Giving It All Away

Check out this NYT article about a family who are trying to do just that:

Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.

Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands, although finding takers has been harder than they thought. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

“It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

Would you do this? Could you? Here's something most blog readers would worry about:

Mr. Harris does have a concern, though. He now telecommutes from his job as a Web systems administrator and is hoping to stay employed through the move. “The question is, Do I have Internet access in the woods?” he said.

Wine & Money

An article in today's Dining section of the Times talks about whether enjoyment of wine is affected by outside factors such as the circumstances in which you drink it, or knowing how much it cost.

The researchers scanned the brains of 21 volunteer wine novices as they administered tiny tastes of wine, measuring sensations in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain where flavor responses apparently register. The subjects were told only the price of the wines. Without their knowledge, they tasted one wine twice, and were given two different prices for that wine. Invariably they preferred the one they thought was more expensive.

“Forget those blurbs about bouquets, body and berries,” one newspaper account crowed. “A meticulous new study found that the more people think a wine cost, the more they like it. And the less they think it cost, the less they like it.”

Big surprise. Sommeliers all over know that the hardest wine to sell in a restaurant is the cheapest bottle on the list. “Yeah, clients don’t want to be embarrassed in front of a date, so they don’t order the cheapest wines,” said Fred Dexheimer, the wine director of the BLT restaurant group. The fact is, the correlation between price and quality is so powerful that it affects not just our perception of wine but of all consumer goods.

Studies like this seem to come up every so often, so this is no big surprise. But what these studies have never taken into account, as far as I know, is the subjects' attitudes towards money. I think that a frugal-minded personal finance blogger might be more likely to enjoy a cheap wine just because it's cheap. I know I can be this way-- sometimes I probably like things just because I am so happy I got a bargain when buying them. Someone who really values saving money might not enjoy an expensive wine just because they want to believe that a cheap one is just as good.
On the other hand, someone who is very focused on attaining wealth and luxury goods and projecting a certain image of their financial status might be more likely to enjoy an expensive wine, because they believe expensive things should be better, and because they want to feel like their hard-earned money is buying them the kind of rewards they deserve. After all, if expensive things aren't better, there's no value to being rich, right?

Obviously, the answer is for some researchers to set up a study comparing the wine tastes of personal finance bloggers to those of the rest of the population at large. I hereby volunteer to be your first guinea pig!

Welcome Newsweek Readers!

Welcome to everyone who found this site through Eve Conant's Newsweek article "A Penny Saved is a Penny Spent," about why the 30-something generation has trouble being frugal. Thank you to Eve for mentioning me!

If you're here for the first time, here's a quick introduction:

My name is Madame X and I'm obsessed with money... but not in a yucky super-materialistic kind of way! This is the personal finance blog where you're as likely to read about a dominatrix as a dividend; where salaries, spreadsheets, studio apartments, and salad dressing coexist with coupons, karaoke, career advice, and condoms. I quote James Brown songs as often as possible. And no post is ever off-topic.

I still can't believe over 400,000 people have visited this site, but here's what a few of them have said about it:
"a wicked sense of humor"-- Business Week
"Madame X is a bad sista"-- SingleMa
"one of the ur-texts of this genre"-- Bluebird
"you must be psychotic"-- Anonymous
"Will you marry me (If you're hot)?" -- Anonymous

Check out the "Rules" and "Favorite Posts" in the right-hand sidebar for more highlights. If you'd like to keep track of my posts in a reader such as Bloglines or MyYahoo, you can subscribe to my feed.

I have a great time writing this blog and I hope you enjoy reading it. Thanks for stopping by!

About Those Sardines...

Another tale of a frugal meal attempt: it actually starts out with some pork chops, but stay with me...

I've had some pork chops in the freezer for a while-- I bought a large package a month or two ago, ate some right away and froze the rest, thinking I'd pull them out later for a cheap, easy meal. Well, yesterday morning I took them out and put them in the fridge to thaw. When I got home at about 8pm and went to cook them, they were still semi-frozen. I microwaved them briefly to try to defrost them further, but this made them take on a weird greenish color, and they smelled a bit odd. Who knows, maybe they were fine, but it skeeved me out too much to actually eat them. I think I have decided that freezing meat is actually NOT a frugal choice for me!

Anyway, that left me with just a salad and a baked sweet potato, which didn't seem like quite enough dinner. "Aha!" I thought. "I'll eat those sardines so I can report back to all my curious readers!"

I opened them up, while marveling once again at the $7.99 price tag. Inside, there was a little slice of lemon atop the sardines, giving them a nice smell. But the minute I looked at the fish themselves, which were large and rather shiny, I thought "oh no." One thing I forgot when I was all like "ooh, j'aime toutes les choses françaises" was that whenever I've had sardines in Europe, they haven't been the skinless and boneless kind you can get here. And I find it a bit gross to have to consider either crunching through and swallowing a sardine spine or surgically removing it.

Anyway, I did do the surgery and eat the sardines sans spines, and they were actually quite tasty! I ate them just as they were, without any toast or anything. With my usual sardines, I find that I want the nice buttery toast to go with them, as they can seem a bit dry otherwise (avocado can be another nice addition).

