Coin of Praise
By Simon Critchley
New York Times
Happy Days Blog
It is a peculiar fact that the severe economic turmoil of the past year has for the most part not led people to ask the most fundamental question about the root of all this angst: What is money?
Money is, of course, many things: the coins and notes rattling in our pockets, as well as the piles of real and virtual stuff lying in banks, or the smart money that tends towards disappearance and increasing immateriality, being shuffled electronically along the vectors of the financial networks.
That might serve as an initial, empirical description, but what does money really mean? What is the idea of money that we hold in our minds as we accept it, exchange it, squander it or save it? The core of money is trust and promise, “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of…” on the British pound; the “In God We Trust” of the U.S. dollar; the BCE-ECB-EZB-EKT-EKP of the European Central Bank that runs like a Franco-Anglo-Germano-Greco-Finnish cipher across the top of every Euro note.
It’s not that we revere the things that money can buy. Rather, we venerate the money that enables us to buy those things.
In other words, the legitimacy of money is based on a sovereign act, or a sovereign guarantee that the money is good, that it is not counterfeit. Money has a promissory structure, with a strangely circular logic: money promises that the money is good. The acceptance of the promise is the approval of a specific monetary ethos. We all agree that the money is worth — in the best of circumstances — more than the paper on which it is printed. To buy and sell in the U.S. dollar, or any other currency, is to trust that each bill is making a promise that it can keep.
This ethos, this circular money-promising-that-the-money-is-good, is underwritten by sovereign power. It is worth recalling that gold coins called “sovereigns” were first minted in England under Henry VII in 1489 and production continues to this day. It is essential that we believe in this power, that the sovereign power of the bank inspires belief, that the “Fed has cred,” as it were. Credit can only operate on the basis of credence and credibility, of an act of fidelity and faith (fides), of con-fid-ence. As historians of language have shown, there is a strong etymological link between ideas of belief, faith and forms of economic exchange. The goddess Fides or trust was sometimes depicted on the verso of Roman coins. “In Fed We Trust,” as the title of David Wessel’s new book has it.
There is a theological core to money based on an act of faith, of belief. One can even speak of a sort of monetary civil religion or currency patriotism. This is particularly evident in attitudes in the U.S. to the dollar, particularly to the sheer material quality of the bill. It can also be found in the U.K.’s opposition to the Euro and to the strange cultural need for money marked with the Queen’s head, underwritten by the power of the sovereign, who is also — lest one forget — the head of the established church.
Plato defines a “simulacrum” as something that materializes an absence, an image for something that doesn’t exist in reality, for example the god Poseidon or Bob the Builder. Such is money, in my view. In the absence of any gold standard (but ask yourself, how real is the value of gold? Is it not simply yellowish metal?), money is only sustained through an act of faith, belief, promise and trust in sovereign power.
To push this a little further, we might say that in the seemingly godless world of global finance capitalism, money is the only thing in which we really must have faith. Money is the one, true God in which we all believe. It is this faith that we celebrate in our desire for commodities, in the kind of fetishistic control that they seem to have over us. It’s not so much that we revere the things that money can buy. Rather, we venerate the money that enables us to buy those things. In the alluring display of shiny brands that cover the marketplace, it is not so much branded objects that we desire, but rather those objects insofar as they incarnate a quantifiable sum of money.
To wear a brand is to display the money that was able to buy it. With us, it is not so much that the money-changers have desecrated the temple, but that the only temples where we can worship are places where money changes hands in some perverse parody of a religious service. This is the strange mass that we celebrate in the cathedral-like malls that litter the land.
It is an understandable misunderstanding of capitalism to declare that it is a materialism that consists of a voracious desire for things. I would argue that we love the money that enables us to buy those things for it reaffirms our faith and restores the only theological basis we have for our trust in the world. Money is our metaphysics. In that God we trust. And when trust breaks down, as it has done so dramatically in the last year, then people experience something close to a crisis of faith.
In response to this crisis, the only political response (by Obama-Geithner-Summers over here and Brown-Merkel-Sarkozy over there) is the attempt to restore faith, to shore up the credit systems by making governments the bank of last resort. Sadly — or happily for the politicians — people have short memories and their momentary crisis of faith is washed away in the waters of forgetfulness and overcome by a relentless will to believe.
