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Hey! Check your local Safeway today for its meat prices. Here in the arid Southwest, I just bought a ton of beautiful chuck roast for 99 cents a pound.

Two of the roasts got ground into deee-licious hamburger. Another gigantic beauty will soon be basking in the crock pot with onions, carrots, celery, wine, and spices. Hot diggety!

This morning I accidentally concocted a scrumptious little drinkie-poo…

When I went to whip up my favorite morning drink, I found the vanilla had run out. Ordinarily this beloved swiggle consists of orange juice blended with a handful of frozen fruit and flavored with a dash of vanilla. Lately I’ve been using Costco’s mixed fruit, which includes mangos, papaya, strawberries, and pineapple.

Hmmm… No vanilla, but in the cabinet right above the pantry, what should I have but a nice bottle of Maker’s Mark. So I dribbled a few drops into the blender container—no more than a teaspoonful—and kerBUZZZZ! Whapped it up into a nice cold fruit juice smoothie.

Holy mackerel. This is not your mother’s vanilla substitute! The effect was absolutely delicious.

I think you could adapt it to make a very fine juice-based cocktail: use a jigger of bourbon instead of a few drops.

For hevvinsake be careful, though. The stuff is so seductively tasty your guests could easily overindulge and end up face-down on the living-room floor. And obviously, it’s not for the kiddies, even with just a dribble of bourbon in it.

I think we should call this drink The English Major.

For one English Major, you need:

A glassful of orange juice (about 8 or 10 ounces)
A few pieces of cut-up fresh or frozen fruit (1/4 to 1/3 cup)
Bourbon (or possibly rum?) to taste
Blender or submersible blender

Purée the ingredients together and serve neat. Using frozen fruit gives you a very cold drink; with fresh fruit, you might want to serve it over ice.

The economy appears to be improving. Last week the Dow edged a little closer toward 10,000—on Thursday it reached 9,850 before falling off to 9,784; then sedately rose to 9,820 on Friday. Our collective net worth, we’re told, has jumped some $2 trillion.  Not so many people are being laid off, or at least so we gather from the slight drop in first-time unemployment claims. In some states, a few folks are getting jobs: the government estimates the stimulus has created 139,700 jobs in California, 72,500 in New York, 36,000 in hard-hit Michigan. In Arizona, among the states that have taken the brunt of the real estate collapse, home prices moved up for the first time in two years, with the median cost for a home rising about $3,000, while rates on 30-year mortgages dropped nationwide to 5.04 percent. Maybe Bernanke’s right that the recession is over.

Boy. Two trillion bucks burning a hole in your pocket! What will you do with it? Do you expect to push the economy ever higher by spending some of that newfound money?

Do you think that as the economy improves, you’ll be spending more and saving less? Will Americans go back to their habit, so good for business and for the banking industry, of charging up more on credit cards and mortgages than they can afford?

Over at Get Rich Slowly, J.D. continues to ruminate about what he calls the “third stage of personal finance,” which has to do with personal values and long-term planning about money. It’s an interesting, if still inchoate, train of thought.

What portion of our income we spend, what portion we save, and how much debt we incur has to do as much with our concept of a “comfortable” lifestyle as it does with our circumstances. What, for you, is an acceptable way of life?

For example, CNN Money’s retirement guide posits that a 65-year-old with $500,000 in savings can withdraw $43,000 a year from savings until the age of 90. It suggests that if the same person continued to work until age 70 and maxed out her retirement savings, she could draw down $72,000 a year until age 90. And that doesn’t even count Social Security benefits!

Leaving aside the question of what the hypothetical retiree will do if she lives beyond 90, when she suddenly will be left penniless, this scenario raises a serious lifestyle question: Do you want to stay in the traces until you’re 70 years old? And secondarily, do you really need $72,000 a year plus about another $20,000 in Social Security—some $92,000 p/a—to be happy?

To my mind, the “third stage” of personal finances entails settling on what standard of living suffices for you and your family and deciding how long and how hard you will work to maintain that standard. SDXB, for example, decided when he was in his forties that he would jump off the treadmill. He made a conscious decision to live frugally and to cobble together a living from a variety of part-time sources specifically so that he would not have to trudge to an office every day.

