Taking Cheap To New Extremes…

I haven’t always been cheap.  There have been times in my life when I have spent when I shouldn’t have,  some knee jerk reaction to feeling deprived or in rebellion to my thrifty parent’s way of life. 

‘Cheap’ gets a bad rap.  It conjures up images of tacky, poorly made, low quality things. Of course it can be just that, however, my brand of cheap is something else.  ’Cheap’ has been a way of life for so long now, that I’m always amazed at what people consider radical measures to save money.  I can’t resist reading articles about ‘new ways to save money’ or ‘you can save $5,000. a year, just by doing this or that’.  The eternal optimist in me hopes that maybe I’ve missed something or that someone has actually thought of something that I haven’t, but alas, they leave me shaking my head.  Are these people kidding?  Wear the same maternity clothes that you wore with your last pregnancy? Only shop sales… these people are obviously amateurs.  Honestly, I do ignore the truly radical approach like washing and reusing aluminum foil …. 

I always shop in second-hand stores for everything and can’t pass up a good yard sale, a real find on eBay for a gift and yes, have even pulled an occasional item of value left out for garbage that was just too good to pass up.  I dragged my beautiful, carved mahogany antique upholstered chair out from the front of someone’s brownstone left out for garbage in NYC in the late 70’s….dumpster diving is nothing new to me. 

With the economy the way it is, and where it looks to be going, more and more people are having to really cut back, not just dipping into their savings to go on vacation or giving up your second home, I’m talking about really cutting back.

Think of it as a sort of treasure hunt, kids.  I find I actually have higher quality possessions by buying slightly used.  Instead of buying a $15. handbag at K-Mart I buy a $10. handbag at a consignment store that is Dooney Bourque or my latest find, a Kenneth Cole beauty.   It’s just a different way of thinking.

The Search For Beauty and Potential

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”

Michelangelo

Life as art, art as life.  There is positive potential, a chance for beauty everywhere in everything and in everyone.  We can either see the angel in the marble or just walk on by. 

As a parent, we are given the honor of a child to raise.  Michelangelo put it beautifully….  We don’t carve out our own hopes, desires and plans in our children.  As with the ‘Angel’, we seek and learn who our children are and work with them to bring out their full and true potential.

Vanity and Pride

The quote below is from one of my favorite books and definitely one of my best loved movies (the A&E version, of course!).  You won’t regret sitting through 6 hours of a faithful rendering of Jane Austen’s book with it’s charmingly diverse characters taking you on a stunningly beautiful, insightful journey to the early 19th century.

 

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously….Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice,  1811

Obama-Miracle Worker or Magician?

We have another addition to Obama’s list of promises which I posted on February 18. 

Last week we spent $787 billion on his stimulus bill then with dizzying speed,  just yesterday,  he promised to cut this years deficit of $1.3 trillion to $533 billion by 2013.  Few details have been given as to how he expects to accomplish this incredible feat, making today’s speech to the nation particularly enticing for an America desperate for a miracle.  It sounds too good to be true.  Am I being cynical?  This is one of the few times that I am praying to be wrong.  With all of the problems facing our country it seems a miracle is the only thing that can save us.  Can our new president really pull the rabbit out of the hat or is it just another elaborate trick?

2nd Amendment Mom

My husband is a safety freak; safety glasses, steel toe boots, gloves for gardening, fire extinguishers, ear protection, bike helmets, flashlights everywhere; you’d think we lived in a cave or something.  Pepper spray is on my keychain, a baseball bat is in my van next to the drivers seat and a gun is always handy.  So safety has become a way of life, which is a good thing with heaven knows what happening all around us.  Just in the last year there have been three shootings in our town, one a 14 year old girl on my daughter’s softball team.  She was out walking a few houses from home with a friend and was shot in the chest for her purse which contained $3.00.  She lived, thank God, but we no longer hear anything about her…

In a world like ours, I’m always amazed that people would consider not being armed.  In one of my earlier blogs I wrote that if we give up our guns and the right to bear them, then only the ‘bad guys’ will have have and use them.  Anyone who thinks criminals will willingly give up their guns if required is just plain nuts.  Thank God for our police, but they sure can’t be everywhere all the time and more often than not, arrive AFTER the fact.  The rest is up to the individual. 

