Reuse, Recycle: Preservation and Aesthetics

Usually, I write about my little adventures: the canned tomatoes that were cheap at Big Lots, the neat sweater I got at Goodwill. I do think there's an aesthetic, as well as a financial, dimension to frugality, but that's a point that is sometimes hard to explain.

Here is an instance of frugality on that larger scale (too large to be practiced by the likes of me) in my very hometown. I still sometimes feel like an alien here even after 20 years. Yet I would never have seen such beautiful buildings and such a beautiful landscape had I not moved here with Mr. FS so many years ago.

Check out the pictures. Beautiful!

Are there any old buildings like this where you live?

No Posts: A Multiple Choice Exam and a Beautiful Sentence

Why no posts? In 25plus years of teaching, I have never given a multiple choice exam. Here goes. My first.

a. Because I was in California visiting my father-in-law.
b. Because there's no internet access.
c. Except at the public library.
d. The weather was cold and stormy.
e. I was VERRRRRY sick the whole time.
f. With various weird--and I hope unrelated--symptoms.
g. I could go on.

The answer, as so often on such exams, is ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Since I didn't go anywhere, I didn't spend any money. Oh, by request, we bought Miss Em several giant chocolate bars from Trader Joe's.

As always, the best things in life are free: we saw a rainbow and my father-in-law, a very brainy guy still at 92, uttered the following sentence:

I like the Prokofiev piece even though it lacks the structural transparency and integrity of the Beethoven

Is it not worth a plane ticket and several days to hear a sentence like that one?

One Degree of Separation: WSJ and Fabric Flowers

Probably no one would be interested in this but me. Scooting through the Wall Street Journal, I saw an article on a business that made fabric flowers. I thought, "I remember a family two blocks away, where the Dad ran a company that made fabric flowers." He was silent and full of anger. This was explained to us: "He was in a concentration camp. He has numbers tattooed on his arm." I never saw them, because I never got that close.

Anyway, the company is now owned by his two children, both a little younger than I am.

Perhaps this should remind us to honor these old businesses that make things the old way.

RIP Harold Brand.

Scary Nightmare: A Glimpse into the Psyche of the Pathologically Frugal

I will resume my kitchen "series" (!!!) later. Now, for something different, I will recount my nightmare. A bonafide frugal dream. A glimpse into pathology.

Mr. FS and I were going to graduate school. (In real life, we met in college and re-met in grad school.) I had decided to go to U of Illinois (fictional), a public institution where I had a tuition waiver. Mr. FS had decided to go the U of Chicago,a private institution, with a half tuition waiver (also fictional; we went to a different school).

Frugal Scholar shrieking in dream: "But the tuition at Chicago is almost $50,000/year! You will have to take out loans for $25,000/year! For at least 4 years!"

Mr. FS: "I didn't realize that." (looks downcast)

FS: "We can both go to Illinois!"

Mr. FS: "I forgot to apply!"

FS: "I just want to be middle-class!"

Then, readers, I awoke.

What We Did that Made the Biggest Difference to our Finances

There's a rumbling through the media as we are--approximately--at the one-year anniversary of the financial meltdown. No, I'm not planning to listen to re-broadcasts of the news from last year. No, I'm not going to read the various post-mortems.

All I can say is OMMMMMMMMMM.

Doesn't every single self-help thing out there--whether for finances, relationships, addiction, whatever--exhort focusing on the things you can control?

So my anniversary will be marked by a list of the things we did that made the biggest difference to our financial lives.

1. We didn't avail ourselves of student loans in grad school. We lived like poor students.
2. When we finally got jobs, we didn't get a car right away. Mr. FS was sold a used car by a colleague for $200.00! We used it for several years. Then, my parents passed on an old Volvo, which we also used for several years. We didn't have 2 cars for some time.
3. We bought a house that was a bit too expensive for us. Interest rates were high at the time (10%!). So, perhaps counter-intuitively, we began paying extra on the mortgage, because we couldn't stand it.
4. Breastfeeding and cloth diapers. The latter, surprisingly, had a spiritual dimension.
5. Public schools.
6. Sheer luck. Both children were National Merit finalists and we sought out colleges that wanted these kids. Children DID participate in this choice.

OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

What were your financial choices that had large impacts?

Frugal by Chance

I just realized that I am frugal by chance.

What does that mean? I was planning to write about how I am frugal by choice. And that is a good thing, especially because it is easier than being frugal by necessity, as so many are in these difficult economic times.

But then I realized that it is hardly a choice. There's just a lot of stuff I don't want. One of Miss Em's college application essays was on her unlikely invitation to a debutante luncheon and ball. She began by saying that it was, indeed, unlikely, because her family was "resolutely eccentric." And it is true, as Duchesse remarked in response to a post by Mr. FS, that our eccentricity is perhaps a bit ostentatious.

With that eccentricity comes a long list of stuff I don't want. I never wanted an engagement ring, and don't have one. I never wanted a wedding, and had a quickie at the court house in Richmond, Indiana. I never wanted china or silver, and don't have either.

I once had a discussion with two women my age and one was complaining that her new home did not have room for a hutch in the dining room. This was evidently an intolerable situation. I said that I didn't have a hutch and that that was OK because I didn't have fine china to display. They looked at me with pity.

My mother may be used to me by now, but I think she wanted me to want all the above items. I can't help it. It is my nature. I am frugal by chance. Please accept me as I am.

So, Readers: Are you frugal by necessity, by choice, or by chance?

The (Blog) Writer is Always A Fiction

When I was in graduate school, Walter Ong published an article that proved to be very influential: "The Writer's Audience is Always A Fiction." I don't remember anything about it beyond the title. Ong, who was a Jesuit priest as well as a scholar, remains an academic hero: in addition to writing about Ramist logic, he published many groundbreaking books on media, on the shift from manuscript to print culture. These studies are relevant today as we move from print to on-line culture--such as the present blog.

I am here to tell you that not only is the audience always a fiction, but the writer is as well. I mention this because a student who reads this blog now and again said "I know so much about you and your family."

Oh REALLY? You think so? This writer--even if you do know her name--is a fictional character.

I commented on a few blogs this morning, and everything I said was true: I did put our son on our Amex account; I did pay off my mortgage early; I did get new kitchen cabinets in August.

All frugal families are alike

The title is a play on the famous first sentence of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. .

So: All frugal families are alike; each un-frugal family is un-frugal in its own way. Un-frugal! Help me find a better word, readers.

I was thinking about this because of the recent visit of Mr. FS's brother and his wife. The visit precipitated massive decluttering, which is still not finished. But they were lovely guests, very easy going and low stress.

I had never thought of them as particularly frugal owing to their different life histories: while BIL went to graduate school, he was in biology and so didn't go through the lengthy period of poverty and uncertainty that we--in humanities--went through. I always felt they were frugal, but not pathologically frugal as I am, for better or worse.

Like many, the two are facing economic uncertainty: BIL's lab at a university is funded by the NIH. For the first time in almost thirty years, his grant was rejected (the NIH is experiencing budget cuts too). If his grant is not successful in his re-application, his university, which has hosted his lab all this time, will pay him 25% of his salary. Only with 50% of salary will he continue to receive benefits--like health insurance. SIL is self-employed part-time.

But I was impressed by their planning for various scenarios, from reprieve to disaster. Mr. FS and I engaged in such planning early in our careers.

And I was impressed too by random comments. Like us, they listen to books on tape during commutes. Like us, they borrow those tapes from the library. Like us, they are making sure their kids get out of college debt-free, having seen the consequences of massive education debt on the children of friends.

Like us, they plan for big purchases. Like us, they enjoy the waiting period of saving up. Like us, they never feel deprived.

Like us, they spend their big money on travel.

It seems to me that the key to frugality is intentionality and setting boundaries. BIL said that he wanted his kids to learn the true cost of small every day purchases, like lattes. I told him that that was the premise of David Bach's books, and that Bach had even copyrighted the phrase l____ factor. BIL had never heard of David Bach. Right before they left, SIL asked me if I had a novel she could keep so that she wouldn't have to buy a book at the airport. I was able to oblige, not with a novel, but a book by Bill Bryson.

