Family & Friends
This week pirates invaded my town. Trust me though; this isn’t as scary, or as strange, as it sounds. Every summer, Alexandria Bay, my small, tourist town in the summertime paradise known as the Thousand Islands (read the NY Times story on the area here), hosts one of the country’s oldest pirate festivals. For ten days, pirate invasions, pirate parades, and skits to reenact the antics of Bill Johnston (seen with me in the photo at left)-an actual pirate who hid from authorities in a cave in one of the Thousand Islands for almost a year- entertain thousands of tourists.
But what does a pirate festival have to do with money? Well, in a word, lots. For my town, this festival is a major economic driver of an economy that relies, for the most part, on income generated during the summer months. While people from all over attend Bill Johnston’s Pirate Days, this year, many people from not-so-far-away see the festival as the perfect opportunity for entertainment while on a “staycation.”
“Staycation”, seems to be the buzzword of the summer. A staycation is defined (yes, I said defined…staycations have become so popular, that they now have their own dictionary entry) as a vacation where one takes time off at or close to home. According to a recent poll by Harris Interactive, almost 60% of Americans say they are looking for ways to find less-expensive activities to fill up their summer days. Nearly 50% of survey participants said they’d take vacations closer to home.
In an economic climate where everyone’s trying to save a little more, staycations are a chance to take a break from the everyday, without spending a bundle of money. If you’ve yet to take a staycation this summer, there’s still time. Here are some tips for finding cheap fun that’s close to home:
Find a Festival: Visit Festivals.com, where you can search for festivals in your area by city or state, many of which are low-cost or even free.
Fun at the Fair: There are very few places where you can eat a deep fried Oreo, take in a concert by a big-name entertainer and marvel at a sculpture made of butter all in one day. Tickets to your state fair will cost around More…
The Money Mom
There are few things I like more than a challenge. Just ask my husband who heard me take the cable company to task the other night. (Suffice it to say when the Phillies game wasn’t coming in — again — despite the fact that we paid for the MLB package and the cable company wanted me to give them a three hour window for an appointment, I was having none of it. They are coming Sunday. At 8 a.m.)
Having Erin Chase, the mom behind the popular blog 5DollarDinners.com on my radio show yesterday felt like just that. A challenge. Could I make a dinner for four for $5 or less? Chase explained that her system involves couponing (natch) but also loading up on proteins, the most expensive component of most dinners, when they’re on sale. When boneless chicken breasts are $1.99 a pound, you don’t just buy a single pack, you buy four. Ditto ground beef. Italian sausage. Whatever your family likes. The freezer is your friend.
The whole conversation reminded me of my childhood. My dad was a college professor. My mom substitute taught. We had enough money but we certainly didn’t have a lot. And so my mother was a queen of inexpensive delicious meals. I don’t remember the entire rotation, but I remember a lot of it. Tuna and macaroni night. Chuck steaks that marinated the entire day. Rigatoni with meat sauce. My favorite — though — was Spaghetti and Clams.
Thanks to the canned clams, it’s a $5 dinner I make to this day. Enjoy.
Elaine’s Spaghetti and Clams
1 lb spaghetti or linguini
2 cans clams with the juice
1/4 cup oil (olive preferable)
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 T parsley (if dried), big handful of chopped (if fresh)
red pepper flakes to taste
salt to taste
1/2 cup white wine or vermouth (whatever you have)
parmesan cheese optional
Cook the spaghetti. While it’s cooking, in a large skillet, heat oil, add garlic and cook until light brown. Add clams with More…
Pets.
Food.
Sex.
Michael Silverstein, co-author of the upcoming book Women Want More, asked thousands of women: What makes you happy? Those are the top answers.
Pets.
Food.
Sex.
Not loving spouses. Fabulous children. Interesting work. Or a bank account full of cash.
Pets.
Food.
Sex.
I got a sneak peek at the book and Silverstein’s thought process when we touched base earlier this week. And so I asked him: What’s the deal? More…
It’s that time of year again…wedding season. According to the Association of Bridal Consultants, nearly 22% of couples tie the knot in July and August. But after the rice is thrown and the cake is gone, couples are left to deal with one of the biggest causes of martial discord: managing their finances. Here are some tips to help you keep the peace:
Understand your differences. It’s not reasonable to assume that just because you tie the knot you all of a sudden become the same person. What you have to do, therefore, is understand HOW you are different, how those differences are going to worry or stress your partner, and keep lines of communications open so that you both understand what is happening with the family pie.
