A Gai Shan Life: Wonderful Blog

I wish I knew what "A Gai Shan Life" means. Does everyone know but me?

Whatever. This is a great blog. Like Funny About Money (probably found this blog through her blog, back in the day), Revanche has many interesting things to say about money, frugality, and stress. She went through a period of unemployment (now over) without stressing too much, owing in part to her frugal ways.

That alone would make her a great role model (even though she's probably half my age). BUT she also is responsible for the (financial and other) care of her parents. She has already had more challenges than I have and she is meeting them with flair and aplomb.

She does get to have some fun too. She loves food, travel, and fashion.

What can I say? She is sooooo admirable. I loved reading about her trip to Chicago: this included budgeting and all that jazz, but some great food pics from this city of great restaurants.

Read around her blog: you will find something wonderful.

Anticipation and Happiness: Nantes

Recently, I read something--somewhere--about happiness. (Have you noticed the burgeoning HAPPINESS INDUSTRY? or all the grant opportunities for HAPPINESS STUDIES?)

Of course, I want to be happy as much as the next person. Whatever I read had to do with ANTICIPATION as an enhancement to whatever the anticipated experience or object is. I suppose, then, that this theory would mean that a killer deal on a last minute trip to Paris would not be as happiness-inducing as a long-anticipated trip. I don't know about that. But the theory does seem to suggest that saving up for something promotes happiness more than putting it on a credit card and paying for it later.

So, I will share with you what we've been anticipating. Some of you may remember that Frugal Son spent last year in Nantes. Well, his favorite teacher, Danielle, liked him too. He told her about his France-loving parents and she said we could stay in her house during the summer. She teaches French in China every summer.

So...EVERYONE...that is the plan for next summer.

ANTICPATION
NANTES-ICIPATION.

Hope it happens.

Costs of Living Overseas Redux

I mentioned a few days ago that--should the worst case scenario play out and we find ourselves unemployed*--we would light out, not for the territory, but to Languedoc. I had been reading How to Retire Overseas, and was thrilled to see that the author gave actual numbers.

As usual, I didn't explain myself fully. Funny responded that no way could she afford it. Shelley said the numbers seemed too high. I think both readers assumed that the numbers were EXCLUSIVE of housing.

Au contraire, my friends. The Languedoc number of $1495/month includes $650 for an apartment rental. The almost $3000 for Paris assumes you will spend $1500 on rent. Morelia (in Mexico) comes in at $899, which includes $300 for rent. The numbers also include household help (!), food, entertainment, transportation, utilities, and the like.

Not included: health care and transportation to and fro.

Now I don't really want to retire abroad. I would, however, like to live in all the above spots for, say, 6 months each. Not to mention the other enticing places discussed in the book.

It is a thrill to know that I could live in Morelia for less than I could rent my house for. In fact, I could save a bit to splurge on a few months in Paris. I love having the numbers right there, because they show me that extended stays in wonderful places are totally within reach for a middle-class girl like me. Isn't that wonderful to know?

Frugal Travel Tip: Rental Cars

With the advent of travelocity and the like, it is supposed to be easy to save tons of money on travel. Just go on-line, compare and contrast, and bingo: you are a frugal traveler.

For us--and we travel a lot, owing to the locations of our surviving parents--it hasn't quite worked out that way. Mr. FS spends HOURS on line, watching prices go up and down (in no discernible pattern), changing dates a bit, and we end up spending...what we spend. All that work! No big savings on airfare.

However, it is worth checking and re-checking on car rentals. The prices change a lot. Unlike plane reservations, where you pay a big penalty for changing your dates, car rentals are no-penalty. You can change all you want.

Mr. FS has been quite morose because our car rental in Massachusetts was more than double what we usually pay. He first made a reservation in May: $549.91. He looked every few days, and then got a new reservation in June: $468.79.

Then he tried again. In the past, prices went up as the summer progressed. But this time, not. July: $234.66!

It's a bit cheaper at Dollar, but we are boycotting that company FOREVER, due to abysmal problems a few years ago. (Details on request.)

Question: did we save money or not? The price is what we are accustomed to paying, but it is $300 less than the first reservation. Whatever.

Do you have any good tips for frugal travel?

Our Summer Vacation: Money Out, Money In

Poor Mr. FS: he is in charge of travel reservations, which make my head spin. Each summer, we visit our remaining two parents--one on the west coast, one on the east coast. Like last year, the plans of our children limit our travel dates, so, again like last year, we will travel in a triangle: Louisiana to Massachusetts to California and home. We will be gone almost three weeks. The bill for plane fare plus car rentals in both places: $3000.00. Everything has gone up this year.

Yes, it is time for our annual scary credit card bill. Our upcoming credit card bill will be $4000.00! About half of that is plane fare for 4 people. Plus Mr. FS is rebuilding our garage, so lots of lumber yard bills.

I love reading extreme frugality blogs, with the writers living (very well) on $1000.00 a month or so. I guess I don't qualify.

Lest you feel sorry for us (and please don't), let me point out that our parents live in places people spend big bucks to visit. To visit my mother in Massachusetts, we get to visit a cottage on a lake near Tanglewood, Tanglewood is where the Boston Symphony Orchestra plays in the summers. (The link to the cottage on the lake is to a much fancier one I found on the internet. But even our modest house is wonderful.) The area is full of nature AND culture, with the great Clark Museum nearby, not to mention Edith Wharton's home, Herman Melville's home. Oh, I could go on forever.

