An Abe Lincoln story

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Everyone in my circle of forefathers (mine and my friends) seemed to have an Abe Lincoln story... "When I was a kid I WALKED to school five miles each way"... and then the story gets embellished with "in a blizzard" or with "holes in my shoes" , etc, etc.  For many of us baby boomers the essence of tragedy is somehow lost when we say "in my day we had to dial a phone or "I didn't have a cell phone until I was 40 years old."  However, my parents had an Abe Lincoln story, or should I say a "great depression" story... They lived in a flat with no heating system (just a coal stove) and had no kitchen chairs...they sat on milk boxes. Now this was post WWII and to this day, I just can not believe that not one friend nor neighbor nor relative had two spare chairs for them to sit on!  In any event, they worked hard and moved up in the world so that our family of five had a nice apartment with chairs AND with central heat!
I, also, have my own version of an Abe Lincoln story involving my current home and this helps keep my drop in disposable income in perspective.  Many moons ago my husband and I purchased our home from an elderly (near 90) woman.  The house was built by her parents in 1898.
The house was all but condemned and friends commented that we were "out of our minds" but we were ambitious and determined to make it livable.  The main issue with the house, (besides the extreme disrepair) was that it had plaster walls with no insulation in them at all.  The windows were so rickety that the wind blew through them.  The price of oil was skyrocketing at the time and we kept the thermostat at 55 degrees.. That's right folks, 55 degrees and we could not afford to heat our home to even that temperature.  Soooo, we had to sell one of our cars to pay for our oil bill. (The transaction barely covered the cost.)
Today, as I sit comfortably in 72 degrees on one of my thirty some odd chairs that I own, I feel thankful.

Surviving an IRS audit (Reminiscing)

 My husband and I spent our first year of married life renovating a two family home that we had purchased as an investment.  My husband was a high school teacher at the time and I was working part time and taking some graduate courses.  Needless to say, money was sparse.  We were lucky enough to live upstairs (two family home) from my in-laws who charged us a below market rent.  Ambitiously, we put every dime that we earned into renovations, hoping to make a quick profit.  It was tough, but also an adventure as we did ALL of the work ourselves.  We came home exhausted every day and lived on pasta and peas... (really, it tastes pretty good).

Just as we were putting the house on the market, a letter from the IRS arrived in our mailbox.  We were being audited!!  Oh my gosh, what did we do wrong??  I was in a panic, especially being such a youngster at 24 yrs old.  There was not much that we could do to prepare.. all our receipts were in a large shoe box..and it was stuffed to the hilt.  I remember that day clearly.  We gave the agent our shoe box and sat there as she meticulously added things up.  We were 50.00 off from our tax return.. an amount that was insignificant to the IRS... whew!  No fine, no additional tax!  At the end I asked the woman why we got audited and this is what she said. "We could not believe that you both would be able to live on the money that you earned less the money that was claimed as expenses!"

 I remember those words now as I struggle to live a "rich less" life...and I don't even have to eat pasta and peas because it's cheap.. I eat it because it's tasty!

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When life gives you lemons..

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Well, what about figs!!!???  Huh, huh, huh... what about them?  I have tons of figs and they are free... thanks to my father-in-law (God rest his soul) who planted fig trees in three places on my property.  The good thing is.. I love figs!  The bad thing is.. there are only so many that I can eat and they are quite perishable.
However, as I mentioned in a previous post, when things are starting to spoil the best thing to do is start baking.  So I can't wait until tomorrow.. I will make fig cake and fig bars and baked figs with brown sugar.  Tonight I will dream of figgy pudding. :)

At the Li ber eeeee

Am I dating myself or does anyone else remember the ad campaign for reading that had a bunch of little kids chanting "at the library"... but pronounced li-ber-eee.    I've been singing that song a lot lately as I visit my local library to pick up books, movies, books on tape and CDs.  This is a new habit for me as I used to visit my local mega book store.  The booming economy had spawned a proliferation of Barnes and Noble stores that sport comfy couches and coffee shops.  I always visited to purchase a wanted or needed book because I could afford to. (and it always smelled so good in the store..ahhh).  Who needed the library???  It was the same with movies. If I wanted a movie, I just purchased it at Target or even at my local grocery store... But now, I refrain from buying when I can get it for free.  This summer was filled with movies that I was too busy to see at an earlier time in my life (when I was busy being a workaholic).

I've even gotten time to curl up with a book before drifting off to sleep.  So if you too are missing the smell of your local mega book store, then go visit your local li-ber-eee and put on a pot of coffee or herbal tea.  You can even bake your own tea biscuits and relax on your own comfy couch. Ahhhh.