Of course, as ever, Shakespeare elucidated this powerfully. In “Timon of Athens,” the protagonist speaks of money, in the form of gold, as “Thou visible God.” Fascinatingly, Timon goes on, “That sold’rest close impossibilities/And mak’st them kiss.” In other words, there is nothing that money cannot solder together. But this can be linked to another phrase from the same play: “Thou common whore of mankind.” Money, we might say, is both the visible God and the common whore.
As a learned philosopher once remarked, money is the pimp between need and object, making available all objects and objectifying all beings, especially human beings. In a society like ours, where money is the one true God, everything is for sale and everyone is a prostitute insofar as value can be ultimately determined in financial terms.
Of course, some readers may object that my approach is overly philosophical and doesn’t really seem to help if you’ve lost your house and medical insurance. True enough! But the curious thing about money is how something so real can at the same time be so illusory.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Completely. Fascinating.
I think it might take me a while to get to this point. But I know people who, like the 1 billion mentioned in this story, live on $1 or less a day. Now it's a big diverse world and some of the folks I know abroad don't pay regularly for housing i.e. rent. But to just single out food and try to dedicate that cost to $1 is fascinating and a truly worthy goal. Special thanks to Brendan for pointing this out to me.
From Time Magazine's The Cheapskate Blog
"How to Eat on One Dollar a Day"
By Brad Tuttle
The next post in the continuing frugal gastronomy series features a pair of schoolteacher-writers who gave themselves the toughest of all restrictions: All their food had to cost no more than $1 per day per person. Amazingly, if they invited guests over to eat, the guests' food had to be covered by the $1 allotment. You'd have to really like the guest, I suppose.
Once again, I'll repeat: Eating on a budget is not a contest; it's a conversation. I've asked several other bloggers who write about their low-cost food adventures to answer questions similar to those posed to the 50 Bucks a Week trio, which started the entire conversation. The responses will be posted here to keep the conversation going.
Up today are Christopher Greenslate and Kerri Leonard, whose food budget averaged $1 per day per person for 30 days. They write the blog OneDollarDietProject.com, and their book, currently titled On a Dollar a Day, can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and Borders.com.
Cheapskate: How and why did you start writing about eating on a tight budget? Did it spring out of necessity, as a lark, or what?
Christopher Greenslate & Kerri Leonard: Right before the worst of the recession hit, Kerri and I were in the checkout line at our local natural foods store and by the time the checker was finished ringing us up we stood in shock (and mild desperation) at the cost of our groceries. We were spending about $100 a week on groceries for the two of us, not including things like shampoo and dog food, and we felt like we were being priced out of our store. On the way out to the parking lot Kerri was exasperated and said we had to do something in order save money. Half joking, I said, "about a billion people live on a dollar a day … we could try that." Over the next couple of months the idea simmered and finally we decided that we would try it. We would eat on a dollar a day, each. We started the blog so that our friends and family could follow along.
CS: What are your ground rules? How exactly do you define what's in your budget and what meets your standards and restrictions? Give us the fine print, including how you deal with beverages and dining out (that is, if you ever dine out).
CG & KL: We had five rules for our experiment.
1. All food consumed each day must total $1 for each of us.
2. We could not accept free food or “donated” food unless it is available for everyone in our area (i.e. foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving).
3. Any food we planted, we had to pay for.
4. We would do our best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles could only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under one dollar. (We had six packages and would buy no more.)
5. Should we decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from our share; meaning they don't get to eat their own dollar's worth of food.
Some of the rules didn't end up applying, like number three; as schoolteachers starting up a new year, we simply did not have the time to start gardening.
In order to stay at a dollar or less, we only had to pay for what we actually cooked and ate. This gave us the ability to buy in bulk and pay the lowest price per ounce for everything we ate. So we bought things like a 25 lb. bag of pinto beans for $15, but an actual serving would cost us seven cents, and something like rice would cost 11 cents. For things like homemade tortillas, we would have to calculate the cost of the flour and shortening and figure out the cost of a batch. Then divide the cost of the batch by the number of tortillas we could get from it. They ended up being about five cents each.
The thought of dining out never crossed our minds; we simply assumed in was not possible. If we had gone to a place like Taco Bell for lunch and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, Triple Layer Nachos, that would have cost 79 cents, leaving us almost nothing for breakfast or dinner. The dollar menu at McDonald's would have given us only a salad for the whole day. What you're getting at those places is pretty expensive when you consider how we ate. What you're really paying for is convenience. So eating out was out of the question.