The original owner of our house was my mother's uncle, Viktor Polatschek, who was with the Vienna Philharmonic and then, luckily for our family, with the Boston Symphony. When my mother and her parents came to the United States from Vienna in 1938, they lived with my great-Aunt and Uncle in Boston. Eventually, the house came to be owned by my grandparents and parents. Today it is owned by my mother. This is a place with tremendous emotional resonance for me; it is also a fantastic to visit.

We do not lack for things to do there. Still, that's a lot of money out in a single month. Wait! There is some money coming in. My mother's uncle, the first owner of the house, played the clarinet and wrote some exercises, which, I recently learned, are still in print.

My mother told me that she gets part of the royalties from Polatschek's work*: She said it's around $25.00/year and "Someday it will all be yours."

*If you buy through the Amazon link, my mother will get a few cents and so will I! Only if you play the clarinet, of course.

Currency Conversion Fees: Credit Union Debit Card Solution

I wrote a few days ago about my uncharacteristically cavalier attitude toward the much-hated currency conversion fees (2-3%) levied by credit card companies. My attitude was born out of the suspicion that however much time I put into researching the options (like the Capitol One card), I would be spending a lot of time for at best a small return.

Of course, if you are talking about larger amounts of cash--as Duchesse and Shelley pointed out in their comments--what to me might be a mosquito-size annoyance would be a rat-size irritation.

I took a look at Frugal Son's bank statement. Just by chance. He is, as you might know, in France. In addition to a credit card linked to my credit card, he uses his own credit union account, which comes with s debit card.

Withdrawal: $46.95
Multi-Currency Conversion Fee: $0.46

Withdrawal: $436.91
Multi-Currency Conversion Fee: $4.32.

After a gasp of horror (OMG 10%!!!!), I realized that the fee was around 1%.

Debit cards seem to be the way to go, or perhaps specifically debit cards issued by credit unions. Of course, debit cards carry their own risks, especially if someone gets a hold of your PIN#.

I have found that it is best to have multiple sources of cash when abroad. This after our ATM card did not work--at all. We called the bank in the U.S. only to be told "Oh yeah, a lot of people are having problems."

Or when we went to Italy and discovered that--even in Florence--almost no business took credit cards.

ANy other tips for avoiding those nasty fees?

Currency Conversion Fees and Sales Tax on Food: What Me Worry?

All those fees and taxes. Funny About Money faces a new 2% tax on groceries in Phoenix and is considering whether it's worth it to go to the no-tax Commissary with her frugal friend.

The New York Times has a piece on the 3% fees for currency conversion that the evil credit card companies tack on.

Needless to say, 2% or 3% is more than you can make on your money in most bank accounts or CDs these days. So why do I say What ME Worry? Am I losing my frugal edge? After all, I did counsel a fellow blogger to get the designer purse she wants, rather than several less thrilling alternatives.

No, I don't think I'm losing my frugal edge. After all, I popped into Big Lots this morning to take advantage of their 20% off sale.

Sometimes it's just not worth it to worry about those percentages because it doesn't pay or because you can't win.

Grocery tax. My esteemed state with its regressive tax system has long had sales tax on food. It used to be the regular tax (almost 10%). A few years ago, it was made more progressive and lowered to about 4%, with a concomitant rise in state income tax. I supported this, even though it went against my own pocketbook. Plus, I don't spend that much on food. It seems to me that it's better to learn frugal grocery shopping tips, which will save you far more than a few percentage points, than to worry about the tax.

That's why I stock up: I have lots of cabot cheddar that I got at a killer sale ($3.40/lb), plus loads of canned tomatoes that I got a Big Lots. Ditto for the 50 lb. sack of oatmeal I bulk buy.

That's why I learned to cook. As it happens, home made food is healthier, better, and--it is true--quicker than going to a restaurant or a fast food place.

Now the currency conversion fee charged by credit cards is awful. We tried to evade this a few years ago. I learned--as did many people who responded to the Times article--that Capitol One does not charge the fee. So we looked into getting their card. But their customer service and general ratings leave much to be desired.

So I called every one of our cards to inquire about the fee. Our LLBean visa (only used for free shipping from that company) had the lowest fee. I called three times to double check. I even asked if there were any additional fees that I might not know about. I was assured that there were not. We got the bill--and presto--they did have the lowest fee for currency conversion, but they also had tacked on a surcharge for something or other. I called the company to try to get the surcharge removed, arguing that the customer service reps had not informed me about the charge. No success.

We figured out that, given our generally frugal ways and the fact that our credit cards have rebates between 1% and 2%, we should just be mellow about the currency conversion charge. It is, as Mr. FS pointed out, a tiny part of the cost of the trip. We save more than the charge on the whole trip simply by buying less in the souvenir department and subbing a few picnics in a park for restaurant meals.

In other words, sometimes apparent frugality really doesn't pay. In fact, I use the term apparent frugality because it's not frugal to waste your time and drive yourself crazy when you have little chance of succeeding. Funny did the math and came to the same conclusion.

Spendthrift Scholar? What I Want to Do in 2010

My blogpal, Mr. Over the Cubicle Wall, suggested this retitling. That's because, in response to his confession of spending about $50.00 on new shoes for his first purchase of 2010, I mentioned that I had recently paid my property taxes, paid the dribs and drabs of college fees not covered by scholarships for my two children, bought a new computer owing to the demise of old one, paid for car insurance, and on and on.

Although I think the term is a bit harsh, I will continue with what I want to do or to get this year.