Here's some photos I took, at the risk of getting sardine oil all over my Treo:


Yes, that is a dissected sardine spine at about 7 o'clock on the plate. Ugh.
And here's the tin that started it all, about to be washed:


The can is rather jolie, don't you think?

Out of curiosity, I did a little research and discovered the website of the French company that makes these sardines. (They offer a variety of other products including rillettes, Breton fish soup, and the intriguing "vegetable glass casings for toast.") They seem to sell the sardines direct to consumers online, at €14.50 for a box of 5 tins. That is a lot less per tin than I paid, but who knows how much they'd charge to ship to the US, if they even do it at all.

Final verdict: good sardines, cute can, but I don't think I'll be spending $8 on them again.

Take That, Starbucks!

Can I get a skim semi-decaf eggnog hazelnut creme coffee? Chez Madame X you can!

I had been noticing recently that I was running low on coffee and wondering if I should buy some. I was holding off until visiting my parents-- though I have written a lot here about my total financial independence from them ever since I was a recent college graduate, I have to confess that I've actually been relying on my father for coffee supplies!

My dad is signed up for some kind of monthly coffee shipment from Gevalia. He gets both regular and decaf coffee, but since he doesn't drink coffee all that heavily, he had ended up with a growing stockpile, especially of regular coffee. He asked me if I wanted some-- since I was starting to run out of some coffees he'd given me for Christmas one year, I said yes, the result being that I haven't actually spent money on ground coffee for at least 2 or 3 years now! (I only drink 2 cups of coffee per week at home, sometimes even less.)
Unfortunately, my dad cut back on his Gevalia subscription and didn't give me any the last time I visited. So the last couple of weekends, I kept watching the supply dwindle but was reluctant to buy more. Should I just switch to decaf? I had plenty of that. While searching my cabinets, I also realized that I had three little tins of coffee that I had gotten as a Christmas present from my great-aunt. Each one is probably about a pot's worth of coffee, and they have Norman Rockwell paintings on them.

On a side note, aren't great-aunts wonderful for this kind of thing? Mine is 94 years old, and she's given me some fun Christmas presents over the years. My favorite was the set of four glasses, each decorated with a picture of a different Massachusetts Revolutionary War site. Three of them have broken over the years, but I treasure the one that's left!

Back to the coffee tins, one was just regular coffee, one was Eggnog flavored, and one was Hazelnut Creme. Last weekend, I decided I could extend the life of my nice Gevalia coffee by dumping the regular Norman Rockwell coffee in and mixing it up. It tasted fine.
This morning, it got to the point where I decided I'd better use the other flavors. I opened the Eggnog and it did have a rather cloying sweet smell. I opened the Hazelnut and it didn't seem too bad. But still, I thought they might overpower what little regular coffee I had left, so after dumping them in, I mixed in a lot of decaf as well.
The resulting brew did have a rather bizarre flavor, but it actually seemed kind of yummy in a festive, cozy, Norman Rockwell holiday kind of way.
At this rate, I might have enough to get me through to Christmas, and who knows, maybe then someone will give me another gift of coffee!

Moral of the story: do whatever you can to delay spending money for as long as possible, and if you're lucky, maybe you won't have to spend it at all!

"There's frugal and then there's being a cheap-ass".

My pal Frugal Zeitgeist has a way with words, doesn't she? That is a quote from her comment on my post about how a single and couple should share expenses. But it can apply to so many other situations! How do you define the difference between being frugal and being a cheap-ass? I noticed some debate about this on a post at The Simple Dollar about ways to spend less money on personal hygiene. Some commenters thought melting down remnants of deodorants in the microwave to combine them into a single usable deodorant somehow crossed the line. I personally don't want to spend time microwaving my old deodorants, but I don't think anyone who does so is cheap-- that to me still stays in the realm of frugality.
I think one key difference may be that it's frugal when you're cutting corners on things that affect only you, but it's cheap when other people are involved. For instance: I might eat sardines on toast for dinner sometimes as a frugal (and lazy) alternative to ordering take-out. But if I had guests over and served them sardines on toast, I think that would be cheap.
What about other things? Is regifting frugal or cheap? Is the guy who gives his girlfriend a Canal Street imitation of the designer bag she's been coveting frugal or cheap? Is dumpster-diving frugal or cheap? (And is being a "cheap-ass" way, way worse than just being "cheap?")
Let's hear your frugal/cheap stories, readers!

Frugal Subversive!

Dawn has tagged me for the Frugal Subversive award! Cool! This meme, originally started at the blog Down to Earth, is to be passed on to "three blogs who have inspired you with their frugal creativity or innovation" or, from the creator of the award, who "have made me think in innovative ways about my own life and how I can make a difference making, reusing, and just saying "no" to mindless spending."

Since Dawn (of Frugal for Life) tagged me, I'm probably not supposed to tag her back, but how could she not be one of my three? But here are my other picks:


Frugal Zeitgeist: she'll have paid off her mortgage in less than 10 years. On an apartment in Manhattan. Now that is inspiring, and it definitely requires frugal creativity!

