This winter I decided to heat the room I’m occupying with a space heater, rather than use the central HVAC system (a heat pump) to warm the entire house. At night, I’m turning the heat off altogether.
The electric bill just arrived: $90.99. Last January it was $128.14. That’s a $37.15 savings. More, in reality: the power company raised its bills by 6 percent this year.
It’s up from last month’s bill of $63.52, probably because this January was cooler than December and I did turn the central heating on a few times to take the chill off the morning. This winter has been warmer than usual—only a couple of nights in the low 30s, though the neighbors’ roofs are white with frost every at every sunrise. January was rainy and gray. In December, the sun shone most every day, warming the house through the south-facing windows by 10:00 a.m. Still, if you believe the graph included in the power company’s bill, I used a little more than half the kWh I expended last January…and last winter was pretty cold.
So, now we have two months’ worth of data suggesting that the use of space heaters, sweaters, and warm blankets works to beat ever-expanding power bills.
Was I cold? A few times. But never unbearably so. When I felt cold I put on some more clothes. You are, after all, supposed to be cold in the winter.
Michael Florek
General Manager Scientific American
415 Madison Ave.
New York, NY 10017
Dear Mr. Florek:
I believe your circulation department finally succeeded in snookering me with its flurry of hysterical “your-subscription-is-expired” mailings sent months before the real expiration date.
Because this dishonest tactic has become the custom in magazine fulfillment, I started using an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of when I actually pay for subscriptions. However, your flurry started before December, and in the holiday rush I neglected to look up the last date I paid.
Note the enclosed, stating that my subscription has “officially expired,” which arrived last month. Don’t think so. A belated look at the spreadsheet (also enclosed) reveals that I paid for a year’s subscription on 2/20/08. This means that at the time I sent you another check, on 12/9/08, my subscription still had almost two and a half months to run!
This is a rip-off, and I highly resent it. I work for a university, and believe me, my friend, I am not paid what some publishing executive on Madison Avenue earns. I cannot afford to be gouged two or three months in advance for a bill I do not owe.
If you want to keep me as a subscriber, you need to credit me for the extra two months and 11 days I’ve paid for. I will resubscribe (maybe) in February of 2010, which is when the two subscriptions I now own will expire.
You and your fulfillment contractors should be ashamed.
Sincerely, (etc.)
Attached: Letter from Mr. Florek exclaiming the subscription expired, received in December
Excel spreadsheet showing payments on 2/20/07, 2/20/08, and 12/9/08
Well, here’s one of the problems of senility: if your notes to yourself are to work, you have to readthe notes! You can’t read notes to help you remember things unless you remember to read the notes.
Yesterday afternoon I took the Sanitas back to the Shoe Mill in lovely downtown Tempe (for those of you who haven’t been following along, these pain-free shoes are made by the original makers of the formerly glorious Danskos, which are now manufactured in China thanks to a corporate change of hands). This put $129.72 back on the AMEX card. Then I ordered an identical pair from Footprints.com for a total of $79.95.
Tax on the local purchase was $9.72. Shipping for the online purchase was $10. So even though the tax was on a larger amount, I see that as kind of a wash.
My savings on this transaction: fifty bucks.
One thing I’ve discovered over the years is that you can return most things to most stores. If you find a better deal somewhere else before you’ve put any wear on an item, take the thing back to the higher-charging merchant and buy it where you can save some cash. Ditto if you realize you don’t need something after you’ve made an impulse buy. Obviously, you shouldn’t abuse this—buying a dress or a jacket to wear to a wedding and then returning it to the vendor is exploitive and dishonest. But if you haven’t used it at all, there’s no reason not to return it.
After bicycling over to a neighbor’s house to help her climb into her car (she’s moving clumsily from recent foot surgery), I spent about an hour this afternoon riding around the neighborhood and the one closer to Central Avenue. One of my RAs said she and her new husband put a bid on a house somewhere in that area, and I was curious to see which place it might have been. A couple of places were possibilities, but if so, then the new hubby must be earning a ton of money.
I never cease to marvel that somehow I managed to land in such a lovely, in-town area.