CS: What are some of your favorite cheap ingredients or spices -- you know, the little something that doesn't cost much but adds a lot to a meal?
CG & KL: The basics like salt, pepper, and garlic were our biggest go-to seasonings. If you like things spicy, Jalapeños are usually cheap. Spices are pretty expensive though. The best things you can do to save money on food are: plan menus in advance, buy in bulk if you can, plant something, prepare food from scratch (especially things like bread), and don't let anything go to waste. Most people don't have the time, money, skill, or interest in doing things like this, but if you're serious about saving money of food, you have to start somewhere. You stretch yourself, and do what you can.
CS: What has been the hardest thing to do, or to go without, since you started cooking and eating on a supertight budget? What are you dying to splurge on and eat right now?
CG & KL: The hardest things we dealt with were: finding time to cook, getting bored with eating the same things frequently, and overcoming urges. Right now I would love to have some Peanut Butter Bomb Vegan Cheesecake from Gianna's in Philadelphia, but that be an unnecessary and costly batch of calories. For me, it's those sweet and fatty comfort foods that are hardest to stay away from. Which is true for lots of people. Nutritionally speaking they're outrageously expensive, but they are also delicious. I would love to have a root beer, but it would cost my wallet, and my body. I would be better off having some fruit salad, and a small glass of soymilk, which would be cheaper and more healthful.
CS: When you told people about your food budget, what sort of reactions did you get?
CG & KL: People were pretty stunned, which is why we ended up doing interviews with the New York Times, People Magazine, Fox & Friends, and NPR. I think what was most fascinating was the fact that millions of people heard about what we were doing and each person had a different response. People said things like, "They proved you could eat well on a dollar a day," and others would say, "They proved you couldn't eat well on a dollar a day." People would read the exact same thing and come to completely opposite conclusions. It has been truly fascinating.
CS: In the big, grand, save-the-world sense, what have you learned about yourselves, and about how people in general consume food and function as consumers, while you've been blogging about eating on the cheap?
CG & KL: The best part of this whole thing is that a lot of folks visit our blog and share their own stories with us. We hear from moms in the Midwest who are struggling to feed their families after being laid off, and from middle-upper class fathers who want to get involved to help with hunger issues. The responses have been overwhelmingly positive, but I think that's because more people than ever are in need of help, and regardless of competing ideologies, at our core we don't want to see people suffer. Our project to eat on a dollar a day assisted in bringing some of these issues to the surface. Everyone needs to eat, but not everyone can afford it. There are innumerable paths to choose from for people who want to get involved in food issues, like cost, or health, or safety, you just have to start where you're at. For us, that meant our kitchen. We still have a lot to learn, which has prompted some new experiments in the economics of eating well, all of which will be recounted in our forthcoming book on Hyperion in January.
From Time Magazine's The Cheapskate Blog
"How to Eat on One Dollar a Day"
By Brad Tuttle
The next post in the continuing frugal gastronomy series features a pair of schoolteacher-writers who gave themselves the toughest of all restrictions: All their food had to cost no more than $1 per day per person. Amazingly, if they invited guests over to eat, the guests' food had to be covered by the $1 allotment. You'd have to really like the guest, I suppose.
Once again, I'll repeat: Eating on a budget is not a contest; it's a conversation. I've asked several other bloggers who write about their low-cost food adventures to answer questions similar to those posed to the 50 Bucks a Week trio, which started the entire conversation. The responses will be posted here to keep the conversation going.
Up today are Christopher Greenslate and Kerri Leonard, whose food budget averaged $1 per day per person for 30 days. They write the blog OneDollarDietProject.com, and their book, currently titled On a Dollar a Day, can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and Borders.com.
Cheapskate: How and why did you start writing about eating on a tight budget? Did it spring out of necessity, as a lark, or what?
Christopher Greenslate & Kerri Leonard: Right before the worst of the recession hit, Kerri and I were in the checkout line at our local natural foods store and by the time the checker was finished ringing us up we stood in shock (and mild desperation) at the cost of our groceries. We were spending about $100 a week on groceries for the two of us, not including things like shampoo and dog food, and we felt like we were being priced out of our store. On the way out to the parking lot Kerri was exasperated and said we had to do something in order save money. Half joking, I said, "about a billion people live on a dollar a day … we could try that." Over the next couple of months the idea simmered and finally we decided that we would try it. We would eat on a dollar a day, each. We started the blog so that our friends and family could follow along.
