On the Road to Financial Contentment

This article appears in the 164th Carnival of Debt Reduction at The Financial Wellness Project.

Deciding you want things to be different is always the first step. Unfortunately, having good intentions and making firm resolutions doesn’t always win the day. Changing your financial life is like changing your eating habits. It’s not easy. There are lots of ups and down. The important thing is not to let the “downs” completely derail you. Just like exercising, if you take a few days off it becomes even more difficult to get started again. I was dangerously close to throwing up my hands in defeat when I got back from my trip. I had so many little receipts to enter into my expense spreadsheet. I’m sure I missed a few minor ones. I could feel myself slipping and had to almost physically wrench myself back on track.

October was initially shaping up to be a really frugal month for me. Now that it’s almost over, it has turned out to be the second most expensive month I’ve had this year. No matter how you plan, a trip, even a frugal trip, adds expense to your monthly budget. In addition to my trip, I had a $360 tax prep fee, a $404 eye doctor’s visit and $300 worth of college expenses this month. I was feeling pretty discouraged, especially with the holiday season looming. Then I took another look and realized that, in addition to the extra expenses, for which I paid cash, I also paid $1,000 against my credit card debt and put $1,000 in the bank. Looking at it that way, I felt better.

It’s a good idea to think up some little motivators that you can pull out when you feel yourself slipping. Keeping your big goals in mind can be a good motivator too. I am determined to be debt free, other than my mortgage, when I move to New York. One does not really rely on the other except in my mind but the less I owe the less I’ll have to earn when I get there. So two of my goals are to move to New York and, once I get there, not to work too much. It’s important that some of your goals are fairly immediate. The detrimental effect of buying that big flat screen television for which you did not budget is a lot more obvious when your goal is to be debt free within one year as opposed to five years. Setting yourself some short term, non-monetary rewards as motivators can also be effective. Do you love nothing so much as two uninterrupted hours of lying on the couch reading a book or watching a movie? Go two weeks without eating out or whatever your problem area may be and reward yourself with that movie night. Make it something that will be effective at countering your urge to splurge.

The bigger the financial mess, the longer it takes to turn things around. Just like losing weight, a debt diet takes a lot of tiny steps to be successful. Putting down one cookie will have no immediate effect on your weight and not spending $10 on something you don’t need will have no appreciable immediate effect on your debt. Whatever your goals, it’s these tiny first steps that are the necessary start to achieving contentment. There are innumerable opportunities to quit. Things can look hopeless. Keep your head up, keep moving forward, even when you are moving backward. You will succeed, but you have to start!

Long Distance Relationships

This article appears in the Online Dating Carnival at SuccessPart2 and in Advice for Women from Women. If you are here from the carnivals - welcome! I hope you will consider subscribing via RSS feed or e-mail.

Long distance relationships are difficult. Friends flippantly remark that they wish their husbands lived 2,000 miles away and tell you that you have the best possible arrangement. Whenever you see each other you are on vacation and on your best behavior. You don’t have to deal with the day-to-day aggravations of living with another human being. You are, for the most part, answerable to no one and can do as you please with your time.

You also have no one locally with whom to share the events of your day. Good friends and a close family are a blessing but those relationships are clearly not quite the same. Although a bad personal relationship, be it with a spouse or significant other, is worse than no relationship at all, sharing your life with someone you love and who loves you is a scenario for which we all strive. All relationships require a great deal of effort to be successful. The cornerstones of every successful relationship; communication, trust, understanding and perseverance take some extra nurturance in a long distance relationship.

Communication is the key to a successful long distance relationship. Optimally, daily or at least several times a week you should be in communication with your significant other. Long, loving phone calls are great but don’t overlook the importance of a quick good morning, have a great day and/or goodnight call. If something funny happens in your day, make a quick call and share it with your sweetheart. Dash off an e-mail or leave them a voicemail to let them know how your day went. Drop an, “I’m thinking about you” card in the mail. Communications dealing with the mundane are equally as important as the lovey-dovey exchanges. In the long term, if the only communication you ever have with each other consists solely of, “I love you”, “I miss you” you are creating an artificial scenario which will not hold up when or if you end up in the same home. Remember, relationships between cohabitating couples consist of the loving and the mundane and successful long distance relationships need to as well.

A huge element of a successful long distance relationship is trust. If you do not trust your significant other you will have ample opportunity to drive yourself crazy in a long distance relationship. You are each free to do whatever you want with little chance of discovery when you live a long way from each other. If you agree to a monogamous long distance relationship you must make a complete commitment to live up to that agreement and to trust each other. Long distance relationships are hard enough without accusations and distrust. Everyone has weak and doubting moments but if you cannot find a way to trust your significant other, you should end your long distance relationship.

Understanding and perseverance are critical to a successful long distance relationship and are closely intertwined with trust. You are not together and, therefore by necessity, you lead individual lives. If you call your mate on Friday night and get their voicemail you must trust that they are out with friends, not on a date. You must understand that both of you have a right to a social life. Share the fun you had when you next speak. The more open you are about what you do when you are apart, the more trusting environment you create. If you are both committed to a successful long distance relationship, understanding and perseverance will help you through the rough patches.

Most people endure long distance relationships because they foresee a time when they will be together. There is a honeymoon period in long distance relationships as well as in conventional relationships and communication, trust, understanding and perseverance for the duration of your separation will help bridge the gap when the long distance aspect of your relationship ends.

Frugality, for me it's still a choice.

This post appears in the 150th Festival of Frugality at Bargain Briana.

I’ve only been really frugal for about six or eight months now so, in some cases, I’m still learning new behaviors. My plan to stay at a friend’s house in El Paso on my way home fell through so I went online before I left New York to book myself a hotel room. In my old life I would have booked the Marriott or Radisson or Hilton and been done with it. Anything from $80 - $150 a night would have been fine. Now that I am trying so hard to be frugal I had to make a little more effort. I ended up going on Expedia and booking the airport Travelodge. When the listing said the room included a refrigerator, microwave, complementary fruit bowl, free wireless Internet and free breakfast all for $60 a night, including tax, I was a little concerned. My trip back to Texas yesterday was really long. I’m still hanging on to my cold and was exhausted when I finally got to El Paso. In the spirit of frugality I had parked in the long term parking so I had to wait on the shuttle, which was full when it arrived, and deal with my luggage. I’d managed to hurt my foot during the day so I was in some pain and limping. I really needed to get to my room!

When I found the hotel I was a little disheartened, actually worried, by its appearance. I’m not saying anything about the Travelodge in general because I have stayed at some nice ones before but this one looked pretty grim. During check-in the front desk person had to physically leave and go check the room to make sure no one was in it. He explained that they’d just gotten a new reservation system and there were some glitches. I was half-hoping they would not be able to accommodate me so I could flee to the Marriot! When I signed the reservation form it turned out the room, including tax, was only $45. That made me even more apprehensive. My room was very small and dated with stains on the carpet. The air conditioning unit turned on but did not produce the correct temperature of air. Its sound did at least provide some white noise so I left it running. The peephole in the door was actually a dime-sized hole. Clearly someone could peep in just as easily as I could peep out! Tissue solved that problem. I put a chair and my suitcase in front of the door. I was feeling a little sorry for myself as I tentatively got into the bed. As I prepare to sleep, I’m in the habit of thinking back over the day and mentally listing what I’m grateful for. It occurred to me that I needed to be grateful that I could afford this $45 a night room as I know there are lots of people who can’t. I needed to be grateful that I could afford to choose to check out of this room, if I wanted, and go to the Marriott as there are even more people who couldn’t afford to do that.

Frugality, for me, is still a choice. There are lots of people out there for whom it is a necessity. I can whine about the price of gas as I fill my tank and the price of food as I shop but I am still able to buy both gas and food without counting my pennies or waiting for payday. My stay in this little, slightly icky hotel room has reminded me of all I have to be grateful for. I still not putting my bare feet on the carpet but I’m grateful for that reminder!