1. I want to go to Vienna with my mother. This is a trip that will be filled with emotional resonance; in fact, my hands get shaky as I type. I have never been to Vienna, where my mother was born, and from which she miraculously escaped in 1938 with my grandparents. As in many families, this is an area marked by silence and mystery. A Vienna trip was also the last my mother took with my father in spring of 2008. They left a bit early because my mother was (presciently) worried about his health. They planned to return. I'm hoping both my children can go too. Miss Em saw the form I helped my mother fill out over the holidays, which contained a rather bureaucratic apology for National Socialism, and asked for her existence to be notarized so they could send her $1000.00.

I figure this trip will be almost $10,000 if we all go.

2. And, on a lighter note, I want to do a bit of home reconfiguration. This may include a BATHROOM enlargement. Just a little bit. My house has the smallest bathrooms imaginable in a home of its size. Tiny closet size. Both of them.

No idea what that will cost. Maybe $20,000?

I know that various personal finance sites scoff at saving on the little things. They counsel saving on the big things. But I save on the little things so I can be a little--yes--spendthrift on the big things. I also usually overbudget on those big things, so I can be pleasantly surprised when they come out under the anticipated amount.

Frugal Mom, Frugal Son: Report from France

Frugal Son turns out to be more pathological than his pathological mom. Perhaps the paternal genes exacerbated the pathology factor. He does spread sheets. In fact, he offered to send a spread sheet that is even more detailed, separating cash from credit card etc. Here's his email.


Just to shock you and keep you updated on the massive amounts of your 401(k) I've been blowing through here are the latest stats up to and including Nov. 13th.

Including pre-Nantes expenses (plane tickets, visa cost, hostel in Paris etc.): 3,900.32 euros (~$6,240.51)
Excluding rent, flights, week in Paris, health insurance: 1,468.32 euros (~$2,349.32)
Total cost minus my stipend (so I guess this is the "actual cost"): 1,820.32 euros (~$2,912.51)
Average cost per day (including everything): 45.89 euros / day (~$73.42 / day)
Average cost per day including stipend: 21.42 euros / day (~$34.26 / day)

My average cost per day has fallen from 73.63 euros / day (~$117.81 / day) on Sept. 15th (day 26) to 45.89 euros / day (~$73.42 / day) as of today (day 85).

These recent figures are a little bit inflated because my Amsterdam trip happened so recently (347.84 euros over the course of five days).

At least I'm not paying $25,000 a year in tuition somewhere!



So, Readers, is this TOOOOOO frugal for a 20 year old?

Student Life in France: Cafeteria Food

Recovering from a visit to the oral surgeon. Luckily, I can steal a post from Frugal Son's emails from Nantes. Not exactly on frugality, but a glimpse into French student life. His meals are about 3 euros (obviously, these are subsidized), which means they cost about half of what a meal goes for on an American college campus. So, to continue with my cafeteria theme.....



After the tour it was lunch time and since we were already on campus, we decided to eat at the Restaurant Universitaire for the first time. The line for tickets was HUGE so one of us waited in line to buy a carnet of 10 to split amongst the group. Once we got our tickets we went upstairs to the dining area and I WAS IN HEAVEN. Remember that up until this point I had only been eating two small meals per day, usually bread and cheese, so I was craving a big warm meal. I chose the “Cuisine Traditionelle” line, which featured a pork chop, couscous, and steamed string beans. On the side I had a plate of sliced, dried sausage products, a petit pain, and a little salad. Ohhhh it was so good.

At each meal you are allowed to get bread, two side dishes (like a cheese plate, pate plate, cold salads, fruit, etc.) and a main hot dish. In addition to “Cuisine Traditionelle” there were also lines for Pizza and Pasta, the Grill (steak hachee), Cuisine du Monde, and Poisson. Since my first lunch, I’ve eaten things like ray, paupiettes de saumon, paupiettes de veau, lamb moussaka, gigot d’agneau with couscous, caramel pork, saumon “americaine”, brochette de dinde, and ratatouille to name a few. The side dishes are equally exciting and almost every day I have a little plate of pate de campagne or a cheese plate. The French are obsessed with thinly grated (julienned?) carrots and other vegetables and at first I was confused by this obsession with a seemingly boring item. One day, however, seeing no more exciting side dish options, I took a small plate with julienned carrots, celery (or maybe celery root?), and red cabbage. It was so good and now I eat it almost every day! The carrots are served with no topping but the celery (or celery root) has a sort of mayonnaise sauce mixed on top of it and the shredded red cabbage is in a bit of vinegar.

Continuing in the vein of food, after lunch I went to the little grocery store by my dorm. There I bought a few necessities like cornichons, mustard, bread and chocolate. I found an 86% cocoa chocolate bar here and it’s really good. I already had some meat, cheese, and tomatoes (tomatoes are oddly cheap here, one euro for a kilogram) from my trip to Leclerc the day before so I was all set to make sandwiches.


Bon appetit!

Frugal Son still in Paris: How to Do An Abroad Program the Frugal Way

Is it bad to be jealous of your child? Well, I always wanted to spend a semester in France, but my college only had one slot--for a French major. So I asked my French teacher if I could be a French major and he said NON, because I wasn't fluent in French.

To fit with my frugal theme, let me point out that for many of these abroad programs, you pay your home school's tuition and fees. If you are on scholarship--merit or need-based--that money applies. If you are paying $50,000/year for a private school, well, that's what you are paying to do the abroad program. It seems to me that if one is not eligible for massive amounts of need-aid, then one should go to the state school and do the abroad program from there.

THEN you can transfer, if you so desire,to your fancy college. Last year, I read an article about how Columbia University (fancy college par excellence) wouldn't take the transfer credits from a student who, on his own, spent a year in England or Scotland. The price was much lower than Columbia's, maybe half or less. Columbia spokespeople argued, unconvincingly, that they weren't sure of the quality of the program. YEAH-right.

