The harder times get, the more fun it seems to be. Don't get me wrong, poverty is always a grind but when everyone else is feeling the pinch people start getting creative and enjoy wallowing in it together. I'm still spending a lot of time shopping for food deals and thinking about cooking.
A couple of years ago my friend Diane & I were hooked on the Food Network Channel. We co hosted a food blog and started experimenting with various recipes from Food Network shows and cookbooks, much to our families dismay. No matter what we made, nothing tasted very good! Our families started to revolt and we went back to the basics – meat and potatoes. But as I was eating my old meatloaf standby, I wrote to Diane and complained that food just doesn’t taste the same anymore. Was it me and my aging tastebuds or is this true?
Don’t even get me started on restaurants! A couple of years ago I went with a group of people to a restaurant for their $45 New Years Eve dinner special. My lamb chops were gross – too fatty to be eaten. I didn’t say anything, didn’t want to spoil every one else’s expensive meal. It made me wonder how many substandard meals they got away with serving that night, due to thinking like mine. I never went back to that restaurant of course, and the list of local restaurants I no longer patronize (for the same reason) has grown rapidly over the years.
Surprisingly I tend to get the most consistently good meals at chain restaurants – Applebees, Cocos, etc. Perhaps it’s their quality control. It’s just so disappointing to try to make an event out of going out to eat and end up paying for a meal that is substandard to what you could make at home more cheaply.
Another disappointing phenomenon is the price staying the same for items that are shrinking in size. You no longer get 64 ounces of ice cream, you get 48. You can tell easily by looking at candy bars. I remember the size of the bars I used to get as a child for a nickel. Not even close to what you pay a dollar for these days. Cadbury even has a disclaimer on their site that the eggs aren’t getting smaller, we just got bigger … so, not true. Then I read that candy companies are also using cheaper ingredients to make up the price difference, like the oil Hersheys is using in the chocolate. No wonder things don’t taste the same!
Then there’s the problem of meat at the grocery store. If I see the words “Aged Beef” I drop the package and run for the hills! There is nothing grosser tasting than aged beef but grocery stores and restaurants are only too happy to charge you big bucks to come to the same conclusion. Recently I made filet mignons that had been marked down as a “Manager Special” at my local Ralphs. It was completely disgusting. I’m so glad I didn’t pay full price. I had bought several packages (at $1.29 each) and my daughter implored me to just throw them away. I told her that I plan to use the meat in a crockpot stew dish but was there enough gravy and spices to disguise the taste? Finally I made chili out of them and was it good! It gave the chili a really rich, earthy taste.
The one good thing about items shrinking in size is that we Americans can use some portion control. I heard that the size of the burger that kids get in Kids Meals are the size that adults used to receive when fast food places first opened. My daughter and I have decided to order kids meals whenever we eat fast food. We have also learned to share entrees – one person orders a dinner salad, the other gets the entrée. I don’t mind ordering my own entrée occasionally through because I can take the leftovers home and make another meal out of it (and sometimes a third meal!) I don’t want to turn into one of those old ladies who hoard little bits of leftover food, but I think I am well on my way to joining their ranks.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
FEELING THE PINCH
I knew that this summer would be hard as we live in an extremely seasonal area. Last summer was bad enough and I worked full time! What hurt us was the high energy bills ($600+ a month) and the fact that my daughter’s job opportunities tend to dry up in the summer – there are less dogs to groom, less staff needed in retail, etc. To stay afloat, I took in boarders and sold everything that wasn’t nailed down via ebay, craigslist and a couple of garage sales.
Over this past year our circumstances have changed quite a bit. I was able to be rehired by the school district at a very good pay rate, but had to take a job at a school - so I have 7 weeks off in the summer. We moved into a condo inside of a gated community. Our energy bills aren’t as high, rent is less BUT we are unable to take in boarders or hold garage sales. Our computer is dead, so there is no ebay or craigslist, not that there is much left to sell anyway.
How are we managing? We are laying low, staying home, trying not to spend money. One ray of sunshine in all of this is that J misfiled her tax returns back in April which means she hasn’t gotten her refunds yet. We straightened out the mess and are expecting them to show up any day now.