The Simple Dollar: Trent is consistently inspiring just as a writer/blogger, and always has great ideas for ways to save money, fight debt and think differently about money and spending.

Check out these links and share your own thoughts about being a Frugal Subversive!

Cheap European Travel

10 Ways to Keep Europe Within Reach

It's been a couple of years since I've done a summer vacation in Europe, but it's something I'd like to get back into the habit of doing. For a while there, it seemed like I was always celebrating July 4th in France, but I just loved it! I did a lot of my traveling back when the dollar was strong, but nowadays, the same trip would cost me a lot more money. This NY Times article gives 10 tips to help you save a few bucks when going to Europe, and a few are things I used to try to do myself:

• Fly a low-cost airline: I saved money by going to London, often using frequent flyer miles earned from business travel, and then taking the cheapo airlines like EasyJet and RyanAir that fly from there to various locales in Europe.
• Stay in cheap hotels: I stayed in some very modest small hotels. If you are used to American hotel standards, you might find some European spots a little spartan, but sometimes the small, cheap places are family-owned, friendly, and very picturesque. Also, the other people staying there are more likely to be an interesting mix of nationalities, I found.
  
• Avoid airport taxis: I would sometimes take the subway to JFK airport in NYC, and then try to use public transportation to reach my destination. I would also buy unlimited daily or weekly travel passes for public buses or subways whenever possible.
• Cheap meals: I often ate picnic-style dinners bought in local markets, instead of eating in restaurants. It's wonderful to be able to buy fresh fruit, bread, and other items each day-- take advantage of it!
• Telephone charges: I've always had a cell phone that offered international roaming. Even at $1 or more a minute, that's cheaper than using a hotel phone. And once I bought a pre-paid SIM card and put it in my phone, so it was like having a local phone and saved me a lot of money on local and incoming calls.
• Free stuff: as the article mentions, there are lots of museums and things that are free. I also just enjoyed walking and exploring and sometimes found that I could see wonderful art in places like churches, which don't charge for admission.
• Tax refund programs: I rarely found that I wanted to shop. Even when I was visiting Europe a lot, I didn't think there was much worth buying that I couldn't get at home, and I didn't want to lug around a lot of purchases. But occasionally, I bought things that I knew I wouldn't find elsewhere, including a pair of shoes that were the equivalent of about US$300 at the time, I think. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but I got some piece of paper that I then took to a booth at the airport and received a refund on the GST tax I'd paid-- it was a significant savings.

Check out the article for lots of great suggestions!

Lessons Learned from Diet Books: How to Think Like a Rich Person

For a long time now, I've been wanting to write about the similarities between managing one's money and managing one's waistline. The kind of self-discipline involved in saving money and reducing debt is very much paralleled by what it takes to lose weight and eat healthily. I'm certainly not the first blogger to notice this (see Sitting Pretty, Frugal for Life, Kate Spills the Beans, and this great chart showing how American house sizes correlate to obesity rates!)

With that in mind, I started to wonder about how weight loss and finance compare in the book publishing world. At any given time, there always seem to be at least a couple of diet and personal finance books on the bestseller list. So do they offer similar advice? Or can the lessons in one type of book be applied to the other?

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the BookExpo convention in New York. I didn't have a chance to take photos of all the upcoming finance books as I did last year, but one day I noticed that signed copies were being given away of a recent diet book that has gotten a lot of attention, so I snagged one.
The Beck Diet Solution claims to "train your brain to think like a thin person," using techniques based on cognitive therapy. Might there be some analogy to training one's brain to think like a rich person, or at least a debt-free person? Of course there is no universal way that rich or debt-free people think, and many debt-free people wouldn't be considered rich by the usual definition. For the purposes of this post, I'm defining rich people as people who are financially secure, i.e. free of credit card debt, living within their means, on track to be able to retire comfortably-- these aren't insignificant things, and should at least make you feel rich if you've accomplished them!

In The Beck Diet Solution, Chapter 3 is titled "How Thin People Think." The author lists 8 characteristics that make it difficult for many people to diet, and claims that thin people don't have these characteristics. They make a lot of sense, I think, and can easily be translated into traits that might be common among people who find it hard to save money:

#1: You Confuse Hunger with the Desire to Eat
Translates to: You confuse need with want.
You need to learn to differentiate between what is really a necessity, and what is not, and practice depriving yourself a bit so you can experience what true need is really like.

#2: You Have a Low Tolerance for Hunger and Cravings
Translates to: You have a hard time not acting on your desire to buy things.
You need to learn that desires don't have to be acted on right away, and that if you don't buy something you want at that moment, you won't necessarily be haunted by it for the rest of your life.

#3: You Like the Feeling of Being Full
Translates to: You like being surrounded by possessions that make you feel prosperous, or spending money makes you feel prosperous.
Just as there is a difference between eating until you are full, and over-eating to the point where you feel stuffed, you need to recognize the difference between enjoying some of the rewards your money can buy, and over-doing it. You have to train yourself to appreciate what you can reasonably spend, and not feel deprived because you can't spend more.

