17
--Misc - Other $103.98
Total Misc $158.15
Taxes:
--Federal $891.14
--Medicare $113.74
--NYC tax $207.78
--SDI $2.60
--Soc Sec $486.31
--State $354.12
Total Taxes $2,055.69
Subscriptions:
--Internet Access $29.95
--Newspapers $42.40
Total Subscriptions $72.35
Travel:
--Commute $76.00
Total Travel $76.00
Utilities:
--Gas & Electric $109.67
--Telephone $76.06
Total Utilities $185.73

I saved over $4,000 this month if you count my 401k contributions-- not bad! It's nice to feel like I'm saving consistently again-- over the last couple of years I've had so many months where I was in the red because of new home expenses, or big travel expenses, but every month this year has had a nice cushion of net savings. Let's hope I can keep it up...wards and onwards!

Going Dutch

I'm a little late to the party in commenting on it, but this article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine is worth reading, for a fascinating and detailed look at what it's like to live in the Netherlands and participate in a high-tax, welfare state economy. The Dutch system is an interesting mix of public and private elements, and it has its good and bad points, but for many people, particularly families, it sounds like you get your money's worth! It's hard to sum up the article in a quick quote, as the whole point is that the usual stereotypes don't apply and the system is full of surprising contradictions:

American perceptions of European-style social welfare are seriously skewed. The system in which I have embedded myself has its faults, some of them lampoonable. But does the cartoon image of it — encapsulated in the dread slur “socialism,” which is being lobbed in American political circles like a bomb — match reality? Is there, maybe, a significant upside that is worth exploring?

Let's focus first on the slur. I spent my initial months in Amsterdam under the impression that I was living in a quasi-socialistic system, built upon ideas that originated in the brains of Marx and Engels. This was one of the puzzling features of the Netherlands. It is and has long been a highly capitalistic country — the Dutch pioneered the multinational corporation and advanced the concept of shares of stock, and last year the country was the third-largest investor in U.S. businesses — and yet it has what I had been led to believe was a vast, socialistic welfare state. How can these polar-opposite value systems coexist?

Read the rest of "Going Dutch" to find out!

Buy Indie Day

I didn't have my act together to actually blog about this on the day it happened, but May 1 was "Buy Indie Day." If there is a local independent business that you're fond of, now is an incredibly important time to support them, as this economy makes it harder and harder to survive.

Independent bookstores are particularly close to my heart, and wallet, since I make my living in the book business. My current favorite store in New York is one that opened fairly recently, called Idlewild Books. I go there every time I get my hair cut, and I can't seem to walk out without buying at least one book. The neat thing about this store is that it is organized by place. It's not just a travel bookstore, though they have a large selection of travel guides-- each country and US region is represented in novels and non-fiction books that are about or take place in that area.
If you love to travel, you'll find this store irresistible. If you don't travel, this store will make you want to! In addition to books, they stock some nice globes and travel accessories.

Some books I've bought there (and their locations):
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (France)
Mating (Botswana)
Poisonwood Bible (Congo)
Metropolis (New York)
Historic Shops and Restaurants of Boston (Massachusetts)
American Cities: Historic Maps and Views (USA)
Such a Long Journey (India)

In keeping with the theme of this post, I'm not including my usual Amazon affiliate links. Instead, the links to those books will take you to the IndieBound website, where you can find links to the independent bookstores closest to you. If you're a blogger, you might want to consider becoming an IndieBound affiliate-- I only just discovered that they even offered this program, and it's nice to know that there's a way to earn a little blog income while supporting independent stores.

Do you have any favorite independent businesses you support?

New Postage Rates Go Into Effect May 11

In case you're like me and keep losing track of when the heck this is supposed to happen, and what the price of a stamp is nowadays: as of May 11th, the price of a letter stamp will go up to 44 cents. Stock up on your 42 cent Forever Stamps while you still can! (USPS new price list here.)

Since I'm still using up my 39 cent stamps, that's a lot more of the envelope I'll need to cover with penny stamps... thank goodness they're self-adhesive!

Links I Liked

A few recent items of interest from around the blog world and beyond:

April Showers Bring May Flowers @ Fabulous Financials

Amortization Schedules and Principal Repayment @ My Money Blog

A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating a Deal-Finding Homepage @ The Simple Dollar

Do Rich Women Spend Less Than Rich Men? @ The Wealth Report

Properly Destroy a Credit Card @ Bargaineering

'I-Bond' Payments Get Wiped Out from the Wall Street Journal

Spring Fling... Sensual Spending

There must be something in the air as April comes to a close as the weather starts flirting with summer. On the one hand, I seem to be having some crazy allergy symptoms. And then there's the fact that I flipped out and bought a pink trench coat that came to almost $170 with tax.


I wouldn't have bought pink as my first choice, but otherwise it was exactly what I'd been wanting for a long time. And it didn't come in any other colors. And then I said, what the heck, I probably need a little more pink in my life. (It was from Club Monaco, in case any of you feel a similar fit of madness coming on!)

Thinking about this further, I wonder if the color pink triggers some kind of crazy spending impulse in my brain, as I have also bought pink shoes that were impractical, if not terribly expensive. Though other than that, my spending trigger color has tended to be grey-- if it's charcoal grey and it's a sweater, I have a hard time resisting. And my other sensual spending triggers are more about texture than color-- soft cashmere, buttery leather, the almost silky touch of a certain denim... some things just feel so good, you want to spend money on them!

Have the sensations of spring stimulated your spending?