It was a wonderful visit. In addition to a day at Jazz Fest, we had a frugal feast of Shrimp Creole and I taught SIL how to make a roux, a skill she will be able to bring to Seattle.

Do you agree that all frugal families are alike?

Death and Taxes: Meditation and Confession

An embarrassingly predictable and prosaic title, it is true.

First DEATH.

Since my father died 5 months ago, I check the obituaries each morning on the New York Times website. I'm not really interested in who died. But there is a general feeling in my family that my father was cheated out of his lifespan. He was 80, it is true, but his father lived to be 99 and his mother lived into her 80s.

He wasn't sick. In fact, he was hale and hearty, a very tall, big, LOUD, talkative fellow who had gone to aerobics that morning. He died while watching a movie on television with my mother: he said "My head hurts" and "That's Tom Hanks." A blood vessel had burst in his brain. I guess he really died a few days later, about nine hours after we had the life support turned off.

Reading those obituaries increased my sense of unfairness. So many 98 year olds! Even 88 year olds! Today, I saw that Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick had died. She was a very famous literary scholar. Her most famous work is called Between Men and it is about homosocial (as distinct from homosexual) desire. This is something of a development of the work of Rene Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, which is about triangulated desire.

The point here, looked at in the context of literary works, is that the relationships that count often are not the ones between men and women, but rather those between men. The men are battling it out for honor, prestige, or whatever. Just read the beginning of the Iliad and you'll know that is true.

I didn't use Sedgwick's work too much in my own teaching or studies. But I've got to say that it helped me understand the dynamics of my own little world at work. Thank you, Eve Sedgwick. You were only 58. You definitely didn't get the lifespan you deserved.

Now for TAXES.

Yes, it is April 15. I've always done the taxes, though in a very time-consuming, inefficient, and probably costly way. I even did the taxes for Mr. FS before we were married.

But this year, I can't finish. What pushed me over the edge was the fact that I had to cash out the UGMA accounts I established for my children. I put in about $3000.00 for each of them. Ten years later, that's about what was left. TIAA instituted fees for accounts with low balances, so, to avoid the fees, I cashed out. This was lucky because it was right before the really big stock decline. (Too bad I didn't cash out of my bigger accounts at the same time!).

Anyway, I have no idea how to do this--gain, loss, what is it? Frugal Son also earned $1200.00 last year. I told both kids I would figure out how to do the taxes for them.

While I was flipping out about this, I neglected my own taxes, which involve only slight complexities--a little self-employment income for each of us. Since paying off our house, we don't even do a long form.

A five minute computation indicated that we will be getting a refund. I do this every year, and I am always right within $50.00. Nevertheless, I have to slog through the forms, which takes hours. Even though I like doing computations, I am disorganized.

So--extensions for all! I am thinking of sending in a small check for each child just in case a small amount is owed.

Dear Readers: Please say it's OK for me to get an accountant! Mr. FS has been begging me to do this for years. And--how does one find an accountant anyway? Help.

I'm Sick, Dear Readers

No biggie. Just a terrible cold. Be patient. I'll be back.

Remember Me: Not on Frugality

Most days I can't wait to see what frugal thoughts cross my mind. I have so much fun with this blog. But today I want to write on a melancholy topic: grief, memory, mortality. I had intended to write a few posts on my frugal Dad, who died about four months ago. I think I wrote only two.

The other day I recited for my class Emily Dickinson's great poem "After great pain." I had had my students memorize a few lines of poetry, so I did my poem to be fair. I hadn't actually prepared this, I told them; rather, I had read the poem a lot in my college days (more than 30 years ago), probably because of a minor heartbreak. I recited the poem with only a few mistakes. I prefaced the amazing last stanza by saying that Dickinson had an incredible understanding of human suffering. When I had finished (to great acclaim!), several students came up to me to tell me about personal things: one had a baby die at four months, another had a friend die from a heroin overdose, and so on. Usually, teachers extol the virtues of literary study by saying that literature helps us understand the world. But it occurs to me that literary works perhaps simply show us that someone else understands us.