#4: You Fool Yourself About How Much You Eat
Translates to: You fool yourself about how much you spend.
If you know how much you spend, it's easier to control. You might overspend a little one day, and then know you should compensate by cutting back on another day.

#5: You Comfort Yourself With Food
Translates to: You comfort yourself by spending money.
If emotional distress makes you want to run out and go shopping, you need to learn other ways of comforting and distracting yourself, and try to solve the problems that are upsetting you.

#6: You Feel Helpless and Hopeless When You Gain Weight
Translates to: You feel helpless and hopeless when you get into debt.
You need to learn to have faith in your own decisions and ability to act on them. If you overspend and get into debt, make a plan about how to solve your problem, and stick to it, rather than feeling like you're a failure and demoralizing yourself.

#7: You Focus on Issues of Unfairness
Translation: none needed.
Yes, some people are genetically thin, and some people are born rich. That said, just as many people look effortlessly thin but actually work quite hard to stay that way, many rich people did not have their wealth handed to them on a silver platter, and worked very hard to get it. In any case, how other people got their money isn't really something you should be worrying about when you're trying to get your own financial house in order.
Of course, unlike your weight, your finances may be affected by government policies you feel are unfair-- if you want to change them, get involved and take action to do so, but in the meantime, you're stuck in the world you live in and ultimately, you and only you are responsible for how you spend your money. You have to accept the fact that getting rich isn't going to be easy for you.

#8: You Stop Dieting Once You Lose Weight
Translation: You stop watching your spending once you get out of debt, or reach a certain savings goal.
If you've really buckled down and reached a financial goal, that's great, but you should look at your financial habits in terms of long term goals, not just immediate ones. You have to change your attitude towards money for life, or you'll find yourself in trouble again in the future.

So, a thin person knows why they are eating, knows how much they are eating, is willing to feel hungry, doesn't use food as a distraction, doesn't think gaining a few pounds is an irreversible catastrophe, accepts that staying thin takes some work, and sticks with this attitude for life. A rich person knows how much they are spending, whether it's truly important, knows they will sometimes have to say "I can't afford it," feels satisfied with moderate possessions, doesn't shop as a distraction, doesn't stress out if they go a little over budget now and then, doesn't resent other people's money, and sticks with this attitude for life. That all sounds pretty good to me! Maybe author Dr. Judith Beck should write "The Beck Budget Solution!"

I'm looking forward to trying this with some other diet books, though I'm not sure all of them will prove as useful: French Women Don't Get Poor? The South Beach Savings Plan? YOU: On a Budget? We shall see!

Lukewarm News

As always, I like to bring you a variety of links to interesting money stories from all over (all over the New York Times), keeping you up to date on what is going on (or was a few days ago).

First of all there was Friday's article about Freegans-- see commentary at Millionaire Artist and Frugal for Life. I'm all for getting used stuff for free, but I'm pretty selective about what I'll pick out of the garbage. And I will definitely not be eating any dumpster-dived food.

Friday's paper also had an article about the decline in smoking in New York City. Unfortunately the online version doesn't reproduce the graphic that showed the dips when higher taxes and the ban in restaurants and bars went into effect, but take my word for it that they were pretty dramatic. Smoking is such a deeply addictive habit for many people, I was kind of surprised that a financial incentive to quit would be so effective. (The tax raised the average price of a pack from $5.20 to $6.85.) It would be interesting to know if the people who quit for that reason had been truly heavy smokers or just the kind of social smokers who might have one or two when they're out in a bar... I also wonder if anyone has kept any stats on the average income level of smokers. If people who couldn't afford the higher cost were the ones who quit, you'd think smokers' average income has gone up. Do you think that's been the case?

I was also fascinated by this story about some leadership squabbles in the Pequot tribe, the ones who own the Foxwoods casino:

Even with its disputes, life on the Pequot reservation resembles the Magic Kingdom compared with the grinding poverty that afflicts many Native Americans. They typically confront unemployment rates of about 40 percent and per capita incomes of less than $13,000, a fraction of what a Pequot might spend on a car.

The gated community here, near the tribe’s $18 million golf course, features rambling homes, manicured lawns and driveways filled with luxury cars. Under the tribe’s profit-sharing system, each member 18 and older, working or not, receives a monthly payment that averages about $100,000 a year, tribal members say.

Tribal leaders make more. One tribal council member, in a court filing several years ago, said she had made as much as $1.5 million in a year. Each Pequot is also guaranteed a job, free medical care, day care and tuition at any private school or college.

Some tribal members say it has been too much too fast.

“My own nieces and nephews are ruined,” said Robert Hayward, Richard’s brother. Two of his sisters said their children were refusing to work or go to school. Tribal officials have acknowledged that some Pequots have also struggled with drugs....

“I wish I could get him to work,” Ms. McKeon said of her 19-year-old son, who she said had dropped out of high school. He receives $8,000 monthly from the tribe, she said, and has bought three cars in the last six months, including one that has already been repossessed.

Just as it's possible to be too thin, sometimes people can be too rich.