CS: What are your ground rules? How exactly do you define what's in your budget and what meets your standards and restrictions? Give us the fine print, including how you deal with beverages and dining out (that is, if you ever dine out).
CG & KL: We had five rules for our experiment.
1. All food consumed each day must total $1 for each of us.
2. We could not accept free food or “donated” food unless it is available for everyone in our area (i.e. foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving).
3. Any food we planted, we had to pay for.
4. We would do our best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles could only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under one dollar. (We had six packages and would buy no more.)
5. Should we decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from our share; meaning they don't get to eat their own dollar's worth of food.
Some of the rules didn't end up applying, like number three; as schoolteachers starting up a new year, we simply did not have the time to start gardening.
In order to stay at a dollar or less, we only had to pay for what we actually cooked and ate. This gave us the ability to buy in bulk and pay the lowest price per ounce for everything we ate. So we bought things like a 25 lb. bag of pinto beans for $15, but an actual serving would cost us seven cents, and something like rice would cost 11 cents. For things like homemade tortillas, we would have to calculate the cost of the flour and shortening and figure out the cost of a batch. Then divide the cost of the batch by the number of tortillas we could get from it. They ended up being about five cents each.
The thought of dining out never crossed our minds; we simply assumed in was not possible. If we had gone to a place like Taco Bell for lunch and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, Triple Layer Nachos, that would have cost 79 cents, leaving us almost nothing for breakfast or dinner. The dollar menu at McDonald's would have given us only a salad for the whole day. What you're getting at those places is pretty expensive when you consider how we ate. What you're really paying for is convenience. So eating out was out of the question.
CS: What are some of your favorite cheap ingredients or spices -- you know, the little something that doesn't cost much but adds a lot to a meal?
CG & KL: The basics like salt, pepper, and garlic were our biggest go-to seasonings. If you like things spicy, Jalapeños are usually cheap. Spices are pretty expensive though. The best things you can do to save money on food are: plan menus in advance, buy in bulk if you can, plant something, prepare food from scratch (especially things like bread), and don't let anything go to waste. Most people don't have the time, money, skill, or interest in doing things like this, but if you're serious about saving money of food, you have to start somewhere. You stretch yourself, and do what you can.
CS: What has been the hardest thing to do, or to go without, since you started cooking and eating on a supertight budget? What are you dying to splurge on and eat right now?
CG & KL: The hardest things we dealt with were: finding time to cook, getting bored with eating the same things frequently, and overcoming urges. Right now I would love to have some Peanut Butter Bomb Vegan Cheesecake from Gianna's in Philadelphia, but that be an unnecessary and costly batch of calories. For me, it's those sweet and fatty comfort foods that are hardest to stay away from. Which is true for lots of people. Nutritionally speaking they're outrageously expensive, but they are also delicious. I would love to have a root beer, but it would cost my wallet, and my body. I would be better off having some fruit salad, and a small glass of soymilk, which would be cheaper and more healthful.
CS: When you told people about your food budget, what sort of reactions did you get?
CG & KL: People were pretty stunned, which is why we ended up doing interviews with the New York Times, People Magazine, Fox & Friends, and NPR. I think what was most fascinating was the fact that millions of people heard about what we were doing and each person had a different response. People said things like, "They proved you could eat well on a dollar a day," and others would say, "They proved you couldn't eat well on a dollar a day." People would read the exact same thing and come to completely opposite conclusions. It has been truly fascinating.
CS: In the big, grand, save-the-world sense, what have you learned about yourselves, and about how people in general consume food and function as consumers, while you've been blogging about eating on the cheap?
CG & KL: The best part of this whole thing is that a lot of folks visit our blog and share their own stories with us. We hear from moms in the Midwest who are struggling to feed their families after being laid off, and from middle-upper class fathers who want to get involved to help with hunger issues. The responses have been overwhelmingly positive, but I think that's because more people than ever are in need of help, and regardless of competing ideologies, at our core we don't want to see people suffer. Our project to eat on a dollar a day assisted in bringing some of these issues to the surface. Everyone needs to eat, but not everyone can afford it. There are innumerable paths to choose from for people who want to get involved in food issues, like cost, or health, or safety, you just have to start where you're at. For us, that meant our kitchen. We still have a lot to learn, which has prompted some new experiments in the economics of eating well, all of which will be recounted in our forthcoming book on Hyperion in January.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Honesty...is not such a lonely word
Well. The feedback has been awesome. Seriously excited about Clare's suggestion on eye glasses and also pretty excited about all the great free stuff I am planning with Amy. Particularly movie night and potluck...sign me up for that.