Excerpt from email:

Breakfast this morning was really crowded. I think about 30 Germans came in last night so the cave was full to the brim. I took my tray up to the courtyard and ate en terasse. Or en plein air. It was cloudy this morning and since the sun had barely started coming up at 8am it was really quite chilly especially since it was breezy. First I walked to Hotel de Cluny and, while sitting in the park typing up this letter, I discovered some very tenuous free internet from the McDonald’s across the street. Unfortunately, I hadn’t finished up this letter yet so I didn’t send it. From Cluny, I walked to Rue Mouffetard which is where I am right now. What a splendid place. There are at least three fromageries, a couple poissoneries, and tons of fruit and veggie venders. I was planning on just eating my left over President on left over bread for lunch (I had a bit but it really has gone a bit too far since I wasn’t able to refrigerate it) but I think I’m going to have to buy something here. There is a little crottin of raw milk chevre for just a euro and maybe I’ll buy a couple figs because they look so good. I love figs. Must be because of my name. On the way in I bought a Yop which, for the money, is actually one of the better ways of nourishing oneself with 585 calories per bottle. Also, there is another boucherie here and watching the guys actually cut and prepare the meat is great. Man, I’m not sure if French people actually shop at places like R. Mouffetard but it sure is idyllic and I like to imagine them doing so. I’m going to buy 4 or 5 figs (I hope the shopkeeper doesn’t scorn my miniature purchase) and the little crottin of chevre and then I’m just going to sit down and be happy. Well, time for me to go look longingly at the langoustines and huitres and snails and beautiful sardines. I’m dying for a kitchen, even one with just a single, lousy electric burner.

By the way, you guys could definitely live here. Just sell your 202 square meter house for say, $350,000 (225,800 euros) and then you can buy a 29 square meter apartment (with miniature kitchen, living room, bedroom, and toilet) on the 4th floor sans acenseur in the 18th arron. for just 350,000 euros! DO IT. Well, I’m off to peruse R. Mouffetard a bit more and be jealous of every French person I see.


What do you think? Should we buy the teeny apartment in Paris?

A Frugal--Maybe Squeamy--Moment in Paris

Well, after all the anxiety with the visa chronicled earlier, Frugal Son is now in Paris! He'll be wandering around a bit before he begins his semester in Nantes. Oh lucky boy. He is living my dream. One of them, anyway.

So, here is a bit of an email, describing a squeamy moment.



It’s now 1pm and I’m in the Tuileries where I just had lunch. Lunch was a delicious and, more importantly, FREE pizza courtesy of wasteful American tourists. A huge gaggle of Americans—must’ve been some sort of school trip because there were about 20 kids and 5 adults—came to the hostel last night and left this morning. I know they left because they were making such a racket this morning so I went to the window and saw them all gathered in the courtyard with their luggage. I also noticed that a couple of them were holding pizza boxes which I assume were left-over from the night before.

I went about my business getting ready for the day and then at about 7:45 I went down to the cave to get breakfast. On my way down, I noticed two pizza boxes left on the table but, for the time being, I ignored them. For breakfast I had chocolat chaud, jus d’orange, pain chocolat, AND a section of baguette (with butter and confiture de groseille…what exactly are groseilles?). Feeling quite satisfied I went out to the courtyard and of course I had to check out the pizza boxes. JACKPOT! Inside one was a FULL pizza (probably 9” in diameter) with jambon, olives, capers,Coeur d’artichaud et champignons. YUM. The other box had about half of a pizza but I didn’t take a good look at the toppings because I was absolutely smitten with the first one. I sat at the table, surreptitiously scanning the surroundings to see if there were any straggling Americans who might claim the pizza. After checking to be sure that no one was watching and preemptively opening my backpack, I moved the full pizza box to my bag and zipped it up in one fluid motion. Then I briskly walked out of the hostel and began my day.

After St. Chapelle I walked along the Seine, past the Louvre and to my present location where I found a nice shady spot to eat lunch. I thought I was going to be able to stretch the pizza to be both lunch and dinner but I was famished so I ate the whole thing. Too bad I couldn’t fit both boxes in my bag. In the shade, with the wind, it’s actually almost chilly after sitting down for a while! I think I’ll wander around here a bit more and then head across the river to Musee d’Orsay. Update later.

Visa Woes and Other Anxieties

This is not about credit cards. The OTHER kind of visa.


Well, Frugal Son just got his visa for 5 months in France (pauvre petit!). Problem is that he was supposed to leave this morning. When it was clear that the USPS would not get it here on time, we re-scheduled his flight.

Whose fault? That's what God says in Paradise Lost. The answer: our fault. "Whose but his own? I made him just and right." Then God goes on to say the words that I tell my student are the key to understanding Paradise Lost. "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall."

So, the fault lies with Frugal Son who underestimated the time it would take to get a visa, which entailed an appointment (only 5 available per day) and a trip to the French Consulate in Houston. Then he had to wait over a week for the paperwork to be done.

The French Consulate came through.

But a bit of fault lies with USPS. The fellow behind the counter did not tell me that express mail was not really overnight, though I asked. And that Sunday delivery cost extra. We were ecstatic to see that the item arrived in New Orleans Saturday at 6 a.m., so we assumed we would get it that day. We live only 40 minutes away.

I called the USPS and the operator said "Didn't you get an estimated delivery date on your receipt?" What receipt? I wasn't given one.

So 90% on Frugal Son, who was nagged by us all summer.
10% to USPS for poor customer service at point of purchase.