And today (ooh! today!), there was this article about baby showers:

What began as an informal gathering for close friends and family has become a major event — and often several events — for expectant parents.

“People love to celebrate the different stages of life,” said Peggy Post, the etiquette expert. “Traditionally, baby showers were small and intimate, just the way wedding showers used to be. But we live in a consumer society and people just love to shop.”

For those in the baby gear business, the growth in showers and registries has been a boon. The concept began about 12 years ago, Ms. Post says, and since then, the number of people using baby registries has mushroomed. It was a $240 million business in 2006, up 9.6 percent from 2004, according to Mintel International Group, a research firm based in Chicago.

I couldn't go to the latest baby shower I was invited to, and I'm kind of glad. I did mail a gift, but I think I would have felt pressured to give something fancier if I'd actually gone to this big sit-down lunch at a country club!

That's it for now... tune in again next week, when I'll bring you the best of this week's hot news!

Eating on $3 a Day

Hey, if the governor of Oregon can do it... check out this story from today's NY Times. The governor and his wife spent $3 each per day for a week-- $42 total-- as their entire food budget, as this is the amount granted to food stamp recipients. After a week, they went back to their regular diet and budget-- the governor said that he had to go to bed early because the diet left him feeling tired. (The article did not say whether he lost any weight! I can just see the books that would start coming out: "The Food Stamp Diet" etc!)
It's interesting to see what they bought, and the relative prices:

Should I Buy a Power Drill?

As fin_indie warned me, I may be developing an addiction to tools. For a long time, I have had a basic toolkit consisting of some screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, and a hammer. I've also had various hooks and screws and tape-measures lying around. And that was usually enough to cover my DIY needs, which basically consisted of hanging framed pictures... until now. So far, my home improvement projects have consisted of painting, caulking, sawing myself a new towelbar, installing a new doorknob/lockset, and tightening a loose wire in my circuit breaker panel (don't worry, I knew how to do it without electrocuting myself!) I've already probably saved myself a couple thousand dollars by not hiring people to do these things for me. And I've only had to spend maybe a couple hundred dollars, mostly on painting supplies and a hacksaw.
But now I have projects in mind for which I'll really need a power drill, namely installing some curtain rods and shelving systems in my closets. So should I buy one?
It might be a nuisance to have to borrow a drill, as I'll need it over a period of a few weeks, probably, and I don't know if my uncle can spare one that long. And since he is a professional, he might have heavy duty drills that would be a bit unwieldy for me to use. And I don't think any of my friends could lend me one. And how much could a power drill cost? I had this idea in my head that it should cost $30. Or maybe $50. Whenever I get these kinds of ideas, I'm usually way off from reality-- like I tell myself "socks should be $2!" when I'm shopping in places where they're $7-10 and up.
However, at Home Depot, there were actually some drills starting at $29.97 and $49.95, though many were quite a bit more. Almost all of them are cordless, but I actually don't think I want that-- the battery packs seem to add a lot of extra weight, and given the size of my apartment, I can reach almost anywhere without an extension cord! I did a little research on the Consumer Reports website, which mainly rated cordless drills. There was a lot of talk about how many volts you need to have enough torque and all that, but nowhere do they say how much torque one really needs to just put a few sinkers in drywall or tile. So I'm not quite sure what to do. I'll probably talk to my uncle about it this weekend and get some advice. I don't want to spend extra money and clutter up my closets with unneeded tools... but then again, sometimes it's just handy to have things, and a drill is pretty basic-- it's not like I'm shopping for a bench saw or a lathe. And my $7 hacksaw made me so happy, I think I'd just be over the moon if I bought a power drill. My apartment would probably look like swiss cheese within a week.

Fabulous Food from Frugal Females Folks: a blogger cookbook in progress

I've noticed that female personal finance bloggers have a tendency to post recipes for cheap eats, so here's a mini cookbook I've compiled from some that I've noticed recently. (Guys, if any of you have posted recipes that I've missed, let me know! But so far, I think I may have stumbled onto an interesting difference in how males and females think about ways to save money. 'Cause, you know, the little ladies are always barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen anyway-- NOT!)
[Updated 1/24/06 with the first recipe from a male blogger, Funny Munny, and 3/22/06 with one from Cap, our 2nd chef with the Y chromosome.]
I'll keep updating this with additional recipes as I find them and add a link to this post in the sidebar so people can check back for updates. If you have a good cheap recipe to share, let me know and I'll add it. If you can include information about the cost of the ingredients, even better! And actually, even recipes that don't necessary count as "cheap eats" are eligible, as any cooking at home is cheap if you compare it to eating out. You can post submissions in the comments or email them to me at openwallet1 [at] yahoo [dot com].
(Note: some of the posts I've linked to may just be about the experience of cooking a recipe that is not the author's own creation, but is linked to within the post.)