Over the last 24 hours I have found that the more I spread the good word about revamping my fiscal outlook the more generosity flows. It's a little like dieting. When you tell people that you're on a diet and that's why you aren't getting fries, a beer, etc, too often they protest and try to get you to eat something. When you fess up and honestly say it straight out, "Thanks guys but I can't pitch in tonight. I am just here for your smiling faces." Everyone wants to buy you a round while you hang out with them.
Mind you this is NOT the goal as I previously stated. I am not angling to be taken care of. I can afford a cold one, I just shouldn't direct my resources that direction. $8 can buy a whole lot of something else.
Another advantage I have is knowing the bartender. I only know a few, but a frosty glass of Yuengling in my hand is proof that they are true friends and very generous. As I overcome this budgetary boulder in my path I shall increasingly tip these people more and more.
So in the last 24-hours I have been outright spoiled by good friends. A few rounds with the bartender, a few bottles with office friends, cup of frozen yogurt with a good buddy. All this makes me think of the end goal of doing a financial overhaul.
The end goal is to be so financially stable that I can be that girl who shares with others, who gives great Christmas presents, who buys the bar a round, who can fly off and see her little sister for the weekend. I want to be so independent that I can be the good friend that mine are to me-- at least in a monetary sense.
Eyes on the prize
Over the last 24 hours I have found that the more I spread the good word about revamping my fiscal outlook the more generosity flows. It's a little like dieting. When you tell people that you're on a diet and that's why you aren't getting fries, a beer, etc, too often they protest and try to get you to eat something. When you fess up and honestly say it straight out, "Thanks guys but I can't pitch in tonight. I am just here for your smiling faces." Everyone wants to buy you a round while you hang out with them.
Mind you this is NOT the goal as I previously stated. I am not angling to be taken care of. I can afford a cold one, I just shouldn't direct my resources that direction. $8 can buy a whole lot of something else.
Another advantage I have is knowing the bartender. I only know a few, but a frosty glass of Yuengling in my hand is proof that they are true friends and very generous. As I overcome this budgetary boulder in my path I shall increasingly tip these people more and more.
So in the last 24-hours I have been outright spoiled by good friends. A few rounds with the bartender, a few bottles with office friends, cup of frozen yogurt with a good buddy. All this makes me think of the end goal of doing a financial overhaul.
The end goal is to be so financially stable that I can be that girl who shares with others, who gives great Christmas presents, who buys the bar a round, who can fly off and see her little sister for the weekend. I want to be so independent that I can be the good friend that mine are to me-- at least in a monetary sense.
Eyes on the prize
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
A busy recessionista
I am perfectly aware that this sort of piecemeal blogging is not the way to build a following. But I have been a VERY busy recessionista trying to get my ducks in a row. Here's a short summary of the recession-beating exploits of the last few weeks.
1) Breakfast with Catherine at her house.
Instead of going out to our favorite Alexandria, Va. coffee shop "Buzz" we met at Catherine's house to make pancakes and eggs. Saved some green, had a good breakfast, and a great conversation.
2) Conquering Safeway.
I had exactly $50 to spend on groceries to take me from the second paycheck of the month, which arrives on the 20th until my next payday on the 5th. I needed to cover food 100 percent leaving no room to eat out, grab a beer, or get a cup of coffee. I had to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two weeks in one trip-- and not spend more than $50.
I started by looking only for items on my list that also had a Safeway Club price or deals like 2/$5. The next step I took was to write down the exact price of everything that went in my cart. I was meticulous. I even weighed all my produce to calculate the price of a pound of bananas, heads of broccoli, two onions, a tomato, etc. I have one word for my fellow savvy shopper- kale.
Kale was $1.69 a pound, it's leafy, green, full of vitamins, easy to cook, and it's so light that a huge bag is much less than a pound. I got kale for the week for about $0.78.
Major deals were two pints of blueberries for $3.99. Two big boxes of Cornflakes for $5 (if all else fails at the end of my two weeks I can eat cereal and blueberries a few meals a day.) I also got 3 cans of my favorite legume, black beans for $0.99 a can. If you buy more than 10 containers of Yoplait you get them for $0.50 each. I love yogurt and you can freeze them and make them last longer.