Here is Dickinson's last stanza:

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.


Here are other passages that have flooded my mind of late:

From Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia or Urne Buriall:

Oblivion is not to be hired: The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of God, not in the register of man. Twenty-seven Names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living Century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current Arithmetique which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life, and even Pagans could doubt, whether thus to live, were to dye. Since our longest sunne sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot belong before we lie down in darknesse, and have our light in ashes.

From Milton's Paradise Lost (note: this is spoken by a devil--Belial--in Hell. He is not a good guy!):


To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion?

And, of course, the words of the Ghost of Hamlet's father to Hamlet: "Remember me."

But to all that have made it this far, it is a beautiful day here. Let us listen to Wordsworth:

OH there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than to me

Too Frugal?: A Journey to the Dark Side

Is it possible to be too frugal? I recently quoted Amy D, or rather paraphrased her, since her books do not have the best indexing system. She opined that asking if one can be too frugal is like asking if one can be too happy.

But a comment from sallymandy, proprietress of one of the most thoughtful and beautifully written blogs out there, presented a somewhat different view:

But I do think one can be "too frugal."

Amy D used to be the heroine of my life, but eventually I felt I was living and looking like a bag lady because everything came from a yard sale.

I think it's all about balancing values. While I certainly value frugality, I also value aesthetics, and some things that money CAN buy.

Because of my personality, "frugality" can easily become a way to beat myself over the head with an attitude of "you don't deserve anything good in your life." I can become a harsh taskmaster.

Lately it's been helpful to "invest" small amounts on beauty to counteract the effect of the recession on our family (my husband's job was dependent on the stock market and is now gone completely). Three dollars on some flowers make me way happier doing the work I have to do for money. Things like that.


So, a journey to the dark side. Indeed, I agree that Amy may have been too frugal, her pathological tendencies exceeding even mine. I once read an article where she explained that $0.25 was her top price for a yard sale shirt. I imagined various scenarios in which Amy encountered a Chanel shirt at a yard sale marked $0.35. NO. Ditto for a beautiful embroidered masterpiece. NO. Amy was a boundary setter and, unlike me, she stayed within her self-prescribed territory. I think that, in addition to being a parent to 6 kids, Amy's mission was to show that extreme frugality was possible: in a sense, she sacrificed herself for the greater good. She was her own artwork. And I am sure she was happy.

But there is a potential for anorexia in this self-denial. I bought the book How to Get Out of Debt, Stay out of Debt, and Live Prosperously at (surprise!) a thrift shop because I thought it would enable me to give even better advice to my many un-frugal friends. Well! Much to my surprise, Miss Know-It-All (me) found herself in the book.

At thirty-five, Peggy wasn't carrying a large debt . . .But she'd been in debt most of her adult life. she was living in a tidy studio apartment. Her possessions were shabby. She bought most of her clothes second-hand. Yet she had a master's degree in English and had taught at a university in her early twenties while she studied for a doctorate. She was an intelligent woman, but she had little belief in herself and no sense of self-worth. She left the university and drifted from job to job in a downward spiral . .


This is what I would have become if I hadn't finished my dissertation, gotten a job, and met and married Mr. FS. Note that only the first one was entirely within my control. So my horror at this picture of my "double" is very like the sentiments voiced above by sallymandy. Check out the blue kimono blog on my list to the right for more of sallymandy's fabulous writing (not all dark!).

OK, time to leave the dark side and return to a cheery, can-do attitude. Dear Readers, how do you keep yourself from succumbing to too-frugal tendencies?

The Value of a Liberal Arts Education

While noodling around the blogosphere, I discovered two blogs by the most elegant women. And they are in my age bracket. And they are both Francophiles. And they are incredibly good writers. I will post at another time about how I strayed from my usual reading on frugality and happened upon these blogs. Meanwhile, I have affirmed the value of my liberal arts education.