I never realized how most people walk around in a state of complete unawareness as if they lived in some fairy tale.  Many are so distracted with a cell phone conversation or earbuds playing their favorite sound that they wouldn’t have a prayer of responding defensively.

I didn’t grow up with guns but my good friend did.  I shot my first shotgun at age 15, skeet shooting.  I was a surprisingly good shot for having had no experience.  I was a natural and I enjoyed it. 

Fast forward to safety conscious husband and a hobby turns into a self defensive way of life.  It’s a good mindset to have with our world getting stranger and more dangerous every day.  With our 2nd Amendment rights being threatened,  we should be very pro-active with the NRA.  We must maintain the right to be responsible for protecting ourselves and our families. Why????

“This year will go down in history.  For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration.  Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead.” Adolph Hitler, 1935  

When the Germans invaded Europe, one country they did not invade was Switzerland.  Can you guess why?  Switzerland being the only country left in Europe with citizens allowed to keep and bear arms presented too strong a resistance, even for Hitler.

“All political power comes from the barrel of a gun.  The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.” Mao Zedong, 1938

“When we got organized as a country, … giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly…When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.” Bill Clinton 1994

A Cake and A Pie Wreck

Cake wrecks, oh yeah.  Pie wrecks for that matter.  Anyone who bakes has at least a few.  I was reading The Breda Fallacy; she has a funny reference to a childhood birthday cake and mentioned the blog  Cake Wrecks which I checked out.  After reading these I was inspired to share two of my own baking mishaps.

My best ‘worst cake’ story is about a cake I baked for my son’s birthday party. The whole thing fell apart when I took it out of the pan–it came out in chunks.  Hmmm… Long story short, I iced and decorated the cake pan, (yes, I iced the metal pan to look like a cake) sang ‘Happy Birthday’, took some pictures then brought the ‘iced’ cakepan back  into the kitchen like I was going to cut and serve it. I then took the chunks of cake and served them in bowls with a glob of icing and some ice cream on top. The kids never noticed! 

My other story was a pie wreck.  Unfortunately both were for birthdays and were public.  

Sour Cream and Raisin Pie was a favorite of my husband’s father growing up.  When I made it for his birthday, the filling didn’t set.   It was a tasty sour cream ’soup’ in a crust that I ended up serving in a bowl with a ladle (and a smile) for anyone brave enough to eat it.  This one I couldn’t hide under icing and ice cream, oh well. My father-in-law was very gracious about it, ate a bowl and said it  tasted good!

Little Dogs Rock!

 We have a little dog.  We’ve never had a little dog before, just shepherds, large mutts, medium mutts and a couple of cats.  Our little dog is soooo sweet, very soft and very fuzzy!  Little dogs are cheap to feed as they don’t eat much.  When they come in all muddy and dirty you just pick them up and rinse them off in the bathroom sink.  Our little dog is a great alarm system – we always know if there is anyone near our house.  Our little dog is very smart.  She knows people’s names and tilts her head to the side when you say them.  She is very cute.  I can groom her myself.  She can fit in a sack that I carry most everywhere.  She doesn’t take up the whole bed when she sleeps with you.  She is always snuggled next to you when you’re on the couch.  Our little dog snores very softly when she sleeps.  She has about 6 different nicknames that we call her.  She comes to get you when she has to go outside – she’ll find you wherever you are in the house and throw herself at your legs until you follow her to the door and let her out.  We make up little songs and sing them to her.  Our little dog is a malti-poo and she doesn’t shed – not at all!  She only weighs 8 lbs. and she is 6 years old.  Everybody loves our little dog except those who hate dogs.   She is the fifth member of our family, our fuzzy little baby.  We have a little dog and little dogs rock!     

