A frugal husband makes for a fun dad on Valentine’s Day

As a parent of five children and an owner of one aging house, Valentine’s is that mid-winter rainy day for which I find myself soaking wet because my fiduciary reality has always been less meteorological and more astronomical.

I suppose I should be thankful that things seem to breakdown whenever I get a little ahead. Take for example last year’s tax refund – TV, washer, and refrigerator – all kaput within days of each other.
It seems any budget surplus I’ve ever experienced has been liquidated faster than a barfly on St. Patrick’s Day.

To keep our head above the flood waters, we focus on the unavoidable capital outlays throughout the fiscal year: insurance, utilities, taxes, mortgage, and the most demanding of them all: kids.
Then there are those other “unavoidables” where return must be weighed heavily against investment.

Valentine’s Day is one of those debits in the spreadsheet of life.

So, in these times of recession, I proclaimed to my adoring wife, we all must make sacrifices. Frivolous expenditures need to be, if not cut entirely, certainly timed back or deferred. But frivolous may have not been the right word, I said in response to the charming glare I received as she left the room.

Although I consider myself quite a romantic guy, I realize our current economy forces a working guy to consider his investment options very carefully when it comes to the lovers holiday.

Current economic conditions inhibit the acquisition of gifts that are consumable. These include going out to dinner and surprising her with the predictable heart of chocolate. Yes, these things contain lofty direct profits, but they are short term and what we’re looking for here is durable assets.
The flower du jour for this “holiday” is the expensive rose. I ask why not milkweed or dandelion. And what’s worse, roses are sold by the dozen. Sure, I could be one long-stem rose. That was fine when I was just out of college struggling to make ends meet. Now that I’m in my 40’s struggling to make ends meet, a single rose is just pathetic.

Diamonds are the raison d’être, the big kahuna of Valentine’s Day gifts and they offer significant returns. However, it is a hefty out-of-pocket venture with one big caveat emptor: size matters.
There are the lesser stones, your sapphires, emeralds, satin gypsums, but they are more like generic cereal at the breakfast table of jewelry. Just see what happens when you slam a box of Capt. Munch in front of your brand savvy kids.

Gold is generally a safe commodity. Its immediate value is quite high with a rapid return of investment, but that value can fade into the oblivion of the jewelry box as fashion dictates that next best gift. Then the initial venture depreciates into sentimental value which may spike periodically when cleaning out the jewelry box. It’s true that gold will always have its market value, but even the suggestion of liquidating unworn jewelry will surely cause a melt-down of another sort all together.

While there are many other choices to take stock in for us romantic but thrifty types – coffee mugs, gift baskets, books of poetry, bath salts, beer-of-the-month club – investor beware: A bear in the bull market of Valentine’s Day must advance cautiously in hopes his acquisition compounds a great deal of interest for his beneficiary lest your tear sheets bring about sheets of tears.

So to ease the undue pressures of Valentine’s Day, my wife and I have decided that it is all about the kids. We’ll run to the dollar store for some decorations and candy hearts with little sayings. We’ll make some pancakes in the shape of hearts, and maybe even a cake with pink icing and red and white sprinkles.
And there will be a little surprise for my wife, too, because I am not a complete idiot.
from http://www.nj.com/parenting/index.ssf/2013/02/a_frugal_husband_makes_for_a_f.html