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Ode to Mr. Hammer

When my husband and I were first married, we purchased a two family home as an investment. We had absolutely no money at the time but my husband was eligible for a VA loan.  So incredibly, we purchased a small 2 family house for "no money down".
We were going to renovate the house and then "turn it over" within the year.  The home was a smaller home that had three rooms on each floor.  Living on the top floor was Mr. Hammer, a 90 year old World War I Veteran who had a huge American flag hanging in his front window.
 Mr. Hammer was quite a character.. He was still strong as an ox, even at 90.. He could whistle as loud as a steam engine through his missing two front teeth.  The whistle could scare the bejesus out of anyone and he used it for just that!  Mr. Hammer was extremely suspicious of us young whippersnappers and rightly so. One of our upgrades to the property involved separating the utilities so that each tenant paid for their own.  Mr. Hammer was used to living in the apartment without paying for any utilities, so he decided that he was NOT going to use any electricity or gas until he figured out if the separated utilities were working correctly!!  If he used NOTHING and his bill was NOTHING then that would be proof that all was well.  Here is how he did it... He only listened to a battery operated radio - no TV. no phone, no air conditioning, no cooking.  He took a cool bath once a week and washed out his underwear in the bathwater.  He then proceeded to use the bath water to flush the toilet for a week.  Luckily for Mr. Hammer, it was summer time and he didn't have to worry about heat.  When the electric company came to read Mr. Hammer's meter, they decided that it must be broken... It did not move from month to month!
It was then that Mr. Hammer revealed his frugal lifestyle.  Can you imagine???  He even ate only one meal a day which he got from a local catering business... He paid minimally for whatever leftovers they had that day. 
We sold the house after one year as we had planned and we often drove by to see if the American flag was still hanging in the window.. it was for many years thereafter so we knew Mr. Hammer had lived a long and good life.  Here's to you, Mr. Hammer.

The Greatest Show on Earth, Sunrise/Sunset and More.

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Every day we have the opportunity to see the greatest show on earth ABSOLUTELY FREE...no, not the circus... but one of mother nature's greatest accomplishments.... the sunrise.   I am blessed to be able to see the sun rise over magnificent horizons.. the Atlantic Ocean in the summer, and the NY Skyline in the winter.  And every evening, another show, on the western horizon... the sunset with the beautiful blue hour of twilight.  And then God gives us the encore of all encores... the moon rise and a night sky filled with galaxies. Take a moment to look up to the skies and enjoy the show. Every day and every night it is there for us to behold, ever changing yet still the same, the performance is beyond any other.

Something's rotten in Denmark

Or should I say, in my kitchen!  It seems like there is always something unrecognizable in my refrigerator.  Something that is fuzzy or blue, or something that was crunchy turned to mush, or something that was liquid and turned to solid (milk).  Isn't chemistry amazing?!!

The point of the matter is that as food rots, hard earned money gets wasted. 

I am a great advocate of buying perishable food in quantities that can be utilized before the rotting stage sets in.  My husband, however, loves a bargain... and when they are selling bananas for 39 cents a pound, you can be sure we will have 10 lbs of bananas on the kitchen counter.  I have tried to explain to him that if we buy more food than we can reasonably consume before it rots, and we have to throw half of it out, then we are not getting a bargain at all!!!  Please, do the math!

The benefit of having an over zealous bargain hunter in the house is that I can virtually shop in our basement... for canned goods, toiletries, and other non perishables.  I'm convinced that we can survive Armageddon with the stock piles that we have!

  I have been given all kinds of advice as to how to use spoiled food, and most of those ideas involve BAKING... Jenny Craig here I come!
Banana cream pie anyone?

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If it ain't broke don't fix it

The problem today is that most things ARE broken or are about to break.  Due to shoddy craftsmanship and inferior products (need I mention the "C" word) our world is falling apart.  I recently purchased a 3 pack of household scissors and an electric pencil sharpener at Staples.  I came home and found that the scissors did not cut and the pencil sharpener did not sharpen.  I couldn't believe it... granted they were both inexpensive, but come on, not even able to work on the first try!  At a previous time, I would have trashed both and when I had some time, I would have gone back to purchase a higher quality, more expensive product.  But now that things have changed for me (financially) I took both back to the store to get a refund.  I began to look at the options that I had and tried to find products that were "Made in USA"
Help!  I couldn't find any. What are we to do... continue throwing our money away on "dollar store" items that are sold in the general retail market and masquerading as quality items? 
I'm going to go "garage sale" shopping.. perhaps then I can find items made in that long ago era when things actually worked well and were built to last. 

Goodies from Grandma

My 90 year old mother lived some of her younger days during the depression.  Many of the habits she developed in order to survive stuck with her, and in the process, she has managed to save thousands of dollars.  I know we can't live exactly like she does but humor me for a while.  Grandma saves every last bit of food to eat at a later date.. nothing goes in the trash.  In all the years that she has practiced this, she only got food poisoning once.. not bad... one time in 75 years.  She does the laundry once a week and uses the water that drains out of the washer to wash the kitchen floor!  Now isn't that resourceful!  Grandma has never, ever purchased a storage container... she only reuses the ones that tubs of margarine and cheese come in.  Grandma's car is 20 years old.. and it runs "just fine".  Grandma never shops in the mall... she doesn't need to... she has everything she needs and then some.  She gave me back a cell phone that I had purchased for her.. she didn't need it.
Whenever I think about how I must sacrifice the little things now.. I just think of how my mother lives and how she is none worse for the wear... as matter of fact, she is better off than most of us.