Meanwhile, postal truck has been outside for 20 minutes with worker just sitting in there. After 15 minutes, he put one foot on the ground.

Stress Level: huge. Cost of nagging son all summer: huge.

What about the financial cost? Strangely none: the price of the ticket has gone down (a LOT, thanks to the recession?), so even with a $250 penalty and the loss of a one-way ticket to New York, we came out a little ahead.

Frugal Son is more cavalier than most about deadlines and bureaucracy. All this was a good lesson for him. But the stress has taken some years off my life, I'm afraid.

Frugal Son accepts 90% of the responsibility. But he also says FEDEX, which we've never used, has a customer for life!

Does anyone have tips for dealing with cavalier and procrastinating youth, when they are still supported by you? One friend, with an even more cavalier son, said, "Let him fail." To which I replied, "But we have to pay for whatever happens." Even if it "come out of his bank account," it's still all on us. Right?

Any tips or wisdom appreciated.

Border Crossings: Frugality, Disney, Shopping and other Stuff

It's all about borders and boundaries. To get a grip on your finances, you need to have some idea of what you are spending, even on such necessities as food. But I think boundaries are necessary in another sense as well.

I was thinking about this after reading the post at Get Rich Slowly yesterday about the blogger's paid trip to Disney to see a Disney/T Rowe Price collaboration designed to teach the lessons of personal finance. I wondered--in a comment--if the blogger would (or should) reveal how much his freebies were worth. My comment must have been awfully mild because he did not respond to it (though he did respond to someone who wondered more directly about a conflict of interest). But that potential border crossing--between being an objective blogger who promotes sensible personal finance--and a journalist on a trip made me think of border crossings at Disney more generally.

Disney is FUN. And that's fine. It is also pretty expensive. My family has had only one Disney experience. Years ago, Mr. FS and I delivered papers at a conference in Orlando. We took the children. When the conference was over, we stayed on to go to Disney World, where we saw many of our colleagues. Most of our driving costs were courtesy of our employer. The basic ticket price for a day at the theme park is--I would say--worth it. You get a lot of bang for your buck as far as FUN goes.

What's not worth it are the souvenirs. Food is also ridiculously expensive and you are not allowed to bring anything in. This is not the case at EuroDisney; Europeans would not stand for that. Hotels in Orlando can also be ridiculously cheap. I ran into a colleague who had stuffed 6 or so kids from his blended family into their van. They stayed in a motel a little way out for maybe $60.00 a night. But if you stay on-site as my brother did, you may be spending upwards of $300.00 per night.

What is my point? My point is that you should separate experiences. If Disney is about the park and FUN, then it is not too expensive. Like Jazz Fest (see Mr. FS's post on this), you get a whole day of FUN for your ticket price. If you add in souvenirs, it becomes very expensive. Similarly, and unlike Jazz Fest, it is not a food experience. The food is mediocre to bad at all levels. So we ate at the lowest level we could get away with--and as little as possible. We bought no souvenirs. So we had the FUN, but did not "border cross" to food and shopping.

Similarly, I think the T Rowe Price/Disney collaboration border crosses as well, mixing financial education and FUN. As I said in my comment on GRS, this reminds me of companies that sell overpriced items saying that a percentage will be donated to a worthy cause. Border crossing: tee shirts and charity. You could probably send more to charity if you bought the tee shirt and sent your own contribution to your charity. Having a personal finance "game" at Disney strikes me as trying to go left and right at the same time; they are contradictory activities, sending, I think, a mixed message. In fact, some of the comments at GRS and elsewhere spoke about how cool a piggy bank souvenir would be. Why not buy your piggy bank at the Dollar Store?

Indeed, a frugal tip for Disney goers would be to head over to the nearest thrift store. There you will find zillions of Disney tee shirts, pajamas, sweatshirts--even sweaters in adult sizes. All emblazoned with Disney characters. Many seemingly unworn. My sister-in-law, noticing all the Hawaii-themed tees at a local thrift, decided to buy her souvenirs BEFORE the family trip to Hawaii. There's even more Disney merchandise than Hawaii merchandise.

I really believe that you get the most out of experiences when you respect the boundaries. When we go out to eat, we try to go where the food is good. That would be New Orleans (including Jazz Fest)--or Paris--or Montreal. Not Disney. When I want to shop, I prefer Banana Republic (on sale!) to the Disney Store.

I suppose it is to the advantage of Disney and other marketers to try to make us cross the borders--or even not to notice that there are borders. To promote the souvenirs et al as PART of the Disney experience is to border cross and leave prudent personal finance behind. It is related to the bundled packages (internet, cable, phone, cell phone) that are so financially tangled that not even Consumer Reports can figure out what plan is a good deal.

Kimchi and Me: Part II (with recipe!)

This is the final installment of my two-part kimchi post. If you haven't done so yet, check out Part I and then try out the recipe I've included at the end of this post.
--Frugal Son

Kimchi was originally developed as a method of preserving fresh produce through the winter and many Koreans—including Julie’s grandmother—continue to make it today much as it was made hundreds of years ago. Traditionally the kimchi was made in ceramic pots that were then buried for as few as three days in the summer when fermentation was rapid or for many months in the winter when the cold ground slowed the process. In Louisiana, however, where it is warm even in the winter and ceramic kimchi pots are nowhere to be found, I still found a way to capture the essence of Korea in a homemade kimchi.

While kimchi is certainly not a staple food in the United States—and I’ve also noticed that Korean cuisine in general is conspicuously absent from the landscape of restuarants in America—it is something that I think is inherently appealing to almost everyone: it’s like a pickle but with way more character.

