Blast From the Past

I haven't bought a book in years--except Nancy Drew books, because I collect those.  In keeping with my semi-minimalist philosophy, I have exactly one bookshelf that is not quite full, and I don't intend to add anything too it. I get all the books I need from the library and so any money I spend has to be on books that are rare or unique.  Note: I know most Nancy Drew books are not unique, but they cost $1 at thrift stores and it's a collection.

Recently, however, I made the decision to buy a new book, and it's amazing how much I both thought about this idea and was insanely excited by it.

I'm an a book club, and we meet once a month.  For our next meeting, due to extended vacations in August, we're not meeting until September, so we picked a slightly longer book--The Goldfinch.

This is a book I've been planning on reading anyway, but I also know that the library waitlist is huge.  Also, this is a book that I kind of want to savor.  I love Donna Tartt, and she writes a novel every 12 years, I feel like I shouldn't rush through reading it.

I used to buy tons of books.  I was the girl with the overflowing shelves, stacks on the floor and piles on every available surface.  When I was a kid, I would save up all my money for trips to the bookstore where I would maximize what I had in a way to get the most words.  For instance, I always wanted to buy the beautiful Nancy Drew hardcovers, but at $3.99/each, that was too rich for my blood.  I could get the new Babysitter's Club and the new Mary Downing Hahn book for the same amount of money.  Then I would try to incorporate a classic, since the price point on those was a bit lower as well.  Love of reading meets personal finance at a very young age.

Then, in college, I worked at Barnes & Noble.  I read a lot of books for free while working, but I also purchased hundreds.  I just spent wily-nily, on anything I thought sounded interesting or looked good on a shelf.  I wasn't nearly as discerning, and my collection shows it.  I wound up with so many books that I didn't (still haven't) read, and a happy pile of credit card debt to boot.

Now that I work in libraries, I have no need to buy books.  After spending so much money on books I either didn't like or didn't read, it's too much of a risky proposition.  Plus, who needs the clutter?

I will say though, when I finally made the decision to actually buy this book, I felt that old flutter of excitement.  There is something truly magical about thinking through a purchase, deciding it's something you really want and then waiting a bit before actually getting it.  At first, I was going to just order it from Amazon, but then I remembered that there's a great independent bookstore close to my house, and I always lament that as a non book buyer, I can't really help them stay afloat.  Now I can!

The plan is: I shall walk down to the bookstore after work some evening and purchase my book.  I shall read it at my own pace without the threat of a three week due date and a long library patron waitlist hanging over my head.  Then I shall donate it to the library, because they need more copies and I don't need the clutter.

Huzzah for Hoarding!

I may be trying to keep my apartment minimalist, but I have not yet managed to translate that philosophy to my car.  Since I don't have much of a commute anymore, my car is not nearly the disaster zone that it used to be, but I still cringe at the idea of how much extra fuel I'm burning hauling around two camping chairs that I use every other year... Yeah, I should get those out of there...

Anyway, losing things in the trunk of the car actually saved the day the other day.

My new tv is great, and I love it everso.  I got Hulu+ so now my life is dominated by the Real World/ Road Rules Challenge:

Scandal:

And (and I do feel shame at this, but still admit it) The Only Way Is Essex

So much tanning and fake boobs--it's a trainwreck

So, I'm loving my Roku and my Hulu + but I was not loving the sound quality on the new tv.  The speakers are underneath, and despite messing around with it, it was often garbled or tinny or just way too quiet depending on what I was watching.  Then I remembered that a friend had lent me computer speakers for use at a job interview a couple years ago.  Lo and behold, because they were not mine and I intended to give them back, I found them in the trunk of my car!

I plugged them in, and they work perfectly!  Now I can finally understand about half of what the people on The Only Way Is Essex are saying

Yeah, you get hooked on this stuff.

I Hate Moving

I moved around a lot when I was a kid.  If I'm remembering correctly, We moved when I was 1, 3, 5, 6, 12, 13--and then when I moved out to go to college, I hopped around a couple more times eventually moving to Rhode Island and moving twice within Providence.  Now I'm fixing to move into Providence apartment number three, and all I can do is think that I hate everything I own and can't bear the thought of packing and carrying it--even though I've had tons of offers of help from friends!