Appetizers and Soups
Mapgirl's Lentil Stew
Mapgirl's Sausage & Lentil Stew
Mapgirl's Jook (an Asian chicken & rice soup)
Caitlin's Kale & Kielbasa Soup
Caitlin's Hunkar Begendi (eggplant)
Baselle's Tomato Chickpea Soup
Mrs. Micah's Lentil, Sausage & Rice Soup

Main Courses
Boston Gal's Lazy Lady Lasagna
Funny Munny's Chicken Kiev & Carrot Apple Casserole
Boston Gal's Easy Curry Chicken & Rice
Caitlin's 6 Meals from a Costco Chicken
Baselle's Wisconsin Farmhouse Mac & Cheese
Claire's beans
Udandi's Chicken Enchiladas
Cap's Broccoli & Cheese (and Salmon)
Madame X's Frankenscampi
Poe's Chicken Salad
Kate's Vegetarian "Chicken" Quesadillas
English Major's Chicken tip
Mapgirl's Chicken Recipes
Trent's Chicken Casserole
Mei's Pasta Fazool a.k.a Pasta e Fagioli
Mei's Red Cabbage and Sweet Potato Curry
Mei's Feijoada

Desserts
For some reason, I am having trouble finding dessert recipes! What, are we all on a diet or something?!? Please send dessert recipes, as the only one I know how to make is those cookies that come in a log. ("Buy log, hack into chunks, bake at 350 until a few of them aren't burnt. If that is too much trouble, just microwave the dough for 20 seconds and eat like pudding.")
The closest things I could come up with were these posts:
Boston Gal's tale of Banana Bread gone wrong
The Debt Defier on the cost of ingredients for Pecan Pie
Now I have some actual recipes:
Savvy Saver on Homemade Chocolate Syrup (as well as some other recipes for presumably non-edible items such as laundry detergent and drain declogger)
Kate Spills the Beans on Sugar Cookies
Wenchypoo's Watchagot Cake
Boston Gal's Apple Pie
Udandi's Cookie Pizza
Kate's Apple Cobbler
Domestika's Quick Fancy Desserts
Terri W.'s Banana Cookies

Condiments, Dressings & Miscellaneous
Caitlin makes Breadcrumbs
Madame X's Salad Dressing
Dawn's tips for dealing with hard brown sugar
Savvy Saver's Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
Terri W.'s variation on the Hillbilly Housewife's Brown Sugar Granola
Trent's Homemade Bread

Menu Plans
The Hillbilly Housewife's emergency menu plan that feeds 4-6 people for a week for only $45!
Stephanie Tries the Mega Menu Mailer


Cooking & Recipe Tips
Kitchen tips from Dawn
Frugal food tips from Trent
Get Rich Slowly on How to Feed Yourself for $15 a Week
English Major's Frugal Food Wrap-Up

Now all we need is for someone to do a "Julie & Julia" and write a blog about actually making all of these recipes!

Rule #11: See No Evil, Hear No Evil...

I met a professional dominatrix at a party the other night. (Being able to say this sort of thing 100% truthfully is reason #1364 why I love New York.) Now if I was really the stellar personal finance blogger that I aspire to be, I would have thought to ask her some relevant questions about her work, such as "how much do rubber bodysuits cost these days," "are your whips and handcuffs tax deductible," and "does the dungeon you work for offer a good 401k?"
I'm sure she would have been willing to talk to me about some of these issues, as she was off-duty and really quite friendly: at one point, she sat on my lap and stroked my cheek, and twice, she bent over and slapped her own ass in my direction, which I think is dominatrix sign-language for "I like you."
Anyway, that was about as much dominatrix as I could handle, so I doubt the PF interview will ever happen, but the encounter did leave me feeling like it was about time we had a few more RULES around here! So appropriately enough, I present Rule #11:

• Sensory deprivation.
  

I think anyone would agree that if you are blindfolded, gagged and restrained, it is virtually impossible to spend money, unless the person who got you into that condition is charging by the hour. But let's think about some more reasonable alternatives, at least as they apply to my life.

I don't watch TV. I think this alone is a huge factor. If I don't see something, I won't want it. And let's face it, advertising works. I can't tell you how often I've had to grit my teeth and pass up buying a Swiffer-- my brain tells me a regular mop or paper towel will do the job, but the commercials make the Swiffer look so much more fun!

I don't read all the catalogs I get. Of course I don't have the willpower to throw out every single one, but most of them go straight in the trash, unless there is a chance I might find something I particularly need.

I don't go window-shopping, and I rarely read fashion magazines, decorating magazines, etc. Just more glossy, beautiful ways to think you need something that you really only want.

I try not to listen to the proverbial Mr. & Mrs. Jones, so I won't be tempted to keep up with the various vacations, new cars, clothes, social activities, and real estate that they are no doubt bragging about.

And though this one might really seem impossible to most people, I don't tend to listen to music radio stations. I used to listen to a great alternative radio station back in the 80s and early 90s, and I was constantly buying records, tapes and CDs of the bands they played. Now I listen to talk programs on NPR and use my iPod for music, and I'm much less tempted to buy new CDs. I still hear music in stores and through friends, and I still read reviews and check things out on iTunes and then buy the CDs I really want. My CD collection may not be the most up-to-the-minute, but I have plenty of great things to listen to, and if I miss some catchy new tune from a one-hit-wonder, I figure it's no great loss.