I’m worried because our car is falling apart, literally. The engine is missing a motor mount and our muffler is hanging on by a thread. We need new belts and brakes, not to mention an oil, lube & filter change. If those returns don’t materialize in the next few days, it’s food bank time!
Over this past year our circumstances have changed quite a bit. I was able to be rehired by the school district at a very good pay rate, but had to take a job at a school - so I have 7 weeks off in the summer. We moved into a condo inside of a gated community. Our energy bills aren’t as high, rent is less BUT we are unable to take in boarders or hold garage sales. Our computer is dead, so there is no ebay or craigslist, not that there is much left to sell anyway.
How are we managing? We are laying low, staying home, trying not to spend money. One ray of sunshine in all of this is that J misfiled her tax returns back in April which means she hasn’t gotten her refunds yet. We straightened out the mess and are expecting them to show up any day now.
I’m worried because our car is falling apart, literally. The engine is missing a motor mount and our muffler is hanging on by a thread. We need new belts and brakes, not to mention an oil, lube & filter change. If those returns don’t materialize in the next few days, it’s food bank time!
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sharing a Car
J and I have been sharing a car for over a year now. This is a hard result of the current economy but something we are also inordinately proud of. To my surprise I discovered that going down to one car instead of two seems to be not at all unusual. Of the 4 women I work with, 3 are sharing a car with their adult daughters (the 4th one can only afford a moped.)
It’s amazing how well J & I have managed to cope with the one car. One way was by living in the same town we both work in and a plus to that was how it cut our gas bill in half. This didn’t just happen to work out that way ... oh no, it involved a move and my daughter limiting her most recent job search to nearby places.
Over time we've also gotten pretty good at figuring out how to eat cheaply. We are intimately familiar with the dollar menu at Burger King. We always eat when we go to Sams Club to pick up our prescriptions. We live near a Fresh and Easy and have learned what time of day to hit the store to get first dibs on the marked-down goodies.
Another treasure trove has turned out to be the 99 cent store! You can get everything at the store near us from fresh produce to frozen goodies. Yesterday we picked up a couple of frozen pizzas for $1.29 each (perfectly meal size for J.) Canned beans and veggies run about one-third of what they do at the grocers. We’ve also been getting our dog treats there and rationing them carefully. The cheap sodas aren’t bad either!
It's amazing how much our lives have changed and yet how enjoyable life still is. Our condo has a huge heated pool right outside our back door and we make a point of swimming at least once a day. We go to the library to check our email and rent free DVDs and books. And we splurged on a TIVO rental from the cable company so we can tape all of our fav TV shows. We hardly ever go out to eat and thus appreciate it so much more when we do.
It’s amazing how well J & I have managed to cope with the one car. One way was by living in the same town we both work in and a plus to that was how it cut our gas bill in half. This didn’t just happen to work out that way ... oh no, it involved a move and my daughter limiting her most recent job search to nearby places.
Over time we've also gotten pretty good at figuring out how to eat cheaply. We are intimately familiar with the dollar menu at Burger King. We always eat when we go to Sams Club to pick up our prescriptions. We live near a Fresh and Easy and have learned what time of day to hit the store to get first dibs on the marked-down goodies.
Another treasure trove has turned out to be the 99 cent store! You can get everything at the store near us from fresh produce to frozen goodies. Yesterday we picked up a couple of frozen pizzas for $1.29 each (perfectly meal size for J.) Canned beans and veggies run about one-third of what they do at the grocers. We’ve also been getting our dog treats there and rationing them carefully. The cheap sodas aren’t bad either!
It's amazing how much our lives have changed and yet how enjoyable life still is. Our condo has a huge heated pool right outside our back door and we make a point of swimming at least once a day. We go to the library to check our email and rent free DVDs and books. And we splurged on a TIVO rental from the cable company so we can tape all of our fav TV shows. We hardly ever go out to eat and thus appreciate it so much more when we do.
Friday, November 30, 2007
How To Holiday On A Budget
More on How to Holiday on a Budget:
Encourage your kids to focus on what they are giving people, rather than what they want to receive. Have the kids make a list and give them a budget, say $20/$25 (which ideally they’ve earned themselves) and let them shop. I suggest the dollar store but you’ll be amazed at their creativity, even if you end up at the mall. If they are using their own money, they will be sensible and deeply satisfied that the gift truly came from them.