Fifteen years ago, as a new divorcée I was living on an amount of alimony that my lawyer and my financial advisor had urged me not to accept. Neither of them thought I could possibly survive on it, nor did anyone expect that after 20 years as a society matron I had a chance of landing a job that would pay a living wage. A drive-by shooting outside the apartment complex where I was living led me to contact a real estate agent and set him to searching for a house.
The old house: front yard in a rainstorm, through the living room window
During the several weeks we looked at candidates, he took me to a 1970s block house that seemed dark and un-promising. Though it had been immac-ulately maintained, it still had the harvest gold shag carpets, formica countertops, and appliances that must have been installed when the place was built. I rejected it. We continued to look. After I saw the other shacks that I could afford, harvest gold took on a certain retro charm. And the house’s beautiful, professionally landscaped yard with its mature trees that created a park-like atmosphere in back looked downright gorgeous.
My agent managed to get the house for $30,000 below the asking price. Meanwhile, I had cowritten a book that quickly became a best-seller. My pay for that was enough to put down more than 20 percent on the house, leaving me with a mortgage that I couldn’t possibly pay alone. However, I easily persuaded SDXB (who at that time was simply BF: Boyfriend) to move in with me. He paid half the mortgage and part of the utility bill, which I carried on my books as rent. This allowed me to deduct a large portion of the many improvements the house needed, making new carpets and countertops more or less affordable.
As it developed, the little tract of block houses that I’d bought into is adjacent to one of the most upscale neighborhoods in the city. The centerpiece of this area is a large, beautiful park which, because the residents insisted that no bathroom facilities be installed, is free of the usual midcity transients and so is a safe and pleasant place to hang out: an asset instead of the drawback that a public park can be. My neighborhood forms a buffer zone between the fancy district and a pile of ratty, crime-ridden apartments on the other side of a main drag that has long been a conduit of blight. Because of that and because of the large number of rentals in my area (at one point, Mr. B***‘s rental empire comprised six houses in the two- by three-block development, and his were not the only rentals), the value of the sturdy, well built, and well designed houses has consistently lagged behind comparable properties in the North Central district.
After some fix-up, I fell in love with my house and the immediate neighbors, some of them original owners and all of them friendly and quiet. After several years, though, the harassment factor from the constant cop helicopter flyovers and the noise from the thundering intersection about three blocks away came to feel like real problems—you could set your clock at 11:00 p.m. by the cops buzzing the war zones to the north and the west of us, and some nights the traffic roar was so loud SDXB and I had to shout to hear each other speak in the backyard. The trees in the yard were dying: I lost an olive tree in front, two of the three ash trees were suffering from ash decline, and the gorgeous old fig tree developed a canker disease that an arborist had declared incurable and terminal. I replaced the olive with a mesquite, but the other trees would each cost about a thousand bucks to cut down, and when they were gone, the back yard’s charm would go with them.
I began to think I wanted to move somewhere else in the central part of the city. Months of searching elided into years, with no luck at finding a new-to-me place. By now, my house was paid for, because I stumbled into a good job whose salary allowed me to apply all the alimony plus a small inheritance to the principal, eliminating it fairly quickly. I did not want to take on another mortgage. Because of the location and the rentals, what I could get for my house would not buy another place comparable to mine in a neighborhood that felt safe for a single woman. Everything in my price range made my house look fantastically good. Any house that was similar to my place cost $80,000 to $100,000 more, and anything better—either in design and construction or in location—was astronomically beyond my means. Eventually it became clear that my only options were to stay put or to move to the suburbs or Sun City. I don’t care for the ‘burbs; my commute to the university is long enough, thank you; and Sun City is anathema.
Climbing roses on the deck
Just as the housing bubble was starting to inflate, the house I’m in came up for sale: in the same neighbor-hood I was living in. The owners, lovingly known as Satan and Proserpine, had done a lot of fix-up: removed the old dark-brown 1972 tract-house cabinetry and replaced it with handsome new cabinets, appliances, and countertops, installed very attractive floor tile, ripped out the plastic shower surround and replaced it with travertine, knocked a hole in the west wall and installed an Arcadia door opening onto a pretty little covered deck, installed an Arcadia door in the master bedroom…all of which created a bright, updated effect. The house had a fireplace and a big swimming pool—which my old place did not—and best of all, it sat on about a quarter of an acre in the quietest part of the neighborhood: the house is located as far away from the tenements and the main drags as you can get without being in the more expensive tract. It is, in a word, right in the rich folks’ laps.