                                                                      

                                                         THE END

White America, A Nation of Cowards?

I am spitting mad about attorney general Eric Holder’s comment that the US is “a nation of cowards” on matters of race, with most Americans openly avoiding discussions of racial issues. 

The Americans I know don’t avoid discussion of racial issues; sounds like your problem.  But alright, lets discuss racial issues.  Below are comments from our attorney general that I will answer plainly.

ERIC HOLDER: …the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate in their private lives and on the weekends. Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards….Even when people mix at the workplace or after work social events, many Americans in their free time are still segregated inside ‘race-protected cocoons’ Saturdays and Sundays.  America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago.  This is truly sad.

MOM:  You are an ass.  The only truly sad thing is that you are our new attorney general.  God help us!  America is an ethnic melting pot,  just look around.  The race that refuses to ‘melt’ is blacks like you who refuse to blend and are constantly making disparaging, separatist statements.  To say the workplace is largely integrated but that ‘Americans’ (just say  ’whites’-you can’t speak honestly and openly even when you are trying) separate themselves out on weekends is ridiculous.  If you have good friends at work who are black, yellow, white or purple they will also be your friends on weekends.  If they are ‘work friends’ or just ‘work associates’ you will have a separate set of friends out of work.  Are people REQUIRED to have the same friends at home as at work?  Just for the record, I’ve had black friends at work that I used to go out with after work.  Some were good  friends that came to my wedding.  I never felt ‘obligated’ to socialize with them because they were black, they were just fun to hang out with and I didn’t spend time with them because they were black and I thought it might help race relations in our country………This has got to be the stupidest thing that I have ever heard.

ERIC HOLDER: “…..we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race….If we’re going to ever make progress, we’re going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified.”

MOM: No, we talk too much about race.  Your statement, if made honestly, is saying that your relationship with other races is dishonest and strained.  (Really, I never would’ve figured that.) What does racial progress have to do with determination, honesty and accepting criticism where justified?  Stop talking about race relations and just treat each other as people.  Also, anytime constructive criticism is offered, it’s taken as a racial slur.  Every bit of news between whites and blacks is taken as a racial slur against blacks, thanks to the slanted media. 

Here is some justified constructive criticism: Stay in school and take education seriously.  Marry each other before you have babies together and don’t keep having babies with everyone you sleep with.   Stay married and raise your kids, give them a mother and a father.  If you get divorced, don’t be a deadbeat Dad.  Don’t do drugs-they cost money better spent on your families and destroy your life.  Be responsible financially and emotionally.  

For your information these are NOT a racial slurs.  Take it in the spirit in which it was meant, something that has to happen before positive change will occur.

ERIC HOLDER:  Urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education and economic disparities.  “Race is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation’s history, this is in some ways understandable… If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.” 

MOM: Racial matters do not divide us.  What divides us is having blacks vs. all the other races constantly shoved down our throats.  Take Black History Month.  Do we have Yellow History Month or White History Month?  What about Irish History Month? It is everyone in America against the blacks, according to you.  Slavery was a terrible thing, no doubt.  But it’s like being a screwed up person because your family was screwed up.  It’s time to grow up and be who you are without justifying why things are wrong and blaming it on the past.  Acknowledge your problems and start to fix them.  Your ancestors would die of shame if they weren’t already dead.  All they suffered at least got them out of Africa and gave their descendants the opportunity to live in and be a part of the development of the greatest country in the world where anything is possible.  Would they ever have believed a black man would be president of the US?  So, quit your whining and complaining, already. 

My last comment to you Eric Holder, is that you should thank all of the ‘cowardly white racists’ who voted Barack Obama into the office of President so he could appoint you attorney general.  Try to honor and respect your post and knock off the ridiculous, sour grapes comments that should be beneath you if you were an honest and honorable man.