Beef Burgundy

The Sunday recipe this week is Julia Child's Beef Burgundy. It is a true labor of love. It is not hard but it definitely takes all day. If you have company coming on a winter night, I can think of no better way to greet them then with the smells of this delicious dish wafting out the door when you open it. Or, if you just feel like staying in and cooking something delicious, make a commitment and give this dish a try. Don't rush, follow each step exactly and don't try to take shortcuts. When you are finished you will have a fantastic meal and you will be a better cook for learning the techniques involved. It will truly be worth your while.


Yield: 6 Servings

Ingredients

6 oz chunk bacon; with rind
1 tb olive oil; or vegetable oil
3 lb lean stewing beef; cut into 2-inch cubes
1 carrot; sliced
1 onion; sliced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tb flour
3 c red wine; see Notes
2 c brown beef stock; up to 3, or canned beef bouillon
1 tb tomato paste
2 cloves garlic; mashed
1/2 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf; crumbled

*** BROWN-BRAISED ONIONS ***

18 sm white onions; up to 24, peeled
1 1/2 tb butter
1 1/2 tb oil
1/2 c brown stock; or canned beef bouillon, or dry white wine, red wine, or water (for braising)
salt; to taste
pepper; to taste

*** MEDIUM HERB BOUQUET ***

4 parsley sprigs 1/2 bay leaf 1/4 tsp thyme

*** SAUTEED MUSHROOMS ***

2 tb butter
1 tb oil
1/2 lb fresh mushrooms; washed, well dried
1 tb shallots; up to 2, minced (optional), (or green onions)
salt; to taste
pepper; to taste

*** GARNISH ***

parsley sprigs; for garnish

Instructions (Recipe may be completed in advance through step 13.)

BACON PREPARATION:

1. Remove rind from bacon. Cut bacon into lardons (sticks, 1/4 inch thick and 1 1/2 inches long). Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in 1-1/2 quarts of water. Drain and dry. If you are using regular sliced bacon, you can omit this step, which is used to draw some of the salt out of the bacon.

2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

3. In a 9-10-inch fireproof casserole 3 inches deep, sauté the bacon in the oil over moderate heat for 2-3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a sidedish with a slotted spoon. Set casserole aside. Reheat until fat is almost smoking before you sauté the beef.

BEEF PREPARATION:

4. Dry the beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Sauté it, a few pieces at a time, in the hot oil and bacon fat until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the bacon.

5. In the same fat, brown the sliced carrot and onion. Pour out the sauteing fat.

6. Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with the salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in the middle position of the preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to oven for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and covers the meat with a light crust.) Remove casserole, and turn oven down to 325 degrees F.

7. Stir in the wine, and enough stock or bouillon so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato puree, garlic, herbs, and bacon rind. Bring to simmer on top of the stove. Then cover the casserole and set in lower third of the preheated oven. Regulate heat so liquid simmers very slowly for 2½ to 3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.

BROWN-BRAISED ONIONS (may be cooked in advance):

8. (Onions should be about 1 inch in diameter.) When the butter and oil are bubbling in a 9-10 inch enameled skillet, add the onions and sauté over moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling the onions about so they will brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break their skins. You cannot expect to brown them uniformly.

9. Choose between braising and baking, below.

To Braise: 9a. (Make a medium Herb Bouquet by tying herbs in cheesecloth.)Pour in the liquid, season to taste, and add the herb bouquet. Cover and simmer slowly for 40-50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but retain their shape, and the liquid has evaporated. Remove herb bouquet.(The onions may be cooked hours in advance, and reheated before serving.They may also be served as a side dish as they are, or added to a hotvegetable dish, or used to garnish a roast.)

To Bake: 9b. (Make a medium Herb Bouquet by tying herbs in cheesecloth.)Transfer the onions and their sauteing fat to a shallow baking dish or casserole just large enough to hold them in one layer. Set uncovered in upper third of a preheated 350-degree F oven for 40-50 minutes, turning them over once or twice. They should be very tender, retain their shape,and be a very nice golden brown. Remove herb bouquet. (See 9a for alternate serving suggestions.

SAUTEED MUSHROOMS (may be cooked in advance):

10. Place a 10-inch enameled skillet over high heat with butter and oil. As soon as you see that the butter foam has begun to subside, indicating it is hot enough, add the mushrooms. Toss and shake the pan for 4-5 minutes. During their sauté the mushrooms will at first absorb the fat. In 2-3 minutes the fat will reappear on their surface, and mushrooms will begin to brown. As soon as they have browned lightly, remove from heat.

11. (Optional) Toss 1-2 tablespoons minced shallots or green onions with the mushrooms. Sauté over moderate heat for 2 minutes. Season to taste just before serving.

CASSEROLE FINALE:

12. When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms over the meat.

13. Skim fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two, skimmingoff additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons of stock or canned bouillon. Taste carefully for seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables. (Recipe may be completed in advance to this point.

FOR IMMEDIATE SERVING:

14a. Cover the casserole and simmer for 2-3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times. Serve in its casserole, or arrange the stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles, or rice,and decorated with parsley.

FOR LATER SERVING:

14b. When cold, cover and refrigerate. Do not cover before the casserole is completely cool or it will sour. (It also freezes beautifully.) About 15-20 minutes before serving, bring to the simmer, cover, and simmer very slowly for 10 minutes, occasionally basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce.

Notes: The better the meat, the better the stew, allowing 1 pound of boneless meat, trimmed of fat, for 2 people (or 3 if the menu is large). First choice: rump pot roast. Other: chuck pot roast, sirloin tip, top round, or bottom round.

Wines: fairly full-bodied, young red wine, such as Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, Bordeaux-St. Emilion, or Burgundy.

From Julia Child's MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING, VOLUME ONE, 1961, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,ISBN 0-394-72114-4 (pbk, vol. 1), pages 314-317, pages 483-484, and513.

Vacation's Over

I spent my entire day today doing paperwork for my boyfriend. I reworked all the financials for his hunting club and created what I hope will be a usable Excel workbook for keeping track of everything. He will enter in all expenses and income and it will create a balance sheet for him to present at the annual meeting. He's really a paper and pencil kind of guy but I'm hoping this will be pretty easy for him to keep up with. Their balance sheet is impressive with over $40,000 in cash assets. They still have a couple of large expenses but overall their financial situation is great. He’s going to purchase another 12 month CD with most of the balance after those expenses have been paid. I started working with Excel heavily when I got serious about tracking my own finances and have been very happy with its power and flexibility. I'd always been an Access girl in the past but I think I am converted, at least for some applications.

I recreated a bunch of the hunt club’s forms and some other paperwork, which had not been updated in years. The blanks they had looked like they had been printed on a dot matrix printer, if that's any indication of their age! If he doesn't keep it up, I won't have done him any favors computerizing everything but he seems happy and I'm feeling very good about my contribution to his club.

Additionally I did all the paperwork for him to file an amended 2007 tax return. Evidently there is a new deduction for retired law enforcement officers. If they have their health insurance premiums automatically deducted from their pensions they can take up to an extra $3,000 off their taxable income. There are various requirements and hoops through which to jump (it is a federal tax exemption, after all) but, a nice little exemption. The amended return will get him another $750 back from Uncle Sam. He also had some New York State thing that may net him a little extra money as well. I did all the paperwork for that and we'll see how the state responds. After my own tax debacle it's somewhat amusing for me to be helping anyone else with their taxes but I've always been better at handling other people's details!

I think I’ve earned my keep this trip. We’ll be heading to Albany this afternoon and I’ll be back in Texas tomorrow. It's been a great week and I'm sorry it's over.

Carnival Round-up

Just when I was about to give myself a self-created award for posting every day of my vacation I went off to Ottawa and didn't post for two days in a row and am coasting by with this carnival links post for today. I can't even post any link love because I haven't really been reading anything this week. Guess I'm not quite so dedicated as I thought I was!

Ottawa is a beautiful city with a very European flavor. The building behind me in the photograph is one of the houses of Parliament. It's a great city to walk around in. I'd love to go back when the weather was just a bit warmer. If you get a chance to visit, I'd highly recommend it.

The Financial Wellness Project interviewed me this week as part of an ongoing series on freelancing. It was interesting and I hope you enjoy the result.

Here are the carnivals I had posts in this past week -

The Economy of a Hunting Club appears in the 175th Carnival of Personal Finance. It’s a big carnival with lots of great reading.

Cruisin’ with Mickey appears in the Carnival of Family Life Harvest Festival.

Where to put that extra money appears in the Carnival of Debt Reduction.

Party Food, with a couple of appetizer recipes, appears in the Make it From Scratch Carnival.

Health Insurance for the Self-employed

It's a rainy, gloomy day in upstate New York and I have come down with a cold! I hate to get sick on vacation. My younger sister will admonish me for not remembering to take Airborne. In spite of the lawsuit, she is a firm believer and administers it religiously to herself and her children before every trip. Had I remembered, I would have taken it myself. Feeling sick led me to thinking about health insurance.

Where to find health insurance can be a big issue when you are self-employed. When I made the transition to working completely freelance I stuck with COBRA for over a year because I just didn’t want to deal with it. The premiums kept going up until I was forced to act. At the time, eHealthInsurance.com was running a series of television ads aimed towards self-employed people so I decided to check them out. Their setup is actually pretty good. You fill out a little form with some basic information about yourself and they bring up a couple of dozen policies that they feel will be the best fit. You then have to sort through them. They make it fairly easy to compare different aspects of different policies. There are various places you can click to receive ever more detailed information. When you find the one you like, you can apply for it right on their site. I found an Aetna plan that worked pretty well for my needs and was about $150 a month cheaper than my COBRA plan.

After applying for the Aetna plan, I waited. They warn you not to cancel your current health insurance until this process is complete. Thanks, I think, to my past cancer issues, it took quite a while. I think I may have paid two COBRA premiums while I waited. Aetna got my medical records from my doctor and I received several phone calls from nurse practitioners asking various clarifying questions. Finally, they accepted me. I’ve had the Aetna plan for about three years now with various rate hikes happening along the way.

eHealthInsurance positions themselves as being on your side and say they will act as a go-between with you and your insurance company. I haven’t actually tried this feature. I’ve only had to call once and I just called Aetna directly. Evidently you can call eHealthInsurance and they’ll call your insurance carrier for you. I recently got an e-mail from them telling me that Aetna was about to raise my rates and it might be a good idea for me to start shopping for another plan. That was interesting as I have not received notice of any rate change. I’m going to wait until I hear from Aetna before I do anything about that. When my son graduates from college, hopefully in May, he’ll drop off my plan. I may wait until then before I do any more insurance shopping.

I found eHealthInsurance to be fairly easy to navigate. They seem to have a wide range of insurance companies and policies from which to choose. If you are shopping for health insurance, you might want to try them. They offer a fairly painless way to shop for health insurance and, no, I am not getting paid for this post!

If you are self-employed what did you do about health insurance?

My Summer of Cancer

This post appears in the 161st Carnival of Healing at Interesting Observations.

Nine years ago I was diagnosed with stage three cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is probably the only cancer that is “catchable”. It is a very slow growing cancer, which can develop over ten or even twenty years, out of the HPV or Human Papillomavirus. According to the Centers for Disease Control approximately 20 million Americans are currently infected with HPV, and another 6.2 million people become newly infected each year. At least 50% of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2008, 11,070 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in the U.S.

Cervical cancer is one of the only cancers that is curable, if caught early enough. A simple annual Pap Smear will detect cervical cell changes, which can signal early cervical cancer. In spite of easy screenings and high cure rates, approximately 3,700 women die each year from cervical cancer. I was almost one of them. I think my story is fairly typical, which is why I choose to share it. I live in a very small town in a very rural area in West Texas. When my son was about 6 weeks old, my beloved OB/GYN moved away. Lots of women in my area routinely travel the 170 miles to “town” for a doctor day, including mammograms and pap smears. I had every intention of finding a new doctor there and making the annual trek myself. Except that I didn’t. Time just slipped by. Eleven years of time, to be exact.

I started having terrible trouble with non-stop heavy bleeding. One evening, after a particularly serious bout, I could not even stand and had to crawl down the hall to the couch. My son was scared, my then husband was scared and I was scared. A new female doctor had just moved to town and opened her practice so I made an appointment and went to see her. Several tests later, I got the dreaded “you have cancer” call. Let me tell you that nothing is like that call. It’s one of those things you remember every detail of forever. Then, of course, you pull yourself together and move forward. For me, moving forward meant moving to the big city for a summer for treatment. My mom flew out and stayed with me for the duration. I had a long summer of treatments including daily radiation. The treatments themselves weren’t too bad but the loss of personal privacy was pretty hard for me to take. Nonetheless, you do what you have to. I ended that bad summer with a radical hysterectomy. The treatments were completely successful. My doctor later told me that my cancer was so far along she wasn’t sure at the beginning if I would make it and considers me one of her personal success stories. I certainly owe her my life.

Not only am I writing this to encourage, insist actually, that you get your yearly Pap smear, unpleasant as that is, I am also writing to encourage you to have yourself and/or your daughters vaccinated with Gardasil. Gardasil is the only cervical cancer vaccine that helps protect against four types of HPV, two of which cause 70% of cervical cancer cases, and two others, which cause 90% of genital warts cases. Gardasil is for girls and young women ages 9 to 26. I understand there is some resistance to this vaccine although I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is. Gardasil is not about sex on any level. It is about a vaccine that can help prevent a disease. I only wish I could have had this shot when I was younger and avoided my summer of cancer. If you don’t get your daughters vaccinated and they end up with cervical cancer, how will you explain to them why you didn’t get them vaccinated?

Although I clearly feel very strongly about this subject, I would really welcome everyone’s comments. I would especially like comments from people against the vaccine so I can perhaps understand the reason for not having it.

Party Food

This post appears in the Make it From Scratch carnival at 11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven.

Since we are sliding in to the holiday party season I thought I'd make my Sunday recipe post about appetizers this week. Here are two good ones. The first is ideal for small parties and the second works for larger gatherings.

Baked Prosciutto and Brie with Apple Butter

1 loaf crusty French bread
4 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup apple butter
16 thin slices prosciutto, about 1/4 pound
2 pears or apples, thinly sliced
1 pound Brie, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Heat the oven to 450 degrees F. Cut 16 (1/2-inch thick) slices out of the loaf. Butter each side of the slices and put them onto a baking sheet. Spread 1 tablespoon of apple butter onto each slice. Top this with 1 slice of prosciutto and 3 or 4 slices of pear or apple. Cover this with the Brie slices, season with salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil. Bake until the cheese is melted, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Five-Spice Chicken Salad in Wonton Shells
SERVES: 4 DOZEN

48 wonton wrappers, thawed if frozen
Butter-flavored cooking spray
2 teaspoons five-spice powder*
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 large whole skinless, boneless chicken breast
1 medium navel orange
1 large shallot, minced
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
*Available at Asian markets

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Trim the wonton wrappers to form 2-inch squares. Coat a nonstick mini-muffin tin with cooking spray and press a wonton square into each cup. Lightly coat the squares with cooking spray and bake for about 7 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool in the pan. Repeat the process with the remaining wrappers and more cooking spray.

2. In a small bowl, combine the five-spice powder and salt and sprinkle on both sides of the chicken breast. Transfer the chicken to a lightly oiled baking sheet and bake for about 18 minutes, or until cooked through. Let the chicken cool and cut into 1/4 -inch dice.

3. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from half the orange, leaving behind the bitter white pith. Cut the zest into very thin 1-inch-long strips. Measure 1 packed teaspoon of julienned zest and discard the rest. Using a sharp knife, peel the rest of the orange, removing all the white pith. Working over a bowl, cut in between the membranes to release the sections. Cut the sections into 1/4 -inch dice. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the accumulated orange juice.

4. In a medium bowl, combine the diced orange with the shallot, reserved orange juice, rice wine vinegar, honey and olive oil. Gently stir in the chicken, half of the orange zest and half of the cilantro.

5. Spoon 2 teaspoons of the chicken salad into each wonton shell. Garnish with the remaining orange zest and cilantro and serve.

MAKE AHEAD The wonton shells can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.The chicken salad can stand at room temperature for 2 hours.

The Economy of a Hunting Club

This post appears in the 175th Carnival of Personal Finance.

(Geese on the lake, resting up for their long flight south.)

Today is opening day of whitetail deer season up here in the Adirondacks. After numerous assurances that I didn’t mind, my boyfriend was up and out at 5:30 this morning to be in his deer stand by sunup. The season is nine weeks long and, lest you worry too much about the deer, last season his whole club only got about 4. I’m not a hunter and am always happier when they have fun and don’t kill anything, as is usually the case. Having said that, I do love venison.

This year he was elected Treasurer of his hunt club. It’s a job he didn’t particularly want but accepted. He is a fairly detail oriented person and I suspect he’ll do a good job. It’s been interesting learning about the finances of this organization. It’s a little micro-economy. This particular hunt club has been in existence for more than 50 years. They lease a 2,500 acre parcel of heavily wooded land in which to hunt. They have a camp house which consists of a kitchen/dining area, a room with several couches and a TV and then several other rooms with bunkbeds. It’s definitely a man’s place. I don’t mind hanging out over there a little but I would certainly never lay my head down on one of those pillows! They have a large barn in which to store their tractor and several member’s four-wheelers. Individual members have erected deerstands all over the place. There is a creek that runs right through it. It’s really a pretty piece of property. Each member pays $400 a year in dues. They also pay $10 a night if they are staying at the club, which includes two meals. Beer is $1. Beer, food and lodging are on the honor system.

The club holds two big fundraisers annually. The first one is a gun raffle. They sell 800 tickets at $5 each. The second is a $20 raffle with numerous cash and merchandise prizes and for which they sell 300 tickets. Between membership and the raffles they take in about $20,000 a year less the cost of the raffle prizes. Their expenses consist of their lease, which is currently $14,000 a year, groceries, beer, gas for the generator and various expenses related to upkeep of the house and equipment. They really need to buy a new tractor as the one they have is barely hanging on and is not sufficient to their needs. So, just like a home, they need to balance their grocery spending with the $10 a night charge and see if their food costs are covered. They need to see if $1 a beer really covers the amount of beer the club buys. They need to decide if the hassle of their “job” of selling raffle tickets twice in fairly close succession is worth it. They need to decide if they can afford a new tractor or if they will need to make the old one last a little longer. Right now they have about $30,000 in CDs and about $13,000 in the bank with the raffle money still to come. Their piece of property was recently sold and they haven’t heard from the new owners yet so they don’t know if their lease will cost the same this year or go up or, heaven forbid, go away. They are currently trying to decide if they need to raise their dues, which have remained at $400 for several years. It doesn’t appear to me as if they keep close enough accounting to answer some of these questions. I’m going to try and analyze their books and see what I can come up with.

A lot of the hunt clubs up here have disappeared. This club is one of the last really big clubs still remaining active. They have one member who is quite generous with his time, money and equipment and may well be responsible for the club’s continuing existence. These guys love their club and I hope they can keep it going. If they raise the dues will they lose some members? If the lease goes up in price, will they be able to afford to keep it? Although some of the local members fish there during the summer, it’s basically a nine-week long, weekend man camp. Some of the guys who come up don’t even hunt, they just hang out. Is there still room for this sort of organization? Hunting issues aside, I hope so.

Cruisin' With Mickey

This post appears in the Carnival of Family Life Harvest Festival.

I’m writing this piece while I sit in the airport waiting to catch my flight to New York. While I was making the four hour drive to the airport, I called my sister and got the skinny on the Disney Cruise from which she just returned. Since I have vacations on my mind, I thought I’d pass along what she had to say.

She has a good friend who works for Delta Airlines and the two families were able to travel together at a discount. If you’ve ever been to one of the Disney Resorts you know that Disney knows how to handle crowds and how to deal with families! My sister, who was traveling with her husband and two young children, reports that they run their cruises just as efficiently. She said everything was designed for families. Most cruise line’s cabin bathrooms have a tiny stall shower. Disney knows that they are carrying small children and their cabin’s bathrooms are equipped with small tubs. Their cabin had two small bathroom areas, one with a commode and sink and the other with a shower and sink. She said having two sinks was a huge help with four people sharing the cabin. Even with four people, the cabin did not feel as crowded as she expected. The steward would make the sofa up as one bed and another would descend from the ceiling just above it to make bunk beds for the kids. There was a curtain that could be drawn between these beds and the adult bed for at least an illusion of privacy. Every morning after they left, the steward would stow the bunks away again.

She said the shows were great fun for children as well as adults. There were big production shows in the main room as well as very funny family-friendly comics in the smaller lounge. This ship stopped in Key West, Grand Cayman and at Disney’s private island. My very frugal, very clever sister chose not to take any excursions, opting instead to set off on their own. On the day the ship docked in Grand Cayman she had her family members each grab an extra box of granola and a banana from the breakfast buffet. They departed the ship, flagged a cab and asked the cab driver to take them to a good snorkeling beach. The cabbie charged them $5 each and took them to the Marriot Resort beach area where they practically had the place to themselves. They had a wonderful time snorkeling and playing on the beach. When they got hungry, they ate their granola and bananas. She said their only other option would have been $10 hot dogs from a beach stand. They had arranged for the taxi to collect them at 2:30 and were back on the ship in plenty of time to have a late lunch there. I’m going to remember that tip the next time I go cruising!

Her kids loved the onboard kid’s club and spent a good deal of their free time there. The ship gave pagers to the parents when they dropped off their kids, which enabled the kids to text them when they were ready to leave. While onboard ship they enjoyed a pirate themed dinner and a character breakfast for that special Disney flavor. The husbands were able to catch some football games and my sister reports that she and her friend played Scrabble and went to a wine tasting. She was surprised to discover that, although only about 10 yards away, just beyond the stacks, the noise from the kid’s pool area was completely inaudible from the adult’s only pool.

She had fun, her husband had fun and her kids had fun. Although not an inexpensive vacation, she said she can understand why people with children say it’s worth the money to cruise with Disney.

While I don’t see any cruises in my immediate future, I love cruising. Maybe I need to start a real vacation fund!

Do you have a favorite family friendly vacation? Or a way to make a vacation be a little more budget friendly?

Adirondack Round-up!

I’m in the Adirondacks! Unfortunately it rained all the way upstate but the colors were still beautiful! I’m doing my roundup post today to give me a chance to get settled in.

Great blogs this week –
Little Green Stilettos has a very thought provoking post about that ubiquitous pink ribbon. She suggests that it might be a good idea to look behind the curtain of companies who are rallying around the pink campaign. Evidently there is an organization called Think Before You Pink that is tracking this sort of thing.

My Super-Charged Life reminds us to stop and smell the roses with Living Life to the Fullest. No matter what is going on in your life, there is always something small thing for which to be thankful. Nice to have a reminder once in a while!

Time vs. Money, which is more valuable? There is a good post at WiseBread asking us to think about this very important question. When I went freelance, otherwise known as “semi-retired” I learned that time is much more important to me.

The Good Human looked at the relative eco-friendliness of city living vs. country living. There are some interesting takes on that debate.

And finally, I need to give credit to Living Almost Large for Can We Afford It? I promise I was already planning to do the piece I published yesterday (really!) but, since LAL's came out first, that didn't look too good! I would have just killed my post but since I was trying to get ready to go, I didn't really have time to come up with something new!

Carnivals in which I participated this week –

The Missing Link appears in the 20th Carnival of All Things Eco at Focus Organic.

Pumpkin recipes appears in Make It From Scratch, the Fall Colors Edition at Stop The Ride. The carnival is adorned by beautiful fall foliage photographs. Hopefully I will be in the midst of that sort of color in upstate New York when this post appears!

My post on raising worms in my basement appeared in the Carnival of Environmental Issues at Wiggly Wigglers.

What Do You Think - Can They Afford It?

Suze Orman has a very popular segment on her CNBC show called, “Can I Afford It?”. She appeared on Oprah this week for an hour long version of that segment. It was a pretty good show.

One of Oprah’s audience members was pregnant with her second child and wanted to stay home when the baby was born. She and her husband have a combined income of $9,000, an emergency fund of $6,000 and expenses including child care of $6583. When they looked at the numbers for the family if this mother stayed home their income dropped $3,000 a month but their expenses only dropped about $800. Suze pointed out that this woman’s figures did not include expenses for the new baby. She recommended they start trying to live on just her husband’s salary until the baby was born, which would give them 6-8 months to practice and see if they could pull it off.

The next example was a young woman living in Boston who graduated from college with $63,000 in student loans. She is working full-time plus has a part-time job at Starbucks to make ends meet. She is spending $800 a month on car expenses alone. She showed off her bedroom, which included a $1400 bed and a $300 iPod. She never says no to her friend's invitations to go out and she is getting regular manicures and pedicures. This young woman was very distressed and feeling helpless. Astonishingly her expenses were $3237 a month and her income was only $2010! Oprah pointed out that this sort of balance sheet is what caused the economic problems we are currently experiencing. Since Suze met with this young woman, she has cut $700 a month from her expenses. Her question for Suze was could she afford to stay in Boston, as opposed to moving back home. Suze said she could stay in Boston because she’d done such a good job cutting her expenses. I was stunned. She’s done a good job but she is still $300 a month upside down. Suze gave her three months to find a better job. If she can’t then she has to move home.

Example number three was a single woman who wants to buy her first house. She makes $2900 a month, has $1845 in expenses and has $8500 in her emergency fund. She plans to take $5,000 from her emergency fund to use as a down payment. Obviously Suze denied her plan to use her emergency fund as her down payment. Suze advised her to build up an 8 month emergency fund AND a down payment fund before she started house shopping. She was already approved by her lender for a $150,000 mortgage. So, clearly the banks still aren’t looking too hard at their borrowers.

The next example was a 50 year old woman who wants to retire in six years. She currently has an income of $9100 with expenses of $8200 and $393,000 in retirement savings. She expects her retirement income to be about $6500 with expenses of $6300. Suze told her she could not afford to retire. This woman had not factored in inflation and higher medical costs during her remaining lifetime. Suze told her to cut her expenses a lot more and build up a good emergency fund and perhaps she’d be able to retire at age 60.

The final example was a labor/delivery nurse who wanted to buy an SUV. She makes $3400 a month and has $2500 in expenses. Her current car payment is $316 a month on a lease vehicle, which will be over in March. She has $800 in credit card debt. She has about $1200 in savings. Suze said she could buy the SUV because she has to be out late at night in the snow and needs a dependable vehicle. Suze said that her new payment needed to be the same as her current car payment. She recommended that this woman clear her credit card debt and start working overtime to sock some money away before purchasing a used SUV when her lease expires.

What do you think? Do you agree with Suze’s decisions? I wonder how many of these people actually follow her advice.

Where to put that extra money?

This post appears in the Carnival of Debt Reduction.

Because I’m going on vacation mid-month, I’ve been a little concerned about paying my end of the month bills before I leave. I ended up getting an extra $1,000 this month. It’s for something specific but I don’t need it quite yet. I used it to pay my mortgage and a couple of other small bills. As a result, everything is paid so I don’t have to worry about chasing my money before I head out. I still have $3,000 coming in this month, which should all be here by the time I get back. Once I take the extra $1,000 back out plus $500 for savings, I'll be left with $1,500 and all my monthly bills paid.

I’m not quite sure how that happened! I really tightened up my grocery shopping and, because I’m going to be gone pretty much the rest of the month, I didn’t need as much. Maybe I have more money than I think I do! As soon as I realized I was going to have this “extra” money I immediately earmarked it for a credit card payment. $1500 will make a nice dent in my remaining $5,000 debt. I wish I had it immediately because the more time I have to think about it, the more time I have to reallocate bits of it. Mostly I’m torn between credit card repayment and savings. I know it needs to go to credit card repayment and that the longer term benefit of getting rid of my remaining credit card debt is huge. Intellectually it makes perfect sense. I’m really struggling, though, with the sense of security a big savings balance brings.

I was listening to Dave Ramsey on podcast the other morning. One of his callers had $35,000 in credit card debt and $17,000 in the bank. Dave advised her to withdraw all of her savings except for $1,000 and use it to pay down her credit card debt. Once her debt was completely retired she could begin to rebuild her savings. I know that is the strategy of Dave’s “baby steps” plan. However, it presupposes that someone will have the stability in their income to rebuild that savings account. What if this caller does as he suggests and then has a big emergency or loses her job? She’ll still have $20,000 in credit card debt and, after following Dave’s advice, only $1,000 in the bank. Yikes!

I do plan to hold tight and apply my extra money against my credit card debt. Now that I realize I can get by with even less than the already tightened budget I’ve been living on, I should be able to knock out the rest pretty quickly. I realize that without credit card payments to make, I’ll have even more money to put in my savings and will be able to build my emergency fund more quickly. Instead of my expenses growing with my income, I’m always afraid my income will shrink along with my debt! Hopefully I can hold on to all my clients beyond retiring my credit card debt and will have some extra money to sock away.

If you are still carrying credit card debt how do you allocate your payments? Do you ascribe to the snowball and/or snowflake method and pour every available extra dollar into your repayment? Or, are you trying to repay your debt and aggressively build your emergency fund simultaneously?

Going Traveling

My boyfriend made it home last night from a week spent moose hunting in Canada. They had a great time and, luckily, no moose sacrificed its life in support of manly fun. He said that, due to a spate of warmer weather, the leaves are still good almost all the way to his house. I’m looking forward to my trip but I have ten million things to do before I go. Yesterday I got all my container plants muscled down into Subterrania, (aka my basement). I have a two-story house and keep some big bougainvillea on my second-story balcony. What a workout that was! I got the two extra lights hung down there and have everything set up to start the gardening experiment. I’m trying to decide about planting the seeds now or waiting until I get back. I’d hate to have them sprout and then dry out while I’m gone. I fed the worms very well, so they should be happy until I get back. In spite of the large amount of food I put in their bin, when I went down this morning to turn the lights on, I couldn’t smell a thing. You really should try vermicomposting!

I need to pack and mail my son’s birthday present since his birthday will happen while I am gone. I told him he needed to rein in his usual extravagant gift list and, good boy that he is, he said he’d love a crockpot! I got him one at Walmart the other day. He told me I should have just told him to go to his local Walmart and get it himself with his emergency credit card. He really is growing up! He used to hate that kind of thing. It certainly would have saved me some hassle and postage.

I’ve also got to make some more dog food. That experiment is going fairly well. I can’t tell that the homemade food is making left behind pug feel any better but he doesn’t seem to be feeling any worse. He eats the real food much more slowly than he did the dry food, which is probably a good thing. I no longer have to drive 25 miles to get his prescription food but I do need to take time to cook the real food. I haven’t been doing it long enough to see how it’s going to end up. So far, I’m happy I made this choice.

I love to come home from a trip to a really clean house so cleaning my house is on my list of things to do before I go. Unfortunately, it’s usually the first thing to be jettisoned when I run out of time! The usual things like laundry and packing are also on my list. Plus I need to pay a visit to my out of town clients so they won’t fret while I’m gone next week. Getting ready for a trip is always stressful. I love getting about an hour down the road. Too late to do anything but enjoy the trip!

For some reason, I’m feeling unusually stressed about the food issue of long airplane travel. My flight leaves at 2:15 in the afternoon, which means I have to be at the airport by about 12:30. I don’t land in Albany, New York, until 11:00 at night, which will be way too late to eat. My only plane change is 30 minutes in Chicago so I can’t eat there. I don’t really want to spend a bunch of money buying expensive airport food. I also don’t really want to go through security with my bag lunch! I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to approach this issue. I did ask my boyfriend to pack me a sandwich and a piece of fruit that I can eat in the hotel room that night.

How do you get ready for a trip? Are you a procrastinator, like me, or are you super efficient? How do you deal with being hungry on the plane?

Pumpkin Recipes!

These recipes appeared in the Make It From Scratch, Fall Colors Edition at Stop the Ride.