This corner of the neighborhood is much, much quieter. Although the cops still roar overhead once every evening or two, they don’t park right on top of the house while they harry the perps, as they still do over the old house. Traffic noise is barely audible here. At night, I can sleep with a window locked partly open, out of the question in the other house. With Dave’s Used Car Lot, Marina, and Weed Arboretum out of the picture, the street is pleasant enough. And the mature, shady neighborhood of $500,000 to $1.5 million homes that starts about 200 feet from my front yard is very pleasant, indeed.
Come to think of it, the very idea that a middle-aged grass widow without a hope of ever earning a decent living should land in a beautiful—paid-off!—placelike this is absolutely incredible. I should still be dodging bullets and fighting off car thieves downtown, or trying to sleep through the midnight serenade of boomboxes and remote car door lock quacks and yaps from an apartment-house parking lot, or at best hunkered into a condo in some rabbit warren on a main drag in Scottsdale or Tempe.
Slumgullion is one of the great comfort foods of the Western World. Slumgullion: that would be a stew-like mélange (some would call it “slop”) concocted from whatever fresh and leftover (preferably leftover) food happens to be in the house.
The folks who invented Hamburger Helper recognized this and capitalized on it. You take the contents of a box and stir it in with some fried hamburger; reconstitute some dried sauce by stirring it in, and…uhm…voilà.
Right: Macaroni a-cooking. Left: Slumgullion under way.
If you have a can of tomato sauce, a little hamburger, some frozen, canned or leftover veggies, and some pasta, rice, or potatoes hanging around the house, you can make your own slumgullion without the “help” of a megacorporation. It may not be cheaper (I don’t buy a lot of processed foodoids and so don’t know the price of Hamburger Helper), but you can bet it will taste better. And you’ll know pretty much what’s in it.
Slumgullion is mighty forgiving. You can whip it up with as many or as few ingredients as you have at hand, assuming you have some hamburger and something to flavor it up with. I happen to favor tomato sauce or canned tomatoes, but leftover gravy, milk, or wine will do the job. The other day I found chuck roast on sale at the Safeway for $1.27 a pound. I bought a humungous chunk of meat and had the butcher convert it to hamburger (which happened to be selling for $2.27 a pound that day). Most of this was dogburger: intended to be fed to Cassie the Corgi. However, I can’t resist good hamburger, and fresh-ground from a single roast can’t be beat.
So the first night I grilled several patties over charcoal, providing a feast for myself and about a half-dozen meals for the dog. This left a large amount of hamburger to be dispensed with. Last night, shoveling my way through a mountain of burger, I used some of it to build a tasty slumgullion, which made enough for dinner and at least two more meals. The general outline of the recipe looked like this:
You need: • A large frying pan • Some hamburger (1/2 to 1 pound, depending on number of people to serve) • 1 or 2 small cans tomato sauce, or 1 can tomatoes • A splash of red wine, if you have it; or some beef broth; or some milk • Leftover or frozen veggies (I had a few frozen asparagus spears, some frozen peas, and some frozen corn) • An onion • Some garlic • A splash of olive oil or other vegetable oil • Whatever herbs you have around the house or garden (such as thyme, marjoram, basil…anything will work. I used some dried herbes de provence) • Some ground cinnamon • Cooked pasta, leftover mashed potatoes (!), or rice
Dice the onion. Coarsely chop the garlic.
Skim the bottom of the frying pan with oil. Over medium to medium-high heat, cook the onion until it begins to caramelize (i.e., to brown). Lift the onion out of the pan and set it aside on a plate or in a bowl. Put the hamburger into the hot pan; add the garlic and the cinnamon and cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat is done through. Add the herbs. Stir. Add the tomato sauce or canned tomatoes. Stir. Bring back to the simmer. Add the frozen vegetables. Stir around and allow to simmer until the veggies are cooked.
