2012 - Surviving and Thriving

Giveaway: “The Good Life for Less.”

December 21, 2012 by Donna Freedman

9780399160295L-1 Amy Allen Clark knows a thing or two about frugality. She and her husband found themselves in financial trouble before the first of their two children was born. It was sink or swim, and she chose to swim: She championed the cause of cutting back expenses and paying off debts.

But that was just the start. Clark founded the MomAdvice.com website. She became a spokeswoman for brands like Kenmore, Kelloggs and Minute Maid. Now she’s written a book called “The Good Life For Less: Giving Your Family Great Meals, Good Times and a Happy Home on a Budget.”

The Molly Pitcher workout.

December 21, 2012December 20, 2012 by Donna Freedman

When I was in elementary school we heard the story of a brave Revolutionary War-era woman who carried water to the troops during the Battle of Monmouth. “Molly, Molly, bring us your pitcher,” the men would call on that hot July day. That’s how she became known as “Molly Pitcher,” we were told.

Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley did follow her husband, a barber who enlisted in the Revolutionary Army, and apparently helped him load cannons. But “Molly Pitcher” seems to have been just a generic nickname for women who carried water to the colonial troops.

The truth is so limiting. I like the legend better, especially after what happened to me yesterday.

Flying south, then east.

December 18, 2012December 15, 2012 by Donna Freedman

I’m writing this from Seattle Tacoma International Airport, after a super-fast flight from Anchorage: 2 hours, 54 minutes — the wind was certainly beneath our wings on this trip.

I leave here at 11:45 p.m. and journey on to Dallas/Fort Worth, and from thence to Philadelphia, landing at 10:30 a.m. Sunday unless the Anti-Destination League hears that I’m out loose.

I’m spending part of that day with an old friend and then trying to write the MSN Money Frugal Nation post for Tuesday. That’s because on Monday I’m taking the Megasbus to New York City, where I’ll meet with a couple of editor types, have dinner with a blogger friend and get in line for the “Book of Mormon” ticket lottery.

Getting a ticket would be a Christmas miracle. I am not holding my breath.

Giveaway: “Money Secrets of the Amish.”

January 3, 2013December 14, 2012 by Donna Freedman

The subtitle of Lorilee Craker’s book kind of gives the secret away: “Finding True Abundance in Simplicity, Sharing and Saving.”

Sure, we already know we should throttle back, give to others and sock away some dollars. But sometimes we need an example of how that works in real life.

True, the Amish way of living isn’t “real life” for most of us. We’re too wedded to niceties like cell phones, slow cookers and indoor plumbing. But it’s plenty real to them, and a very satisfying way of life.

Herself a Mennonite (albeit a “worldly” one), the author was intrigued by the group’s ability to thrive no matter how the rest of the world is doing.

She admits she hoped for “pearls of wisdom,” i.e., quick fixes. What she got was a series of timeless, common-sense tips that might feel easier said than done. Glimpsed up close, she saw how maxims like “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” can translate into a creative and, yes, abundant lifestyle.

I’m dreaming of a stripped-down Christmas.

December 10, 2012 by Donna Freedman

A single-mom blogger who goes by “Mutant Supermodel” is stressing over the holiday. She’d saved to buy gifts, but when her husband quit paying child support she had to spend every dime to keep herself and her three kids afloat.

It isn’t that MS fears there will be no Christmas. It’s that she fears she won’t be the one giving it.

“My kids are blessed with a large, loving extended family who will surely shower them with gifts the way they do at every special occasion,” she writes in a post called “$tre$$.”

“I know they don’t need or even want more stuff but I want to give it to them.”

Yet she doesn’t want to become part of the “relentless consumerism that so deeply affects this country.” Her compromise: Make some of her gifts, and limit the children’s Santa lists to that old favorite, “something I want, something I need, something to wear, something to read.”

“I think it’s better this way than a free for all,” MS concluded.

Me too – and I say that as someone who’s feeling the same contradictory clash of emotions.

5 frugal trashcan hacks.

June 23, 2014December 7, 2012 by Donna Freedman

First USEME trashcan sighting in Ramoji Film City © by vincelaconte

When I lived in Seattle my under-sink trashcan was quite small. I could get away with this for several reasons: I lived alone, cooked frugally and took enthusiastic advantage of the city’s single-stream recycling program. Generally it took a week or more for the can to fill up.

Being an illegitimus frugalis, I never bought a single kitchen trashcan liner. Why should I, when plastic shopping bags were so ubiquitous? Even though I toted at least one reusable bag everywhere I went, the plastics had a way of accumulating:

I picked them up while walking home. (Once I also picked up some free ice cream this way.)

People gave me things inside shopping bags.

Sometimes I bought so much (usually from the used-bread, used-meat or dented-can bins that the order wouldn’t fit in my cloth bag, so I’d have to accept an additional plastic one.

I gleaned them while on vacation. My relatives tend to use plastic with happy abandon. Folded-up bags take up practically no room in a carry-on.

Thus I always had at least a few dozen bags on hand. That is, until Seattle’s ban on plastic shopping bags took effect in July 2012.

Tweets from Talkeetna: The sequel.

May 14, 2013December 3, 2012 by Donna Freedman

The 2012 Talkeetna Bachelor Auction was the most profitable ever, and possibly the most raucous: a four-hour howlfest that had at least one woman literally swinging from the rafters.

I am not making that up. This was a late-30s/early-40s woman sitting in my row in the upper level of the Sheldon Community Arts Hangar. Several times she got so carried away that she grabbed hold of an overhead beam and swung from it.

When I say “carried away,” I mean “under the influence of alcohol.” But she was not alone. Let’s just say that a whole lot of red Solo cups got filled up — and emptied — that night.

13 ways to prepare for income reduction.

May 11, 2015November 27, 2012 by Donna Freedman

A reader suggested an article on preparing for income reduction. Not layoff or job loss, but rather a partial loss of expected funds – salary reduction, an end to child support and the like.

“Where you still have a job, but really need to evaluate the ‘new budget’,” she says.

I’ve written on this subject before, calling it the “financial fire drill.” You figure out how little you can get away with spending – and you do it with an attitude of calm preparation, not fear of deprivation.

This baker’s dozen of tips will get you started.

A shooter’s view of Alaska.

December 11, 2012November 23, 2012 by Donna Freedman

That’s “shooter” as in photographer, not as in hunter.

This week’s giveaway “Snap Decisions: My 30 Years as an Alaska News Photographer,” is more than just the moose-and-goose-in-the-spruce school of photography.

I do have to say, however, that the moose photo to the left is one of my favorite images ever published in the Anchorage Daily News.

Black Friday 2012: A near-minimalist approach.

December 13, 2012November 23, 2012 by Donna Freedman

If I were a true minimalist I wouldn’t shop at all, or I’d specialize in experiences over Stuff. But I came pretty close to skipping the madness this year: one online order late Thursday night and one small ($3.99) purchase this morning.

Not without a bit of danger first, though. My niece and nephews and I had spent about an hour looking through the ads from the biggest newspaper of the year. I’d hesitated to bring them out, fearing the site of all that swag would turn the boys (ages 6 and 11) into Monsters of Acquisition.

Surprisingly, that didn’t happen. Even more surprisingly, the only person who got a little monstrous around the edges was me.