I was reading a post by elegant blogger #1 (une femme d’un certain age; see my previous post inspired by her vintage mink purchase). She had put together a great outfit, topped by her specialty, a scarf. One of the comments asked if she had seen the Hermes pattern “Neige D’Antan.”

Well! This brought me right back to college. After checking out the Hermes pattern, I dreamed for a while about the poem by Francois Villon, which I read for the first time in the class of my beloved teacher M. Danon. Even though it’s in medieval French, it’s pretty easy to translate. There are zillions of translations on the internet, but, if you have any French, give it a try. The famous refrain means "Where are the snows of yesteryear?"

Ballade (des dames de temps jadis)

Dictes moy ou, n'en quel pays,
Est Flora la belle Rommaine,
Archipiades ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine,
Echo parlant quant bruyt on maine
Dessus riviere ou sus estan,
Qui beaulté ot trop plus q'humaine.
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Ou est la tres sage Helloïs,
Pour qui chastré fut et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis?
Pour son amour ot ceste essoyne.
Semblablement, ou est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust geté en ung sac en Saine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

La royne Blanche comme lis
Qui chantoit a voix de seraine,
Berte au grand pié, Beatris, Alis,
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Englois brulerent a Rouan;
Ou sont ilz, ou, Vierge souvraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,
Qu'a ce reffrain ne vous remaine:
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?



Such happy memories! I had four years of high school French and my teachers must have been good, because I placed directly into upper-level literature courses in college. I sat in my first one in total and terrified silence. Nearly every other student was fluent in French, because Dad was in the foreign service, or Granny had paid for summer camp in Switzerland, or something like that. The middle-class student at a private college is often subject to such insecurities. I could do the reading, but I could barely string together a short sentence—and not about literature. M. Danon was intimidating, but, it turned out, incredibly kind. When I went to his office for a required conference, he looked over my paper (written in French!) and said “You are a smart cookie.” I was so thrilled and that was my mantra through many more insecure years in college: at least M. Danon thinks I’m a smart cookie.

On the way home from work, I said to Mr. Dr. Frugal Scholar, “Did you know there was a scarf pattern called “Neige D’Antan?” And he said, “Ou sont les neiges d’antan.” Who needs fancy gifts when you can have a conversation like that?

As a footnote, I was reading a New York Times piece on Obama’s prose style. The author, Stanley Fish, is most famous in academic circles for his book on Milton’s Paradise Lost, but my favorite of his works is called Self-Consuming Artifacts: The Experience of Seventeenth-Century Prose. Although this stuff is challenging, I am lucky enough to love the prose of Francis Bacon, Thomas Browne, and Robert Burton. Reading the Opinion piece was the occasion of another trip down memory lane, as I read Fish’s fascinating analysis of Obama’s style. Here’s one of Fish’s sentences, with a literary allusion tucked in:

“And if you look at the text – spread out like a patient etherized on a table – that’s exactly what it’s like.”

Fish made a little mistake (it should be upon, not on), but here was another bit of pleasure for me as I recognized a bit of another famous poem.

I have always thought that one reason that frugality came naturally to me was that all the things I most enjoy are cheap or free: reading, taking walks, chatting, cooking, listening to music. With the addition of gardening and bicycling, these are Mr. Dr. Frugal Scholar’s favorite things too.

OK, we like to travel, but we have managed to do that in fairly frugal ways.

So maybe the value of a liberal arts education is not that it prepares you to make pots of money, but that it sets you up for a life of pleasure—much of which is free.

My Frugal Birthday

Happy Birthday to me.

Let's see, I got birthday wishes from husband and son. That's good, because husband sometimes forgets. Dear daughter called and sent TWO emails, one promising me a year of haircuts (she's very good at cutting). So the family part is perfect.

Banana Republic sent me my yearly $15.00 gift card. This is sent to all who hold the BR credit card. It does not seem to be linked to how much you spend; I spend less than $100.00 most years. I bought a sweater. The frugal forces of the universe gave me a birthday during the very month that things are marked down!

I am 55 and so am now eligible for the 15% senior discount at Goodwill. The paperbacks have just gone from 5 for $1.00 to 5 for .85.