Meanwhile, reheat mashed potatoes (you can microwave them) or cook the pasta or the rice.
Assess the slumgullion. If it seems too thick to act like a sauce (it should be about the consistency of spaghetti sauce, IMHO), add another can of tomato sauce or a splash of red wine or some beef broth or milk to achieve the desired sauce-likeness.
Serve the miracle elixir over the starch of your choice. Top with some parmesan or other grated cheese, if desired and as desired.
This concoction, which is about as down-home as you can get, serves nicely as a full meal. You can add a salad, if you think you can get around it, to create an even more complete full-meal effect. Sooo good on a cold day! And it gets better when it’s reheated the next day.
Doughroller kindly featured Funny’s squib on decluttering and recluttering at the top of this week’s Editor’s Picks for the 159th Festival of Frugality! That is very flattering, especially since the festival features quite a few excellent and entertaining posts. Saving Advice, for example, touches on one of my pet peeves: neighbors who jam their garages with junk and then leave the rolling stock parked on the driveway, in the front yard, and along the curb. At Value for Your Life, Amanda discusses her strategy for implementing her 25% Grocery Savings rule; before you read that post, definitely click on the first link in her post, where she describes the amazing result of her scheme. There’s a nice conversation going on at Cash Money Life that Patrick kicked off by explaining why he chose a PC over a MacBook. And speaking of decluttering & recluttering, if you’re of the female persuasion do check out Paula’s great commonsense steps to cleaning out and intelligently restocking your make-up stash.
Clever Dude hosts this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance with a highly original “fairy tale” narrative. Speaking of the cost of dog ownership, My Journey to Millions suggests making some provision in your will for the care of pets that survive you. To my mind it’s a little extreme to set up a trust in the name of your cat, but it might be a good idea to state specifically who is to take care of Fifi…and, uhm, to let that person know about it before you pass through the veil. Saving to Invest offers a very good guide for prospective apartment renters. Prime Time Money reminds us that it’s not too late to max out your contribution to your Roth IRA. Funny’s reflection on 2008’s best and worst personal finance strategies appears among this week’s CoPF selections.
This week’s Make It from Scratch Carnival appears at The Daily Dish. Once again, the food is to die for. If you love portobello mushrooms as much as I do, you’d better check out Simply Forties’s mouth-watering tomato broth with portobellos and spinach over gnocchi…good grief! By way of gilding the lily, she also explains how to make gnocchi. I went over to see Stephanie’s post on coffee liqueur, and by golly, what should come up but the very thing my mother used to make. It’s a lot cheaper than Kahlua and it tastes the same…or better! As a bonus, Stephanie also tells the story of how the MIfS Carnival came into being. Speaking of hoots and my mother (who crocheted like a wizard), My Recycled Bags is at it again, with a pattern for a great green shopping bag. I have got to relearn how to crochet! Funny’s contribution to this edition was the recipes for black-eyed peas and cornbread.
The Writer’s Coin hosts that blog’s very first carnival with this week’s Money Hacks Carnival, where Tina and I submitted our Copyeditor’s Desk post on setting freelance fees. At a blog I haven’t seen before, Pizza for a Dream presents a nice little fable for our times about a potato farmer and an apple farmer. Wealth Junkies discusses the pros and cons of short refinancing…nice trick if you can pull it off. And here’s something to look into, if you can afford to have a ton of money sitting in a bank: Mr. Banker reveals that some banks subscribe to a federal program that guarantees ALL your money in noninterest-bearing deposit transaction accounts. You learn something every day!
Yesterday afternoon I took the Sanitas back to the Shoe Mill in lovely downtown Tempe (for those of you who haven’t been following along, these 
After bicycling over to a neighbor’s house to help her climb into her car (she’s moving clumsily from recent foot surgery), I spent about an hour this afternoon riding around the neighborhood and the one closer to Central Avenue. One of my RAs said she and her new husband put a bid on a house somewhere in that area, and I was curious to see which place it might have been. A couple of places were possibilities, but if so, then the new hubby must be earning a ton of money.