My big splurges were cheese- a small block of mozzarella for sandwiches was over $3 at Safeway and bread- gluten-free bread from Whole Foods is around $5. I could probably save money by gathering gluten-free flours and making my own bread. I did find a decent Californian Cabernet for $4.99 at Whole Foods. The wine snobs can hush.
Safe to say I conquered the Safeway with a final bill around $47. It was probably the most I have ever saved on my Safeway Club Card- just over $15. I am trying to find a way to post my receipt on the blog. That's how proud I am of this shopping trip. So. Proud.
3) The second job.
You can't save it all. Sometimes you have to add money coming in. I just got a second job tutoring Spanish and College Essays after work and on the weekends. This is the most ideal second job I can think of. I can set my hours, work with as many clients as I can handle, and do something I love--teach! Additionally, as silly as it sounds to say, another job keeps me from going out to eat, grabbing a beer, going to baseball games-- all activities that cost money.
4) Coupons.
I am really getting serious about these. Especially with CVS. If you have a CVS Card you will get automatic coupons on your receipt. I have started to tear off the coupons and label them for what they are good for and keep them in my wallet, which I am likely to have with me when I go to CVS. I got $2 off Zyrtec, which is an allergy med I take everyday and got a 3 oz. tube of hand lotion for free. I also sent in the bottom of a receipt that promised a $5 coupon good toward any purchase. It took 2 seconds and I didn't even need a stamp, just did it right there at CVS.
5) A different way to pay.
I have been working on a different paradigm of how to pay the bills.
I completed the balance transfer for the zero-interest credit card. Payments started this month. With the second job, I hope to bump up what I am able to pay on it. Thankfully this has made the payments on the other card go way down as well. I am hoping to make those payments at more than the minimum as well. I am also making a comprehensive list of anything and everything that can be reimbursed from the FlexSpending Account. I have over $600 left and I plan to stock up on contacts and health care supplies, get new frames for my glasses, see the dentist, and get some Yoga classes paid back. There won't be a penny in there on December 31.
The biggest change I have made is paying all my bills on my first paycheck. I get two a month, but the second one is usually exclusively reserved for rent. And with rent going up by $60/ month in October, I will need to start treating the first paycheck like the only paycheck. I get that check on the 5th and all my bills- from credit cards, to cell phone, to car insurance, etc. are paid by the 7th. Then I know exactly how much I have to work with for groceries, gas, and what minimal discretionary spending there might be (read: not much).
Now the Recessionista need your feedback:
I miss my friends! I have barely been "out"all month. I went to see two baseball games (which cost a total of $30 for the cheap seats. $30 is probably the upper limit of my social budget for the month) I'd rather not spend any money on food or alcohol or well, anything, while I am out with my friends. I tried it twice this month. I made sure my water bottle was full at work and met some friends at a bar in Columbia Heights where I focused on conversation and not consumables. That went fine and I ate at home afterward. Baseball and beer go together really well. So the second baseball game was a little weird. (I got a surprise treat the first game!) But it wasn't the end of the world and my team won!
I don't want to be the cheap friend who never pitches in or buys a round and I don't want to be a complete recluse. My friends aren't there to buy things for me, either. How to I downsize my debt and still have friends? My breakfast with Catherine was a great example of how it can work, but even that involves an investment in groceries. I live in Washington, D.C. There have to be more free things in this city than anywhere else on Earth.
At the end of the day, no matter when I saw my friends last or how many days I have in the trenches until the next paycheck, I remember something wonderful my mom told me about her first few years of the working world. "Honey, some days it was all I could do to have a glass of wine and watch 'Dallas.'"
It's good to know that this penny-pinching seclusion is something most 20-somethings do. At least I have Hulu.com
1) Breakfast with Catherine at her house.
Instead of going out to our favorite Alexandria, Va. coffee shop "Buzz" we met at Catherine's house to make pancakes and eggs. Saved some green, had a good breakfast, and a great conversation.
2) Conquering Safeway.
I had exactly $50 to spend on groceries to take me from the second paycheck of the month, which arrives on the 20th until my next payday on the 5th. I needed to cover food 100 percent leaving no room to eat out, grab a beer, or get a cup of coffee. I had to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two weeks in one trip-- and not spend more than $50.
I started by looking only for items on my list that also had a Safeway Club price or deals like 2/$5. The next step I took was to write down the exact price of everything that went in my cart. I was meticulous. I even weighed all my produce to calculate the price of a pound of bananas, heads of broccoli, two onions, a tomato, etc. I have one word for my fellow savvy shopper- kale.