For my gift to myself, I went to Habitat and bought 4 pairs of clip-on earrings for .50 each. Habitat has a half off sale for the month of January, which I believe is in honor of my birthday. Thanks Habitat.


And my best present of all came from Washington DC. Thank you America.

Frugal Families Aggravate Nation's Woes

Frugality is bad for the economy

“Frugal Families aggravate nation’s woes”: so trumpets the Wall Street Journal, with a picture of a middle-class family at their kitchen table. Read it here!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120525879656021.html

Honestly, I can hardly see how learning to live responsibly can, in the long-term, hurt our country’s economic health.

My personal situation: as I said in an earlier post, I am trying not to be embittered. I have always been pretty responsible, yet I too lost about 40% of the equity portion of our retirement accounts. So (in the bitter mode), I missed the good times of consumption, but am subject to the same downturn as everyone else!

Would it be true that the habitually frugal (like yours truly) would NOT be aggravating the nation’s economic woes? I am going to be spending the same as last year. Plus, we’re planning on the following: some new slipcovers for chairs, a family trip somewhere, perhaps Boston and New York City, an expensive implant for my tooth (that should help the oral surgeon from his downturn), and Mr Frugal Scholar is itching for a new-to-him expensive bicycle (that should help someone who wants to/has to sell his bicycle).

Dear readers: no doubt this will be picked up by all the big blogs. But let this little blog know what you think!

Blog Critique

Here is my son's critique of the blog, from a chat:
Son: for example instead of an article title being : Ask Dr Frugal: unwanted cds make it Ask Dr. Frugal: Unwanted CDs
6:09 PM me: yeah--you can edit for me
Son: just that little bit of capitalization makes it look more like a PhD did it and less like some 15 year old


OOPS! So my college-age son will henceforth edit my sloppy posts.
I'm off to a conference in San Antonio, a paradise for the frugal traveler, with great and low-cost food and sights.

Why Me?: A Pathologically Frugal Professor Starts Her Blog

Why me indeed! Because I LOVE being frugal! Because I’ve always wanted to do this, first when I read The Tightwad Gazette and thought “I should do something like that!” Now when I read the zillions of personal finance/frugality blogs, I still think “I should do that!”

As my dear spouse says, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." In other words, do it.

Still, why me. Well, I am a teacher, and teachers--in addition to their credentials--are bossy and advice-giving.

Sometimes, to see what’s been going on in my life, I read the letters my dear husband writes his father. In one he described how we ate dinner in the cafeteria with my son and his college friends, who seem to like our visits. He described me as “giving advice and powerful exhortations” to the students. Really? Is that me?

The great Emily Toth, a professor at LSU best known for her work on Kate Chopin who told me years ago that she was interested in women advice givers from Dear Abby, Ann Landers, to herself, writes the Ms. Mentor column for the Chronicle of Higher Education. I was lucky enough to encounter Ms. Mentor in person in my early years at my present job; because of her advice and powerful exhortations I am still here.

On the job, in addition to teaching the likes of Shakespeare and company, I find myself advising spendthrift/debt-ridden colleagues on the existence of flex plans and Roth IRAs. Sometimes my students lament their accumulating debt and I pass on tips to them too. I also am often called on to deliver frugal tips to my children’s friends, who seem amazingly interested in the topic.

So yes, I guess I am a scholar. But in addition to reading the latest thoughts of various theorists and to adding my own tiny contributions to the scholarship in my field, I enjoy reading—and re-reading—the great classics of frugality: Your Money or Your Life, The Millionaire Next Door, etc. I used to be embarrassed about this—that I was devoting a good bit of time to what seemed to me trivia in comparison to the great works of Homer. Then my dear spouse opined “Proust says that life is trivia.” I’m not sure where Proust said that, but since my dear spouse has read ALL of the master NUMEROUS times (en français as well as in translation), I must say that I believe it’s in there somewhere.

Therefore, onto some trivia. I am a great reader and know all sorts of things about, for instance, cooking and children’s books. What these (and other things) have to do with frugality, I hope to show….