He lives comfortably. He has no debt. He owns his house free and clear, and when he wants to buy a car, he pays for it in cash. He spent the entire summer traveling around the country and is about to take off for another few weeks. He dresses well (buying much of his casual clothing from thrift stores), has an active social life, and takes care of his health.

He accomplishes this because he distinguishes clearly between needs and wants. And when you come right down to it, one’s real needs can be fairly modest. I doubt if he spends much more than $24,000 a year.

His lifestyle, though, is a bit straitened for my taste. Even though I could live much, much more cheaply if I moved to Sun City, where he’s bought a house, I don’t want to live in Sun City. I like having young people around me, and I’m not especially frightened by the cultural diversity of a central-city neighborhood. Although the workload and costs of my present home are a little high, I like my house and want to stay here. And as for shopping in thrift stores, I simply haven’t the patience to plow through tons of old clothing in search of a few prizes. On the other hand, Costco’s $20 jeans do me just fine.

Clearly, to support my basic lifestyle I will need to spend more than he does. That is, I have a baseline set of expenditures below which I probably can’t drop without having to go hungry, let the landscaping die for lack of water, and get rid of the dog. Or…sell my home, move to Sun City, and pocket $30,000 to be used to help support me in bumhood. Accordingly, I have a baseline set of frugal values that I can’t or won’t violate, which entail living within my means and not running up debt.

The $43,000 that CNN’s hypothetical retiree plans to draw down from savings at the age of 65 is more than my net income. Add Social Security to it and subtract about 20 percent for taxes, and you come up with significantly more than I live on now. And in fact, even though my savings have not yet quite come back up to 500 grand, by the time I’ve cobbled together Social Security, a light part-time job, and a more modest drawdown from savings, I may actually net more than the Great Desert University is paying me. So, in theory, if more than enough comes in to support my baseline expenditures, I could adjust my baseline frugal values upward, into the somewhat less frugal range.

The recession has fostered a fresh vision of commonsense values among many Americans. As we’ve seen our jobs vanish and the equity in our homes melt away, we’ve come to realize that debt is a form of slavery—it forces us to keep working at jobs we hate, when we might take lower-paid but more enjoyable work or even be free to live without a day job. We’ve discovered that buying only what we need makes our lives simpler and easier to manage; that bigger or more is not necessarily better. Many have come to realize, too, that a frugal lifestyle is in many ways a green lifestyle: living smaller and lighter not only saves money, it’s socially and environmentally responsible.

That said, there’s a lot of pent-up demand. Except for the brief bump-up from the Cash for Clunkers program, people haven’t bought cars in two years. Growing families may need to move from two-bedroom apartments to larger digs; shrinking families or divorcing couples need to move to smaller places; unemployed workers following jobs to new cities need to sell or default on their homes and find new places to live. As the economy improves, there’s bound to be some spending to take up the slack.

But will we whip out our credit cards? Will we furnish the living room with a gigantic new digital TV screen? Will we head for the Armani rack the next time we allow ourselves to go into a department store? Will we reinstate the premium cable and that cell service that gave us half-a-dozen bell-and-whistle-laden phones? Will we borrow against the reviving equity in our homes to buy another boat?

My own plan is to continue living light on the land. If income rises, as appears possible, anything extra will go directly into savings, the better to support my baseline, third-stage personal finance value of never having to work another day job.

What about you? When things get better, what will you spend the loot on? Or…will you spend it at all?

Image: Worker. Public Domain. Wikipedia Commons.

Well, it’s not hard to see what retirement will be like: every living, breathing minute occupied with something! SDXB used to say he was never so busy before he retired as after. He certainly doesn’t let any proverbial grass grow under his proverbial feet.

Choir and choir practice are great, wonderfully enjoyable—mostly because of the director’s extraordinary talent and depth of knowledge. That and the general charm of the members and the beauty of the Anglican array of music. It does, though, add an extra layer of busyness.

The pool is functioning OK now, though it must be allowed that Harvey the Hayward pool cleaner isn’t running the way he should. Toted him up to the pool place again. They advised me to test the system’s suction with a gadget that came with Harvey (so that’s what it’s for!). Far as I can tell, the system is working all right. Too busy to fiddle with it any more.