Joint or separate accounts? Try both. There is a school of thought that says the more you merge your money, the more you trust each other and the marriage. I am not completely of that school — quite possibly because I’ve been divorced. I am a big fan of joint AND separate accounts. The way this works best is if you come up with a household budget that the joint account will cover. It must include the amount you want to save for your joint goals (vacation, house, retirement, emergencies). Then figure out what equal percentage of both salaries will cover it, transfer that much in from the separate accounts, and leave the rest. And the bills covered by the joint accounts shouldn’t ALWAYS be paid by the same person. One will gravitate toward these tasks but make sure you switch it up at least once a year.
Financial autonomy is a must. When it comes to my marriage, I need to be able to buy a cup of coffee without checking with him. More…
Starting this week, every Thursday I’ll be dedicating my blog post for the day to answering one of your financial questions. This week’s comes from Patsey in Woodland North Carolina. She writes:
I have a 22 year-old daughter who begins work as a nurse in July. I have recommended the asset allocation (early career in your book The Difference) after she saves up 8 months in expenses in cash or money market fund. Do you have a better recommendation or did I miss the mark?
Answer: In a perfect world, we would all have 8 months in living expenses in the bank. The reality is however, that putting that much in the bank, especially when you’re starting out, can be a daunting task.
Yesterday Karen Blumenthal stopped by my radio show to discuss her new book “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Starting Your Financial Life.” Starting small, Blumenthal says, is a key thing for workforce newbies to remember. “The first paycheck you might have immediate living needs…you don’t want to run up debt. You need to commit some of each paycheck to build that fund. Start with even $25 and then increase it. In every paycheck you should aim for as much as 10%. If you can’t do that right off the bat start with what you can do,” said Blumenthal. More…
When I was pregnant with my first, an older relative asked me when I was planning to stop working. Not if I was planning to stop working. But when. And when I told him I had no intention of stopping — in what may have been a snippy tone as I was put off by the question — he was surprised. We were coming from totally different places. Me, from one of working in a job I was really enjoying (I was at Smart Money at the time). Him from watching every other young woman he knew — even some with law degrees and MBAs — quit work as they entered motherhood. More…
On Today this morning we talked about life’s five biggest crises. If you’re dealing with one of them, see the post below for some advice on how to better your situation.
Are you prepared to handle a financial crisis — 6 out of 10 Americans age 40 to 79 have experienced at least one, according to a new piece of research from AARP financial. What sort of crises? Job loss, divorce death of a spouse or a child, sudden illness. (Personally, at 44, I’ve gone through three.)
Unfortunately, most of us don’t prepared for these crises before hand – and then make some wrong early moves when they actually hit.
Q: How unprepared are we? More…
Last night I saw Little Shop Of Horrors for the third time this week. The first two were at my son’s high school. He was in the chorus and had a small part in an ensemble of 50. The third was at Columbia University where my fiance’s daughter directed a cast of 8. On my night off in between, I went to a meeting with scores of other parents at my daughter’s middle school where she is auditioning for a production of Annie. And there, the director put the entire week into perspective.
The play is not the thing, he said, daring to disagree with Hamlet. It is not about the two or three nights in front of an audience for applause. It is about, as he put it in his enviable British accent, “the pro-cess” of a group of kids becoming a company of actors who cooperate to build a show. It is about the time spent tableu-ing scenes, discussing their meaning, researching the time period, and of course learning songs and lines and steps. That is why, he said, the few kids who drop out after getting smaller parts than they (or their parents) felt they deserved inevitably come back and see the show and wish they’d stuck with it. Those kids see that they missed a journey. It’s the journey — the pro-cess — that makes them happier than even the end result.
It’s very much what the excellent Judith Warner blogged about in today’s Domestic Disturbances column for The New York Times website. More…
ESTATE PLANNIN
I was on Today this morning talking about how important it is to get your finances in order in case the unexpected happens. I blogged about this very topic last week, so I’ll just leave you with the video clip below:
