Bad advice

Funny post from I paid for this twice already - a how-not-to-be-frugal posts as opposed to the frugality basics posts I mentioned the other day. Ben Stein actually wrote a whole book like this, which I kept for a while in the bathroom for quick review. Of course, one of his was "don't buy a house" and we know how that turned out for me....

Speaking of which, we're trying to do a "deed in lieu of foreclosure" with Sovereign, but I can't get anybody in the loan mitigation department to return my telephone calls. I just got another utility bill from the house - how is an empty house using $63 in water, I ask you? - and there's just no telling how long it will take them to get around to sheriff's selling it. The lawyer I've been consulting with (dollar signs roll...) said that we should keep the insurance up just in case the place burns down the day after we let it lapse, which will be a big bill in July if it goes that far, but that we could let the utilities lapse. So that's what we're going to do.

And another consequence of my continued and elongated default is that I keep getting notices from Bank of America (my major credit card creditor) lowering my credit limit. Every time I pay off another $1000 they lower the credit limit to the next thousand. So I'm at something like $7400 now and they lowered the limit to $8000 "due to a major derogatory item on your credit report," according to the letter. No kidding. But I can keep using my card, they assure me, as long as I don't spend more than $600.

This is actually sort of okay, because I don't want to have a whole lot of available credit anyway at this stage, but the issue for me is that, while I acknowledge that I'm going to spend the next few years discovering how people with bad credit live, I can't start rebuilding my credit until this thing with the house is resolved, and it just won't resolve.

Frugality in the 10 commandments

Quite often one of the frugality sites will do a "frugality for dummies" kind of post, which will list the 5 or so easiest things to do to get on the road to frugality. There was one today. Most of these are fairly well known to anyone who has read these kind of blogs for a while, or who has read Tightwad Gazette - make meal plans and shopping lists and stick to them, leave your credit card at home, wait a few days before making a major purchase.

I haven't done one because I'm trying to present this material from a particular angle, even though a lot of my daily posts, the ones that describe my daily struggles, don't differ from most other frugality bloggers.

But there is one thing I can add to the list of frugality basics that I think is unique to my perspective. And that is: Do Shabbes. That is: Observe Shabbat - the Sabbath.

As you will remember from your Bible studies, the 10 commandments contains this directive: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This has been developed through the rabbinic process to today, when Orthodox Jews don't spend money, don't turn lights on and off, don't travel in cars, and spend most of the day in community and in prayer.

I'm a Reconstructionist, and my process is to try to discern the values behind the original prescription, then decide whether the way tradition suggests we observe today is in keeping with those values, and if not, to adjust the practice so that observance comes closer in alignment with principle. So I don't necessarily observe according to halakhah (Jewish law), but I do try to observe in a way that respects the underlying values and brings me closer to them.

So the value that I think underlies Shabbat from a frugal-Jewish perspective is this: spend no money. Buy no stuff. Leave commerce and acquisition alone for a day.

Now, I don't observe this perfectly. If we are out somewhere and there's some sort of incidental money involved, like paying to get into the botanical gardens, then we'll pay it and won't feel like we're violating Shabbat. But we don't "go shopping" (not that we do so much of that anyway) or go anywhere where the main activity is likely to involve the spending of money.

I think I mentioned that I was having trouble keeping track of my spending so I put some of my tax refund money into a basic version of Quicken. It has a page that shows your spending on a monthly calendar, and it's such a pleasure, after seeing all the spending on every other day of the week, to look at Saturdays and see no ATM withdrawals, no food shopping, none of that everyday detritus of homo consumerus, the American buyer. Just think: one-seventh of your life can be like that! That's a significant chunk of one's life! And there's the extra added benefit of being convinced that I'm taking what God said seriously.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a hero to so many in so many ways, as usual said it best:

To set apart one day a week for freedom, a day on which we would not use the instruments which have been so easily turned into weapons of destruction, a day for being with ourselves, a day of detachment from the vulgar, of independence of external obligations...-is there any institution that holds out a greater hope for [human] progress than the Sabbath?

Shabbat can be for us what it was always intended to be: to be a day of freedom from technology and commerce. By observing it (either Sunday or Saturday, depending on your predelictions) you too can have a day - many days - on which you can follow what God actually said with that commandment: "Let there be frugality!"

More posts about food

Let's see, last time I posted on my food shopping we were at $138 for the week. We went to KC over the weekend and probably spent another $30 on food to bring to DW's folk's house. So that brings the total to $168, which is $18 over.

KC has a supermarket with a pretty large kosher meat section, so we stopped there on Monday morning before driving back. I really went in to get this fake shrimp that we like, we have a recipe for fake-shrimp and tofu in ginger and black bean sauce, but the stuff costs like $9 here so we never by it. In KC it cost $7, which is still ridiculous but better by comparison. So I bought 3 of those, that should keep us for a while.

I also bought some hotdogs, some sausage, some cold cuts and a sandwich for the ride. I made a special effort to avoid Rubaskin's, which I'll explain in another post. Total - about $58. This is obviously not all for this week, so let's amortize it for the month. $58 / 4 = $14.5. That means my food budget for the next four weeks is 150 - 14.5 = 135.5.

Then the meal planning: we didn't make the garbanzo/shroom curry or the abba mac'n'cheese, so they went back on the schedule; then I found a veggie burger goulash recipe in the Linda McCartney book that looks reasonable, and a portabello mushroom and polenta with red pepper relish thing that I found in veggie cookbook that looks really good.