Naturally, as two rafts of student papers came in, we got a long paper from one of our client journals, three math papers from another, and a passel of abstracts from a third. Foisted the math onto my underlings but still was kept busy for many hours with the rest of the stuff. Then a new client surfaced with a dissertation prospectus: 36 pages of arcane statistical research and a zillion references—author is unsure whether he’s doing them according to the new sixth edition of APA. Almost every one of those had to be tracked down and checked, as well as regularized in the new format. He sent it Monday or Tuesday; needed it Thursday. Then a friend/client sent over a paper, part of her ongoing research agenda: 21 pages of sociology, needs it right away.

Meanwhile, for reasons I don’t understand I had the Carnival of Personal Finance on my calendar, scheduled for next Monday. Thank goodness, when I went in there to find out how to access the system again, I discovered that Taking Charge will be taking charge this weekend, not me. Why the phantom entry in the calendar remains unexplained. At any rate, I’m mighty relieved not to have to do that big job this weekend. Be sure to visit Taking Charge next Monday, and before then to submit your posts to the carnival.

One of the choir members is finishing an interesting-sounding book. I said I’d advise her on finding a publisher…so she just sent a bunch of stuff to review. It being past dinnertime as I scribble and me being too whipped to get up from in front of the computer, I guess that’ll have to wait till tomorrow.

Complicating things further, one of Paradise Valley’s young athletes, a cross-country runner, got himself registered in my Friday afternoon class only to discover that it conflicts mightily with the team’s schedule, which will take him out of town about half of the class meetings. At this point, no other sections will fit into his schedule, and it’s too late to transfer him anyway. He’s such a bright and engaging young man, I decided to bestir myself to keep him in the class. That is going to entail a lot of work: basically, I’ll have to write a whole new online course for this character.

Friday morning: occupied with the substitute class. Thank heavens that one ends today.

Friday afternoon: occupied with a Paradise Valley class.

Between morning and afternoon: track down an errant paycheck at the college cashier’s office; check to see if I left some stoont papers in the library, since several people who were present didn’t turn in work.

Saturday morning: 8 to noon substituting for another Phoenix College class. $50 an hour!! 🙂

Saturday afternoon: figure out how to accommodate the cross-country runner, write a parallel syllabus and worksheets for him (this will run into Sunday and probably Monday).

Sunday: choir, 9 to noon.

Sunday afternoon: Got to clean house!

Paper settles on all the surfaces in my house as dust settles out of the air. My house is a pigpen. I simply must stop long enough to do the laundry, pick up the litter, clean the furniture, floors, kitchen, and bathroom, and reconcile the bank accounts. Those chores represent more than half a day of work.

Gasp!

😯

Image: Wake Vortex Study at Wallops Island, NASA-Langley Research Center
Wikipedia Commons

When I served up the recently invented bubbly lemonade to M’hijito, he observed that it’s a variety of Mexican water; and when I described the version I made with watermelon, he said that’s classic Mexican water.

So…what’s “Mexican water,” besides something you shouldn’t drink or brush your teeth with? It is in fact very similar to my concoction, except that it’s made with flat water instead of seltzer. Here’s a typical recipe for one made with watermelon:

You  need:

about 4 cups cut-up watermelon, seeds removed (I used seedless melon)
8 to 12 cups water
a blender
a large pitcher
about 1.5 cups sugar, or to taste

In batches, purée the watermelon in a blender. Add water and then stir in the sugar. Chill well and serve with a slice of lime or a mint garnish.

For the fizzy version I invented, I added no sugar. Instead I used one of those small, round melons, which are wonderfully sweet. This makes about two servings:

a cut-up slice of watermelon, seeds removed (I used seedless melon)
a can of seltzer water, chilled
a blender
a tall glass
ice

Purée melon in the blender. Pour enough into a glassful of ice to fill about 1/3 to 1/2 to the top. Top with cold seltzer or club soda.

M’hijito says you can make these with cantaloupe or strawberries. In that case, he suggests, run the purée through a strainer before adding water.  A squeeze of lime is an authentic Mexican touch, too.

Any of these drinks lend themselves to the addition of vodka or rum.