In the spirit of October I’ve been thinking about pumpkins. There are lots of pumpkins in the store and the small pie pumpkins are pretty cheap. I decided to think about pumpkins as another winter squash and see what I could do with them. This past week I made a pumpkin soup and some pumpkin muffins. Although I’ve been seeing recipes for both of those items all over the web this month, I decided to post my original recipes too! The soup has a nice bite to it, thanks to the chili and curry and the muffins were completely delicious! Roast two pumpkins at the same time and use one for the soup and the other for the muffins.




Curried Pumpkin Soup

Medium-sized pie pumpkin
3 med. Granny Smith apples
2 med yellow onions
1 head garlic
4 carrots
1 med long green chili
2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 cups stock (chicken, vegetable or beef)
2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon ground nutment

1. Split the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Peel, core and halve the apples, peel and halve the onions, peel the carrots. Place them plus the garlic and chili on sheet pans and drizzle with olive oil. Roast all the vegetables on sheet pans at 400° until tender (approx. one hour).

2. Pop garlic cloves out of their skins, scoop pumpkin out of its shell. Peel chili and remove seeds and top. Cut everything roughly, feed into the blender with enough stock to blend smooth.

3. Put the blended vegetables in a large pot with the rest of the stock. Add seasonings. Simmer until heated through and flavors are blended. Approximately 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Leave as is for rustic texture or sieve for a smoother texture.

Don’t forget to compost your vegetable peelings or, even better, feed them to your worms! (No chili, onion or garlic peelings to the worms, please.)




Pumpkin Cranberry Pecan Muffins

Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 pie pumpkin
½ cup pecan pieces
½ cup dried cranberries
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup crème fraiche or sour cream

1. Halve the pumpkin, scoop out the seeds and place the pumpkin on a sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil and roast in a 400° oven until tender, approximately 1 hour.

2. While the pumpkin is roasting, toast the pecans in the oven for about 7 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool and then coarsely chop.

3. Reduce the oven to 350°. Spray your muffin pans cooking spray. I used mini muffin pans. Scoop the roasted pumpkin out of its shell and mash with a fork until relatively smooth.

4. Sift the flour with the baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar until pale yellow. Whisk in the oil and crème fraiche or sour cream. Stir in the pumpkin, cranberries and pecans, then stir in the flour mixture until blended.

5. Pour the batter into the muffin tins, filling about ¾ full and bake for 15 – 20 minutes, checking after 10 minutes, or until risen and a cake tester inserted in the center of one or two muffins comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn them out onto a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

The Missing Link

This article appeared in the 20th Carnival of All Things Eco at Focus Organic.

Reduce, reuse and recycle. We all understand the importance of the three “R’s” of being environmentally responsible. I believe there is another part of the cycle that is often overlooked. I think it is the most important part. I am referring to supporting the market for your carefully recycled cast-offs. When you buy something, look for items made from a high percentage of post-consumer recycled materials. It doesn’t matter how many plastic bottles, newspapers, cardboard and tin cans we throw in the recycle bin. If there is no market for these materials, the recycling industry will disappear. In west Texas, for example, it is very difficult to recycle glass. Evidently there is simply no market for it. According to my research, the closest glass recycling center is about 600 miles away, in Houston. However high-minded they may be, your local recycling center does not take in your trash through the goodness of their hearts; they take it in because they can sell it.

When you purchase items that are made from a high percentage of post-consumer materials, you are helping to create a market for the things you are trying to keep out of the landfill. Alternatively, when you lovingly collect all your paper and cardboard for recycling, compost your vegetable scraps and repurpose old containers and then go out and buy products made from newly created resources, you are throwing a cog in the whole system. If there were a strong market in post-consumer materials, you wouldn’t even have to gather up your recyclables; people would be stealing them out of your trash! Look to recent reports of home copper theft for proof of the power of a good market for post-consumer goods. Lots of people have, for years, supplemented their incomes by digging aluminum cans out of dumpsters and selling them. Even without vigilant recycling, these items make it out of the trash stream (and sometimes out of your house prematurely!) by virtue of the healthy market for them.

If a product is labeled “recycled content,” the material might have come from excess or damaged items generated during normal manufacturing processes-not collected through a local recycling program. Finding a use for these products is a good thing but does not have quite the same benefit as reusing things that have already been through the consumer material stream. When you are checking labels always look for a high post-consumer content. Another benefit of supporting the post-consumer content market is that it creates competition. As the demand for these products increases, more companies will enter the marketplace, the quality of the products will improve and, at the same time, prices will drop.

Keep recycling but don't forget to support the companies that make use of your recycled goods!

Can You Balance the Budget?

Do you have your own finances figured out? Try this little budget game from PBS.org and see how you do on a slightly higher scale! Pretty simplistic but give it a whirl!



Some good reading -

Time to circle the wagons? Over at The Digerati Life, Jacques Sprenger does some tough talking with 10 Frugal Steps to Help You Survive a Tough Economy.

Michelle Singletary’s column in The Washington Post, The Color of Money, has a great piece called Chart a Road Map to Weather Rocky Times. In it, she shares strategies for different age groups, designed to help us make it through.

The Simple Dollar writes about changing the things you can and accepting the things you can’t in a very thoughtful post Changes You Can Make.

Carnivals in which I recently participated -

I had a good money day recently. My post about it appeared in the 79th Carnival of Money Stories at Living Almost Large. LAL found a bunch of good cartoons to illustrate the categories and calls this the “Carton Edition”. I’m sure the current financial situation is providing plenty of fodder for illustrators these days!

My post on Going Scratch was published on the Make It From Scratch Carnival #84. There are always lots of good ideas on that carnival.

What Are You Brewing Up?

A few days ago Funny About Money posted about making your own dog food. I decided to give it a try. Left behind pug is allergic to just about everything and currently eats only prescription dog food. His symptoms tend to worsen in the winter and, as the season is changing, he has definitely started scratching more. I feel bad for him and, more importantly, all that scratching is driving me crazy!

I decided to see if homemade food would provide him any relief. I cut up potatoes and carrots and put them in the bottom of my big aluminum roaster, topped the vegetables with two chickens, put the lid on and popped it in the oven at 400° for a couple of hours. I did not use any seasoning and, of course, was not too worried about the chickens getting brown. After they were done I pulled the chickens out, cut them up, skinned them, pulled the meat off and diced it. I drained the fat off the vegetables, added them to the meat and mixed thoroughly. Keeping with the amount of food he was already getting, I’m feeding him ½ cup of food twice a day. I expect this batch to last 15 days. I did the math and figured it is costing me .50 per serving for the homemade food and about .44 per serving for the prescription dry food. I was hoping to save some money on this deal but, if it provides the poor dog some relief, it will still be worth it.

In the spirit of “Going Scratch” I also decided to give making my own baby wipes a try. Although I have no babies around here, the wipes are useful for removing makeup. The recipe is simple. Cut a roll of paper towels in half, leaving you with two smaller rolls. Gently mix two cups of water, 1 tablespoon of baby oil and 1 tablespoon of baby shampoo in a shallow dish. Add the half-roll of paper towels, turning to allow the solution to soak through all the layers. Once it is completely sodden, unroll the towels into an empty plastic baby wipe container. Unrolling the paper towels was the most time consuming part of the process, that’s how easy this is. The towels smell nice too! Unfortunately, they weren’t too effective in removing waterproof mascara but did a good job with everything else and left my skin feeling soft. This is an incredibly cheap and easy way to make your own wipes, whether you use them for your baby or something else. Kudos to Happy to be at Home for posting the recipe.

I’m feeling virtuous after my day of making my own stuff from scratch. What are you brewing up?

Now We Go Forward

I saw Ali Velshi, CNN Senior Business Correspondent, interviewed recently regarding our current financial crises. Velshi says we got here by making three basic faulty assumptions about the future.

1. If you own a home, it will go up in value;
2. Your wages will go up; and
3. Your investments in the stock market will go up

Believing in these tenets, we all felt free to live beyond our means. After all, if things are always going to get better, we will always have an opportunity to catch up. We all believed it, all of us, individuals, businesses and the government.