My long awaited opportunity to make kimchi finally presented itself shortly after New Years when cabbage went on sale for $0.25 a pound. An interesting side-note: the cabbage was so cheap because it is a Louisiana tradition to eat black-eyed peas and cabbage on New Years for good luck. The kimchi preparation was simple and took only about five minutes of combined effort by my father and me. In addition to the cabbage we added some scallions, turnips, and hot peppers from the garden while sugar, salt, fish sauce, soy sauce, and garlic rounded out the potent brew.

After letting it sit overnight and stirring it around a few times to make sure the brine reached every crevice, we took off the plastic bag covering the top of the bowl and lo! Kimchi! Enjoying the kimchi took the combined effort of the whole family and under such an assault, it was gone within a day. Next time, I’ll make more so that I can see how it changes taste and texture as it continues to ferment—in this respect kimchi is a living, evolving organism—and maybe there will even be enough left for me to incorporate old kimchi into some dishes.

Making kimchi really encapsulates everything that I love about cooking: it brought together the family, transported me to another place, and allowed me to enjoy the ethnic foods I so enjoy for a pittance. Even if kimchi isn’t the kind of thing you’d want to eat, there are so many amazing and simple dishes which are a lot cheaper, better, and family oriented than eating out.

The recipe for kimchi, which is very flexible, is one that I created by combining the aspects I liked of three different recipes. Also note that none of the quantities below are set in stone...adapt the recipe as you like: make a smaller amount, use different vegetables etc. Kimchi is a food that is meant to be played with!

2 cabbages
1-2" of ginger root
10-12 cloves of garlic
Scallions (quite a few, at least 8 bunches I'd say)
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup fish sauce
about 1 tbs sesame oil
2 tbs sugar
1/2 to 3/4 cup pepper flakes (I used 1/2 cup of pepper flakes for the 1.5 cabbage batch just to give you a reference point)
Salt for brine
2 – One gallon glass jars with plastic lids.

Chop up the cabbages into chunks about one or two inches long. To brine them you can put the chopped cabbage in a large mixing bowl or pot and add enough water to cover. Alternately, you can stuff the cabbage into the jars as tight as you can and then pour water over them. Whichever method you use, add salt and mix it up so that the salt dissolves. I don't have an exact amount of salt to use but the brine should be about as salty as tears. Let the cabbage soak in brine for at least 24 hours.

Next, drain the cabbage but do not rinse it. Try to get as much water off as possible. Shake it out, or transfer it to a large, dry pot, let it sit for 10 minutes and then scoop it out by hand which should leave most of the water behind. At this point, mince the garlic and ginger into fine pieces about the size of a grain of kosher salt. If all that chopping sounds too tedious or if you are too pressed for time to do it by hand, you could just put the ginger and garlic into the food processor with the red peppers and blend it into a paste / flakes mix. That is a totally acceptable method. Also, cut your scallions into pieces about one inch long. Pour the fish sauce into a mixing bowl and add the sesame oil, ginger, garlic, pepper flakes, and sugar and mix it all up.

Add scallions to the cabbage and then divide the sauce amongst your chopped cabbage and jar it. Make sure the brine / paste mixture is evenly distributed on the cabbage chunks. You will probably want to toss it around with your hands but either wear gloves or wash your hands afterwards because the red pepper flakes can cause painful burning if you touch your eyes or nose long after you are done cooking. Push the cabbage / sauce mixture into the jars, stuffing it as tight as you can because the cabbage will shrink during the fermentation process. Now all you have to do is let the jar(s) sit for at least 24 hours and resist the urge to snack.

This recipe is really quite flexible. I think the main things I would fool with are the amounts of fish sauce and pepper flakes (especially for non-Louisianans the amount of pepper I added might be too much). The fish sauce gives the kimchi some of its pungency and salt but I'm not sure what the proper amount is. The pepper flakes obviously add heat but NOTE that the pepper flake sauce seems (to me at least) hotter when it is first made but it then mellows out as it is aged and fermented. Thus, a pepper sauce that is the right heat at the time of jarring may be too mild after fermentation. Experiment!

The finished product:

Kimchi and Me: Part I

Following the naming convention of my Frugal Mom's post "Madoff and Me," I would like to present the first of a two part homage to one of the greatest frugal foods on the planet.

One of the things that I enjoy the most is food, and especially ethnic cuisine. While many people might assume that enjoying exotic cuisine is incompatible with a frugal lifestyle—even eating out in a mediocre restaurant regularly adds up to a substantial sum—nothing could be further from the truth. Though I have been an adventurous eater since an early age, one of my first major forays into food came while I was living away from home during high school. While there, a surprising number of my friends were Korean and in addition to being great friends, they also had great moms who would send them back to school with plastic containers filled with succulent beef, pungent fish, and spicy orange strips of dried squid. Many a night was spent with ten people packed into an already small dorm room passing around a pair of communal chopsticks, a bowl of steaming rice, and the plastic containers of delicious Korean dishes while we played tien-len (a Vietnamese card game to add to the diversity). Just so it’s clear I wasn’t a total mooch, every now and then I would cook up some couscous which we would then top with Rooster Sauce, a spicy yet sweet chili and garlic sauce of South Asian origin.