Drawing names for family gift exchanges is a sensible idea that most families embrace. Ours never did. To this day, extended family insist that we all exchange lavish gifts. One thing I do is to purchase brand new, still sealed items that I find at garage sales and thrift shops throughout the year, then I have a stash to draw from. Another rule I follow is that if I see you on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, you'll get a gift. If I don’t, you’ll get a card. This has eliminated gift giving for multiple nieces and nephews and their offspring.
If in spite of your best efforts, you do get roped into buying gifts for entire families, give one gift per household – such as a large box of candy or a board game or make a movie night basket with a couple of new CDs, a couple packets of popcorn, a 2 liter of soda and a few boxes of the kind of candy you buy at movie theaters.
Another thing I’ve discovered is that there are items you can buy used that appear to be brand new – Christmas mugs, books with intact sleeve jackets, that sort of thing. I’ll buy Christmas mugs throughout the year, if I can find them for a dollar or under. As long as they are not cracked or chipped, there’s no way to tell if they are new or used. At Christmas time I fill them with individually wrapped Christmas candies, wrap them in plastic with a bow and they make great little gifts for co-workers. Swap out ceramic mugs for holiday styrofoam cups-filled-with-candy for the kids to give to their friends.
Now let’s get down to the actual gift purchasing. One thing I’ve noted is that it doesn’t matter what the gift is, it’s where you buy it from that counts. Anything from The Gap or Old Navy is cool to a teen, even if it’s a scarf and gloves. Bath & Body Works items (any fragrance) are welcomed by all females. Men get jazzed about gifts from Sharper Image or Brookstone. Even low amounts on gift cards from these stores seem to please people. Readers LOVE cards for bookstores. Gift cards are way cooler than giving cash, everyone loves to tuck those in their wallet, knowing that they get to go out shopping for themselves. My daughter-in-law loved the 99 cent store near her work. I was really poor one August as her birthday approached, so gave her a $10 99 cent store gift card and she really enjoyed that.
The trouble with gift cards is that you'll probably spend more than if you actually purchased a gift. You can get away with purchasing things that look much more expensive than they are. You can't do that with gift cards.
Encourage your kids to focus on what they are giving people, rather than what they want to receive. Have the kids make a list and give them a budget, say $20/$25 (which ideally they’ve earned themselves) and let them shop. I suggest the dollar store but you’ll be amazed at their creativity, even if you end up at the mall. If they are using their own money, they will be sensible and deeply satisfied that the gift truly came from them.
Drawing names for family gift exchanges is a sensible idea that most families embrace. Ours never did. To this day, extended family insist that we all exchange lavish gifts. One thing I do is to purchase brand new, still sealed items that I find at garage sales and thrift shops throughout the year, then I have a stash to draw from. Another rule I follow is that if I see you on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, you'll get a gift. If I don’t, you’ll get a card. This has eliminated gift giving for multiple nieces and nephews and their offspring.
If in spite of your best efforts, you do get roped into buying gifts for entire families, give one gift per household – such as a large box of candy or a board game or make a movie night basket with a couple of new CDs, a couple packets of popcorn, a 2 liter of soda and a few boxes of the kind of candy you buy at movie theaters.
Another thing I’ve discovered is that there are items you can buy used that appear to be brand new – Christmas mugs, books with intact sleeve jackets, that sort of thing. I’ll buy Christmas mugs throughout the year, if I can find them for a dollar or under. As long as they are not cracked or chipped, there’s no way to tell if they are new or used. At Christmas time I fill them with individually wrapped Christmas candies, wrap them in plastic with a bow and they make great little gifts for co-workers. Swap out ceramic mugs for holiday styrofoam cups-filled-with-candy for the kids to give to their friends.
Now let’s get down to the actual gift purchasing. One thing I’ve noted is that it doesn’t matter what the gift is, it’s where you buy it from that counts. Anything from The Gap or Old Navy is cool to a teen, even if it’s a scarf and gloves. Bath & Body Works items (any fragrance) are welcomed by all females. Men get jazzed about gifts from Sharper Image or Brookstone. Even low amounts on gift cards from these stores seem to please people. Readers LOVE cards for bookstores. Gift cards are way cooler than giving cash, everyone loves to tuck those in their wallet, knowing that they get to go out shopping for themselves. My daughter-in-law loved the 99 cent store near her work. I was really poor one August as her birthday approached, so gave her a $10 99 cent store gift card and she really enjoyed that.