He also illustrated how the mortgage industry works. You borrow money from the bank. Your bank sells your mortgage to Wall Street, who, in turn sells packages of mortgages to big investment groups. Everyone along the chain gets a percentage of the interest you are paying. No one along the chain is too concerned about the debt because they have sold it off to someone else. Then interest rates go up and you, the homeowner, can’t pay your mortgage. Your house is foreclosed upon. In an effort to get the money flowing again, the bank tries to sell your house but it is no longer worth anywhere near the amount of money they loaned out on it. Now no one can recoup their losses. Multiply this situation by the millions of homes in foreclosure and it suddenly becomes clear what the “mortgage crises” is all about.

He believes the bailout was necessary. Our whole country is based on credit. Everyone is borrowing money – you, the stores at which you shop, the suppliers at which they shop, etc., etc. Things being what they are, the banks don’t trust anyone and so are reducing everyone’s credit. It’s not just your credit limits being reduced. It’s also the grocery store’s credit, so they can no longer afford to purchase what they need to fill their shelves. It’s the supplier’s credit so they can no longer provide the supplies to your grocery store.

159,000 jobs were lost in September bringing the total for 2008 to 750,000 lost jobs. These are all people who are no longer able to spend money. Velshi feels the bailout was necessary because we all need money to float through the system so credit will loosen up. He feels that without the bailout the recession would drag out longer.

Suze Orman believes that banks are more at fault for lending us more then we can afford than we are for borrowing it. While it is certainly easier to blame the big bad bank for our problems, I don’t believe it’s helpful to play the victim. If someone had a change of circumstances after having purchased their home, which greatly reduced their income, that’s one thing but if someone bought a house with an unmanageable mortgage, they need to acknowledge their responsibility for losing that house. Suze recommends that we not panic and withdraw our money from the bank or sell off our 401(k) holdings or pull all of our money out of the stock market. She suggests the following:

1. Make sure your money is safe – FDIC or NCUA (for credit unions) insured, T-Bills, Bonds or Treasury Notes are also safe;
2. Pay down your credit cards;
3. Get or keep your health and term life insurance – many people’s finances are ruined by major health issues, don’t stop paying your health insurance premiums;
4. Don’t stop investing in your retirement plan; and
5. Stop spending what you can’t afford to spend. Stop living beyond your means!

The bailout did pass so we will now need to deal with it. At the end of the day, this big shakeup should force all of us to take a good hard look at our financial lives. The basic advice is not going to change no matter how hard you look. Live below your means, save your money, pay off your debt.

Value yourself by who you are, not by what you have!

Volunteer: CASA

Court Appointed Special Advocates are a voice for children in the foster care system. I volunteer my time with a few different organizations but CASA is the most rewarding. In 1977, a Seattle judge conceived the idea of using trained community volunteers to speak for the best interests of abused and neglected children in court. So successful was this program that soon judges across the country began utilizing citizen advocates. In 1990, the US Congress encouraged the expansion of CASA programs with passage of the Victims of Child Abuse Act. As a CASA you are required to go through a training program before receiving your first assignment. At my local CASA program office, the training was scheduled to accommodate a class of professional men and women, most of whom work a regular 40-hour week. We trained a couple of hours at a time, one evening a week until we were through the course.

CASA is called in after children are placed in the foster care system. Once we are assigned, our job is to be the voice of our children in the court system. In order to be an effective voice, we have to know as much about the children and their circumstances as possible. We visit the children, whether they are placed in formal foster care or housed with relatives, and get to know their care-givers, with whom we communicate frequently. Depending on the age of the children, we also meet and communicate with school teachers, daycare providers, counselors and therapists. In most cases we also meet with the parents. Because we are not affiliated with Child Protective Services, the biological parents tend to welcome us as much as the foster parents do. We write reports about our findings and our opinions, which we present at various court hearings. We also advocate for services to help the children get into a permanent home. Whether we are assisting the parents in finding programs to help them fix up their homes in order to get their kids back, researching possible relative adoptions or looking for college scholarships, we can step in and help with whatever the children need. We continue our involvement with our children until they pass out of the system, either through reunification with their families, adoption or when they age out of the system .

Unfortunately, some children in foster care pass through many home situations and frequently their CASA is the only stable person throughout this process. In spite of all we do, the time commitment is not that great. I live in a very rural area with a shortage of foster homes and, as a result, my current children are with a wonderful foster family 170 miles away. I visit them in person less than once a month but stay in contact with their various providers via e-mail and phone.

If you are looking for somewhere to volunteer your time, look into becoming a CASA volunteer. Check out National CASA’s website and see if this is something in which you might be interested. If you can’t volunteer your time, consider making a donation.

Grown up S'Mores

If you are new to my blog, I publish a recipe every Sunday!

I was invited to a friend’s house the other day for an evening of Rummikub and offered to bring along a desert. I wanted to make something fun and, since we would be playing and eating simultaneously, something that would be eaten with no silverware. I had this idea for a takeoff on S’mores. They were very tasty and everyone loved them. I’m no food stylist so please forgive my photograph. They actually looked a lot better in person!



First, make the pastry. The trick to making pastry is to work quickly and keep everything as cold as possible. My “go to” pastry recipe is from Julia Child and, if you have a food processor, absolutely foolproof. I adapted it for this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350°

1 cup ground up graham crackers (this worked out to be exactly one of the interior packages of crackers from the box), I broke them up and then pulverized them in the food processor to get graham cracker “flour”.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ sticks chilled, unsalted butter
2 tablespoons shortening
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup, more or less, iced water

Chocolate chips
Mini-Marshmallows

Of course you can make the dough by hand or in an electric mixer. But the food processor is sensationally fast and foolproof using these proportions. Proceed as follows: with metal blade in place, measure the flours (plain and graham cracker) into the bowl of the machine, cut the butter rapidly into thick-ish (1/4”) slices, and drop into the flour, along with the sugar, shortening and salt. Using the pulse, at about ½ seconds per pulse, give it 7 or 8 pulses, just to start breaking up the butter. Then, with the water poised over the opening of the machine, turn it on and pour in all but 1 tablespoon of the iced water. Pulse in spurts, just until the dough begins to mass together but is still rough, with some unformed bits. Turn it out onto your work surface and mass together rapidly with the heel of one hand into a somewhat rough cake. Dough should be pliable – neither dry and hard nor sticky. Pat in a little more flour if sticky; or water if hard and then reform into a cake. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour to congeal the butter and to allow the flour particles to absorb the water. You can actually leave it in the fridge, tightly wrapped, for up to three days or you can freeze it. Note: if you replace the cup of graham cracker flour with all-purpose flour, this is a great pastry for any purpose. I use it for both sweet and savory applications.

After the dough is chilled, roll it out to about 1/8” thick and cut it with a 3” circle cutter. A biscuit cutter would work well. I actually use an empty Talenti Gelato container! Place your circles on a sheet pan, which is lined with a piece of parchment paper.

Place 8 or 9 chocolate chips in the center of each circle of graham cracker pastry. Fold the edges of the pastry circle up, pleating and pinching as you go around. This is the same construction as the large crostata or rustic tart recipe I published a few weeks ago, just in miniature.

Place the sheet pan with the little tarts in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, or until the pastry is getting crisp. Take the sheet pan out, top the tarts with 3 or 4 mini-marshmallows and then stick it back in the oven until the marshmallows melt, approximately 5 minutes. Remove the tarts from the oven, place on a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

I finished off my grown-up S’mores by drizzling with 1 cube of melted bittersweet chocolate. I usually need to add a little oil to the chocolate to get it to a good drizzling consistency. I think I got about 18 or 20 tartletts out of this recipe.

This original recipe is a little rough as it is actually a work in progress. Hopefully I didn’t leave anything out!

Going Scratch

This post appears in the 84th Make It From Scratch Carnival.

Yesterday I signed up for “Going Scratch with Coming Up for Air”. Beth decided to try and make everything she possibly could from scratch and invited her readers to come along. She was not only cooking from scratch, she was making soap, and candles and napkins. She was creating her own crackers and potato chips. She was canning and making cheese. A few weeks later she reported that she had not left her kitchen the whole time and she was exhausted! Her update post said she was going to back off a little and try to be more realistic in her approach. After all, never leaving the kitchen does tend to take a bit away from your quality of life!