A mall's closing can mean more than just bottom-dollar bargains

A few weeks ago, I read that the Shore Mall in Egg Harbor Township, Atlantic County, was closing at the end of the month, and that the bulk of the building was slated for demolition. I realized that I couldn't just sit idly by; I was compelled to do something. So I loaded up the minivan with the family and took the hour or so drive for one last look.
The sense of place has a way of weaving itself into the fabric of one's being, and certainly, the Shore Mall is woven into mine like fine, majestic denim.
I took the “back way” to the mall, the same route my dad always took when I was a kid. My dad never like highways. He would go miles out of his way, along roads with no shoulders or curbs, just to avoid a little traffic. I was amazed by the many housing developments that now populated areas that were considered the middle of nowhere decades ago.
The vast back parking area of the mall looked pretty much the same except for the notable absence of parked cars. This was the place where for many years my parents would take my brothers and me to watch Santa Claus land in a helicopter.
We pulled up to my old go-to entrance. I was thrilled to get one of the best parking spaces I'd ever gotten there. Inside felt like Mad Max meets Mall Rats. Workers were carting out a Tetris of display fixtures. Many stores were dark, empty, and gated. Those that were still open appeared sparsely stocked and disheveled. There were a few people roaming about possibly looking for bargains or, like me, reminiscences.
I showed my kids where the old Sears catalog pick-up used to be. My mom did all our back-to-school shopping by catalog. Weeks later we'd go to the small catalog pick-up area, take a number, and wait an eternity.
“That's where I bought my first pair of Levi's,” I told my kids. Since all our back-to-school clothes were from the Sears catalog, all my jeans were Toughskins, a unique type of denim that did not resemble anything my friends were wearing, which they often reminded of.
I pointed out where the music store used to be. That was the place I bought the Grease soundtrack record that got me in so much trouble. My older brother and I had taken the bus to the mall. The last thing my dad had said to us was to make sure we keep enough money to get back on the bus. When I saw how much the Grease album was, I had a dilemma. Needless to say, my father was very angry and yelled at me through most of the back roads home.
There were so many places with their stories. Here was the shell of a department store I worked at when I was in high school. They assigned me to the linens department. It was very awkward at first. But, let me tell you, I can still fold a fitting sheet like nobody's business. There was the space where the t-shirt kiosk used to be where I once bought a Cheap Trick t-shirt that my aunt thought inappropriate for a boy to wear until I explained to her that they were a rock band. And where I got a John Lennon t-shirt a couple of days after he was killed.
While my wife took our five year old daughter to the bathroom, I stood with my two youngest boys, put my arms on their shoulders and told them that how this mall was one of the ruins of my life in progress, my Parthenon, a monument to what was that helped create in me what is, and in a few short months, it will be a flat empty space.
I told my kids to look around, but not just here. I told them to remember to look around in their own lives, to appreciate the places they go because it will all be woven into who they will be.
As we walked out the door by the old pizzeria, my daughter looked up to me thoughtfully and said, “You mean we're not even going to get anything!”http://www.nj.com/parenting/index.ssf/2013/01/a_malls_closing_can_mean_more.html

Summer Family Depression

I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed, but reruns of the 1970s family drama, “The Waltons” has been showing up on more than one cable channel.

The resurgence – albeit modest – of the Great Depression family throwback hit couldn’t come at a better time because my family is in the throes an economic depression of our own, so with the retro-runs I can show my kids just how fun a depression can be. 

While summer gives my kids more time to ride their bikes, play at the park, swim in the lake, hang out with their friends, it also affords them more time to ask for things.  I can’t imagine how they make it from breakfast to lunch during the school year without grazing a kitchen every half hour.

Just the other night my wife and I were sitting on our front porch swing when my daughter opened the front door and asked if she could have some leftover chili.  My wife said no because they would be having it for lunch the next day.  Two minutes later my son steps out and asks if he could have a few slices of cold cuts.  No, my wife said, the cold cuts are for lunches.  Not five minutes later, my daughter, who obviously lost the toss, opened the door, told us how much she loved us and asked if we could order a pizza.

It’s not as though we don’t feed our children, we do.  Only three hours earlier we were sitting at the table scoffing down bowls of chili and rice.  My son had three helpings to my one. 

And it’s not just food.  Apparently parental greetings now begin with Can I get...?  Can I have…?  Can we buy…? 

  

The problem is we can’t just spend money that way during the summer.  You see, I am a teacher and just about midsummer my family hits a depression.

Early in June we hit an economic slowdown and eventual recession where any fiscal growth slows, spending comes to a near halt, and employment opportunities are reduced greatly. 

Sure, we tuck some money under the mattress throughout the school year for the rainy day that is June, July and August, but that little cushion has a funny way of losing its stuffing every time we change the sheets.  Wouldn’t it be nice if…? begins the conversation.  We’ll just take a little…it continues.  We’ll make sure to replace it…we vow.  The cushion ends up being a flimsy sheet.

Once September hits we enter into a period of recovery when the demands for goods and services (new clothes, school supplies, activities, fundraisers, etc.) are able to be met with the supply of income (Dad working a couple of after school activities and teaching a couple of courses at the local university). 