The trouble with gift cards is that you'll probably spend more than if you actually purchased a gift. You can get away with purchasing things that look much more expensive than they are. You can't do that with gift cards.
Monday, November 19, 2007
HOLIDAY HAZARDS
Being a single mom at holiday time presents extraordinary challenges. No matter how or what well meaning relatives may contribute, it is still up to the person who has the kids on Christmas morning to provide the filled stockings and half a dozen gifts per kid under the tree. My ex and I split up when our girls were 12, 8 and 2 and so I spent a lot of years pulling it all together myself
Keep an eye on the prize as you navigate through the labyrinth of holiday obstacles. Don’t give out gifts early, no matter how tempting. Keep envisioning the tree, the gifts, the stockings on Christmas morning. That is mandatory, all else is expendable.
Artificial trees and wreaths are a single Mom’s best friend. If you store them carefully, they’ll last forever and believe me – most kids don’t give a hoot if the tree is real or not, as long as there is one. It doesn’t cost you a thing to get that tree out each year, dust it off, decorate it, put out the nativity scene, hang a wreath and stockings and voila … abundance! The house looks swell and the kids are happy. It’s amazing how much unneeded stress adults put on themselves and how little it really takes to satisfy the kids.
Beware of hidden holiday expenses! Those include new holiday outfits, gift & cookie exchanges, parties, traditional outings, etc. Very few single Mom’s budgets can handle all these December expenses. Be very careful about what you agree to and what traditions you establish. If it’s a yearly ritual to attend The Nutcracker at the ballet, suggest staying home instead popping popcorn and watching it on TV and see how that goes over.
On Christmas morning my Mom would always carefully budget a certain amount to be spent on each child. That led to some rather uneven gift giving. Someone getting something expensive might only get one or two items. Everyone else would get a whole bunch. I didn’t follow that with my kids. I tried to keep the number of gifts the same and give the big ticket items at birthdays. Most kids don’t have cash registers as brains. They don’t notice how much was spent on their siblings, but they do notice if one person runs out of gifts to open way before the others do.
Also remember – it’s all in the presentation. Wrap gifts as soon as you get them and make them look pretty. Put small items, like CDs, in bigger boxes. It makes the pile under the tree look bigger and disguises the item. Make the gift opening last as long as possible. Make everyone take turns, starting with the youngest. Stop periodically for refreshments or bathroom breaks. Save the stockings for last.
More holiday tips to follow …
Keep an eye on the prize as you navigate through the labyrinth of holiday obstacles. Don’t give out gifts early, no matter how tempting. Keep envisioning the tree, the gifts, the stockings on Christmas morning. That is mandatory, all else is expendable.
Artificial trees and wreaths are a single Mom’s best friend. If you store them carefully, they’ll last forever and believe me – most kids don’t give a hoot if the tree is real or not, as long as there is one. It doesn’t cost you a thing to get that tree out each year, dust it off, decorate it, put out the nativity scene, hang a wreath and stockings and voila … abundance! The house looks swell and the kids are happy. It’s amazing how much unneeded stress adults put on themselves and how little it really takes to satisfy the kids.
Beware of hidden holiday expenses! Those include new holiday outfits, gift & cookie exchanges, parties, traditional outings, etc. Very few single Mom’s budgets can handle all these December expenses. Be very careful about what you agree to and what traditions you establish. If it’s a yearly ritual to attend The Nutcracker at the ballet, suggest staying home instead popping popcorn and watching it on TV and see how that goes over.
On Christmas morning my Mom would always carefully budget a certain amount to be spent on each child. That led to some rather uneven gift giving. Someone getting something expensive might only get one or two items. Everyone else would get a whole bunch. I didn’t follow that with my kids. I tried to keep the number of gifts the same and give the big ticket items at birthdays. Most kids don’t have cash registers as brains. They don’t notice how much was spent on their siblings, but they do notice if one person runs out of gifts to open way before the others do.