One Korean dish, however, was clearly the king of dishes: the ubiquitous kimchi. This is the Korean national dish, a simple blend of cabbage, fermented fish paste, garlic, and copious quantities of red pepper. The flavors kind of sum up the tenets of Korean cuisine; left to ferment for a few days before serving the cabbage softens—but still retains a distinctly fresh crunch—and takes on a complex flavor that is sour, salty, spicy, and most of all, deeply satisfying. Kimchi is also versatile: it is served as a side dish at every meal but also lends itself to many dishes. Mixed into stir-fried rice it adds body and flavor and when the kimchi gets too old (soft and too powerfully fermented to eat by itself) it is thrown into pork broth with bits of tofu, pork, and potatoes to make kimchi jiggae, an incredibly delicious stew.

While in school, I relied on my Korean friends for a steady supply of this incredible dish and during breaks from school, I would have to live without or drive to the Westbank (across the Mississippi from New Orleans) to buy 5 gallon jars of kimchi from the Asian groceries. All of this kimchi love (and friendship of course) culminated in a month long trip to Korea during the summer of 2008 with two of my best friends from high school. For thirty days I ate kimchi breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I learned that I had merely sampled the tip of the kimchi iceberg; while in Korea I ate regular cabbage kimchi, daikon radish kimchi, green onion kimchi, bok choy kimchi, fried kimchi pancakes, kimchi omelettes, kimchi served hot and cold, spicy kimchi and sweet kimchi. There is a kimchi for every occasion, season, or palate.

Frugal Food: Louisiana Edition

Frugality involves getting the most for your resources—whether you think of resources in terms of money or of time. Therefore, one thing we try to do in our frugal family is to take advantage of whatever is best wherever we are. Hence, when we visit California, we take lots of nature walks. When we visit New England, we do the same. In Florida, we walk on the beach. In New York City and Boston, we go to museums.

In Paris, of course, we buy food. The French are different from Americans in their food purchasing habits, and we try to emulate those when we are there. So for lunch, we may stop at a cheese booth in a market. Thanks to Mr. Dr. Frugal’s excellent French, we will engage in a lengthy discussion of the merits of certain cheeses with the proprietor. This will culminate in the purchase of 3 small pieces of cheese. Then we do the same at a place that sells ham or pate; we emerge with 2 slices. These raw materials may cost, say, $20.00 for half a kilo, or even more. But we buy some bread, then some fruit, and head off to a park to eat our lunch. This is a time-consuming process, but fundamentally frugal, because we are taking advantage of what is best where we are.

Food is a strong suit in Louisiana. People here, I am convinced, spend a greater percentage of their income on food than most Americans, much as Europeans do. How could one not when you can buy shrimp hours off the boat (complete, with heads) at a hastily set-up stand on the side of the road? Ditto for crawfish, which you can buy at gas stations as well as in the grocery store. Frugal Son and I stopped at a new seafood shop today just to scope out the goods. Food may be the equalizer here, as one can tell from the range of cars parked outside the seafood shop.

Tonight we are having gumbo made with the (frozen) stock from our Thanksgiving turkey, but tomorrow we will get some shrimp. As with our turkey, the best part of shrimp is the stock, in this case from the shells. The flavor comes from the heads.

People born and bred here will sometimes say,” I went to the North once, but I couldn’t eat the food!” Then they will go on to enumerate the indignities foisted on some ingredient or another.

They may have a point. As evidence of why native Louisiana folks are reluctant to leave, we reproduce one page of an ad from Rouses, a local grocery chain. Louisiana may be near the bottom in terms of education and health care. I once was lamenting the state of our school buildings (in contrast to the school board building, which cost many millions of dollars to renovate). My interlocutor said, “Well, at least we know how to have a good time.” So laisser les bons temps rouler! Et bon appetit.

Disney : Japan :: Not Worth It : Worth It

This post is a musing on “Not Worth It” and “Worth It,” a twofer, definitely “Worth It.”

Frugal people tend to be value-oriented. In other words, frugal people think of the value of an item or experience, rather than the cost. This is a concept that is mystifying to non-frugal folks. I know; I’ve tried to explain. The value-orientation is why I think it’s well worth it to buy a piece of furniture for over $1000.00 (a lot over in one case) and not worth it to buy a soda in a restaurant, even it is $1.00.

And, of course, the “Worth It” “Not Worth It” ratio differs from person to person and family to family. When I was in graduate student poverty, I spent about $8.00/pound on good coffee beans, which I ground every day. Now, 20 plus years later (and my salary is more than 20 times my graduate school stipend), I pay about $3.00/pound for New Orleans coffee with chicory. I wish I’d had this coffee back then. Besides, now I’m too lazy to grind coffee beans.

This brings me to the example I want to highlight: the ubiquitous Disney Trip for grades 6-12. At least this was ubiquitous for my children. When they hit sixth or seventh grade, every single class or subgroup at school featured a Disney Trip. The trip cost about $600.00; that covered bus transportation, a 3-day ticket to the theme parks, and 2 nights in a hotel. Breakfast and dinner were included but lunch, eaten in Disney World, was not. This grated on my values orientation. The parents of my children’s friends who generally agreed with my thinking—and certainly agreed that the trip was a major rip-off—all capitulated. “But Alexandra REALLY wants to go! All her friends are going.”

I was alone. I couldn’t argue that we didn’t have the money (we did) and I don’t like lying to my children. We said,”This is a rip-off. When there’s something that’s WORTH IT, even if it’s more expensive, you can go.”

We were hoping that a class or a club would sponsor a trip to DC or to Chicago—anything but the Disney Trip! Most of the kids had been to Disney numerous times anyway. But, in an appalling lack of imagination and initiative, every year my poor children had to opt out of a Disney Trip. Sometimes there were two or three: the Honors Club Trip, the Science Club Trip, and so forth. Some of these 12-17 year-olds went on two or more Disney trips each year, depending on how many organizations they were involved in. My children were disappointed, I suppose, but I think they trusted us when we said they could have something even better later.