However, the recovery is short lived and almost immediately falls into another recession with the onset of the holiday season.

About a month into the new year an economic boon occurs.  With summer impossible to imagine with all that snow and ice, spending becomes a remedy for cabin fever:  Some clothing for us or perhaps a new piece of furniture, a new video game for them because the poor little darlings are stuck inside.  Wouldn’t be nice if…we’ll just take a little…we’ll make sure to replace it. 

The household economy cycles back to the June slowdown followed by the summer depression where there is no room for eating leftovers as a snack, and no room for pizza.

There is room, however, for some fresh air-popped popcorn in front of penny-pinching, purse-string-tightening entertainment and a hopeful lesson for my kids that one does not need a lot of possessions to be happy episodes of “The Waltons,” and, though they may not believe it, they could be much worse off:  They could have even more brothers and sisters.

Deodorant Identity Crisis

According to a 2010 report by Global Industries Analysis, Inc., by the year 2015, the market for men’s grooming products will exceed $33.2 billion. Although many male and female oriented personal grooming products have basically the same ingredients, marketers seem to have successfully convinced us that women perspire while real men, like me, sweat.  Does this marketing further divide the sexes or simply highlight the already seeded inequalities?

One morning in the not too distant past, I involuntarily and quite innocently grabbed deodorant and began gliding it under my left arm.  As I switched hands to give the other side a swipe, I noticed that I had mistakenly grabbed my wife's deodorant.  I looked at my brand still sitting there on the shelf.  I looked at my wife's in my hand and then back at the shelf.  I had applied my wife's deodorant, women's deodorant.  pH balanced deodorant.  Instead of smelling of sport musk, I'd be lilac fresh all day long. 

I had options.  I could simply apply hers to the other side; I could put my deodorant on the other side; I could step back in the shower, scrub it off, and apply anew. 

I glanced back at my deodorant on the shelf and then back to hers in my hand.  Oh, the heck with it, I thought, and evened up the other side with her stick.  I told myself if anything out of the ordinary happens this day, I'd know why.

I stood halfway inside my closet trying to decide what to wear.  With my deodorant identity crisis now full blown, I was cautious about every move I made.  Why had I just pulled out a silk shirt?  It wasn't what I usually wore to work.  Plain, breathable cotton is what is called for, certainly not silk.  Was it that I now wanted something softer against my skin?

After pouring a cup of coffee, I turned on the television to one of those morning news shows.  There, during the station breaks, I was told how a mother can comfort a sick child with liquid pain relief; that women who work can come home and pour a complete meal out of a plastic bag from your grocer's freezer; and if I had decided to go strapless today, I had used the right deodorant because even though it was a solid, it goes on clear.

I wondered if I would be more or less aggressive on the commute.  Would I be more or less tolerant of sexist slurs in the professional workplace?  Would I listen far more carefully to what people say without thinking more of what I'm going to say when they are done speaking?  Would I take off one of my shoes in a meeting?  Would I clean the office microwave? 

I contemplated calling in sick and watching Sports Center all day.

Enough, enough, enough!  What was I doing?  I have always considered myself an enlightened, forward-thinking individual.  I have prided myself at being above the lure of advertising.  It doesn't affect me.  I don't need Madison Avenue to tell me what to think or how to smell.  How could I have been so wrong?

Is it that I had been fooling myself for years, or is it that advertising seeps into our collective subconscious far more than we'd like to admit?  Are we far more duped than we realize or does it go deeper?

Perhaps what we fear most is that part of us we don’t want to admit is there.  Does the liberal tolerate so much diversity because he or she is afraid of the conservative within, a suppressed trust, perhaps, in a father's words?  Does the civil rights activist commit so strongly because deep down inside there is suppressed hints of bigotry placed there by an environment in which he or she was raised?  Does the conservative demand fewer social programs so adamantly because he or she those programs just might work and level the playing field?

My wife met me in the kitchen just as I was about to leave.  She asked me why I had used her deodorant.  How did she know?  Did it show?  And here I was, thinking I had just gotten over the whole thing.  No, she told me.  Tell tale hair stuck to her stick.  Relieved, I explained to her my mishap.  She sighed and said she didn't know why we couldn't just always use the same one.

I shrugged my shoulders.  A faint whiff of lilac drifted to my nose.  I really didn't know why either.