Also remember – it’s all in the presentation. Wrap gifts as soon as you get them and make them look pretty. Put small items, like CDs, in bigger boxes. It makes the pile under the tree look bigger and disguises the item. Make the gift opening last as long as possible. Make everyone take turns, starting with the youngest. Stop periodically for refreshments or bathroom breaks. Save the stockings for last.
More holiday tips to follow …
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Unexpected Income???
I finally have Sundays off and have been able to go to church. I’d been hearing about a dynamic local ministry and decided to give it a try. It’s based on science of the mind and I like it very much. They frequently bandy about words and phrases like “abundance and prosperity” and “unexpected income.” What ARE they going on about? I thought. I was intensely in survival mode and feeling as poor as a church mouse.
The second service that I attended, the minister talked about a pledge that you could sign out in the lobby. You would agree to tithe 10% of any unexpected income that came your way over the next 30 days. Unexpected Income, oh that’ll be the day ... no point signing that. I couldn’t even afford the $50 needed to sign up for a church luncheon that was coming up in November.
Well, fast forward to the very next service one short week later. I not only had 3 sources of unexpected income create incredible “abundance and prosperity” in my life during that time, but could well afford the $50 luncheon in November! I hadn’t signed up for the pledge but was only too happy to double my contribution to the collection basket as it came my way!
I’d won a thousand dollars playing Bingo on Friday night (I’d been going for years without winning a thing,) my daughter’s father sent her some money to help her out during the slow season (a rare enough occurrence to warrant mentioning here) and heck, I’d even won a couple of bucks on my lottery ticket! How do you win $2 on one of these things, I asked the clerk at the convenience store? I have no idea he replied. He’d never heard of such a thing. Abundance and Prosperity, indeed!
The second service that I attended, the minister talked about a pledge that you could sign out in the lobby. You would agree to tithe 10% of any unexpected income that came your way over the next 30 days. Unexpected Income, oh that’ll be the day ... no point signing that. I couldn’t even afford the $50 needed to sign up for a church luncheon that was coming up in November.
Well, fast forward to the very next service one short week later. I not only had 3 sources of unexpected income create incredible “abundance and prosperity” in my life during that time, but could well afford the $50 luncheon in November! I hadn’t signed up for the pledge but was only too happy to double my contribution to the collection basket as it came my way!
I’d won a thousand dollars playing Bingo on Friday night (I’d been going for years without winning a thing,) my daughter’s father sent her some money to help her out during the slow season (a rare enough occurrence to warrant mentioning here) and heck, I’d even won a couple of bucks on my lottery ticket! How do you win $2 on one of these things, I asked the clerk at the convenience store? I have no idea he replied. He’d never heard of such a thing. Abundance and Prosperity, indeed!
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Good News & The Bad News
Good news first, the director of human resources at my new job has approved my starting at the top pay step for my position! Woo Hoo! That should add up to a halfway decent paycheck come this month. Hopefully a good enough one to pay all our bills. Then we could use J’s paychecks for groceries and spending money.
The area I live in, the Coachella Valley, is very much populated by the “haves and the have nots.” We have Indian Wells, the richest city in America and only 20 miles away is Mecca, the poorest city in America. My friends run the gamet from Nancy, the doctor, who owns a 3 million dollar house to my friend Debi, who is trying to survive on a security guard's salary. But even Debi & I are not really poor. We enjoy great abundance in our lives. No one is hungry, everyone has food in the pantry, we are all lucky enough to be living here in paradise. We can’t always do everything we’d like to do but everyone faces limitations … time or money or health or whatever.
The area I live in, the Coachella Valley, is very much populated by the “haves and the have nots.” We have Indian Wells, the richest city in America and only 20 miles away is Mecca, the poorest city in America. My friends run the gamet from Nancy, the doctor, who owns a 3 million dollar house to my friend Debi, who is trying to survive on a security guard's salary. But even Debi & I are not really poor. We enjoy great abundance in our lives. No one is hungry, everyone has food in the pantry, we are all lucky enough to be living here in paradise. We can’t always do everything we’d like to do but everyone faces limitations … time or money or health or whatever.
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