So that covers some options for the senses of sight and hearing, which are, as it happens, the senses of which a dominatrix is most likely to deprive you. I'm sure there are also ways to save money by not allowing oneself to touch, sniff, or lick things, and if you happen to think of any, please let me know! But be aware that from now on, I will be enforcing a strict policy that all comments be prefaced by "May I speak, Mistress X?" I know you love it, you miserable worms. Thhhwack!

What Color is Your Millionaire?

Considering that I think a lot about personal finance, and bother to write a blog about it, you would think I had more interest in reading books about the topic. I like reading books about larger economic issues, such as The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat, both by Thomas Friedman. And books with demographic information, such as Who We Are Now, or about the lifestyles of different social classes, such as The Working Poor and Bobos in Paradise, fascinate me.
But I don't read much from the personal finance section. I browse books about investing, as I know I have a lot to learn in that area, and sometimes I will flip through books like The Automatic Millionaire if I'm in an airport, but otherwise, I tend to avoid this category. However, I'd heard a lot about The Millionaire Next Door, and thought it might be interesting, so when I had some time to kill the other day, I parked myself in a corner of the local B&N, and started to look through it. But I was only a few pages in when I got really annoyed.
First of all, his data is pretty bogus, as other critics have pointed out. His methods can't be called statistically accurate. But what really pissed me off was the section called "You or Your Ancestors." He's trying to say that no, you don't have to be a Mayflower descendant to be a millionaire, and that not everyone who is wealthy inherited their wealth rather than building it themselves. "America continues to hold great prospects for those who wish to accumulate wealth in one generation," he says. Well, that is all very inspiring but then he proceeds to chart the ethnic makeup of his millionaires vs. the percentage of these ethnic groups in the U.S. population. The #1 group are people of English ancestry, at about 21% of millionaires vs. 10 % of the population. Then you've got Germans, Irish, Scottish, Russian, Italian, French, Dutch, Native American, and Hungarian. If you look at it another way, people of 9 European ancestries are 80.4% of millionaires vs. only being 51.6% of the population.
Doesn't that begin to sound like opportunity might not be so equal for all?!? I mean, hello, this is not the 1800s anymore! If an Irish person becomes a millionaire that can hardly be trumpeted as an example of our equal opportunity society allowing an opressed minority to triumph over adversity. He makes no mention of African-Americans, Asians, or Hispanics as even existing, let alone their representation among millionaires. As for the Native Americans he mentions, I think that is an example of his skewed data. Maybe they slipped in because he was trawling for survey participants at casinos. I just find it anomalous that this is the only minority group that makes it onto his list, and it is at odds with other statistics that I've read about the income levels of Native Americans.
The author also lists a chart of ethnic groups that tend to be more recent immigrants and who make up very small percentages of the population but have higher than usual wealth levels-- I found it rather disturbing that he seems to go out of his way to highlight the position of Israelis on this list, as if to confirm anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews & money.
Of course I am not trying to do a full book review here-- I admit I've only read a small part of it. I do think that the main point of this book, that you are more likely to be wealthy if you don't flash expensive status symbol possessions all over the place, is a valuable message for many people to hear. But I felt like the book should have been titled "The White Millionaire Next Door" or "Some Millionaires that Live Next Door to People I Know," or "Some of My Best Friends are Black but Of Course None of Them Live Next Door or are Millionaires."
I realize that the point of this book is not to critique race relations in America. We do live in a society that at least theoretically offers equal opportunity, and people of all colors, religions and backgrounds can and do become millionaires. But there is also blatant, persistent inequality between the races when it comes to income levels and net worth-- just look at the census data. To indulge in Panglossian gushing about how great it is that we can all become millionaires, and not acknowledge reality is offensive, and just stupid in a book that claims to have some basis in research. Not to mention that the author has obviously just forgotten that something like 30% of his potential readers don't happen to be white.

Things I could be doing to save money

I'm a fairly frugal person in many ways, but there are a lot of things I could be doing to save money that I am not. Here are a few:

• Email more instead of phone calls-- this is reasonable, I should do it, though sometimes you do need to just talk to people.
  
• Read newspaper online instead of suscribing-- impossible to do on the subway, so no dice.
• Never eat out, buy cheaper groceries-- I'm working on making improvements in this area, it's definitely where I have the most to gain! I've spent almost $400 on food already this month and it's only the 10th!!
  
• Never buy even used books, go to library more often-- this wouldn't actually save me that much money, I spend less than $100 a year on books because I can get a lot for free anyway.
• Make gifts instead of buying them-- hmm, hope everyone liked the beaded necklaces and painted picture frames they got last year... and the year before...
  
• Take bus instead of train or flying for family visits-- ugh, the bus is something I'd like to think of as a distant memory from my younger days.
• Never travel-- no way
• Never take classes-- no fun
• Never take taxis-- I only spent about $250 on personal taxi use last year, most of which were trips from the airport. If I am coming home late at night, with luggage, I think it's worth it. I almost never take shorter trips within the city. And I take the Airtrain and subway whenever I can.
  