Kale was $1.69 a pound, it's leafy, green, full of vitamins, easy to cook, and it's so light that a huge bag is much less than a pound. I got kale for the week for about $0.78.
Major deals were two pints of blueberries for $3.99. Two big boxes of Cornflakes for $5 (if all else fails at the end of my two weeks I can eat cereal and blueberries a few meals a day.) I also got 3 cans of my favorite legume, black beans for $0.99 a can. If you buy more than 10 containers of Yoplait you get them for $0.50 each. I love yogurt and you can freeze them and make them last longer.
My big splurges were cheese- a small block of mozzarella for sandwiches was over $3 at Safeway and bread- gluten-free bread from Whole Foods is around $5. I could probably save money by gathering gluten-free flours and making my own bread. I did find a decent Californian Cabernet for $4.99 at Whole Foods. The wine snobs can hush.
Safe to say I conquered the Safeway with a final bill around $47. It was probably the most I have ever saved on my Safeway Club Card- just over $15. I am trying to find a way to post my receipt on the blog. That's how proud I am of this shopping trip. So. Proud.
3) The second job.
You can't save it all. Sometimes you have to add money coming in. I just got a second job tutoring Spanish and College Essays after work and on the weekends. This is the most ideal second job I can think of. I can set my hours, work with as many clients as I can handle, and do something I love--teach! Additionally, as silly as it sounds to say, another job keeps me from going out to eat, grabbing a beer, going to baseball games-- all activities that cost money.
4) Coupons.
I am really getting serious about these. Especially with CVS. If you have a CVS Card you will get automatic coupons on your receipt. I have started to tear off the coupons and label them for what they are good for and keep them in my wallet, which I am likely to have with me when I go to CVS. I got $2 off Zyrtec, which is an allergy med I take everyday and got a 3 oz. tube of hand lotion for free. I also sent in the bottom of a receipt that promised a $5 coupon good toward any purchase. It took 2 seconds and I didn't even need a stamp, just did it right there at CVS.
5) A different way to pay.
I have been working on a different paradigm of how to pay the bills.
I completed the balance transfer for the zero-interest credit card. Payments started this month. With the second job, I hope to bump up what I am able to pay on it. Thankfully this has made the payments on the other card go way down as well. I am hoping to make those payments at more than the minimum as well. I am also making a comprehensive list of anything and everything that can be reimbursed from the FlexSpending Account. I have over $600 left and I plan to stock up on contacts and health care supplies, get new frames for my glasses, see the dentist, and get some Yoga classes paid back. There won't be a penny in there on December 31.
The biggest change I have made is paying all my bills on my first paycheck. I get two a month, but the second one is usually exclusively reserved for rent. And with rent going up by $60/ month in October, I will need to start treating the first paycheck like the only paycheck. I get that check on the 5th and all my bills- from credit cards, to cell phone, to car insurance, etc. are paid by the 7th. Then I know exactly how much I have to work with for groceries, gas, and what minimal discretionary spending there might be (read: not much).
Now the Recessionista need your feedback:
I miss my friends! I have barely been "out"all month. I went to see two baseball games (which cost a total of $30 for the cheap seats. $30 is probably the upper limit of my social budget for the month) I'd rather not spend any money on food or alcohol or well, anything, while I am out with my friends. I tried it twice this month. I made sure my water bottle was full at work and met some friends at a bar in Columbia Heights where I focused on conversation and not consumables. That went fine and I ate at home afterward. Baseball and beer go together really well. So the second baseball game was a little weird. (I got a surprise treat the first game!) But it wasn't the end of the world and my team won!
I don't want to be the cheap friend who never pitches in or buys a round and I don't want to be a complete recluse. My friends aren't there to buy things for me, either. How to I downsize my debt and still have friends? My breakfast with Catherine was a great example of how it can work, but even that involves an investment in groceries. I live in Washington, D.C. There have to be more free things in this city than anywhere else on Earth.
At the end of the day, no matter when I saw my friends last or how many days I have in the trenches until the next paycheck, I remember something wonderful my mom told me about her first few years of the working world. "Honey, some days it was all I could do to have a glass of wine and watch 'Dallas.'"
It's good to know that this penny-pinching seclusion is something most 20-somethings do. At least I have Hulu.com
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