Then, first my son and later my daughter went to a wonderful residential magnet high school in Natchitoches, Louisiana. When my son began in 11th grade, he announced that during winter break a teacher was leading a 10-day trip to Japan. He pointed out that the cost was equal to about three of the Disney Trips. He didn’t even have to remind us of the promise or to do the math for us: the minute he said it, we knew it was WORTH IT.

Ditto for my daughter, who went on the same trip two years later.

This might ring some chimes. It’s easier for parents to say “No” to their own desires than to the desires of their children. And we were up against peer pressure, from both the children and the parents of their classmates.

What say you, Dear Reader? What’s WORTH IT to you and yours? How do you decide?

Worth It: Breakfast at the Hotel Verneuil

It is so easy (for me, anyway) to get overly caught up in frugality. After a while, almost nothing is “worth it.” Why go out to eat, when you can reheat leftovers? Why buy a nice couch when that old futon will do?

In fact, we eat very well, though we do like to reheat (good) leftovers. And we have a nice couch.

Frugality, as the experts will tell you, is not about spending the least, but about making the best use of your resources, to figure out what will add to the quality of your life.

So . . . what was expensive but has added much to your life? For us, it would be our old house with big windows and 12 foot ceilings, our big Le Creuset pot, Mr. Dr. Frugal Scholar’s Lemond bicycle (used, from Ebay), and a few other things. Most of all for us it has been travel.

The first time we went to Paris together, our travel agent booked us in a hotel that she said was a little bit expensive (for us), but extra nice. We decided to do it. It was a beautiful hotel, with rooms recently redesigned by a famous Parisian decorator.

Our splurge within the splurge was the breakfast, which was in the cave, and cost an extra 50 francs (about $10; this seems so reasonable, but, in fact, was pretty expensive in those pre-euro days). At first we weren’t going to indulge in this luxury; after all, we could go out and get an espresso at McDo’s for about a dollar. But then we said, pourquoi pas? Let’s do it once. It turned out to be such a transcendentally blissful experience that we went down to the cave every morning.

For the next four days, we would go down to a beautiful room where we would be served some strong coffee (the best coffee we’ve ever had) and then go to the buffet and get a croissant, butter, and a small piece of camembert. We would never order the eggs or juice, which cost extra.

Also in the cave each morning: another American couple, with a husband fluent in French (like Mr. Dr. Frugal Scholar), and a French mother – daughter pair (the daughter smoked and looked blasé while sipping her orange juice). We could tell by their clothes and general air that they were all far more affluent than we were.

When we returned home, we discussed what was our fondest memory of the trip. To our surprise, we both said it was the first sip of coffee each morning at the Hotel Verneuil.

Above is a photo of the beautiful cave from the hotel’s website.

Tuscan Kitchen

After a few years of agonizing indecision, we redid out kitchen last summer. Very modestly. And with no regrets or cognitive dissonance, even though the remodel antedated the dreadful economic downturn of Fall 2008.

We walked the frugal path with the remodel, though it was hard, with numerous examples of “kitchen porn” available in books, magazines, and on such websites as Gardenweb, where the TKO (Technically [or is it Totally?] Kitchen Obsessed) assure each other that high five to six figure remodels are the norm.

How did we keep to the frugal path? We kept thinking of our wonderful trip to Italy, which was special in many ways. It was my first (and so far only) trip there. My husband and I were thinking of attending a conference in Prato, but were hesitant because of the cost. I mentioned this to a former student who was teaching Spanish part-time that semester, She said, “But I am moving near there this summer, to take care of some elderly people who helped me during a hard time of my life. Stay with us.”

So we went. We stayed in Orsigna, a tiny village at the top of a mountain. We took the bus, which ran twice a day, down to the train station, from which we would go to Prato, or Florence. These bigger cities were great, but Italy is so hot in summer! It was wonderful to return to Orsigna every afternoon and take our first breath of cool air!

We stayed with C (my former student) and J (her new husband). C had returned to Italy to care for an elderly couple who had served as her surrogate parents when she was in Italy many years before. Their only daughter had recently died.

While we were there, I got to do what I REALLY wanted to do, which was to look into private houses. These people were, I suppose, working class. But they lived in amazing beauty—in old stone buildings. In their small homes, along with the futon couch and little tv, were beautiful pieces of wooden furniture, made as wedding gifts from the local chestnut trees.

When agonizing over my kitchen choices, I came upon frequent pictures of so-called Tuscan kitchens. These consisted of loads of custom cabinetry (distressed) with loads of pottery. Lavish marble counterops. Enormous stoves.

Then I thought of the real thing: tiny spaces, a few cabinets (flat front laminate), countertops of formica. At the center of each kitchen was a smallish worktable with a worn marble top. Tiny stove (often 2 burner), tiny sink.

Favorite detail: over the sink is a drainer (sometimes with a cabinet front). You would wash the dish and then put it in drainer—it would drip into the sink. This is a lot less work than the American way: putting dishes in dishwasher, running cycle, putting away. Needless to say, this wonderful device does not exist in the US.

From these tiny and minimal kitchens came wonderful food, with little work. There was one store in the village, which carried local cheeses, good pasta. This was a life with few choices.

C told us that one of the few youngish inhabitants of Orsigna was a 40-ish fellow with a doctorate, who—Italian-style—lived with his mother and made money every now and then by foraging for mushrooms in the woods.

All so different from the “Under the Tuscan Sun” image of Italian life!