• Clothes: always on sale or thrift shops or not at all-- I spend about $2-3000 a year on clothes because I have to (and want to) look relatively professional-- I've always tried to follow the rule of dressing for your next step up the career ladder. I try to buy good things that will last, not a lot of trendy crap. I'd rather have one good pair of shoes that cost $300 than 15 pairs of flip-flops that would make me look like a beach-comber at the office. I think this is probably a good investment. I'm sure I could be a little more bargain conscious, but I do try to find things on sale. I don't find thrift shops to be worth the time it takes to pick through the junk.
• CDs: borrow from library and burn into itunes-- I haven't been spending too much on music lately, but I haven't checked out what the library has... could be worthwhile.
• No new housewares-- I'm mostly sticking to this one, at least until I buy an apartment.
  
• Live with a roommate-- I'm not sure this would actually be much cheaper than my current rent, at least in my same neighborhood. And when you hear people's horror stories about roommates running up bills and trashing places, I think I'm better off knowing that the only person responsible for the bills is me.

Rule #7: The Now or Later Rule

Many people will tell you that before you spend a dollar, you should think about the future value of that dollar if you invest it. The thinking is that if you save money now, it will grow via investments, and then someday you'll have more money to do the things you want to do, and presumably, more time to do them when you're retired. This is not bad advice. I expect to live until I'm well into my 90s based on my family history, and I want to have resources to enjoy that part of my life.
But on the other hand, you can't save everything for a rainy day. Sometimes I ask myself this question:

• If I don't buy/do this now, will I still be able to enjoy what I'm buying/doing later?

It depends on what I'm spending the money on. Here are some examples:

Having a big house: postpone it, I can enjoy that when I'm retired
Elegant furniture: postpone it until I'm old and need to spend a lot of time sitting down or in bed
A car: postpone it, I'll have more of a need for it later, at least until I start to really lose my faculties, or get osteoporosis and turn into one of those little old ladies who can’t see over the steering wheel.
Travel: hmm, I might not enjoy mountain hikes and swimming with wild dolphins when I'm arthritic and decrepit. Better do it now.
Sailing: again, I might not be physically able to do it later, so I should do it now.
Gym membership: there may be cheaper ways to stay fit but if I even want to make it to old age, I don't think I should skimp on exercising.
Education: sure, do it now because it's an investment in the future anyway and I might have Alzheimer's later.
Clothes: who knows, maybe when I'm 80 I'll be rocking Miu Miu instead of muu-muu, but I think it's a better bet to enjoy wearing nice clothes now while I'm still young and slender!

I certainly don't make all my decisions using the "a bus could run over me tomorrow" argument: I do think you should plan for the rainy day. But I also think you should make hay while the sun shines, or at least before your knees give out.

Rule #5: Ask These Questions

This is sort of a follow-up to my rule about shopping. If I must go shopping and buy stuff, I try to remember to ask myself these questions, or at least some of them!

• Do I need it?
• How many do I already have?
• How much will I use it?
• How long will it last?
• Could I borrow it from a friend or family member?
• Can I do without it?
• Am I able to clean, lubricate and/or maintain it myself?
• Am I willing to?
• Will I be able to repair it?
• Have I researched it to get the best quality for the best price?
• How will I dispose of it when I'm done using it?
• Are the resources that went into it renewable or nonrenewable?
• Is it made of recycled materials, and is it recyclable?
• Is there anything that I already own that I could substitute for it?

I think I copied this list out of a book a while back, but I can't remember the source and couldn't find it online. If anyone knows who should be credited, please let me know. Not all of these questions relate directly to finances, e.g. things that are recyclable might actually be pricier, but it's a good guide to being a more responsible consumer in general.

What I don't spend money on

TV- $0, don't have cable, or anything to plug it into for that matter.
Car/gas-$0. Don't have one. The occasional rental goes under travel
Utilities: Gas/electric/water- $0. all are included in the rent.
Student loans- $0, paid them off

What else... no DSL, no personal trainer, no shrink, no storage unit rental, no manicures, no pets, no cleaning lady, no cigarettes, no drugs... that is my short list of things that many other New Yorkers seem to find essential!

Budget Travel

I've been trying to figure out if I will take a trip this summer. I already did a California trip to visit family, but the last 4 years, I've managed to go to Europe for about a week each summer. (3 trips to France and 1 to Portugal, all done with frequent flyer award tickets to London, and then cheap flights on EasyJet or RyanAir from there-- fortunately I have friends to stay with in London. If you have to pay for a hotel there, it's not as much of a bargain.)
I used to subscribe to Budget Travel magazine, but after a couple of years I let it go. Some of the info was good, but I got tired of reading tips like "my wife and I saved tons of money by packing our own beanie weenies and avoiding restaurants!" That is not my idea of experiencing a foreign country! If you don't eat the local foods, you're missing half the fun! You can still have a very cheap picnic with fruits, cheeses, sausages, sardines, breads, etc. from markets if you don't want to eat in restaurants. Grocery shopping in a foreign language is great practice, too.