So today I did the main shopping at Dillon's. I bought a box of boca burgers to replenish the pantry for what I'm using in the goulash ($3.50 per box of 4 on sale). I bought the stuff for the portabello thing but then realized that maybe I shouldn't have - the ingrediants for the relish (tomatoes and peppers) is out of season and expensive. If I buy fresh tomatoes at this time of year (I usually only use canned) I'll only buy organic because conventional tastes like cardboard, so you see the thing added up.

So what do you do when you bought stuff for a meal that's too fancy? That's right - Shabbat! So that's our special Friday night meal for the week. But I'll have to make the relish in advance so the tomatoes don't go soft.

The total for the shopping trip was $101. Add $14.5 = $115.5. I still need some tofu and yogurt which is a health food store purchase, and I also reckon I'll spend may $15 or so at the farmer's market tomorrow. So I'm more or less on target, but do have to come up with one more meal for the week that basically only uses things we have in the house. We do have some potatoes that have started to sprout...

Frugal Family Fun in KC

If you're in KC, just about the best thing you can do with the kids is visit the Deanna Rose Children's Farm Stand. I was there with my son yesterday and there are beautiful gardens, animals to feed, petting zoos and chickens and stuff, a couple of playgrounds, a Kansas schoolhouse from the prairie era, and a lot more. And best of all, it's free! They don't even gouge you on the concessions - a popsicle was $1, and there were plenty of water fountains so you don't even get hoodwinked into buying Dasani (another in my long line of biggest rip-offs). You can give a donation (and I encourage you to do so - someone's got to pay for it) and you can do some activities that cost a couple of bucks, but it's a great place and you can't beat the price. I can't recommend it enough.

We also managed to take the kids to see the KC Symphony play a Memorial Day program, also free, with a very impressive fireworks show after. It was a pretty frugal weekend all around, aside from the gas!

A brief simplicity mishna

Avot 4:12 begins: "Rabbi Meir said, Reduce your business activities and engage in Torah study. " Jewish tradition places a high premium on Torah study, considering it more important than, in this case, business activities. Kehati interprets this verse to mean, "Make the study of Torah at fixed times your principal occupation, and your worldly business a casual activity."

This is in keeping with the principle, articulated often in the not-for-profit world, that you can tell what's really important to you by your calendar and your checkbook - by where you spend your money and where you spend your time. This verse is saying that those should be focused on ultimate values rather than on the temporal. "Torah" here can be interpreted broadly to mean anything that puts one's values into the world, that increases one's quality of life and positive impact, whether that be study, mitzvah opportunities, volunteerism, involvement in civic activities, time with one's children, etc.

Certainly Jewish thought doesn't encourage an ascetic lifestyle, and neither for that matter does voluntary simplicity. What there is, is a sense that there are things far more important than acquiring and "succeeding" in the American, financial sense, and that those things are readily available to us should we prioritize our lives properly.

Shopping challenge update

2nd food run of week made. List: 3 kinds of milk: organic 2% for me and the girls, skim for DW, soy for DS (lactose intolerant). 3 kinds of fruit: grapes at 99cents/lb, apples and bananas. Total: $28. Returned the chickpeas and some rice that DW thought wouldn't be good, for a return of $6.75. Total for week thus far: $138.

I read an excellent post at antithete where she details how she spends $250 per month (month!) on food. A big part of it is that they plan their meals by the month. I don't think I'm up to that yet. I'm still trying to prove that I can plan for a week and get in at under $600 for the month! Once I establish those things reliably, we'll see where we can go from there.

Amy Dacyzyn sighting plus Torah and giftcards

Another article from on frugality in the MSM, this time from the Boston Globe. Best aspect: an Amy Dacyzyn sighting. I kind of think of her as the JD Salinger of frugality: affected so many people, and then disappeared. DW found another interview with her on Simple Dollar.

I'm pretty jealous of the people who were "hardwired for frugality from childhood." My parents basically never talked about money, and they spent it like they had it - eating out 3 times a week, all that sort of thing. I've never been as consumer-minded as they, but neither did I have any "financial literacy," as the phrase goes. That's a big part of why I'm behind the 8-ball so badly right now. Teaching the kids to be frugal is probably the best gift we can give them.

Speaking of which - I probably should make this a new post, but what the heck - my daughter was in private lessons with a young rabbi here, he gives the kids stickers for attending services, leading prayers, etc. and then when they get to a certain level they can trade in the stickers for a small gift. My daughter was pretty into Webkinz there for a while so every once in a while she would come home with another one. I personally don't think we should reward kids financially for Torah study but it was small so I was willing to let it go.

Then at the end of the year she came home with $70 in giftcards, one from a teacher supply store and one from Hallmark. Now, she doesn't even get $70 for her birthday, at least not from us she doesn't, so this seemed way over the top. And who needs $35 at Hallmark? What useful item, that isn't a useless chotchke, can even be purchased there? If it was to a bookstore, or Amazon, I could almost see it - although it would still be over the top. But this borders on crazy.

Of course, she moaned about our reaction to him and he appealed the decision. It seems needlessly tight to take them away from her, especially since it's not our money, but I can't help but wonder what message this sends, on a lot of levels. Basically we're to the point of demanding she spend 10% of the money on purchases for charitable purchases, but I'm not sure what else is worth doing. Thoughts on the subject will be gratefully accepted.