It was at this point I stumbled across her on 5 Minutes for Going Green and decided to give it a whirl. I seldom use packaged foods so that wasn’t an area in which I could improve a whole lot. I looked over my current grocery list to see if I could find anything I could make instead of buy. It primarily consisted of staples like beans and lentils so no likely candidates. I already use baking soda and white vinegar for cleaning so that was done. I did come across a recipe for homemade laundry detergent the other day. I’m going to give that a try the next time I need some. I’m also going to start making my own dog food. My left behind pug is allergic to everything and eats only prescription dog food. I’m hoping the homemade kind will help alleviate some of his misery and may also cost less. I already have worms busily vermicomposting in my basement and am making plans to grow some food under lights down there this winter. So maybe, in my case, she’s preaching to the choir. I’m going to have to work on this one a bit but I know that I will be able to think of some more areas where I can “go scratch”. Do you want to come along? Go by “Coming Up for Air” and sign up.

Update: Beth hasn’t slowed down too much. Her blog today shows shelf after shelf of canned produce with a promise of more to come!

The Wisdom of the Heart

(image by my sister Cheryl, taken from her hotel room in Biloxi, MS, shortly before Katrina struck)

Words to live by from the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso:

1. Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

2. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

3. Sleep is the best meditation.

4. Spend some time alone every day.

5. We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

6. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

7. We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

8. Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

9. If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

10.The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.

Good advice

A Good Money Day!

This post appeared in the 79th Carnival of Money Stories at Living Almost Large.

There have been several posts around the pf blog world lately about asking for discounts. I decided to give it a try. I started by asking for a discount on an opened ream of printer paper at Staples. When it worked, effortlessly I might add, I felt a little empowered. Coupling that idea with a few other tricks, I got to work to see what other expenses I could reduce without actually sacrificing anything. Let me tell you, it works!

I had a great money day today. My electric bill came and, two months post programmable thermostat installation, it had plunged another $60. Some unseasonably cool weather has no doubt helped a little but that thing has certainly paid for itself quickly. Then, my bank agreed to adjust my mortgage interest rate down 1.25% immediately. I had written them a letter asking if there was anything they could do about my A.R.M. (you can read the whole story here) and I got their response today. It’s not all I hoped for as the new rate will only be good until May 26, 2009, when it normally readjusts, but at least I’ll get a reduced payment for the next eight months.

I was all fired up by these successes so I moved on to my credit card company. I called Chase and asked about a reduction in my interest rate. They immediately offered to lower my rate by 3% and told me I was allowed to call back and ask again every six months. They also offered me a 0% balance transfer good until June of 2009. I declined that offer as I have a 1.99% fixed on my only other card balance and, if I transferred it, this card would be close to maxed out. Although I’m quite confident the balance will be paid by June 2009, I’m not sure the savings would be worth the risks.

Moving right along, I called AT&T. I’m currently paying $96.93 per month for landline and high speed DSL service. I explained to Sandy, their very nice billing department representative, that I never use my landline and feel like I’m paying $100 a month for Internet service. I asked if we could go over the bill and see if there was any way it could be reduced. She was very patient with me, got the wireless department on the phone and, after about twenty or thirty minutes, decided that we could bundle the landline, Internet and wireless for $135 a month. My wireless bill alone is about $127 so this was one heck of a reduction.

I imagine that my mortgage payment will be reduced by about $100 a month and with the almost $100 a month reduction on my phone bill, I feel like I just got a nice raise! The reduction in interest rate on my credit card will mean that bill will be paid off more quickly, resulting in another “raise”. This whole asking thing is a little addictive!

Have you tried asking for discounts yet? Leave a comment and let me know how you have fared.

It's My Birthday!

Today is my birthday. I had to go into my profile this morning and change where it said I was 46 years old to 47. Yikes! I have a good friend who will turn 50 in a couple of weeks. I laughingly told her that the only good thing about turning 47 was that it wasn’t turning 50. She is, recently, in a really good place in her life so she laughed too.

Birthdays are a great opportunity to look forward and look back. I honestly have to say that I am in the best place ever. I’m happier, healthier and more at peace with myself than I’ve ever been. Each year seems to get better than the last. Like everyone else, I’ve had to weather some storms but things do seem to keep moving along nicely!

I think it’s really nice that they decided to hold the v-p debate tonight in my honor. That ought to be good for a laugh, if nothing else.

Here are some blog posts that have recently caught my eye:

The 21-day Complaint Free Marriage Experiment at The Simple Marriage Project. I’d heard about this idea on Oprah awhile back and thought it was wonderful. Clearly it’s not just for married people. Try to go 21 days without complaining at all…to anyone!! Do you think you can do it?

The Dough Roller has a pretty good explanation of the big bailout. Confused? We all should be.

Some really incredible green houses, and by that I mean environmentally friendly, can be seen at Ecosalon. While I don’t think we’ll be seeing these in the suburbs of middle America any time soon, I’m thrilled to see some examples of the progress that is being made in this area. These are some really stunning houses.

This sounds a little, well, icky. But, after I read about making your own baby wipes at Happy to be at Home and the comments, I was intrigued. I have passed the article along to all the new mothers I know.

This week’s Carnivals –

My article on The Downside of Working Freelance appeared in the 104th Working at Home Carnival.

Frugality vs. Environmental Responsibility is up at the 145th Festival of Frugality – The Gratitude Edition. In the face of all the trouble in the world, our host, Value For Your Life, chose to concentrate on all the things we have to be grateful for.

Read about my IRS wake-up call in Stupid Tax, which is in the 78th Carnival of Money Stories at Funny About Money. This is a double-edition of the carnival so there is a lot of good reading to be found on the list. Oops, this same article also appeared in the Money Hacks Carnival.

Frugal Travel, Can I Do It? , is over at 2Paupers’ Carnival of Living Cheaply. If you have any tips for me, head over and leave me a comment.

My New Best Friend - A Worm! appeared in the Green-It Carnival at Green Me.

Browsing the carnivals is a great way to discover new blogs that may be of interest to you. If you find one you like, subscribe!

Subterrania, Gardening in my Basement

I have big plans for my little basement this winter. In the past I have always taken my outdoor potted plants to a friend’s greenhouse for the cold season. Last winter I put all my plants down in my basement as a test. I bought a 4’ grow light, which I left on all winter. My plants not only survived, they thrived! It’s a constant 65° down there so I imagine they slowed down a bit. I only had to water them once every week to ten days. By the end of the winter every plant had significant new growth. It was so much easier getting them down there and getting them back out this spring than it had been to haul them all the way to the greenhouse and back. It was a very successful experiment.

At the beginning of the summer I started a worm bin in my basement. I love my worms. They are busy making black gold aka vermicompost for my garden next spring. Now I’m ready to increase the productivity of my basement. In addition to my outdoor potted plants, this year I’m going to try and actually grow something down there. I have some long trough-like planters arranged on a table I made out of boards and milk crates set up under the lights. I’m going to plant some lettuces and maybe some broccoli in them. A friend gave me two more long florescent lights, part of a group that she discovered strung up in the attic of her new house. I guess we know what the previous owners did for a living! I did a little research on the Internet and evidently there’s no scientific proof that plants do better under “plant lights” than they do under regular florescents so I won’t need to replace the bulbs. I may even start some peppers and tomatoes from seed down there, which will keep me from having to buy them in the Spring. I’m going to harvest a little of the vermicompost to mix in the planters to help my seedlings get off to a good start.

I’m very excited about my plan and have high hopes for a successful winter growing season. In addition to the worms, my wine and my washer and dryer are already down in the basement. Once I get my plants going, it is going to get crowded! I’ll leave just enough room for a camp chair and a shotgun. If worse comes to worse with the economy I should be able to hole up down there quite comfortably! Okay, I’m kidding about the shotgun but if the world comes to an end, that’s where I’ll be, down in Subterrania!

I’ll be posting pictures and updates as I go along. Wish me luck!