Being Cheap – The Fashionable New Mindset

Those of us having had extensive practice at being thrifty find ourselves at the forefront of the newest craze.  For the well off, being on the cheap is suddenly fashionable.  Bragging about how little they are spending, giving less to charity, going out to dinner only twice a week instead of four and not buying haute couture is now top drawer.

Many are foraying into this newest craze without benefit of experience.  Frugality has become a new and interesting diversion, one that can be tired of quickly and forgotten if they see something truly exorbitant they just can’t live without.  Being thrifty, if only as long as it’s fashionable, puts those who are guilty of spending outrageous amounts of money on non-essentials some balm for their financial conscience, if indeed they have any, while the struggling world economy is front page news.

I find it curious that the many who can, don’t consider continuing business as usual  to help the economy.  Would it not be far more noble to renovate their summer home and purchase the latest hybrid car that they can well afford to help keep businesses going?  Instead they take on the faux tarnish of doing without while evoking admiration for their iron self control from their peers.  It is as if there were some insidious ‘thrifty causing chemical’ in their organic, global warming resulted, glacial drinking water with carbon offset donations of 10% on every bottle. 

 The worst of this bizarre mindset, which I have been unfortunate enough to witness first hand, is the case of a billionaire holding back a check for services provided by our company until a refund check they received had cleared….    ’But of course, you understand we are cutting back…’ 

It’s a strange other world, the world of the very wealthy, one I have kept running into all of my adult life and wish I’d never  seen.  It tests my very hope for the human race. 

What I find downright disturbing is the dismissing of employees, while the employers blithely live on much the same as always, only now with the incredible inconvenience of being a little short staffed.  Boo Hoo!  Is contributing to the number of unemployed going to help the economy?  Are we expected to click our tongues and shake our heads in admiration of their thrifty sacrifice?

A Checklist of Obama’s Many Promises

Obama’s presidential campaign produced more promises than (to quote an old saying) ‘Carter’s got little liver pills.’ 

Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) printed a checklist of Obama’s many promises that my husband cut out and posted in his office. 

Below is that IBD list broken down into the following categories: Taxes, Energy, Environment, Labor, National Security, Social Security, Education (only one???), Spending and Health care.  We figured we would keep track of these promises and invite you to do the same. 

TAXES:

1. Give a tax break to 95% of Americans.

2. Restore Clinton-era tax rates on top income earners.  “If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime.  Not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes.  Nothing.”

3. Dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes.

4. Give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create in the U.S.

5. Eliminate capital gains taxes for small business and startup companies.

6. Eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.

7. Expand the child and dependent care tax credit.

8. Expand the earned income tax credit.

9. Create a universal mortgage credit.

10. Create a small business health tax credit.

11. Provide a $500 “make work pay” tax credit to small businesses.

12. Provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.

ENERGY:

1. Spend $15 billion a year on renewable sources of energy.

2. Eliminate oil imports from the Middle East in 10 years.

3. Increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year.

4. Weatherize 1 million homes annually.

5. Ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.

ENVIRONMENT:

1. Create 5 million green jobs.

2. Implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce green-house emissions.

3. Get 1 million plug-in-hybrids on the road by 2015.

LABOR:

1. Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court’s pay discrimination ruling.

2. Sign into law an employee free choice act – aka card check – to make it easier for unions to organize.

3. Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.

4. Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.

NATIONAL SECURITY:

1. Remove troops from Iraq by the summer of 2010.

2. Cut spending on unproven missile defense systems.

3. No more homeless veterans.

4. Stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.

5. Finish the fight against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorists.

SOCIAL SECURITY:

1. Work in a ‘bipartisan way to preserve Social Security for future generations.”

2. Impose a Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $250,000

3. Match 50% of retirement savings up to $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000.

EDUCATION:

1. Demand higher standards and more accountability from our teachers.

SPENDING:

1. Go through the budget, line by line, ending programs we don’t need and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.

2. Slash earmarks.

HEALTH CARE:

1. Lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.

2. Let the uninsured get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.

3. Stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

4. Spend $10 billion over five years on health care information technology.