As much as I like to say I'm a minimalist (or have minimalist leanings), I have to accept the fact that I just have a lot of stuff and I don't even know where to begin.  I've done the thing where I boxed up all of my books and felt a tremendous feeling of satisfaction--for about a day, and now I don't know what else to do.

I've been going through my things, giving away DVDs, selling things, piling stuff in my trunk for dropoff at the thrift store, but my apartment is still mostly unpacked.  I reserved a truck for the large furniture items (http://www.anyvan.com/), I changed over my gas and electric, I'm eating up the food in the house, and freecycling things that are useful but that I don't use. But how do I actually pack the things that I use frequently?

I'm still living in my current place until the end of the month, and the moving day for the big items is the 2nd--though hopefully I can start bringing over carloads on the 1st.

Is anyone out there a super packer/mover who can give me some tips?  I have a tendency to just shut down mentally when faced with such an overwhelming and arduous task.  I just stare at the mess and tell myself that I'll deal with it later, then I complain to a co-worker who moved recently and she says "I started packing six months before I moved."  Cue the panic.

Stuff You Don't Need

These are called pizza scissors--you don't need them

When my brother and I lived in the same town, we would frequently order pizza on a late Sunday afternoon, and then eat it while I did laundry and he just sat there watching tv (I watched tv too, while the clothes washed).  We would order the pizza, and then to kill time while waiting to pick it up, we would go to Bed Bath and Beyond.  I don't know what it is about that store, but it just soothes me.  Target is too dangerous, I always leave with something; Wal-Mart is just depressing and I refuse to go there; but BB&B is a store where I can frequently find what I need at a good price, but also happily leave the store with nothing, which is very rare with other stores.

It's also these frequent trips to BB&B that showed me the level of moronic gadgetry that exists in this world--mostly for the kitchen, and it is with great love for this store that I present you with a list of some of the dumbest shit I've seen available for sale (feel free to disagree with me, or add your own).

Panini Press.  A friend was freaking out on facebook a while ago about needing a panini press. She felt that they were a little too expensive, but knew that her kids love hot sandwiches and it would certainly get used a lot.  Cost per use dictated that, for her, this would be a great purchase.  But I completely derailed her way of thinking by asking one simple question: Don't you have a Foreman Grill?

Everyone in the world has a Foreman Grill, and if you don't have one, I guarantee that you can go to a thrift store and pick one up for $.50.  If that skeeves you out, get one from a friend.  If you live close to me, you can have our second Forman Grill.  In all of the apartments I've lived in over the years, both with people and alone, I swear I always have more than one.  We have two now because someone left one behind in BF's old apartment, and it has a bun warmer, so we totally kept it (bun warmers are a bit more rare).  Anyway, the point is, you may have a Forman Grill already and not even know it!  Use that to grill your sandwiches.

You're welcome.

Quesadilla Maker.  It's called a frying pan--and you already have one of those too.  If not, if you're sure you don't, buy one of those instead.  Go to TJ Maxx, or HomeGoods, or Burlington Coat Factory or the thrift store, and buy a frying pan.  Even if you eat quesadillas every single day, I really don't think you need one machine that only makes one food.  Plus, you should really eat some vegetables, which you can stir fry in a frying pan!

Single Cup Coffee Maker.  I know a lot of people have these and think they're super swell, but for all the convenience of brewing a single cup, you're wasting tons of plastic and paying up to $50 per pound of coffee.   From the New York Times, "For example, the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound."  Also, I've had coffee from these machines before, and I've never enjoyed it.  It takes two pods to fill a regular sized coffee cup, and the coffee just doesn't taste good.  If you're wasting coffee by brewing too much, brew less, or switch to instant coffee and make a cup at a time that way using a teakettle for the water, or even the microwave. K-cups are just instant coffee anyway.  I make four cups of coffee in the morning, drink those, and then have English tea the rest of the day.  I'm happy as can be.

This does not make your pizza more 'authentic'

Rice Cooker. To be honest, I've never had a rice cooker and I have heard that people like them a lot, so feel free to set me straight.  In my mind, it makes much more sense to get a crockpot that you can use to make a whole lot of other things besides rice (and you can also make rice in it).  A friend of mine got a rice cooker for her birthday one year, and she said that her parents had gotten her a cheaper ($50) one, which didn't really work that well.  My crock pot cost $30, and makes perfect rice every time.  It also makes me lots of stews, soups and other goodies.

Pizza Cooker.  Just use your oven, what is wrong with you?  Is the notion that a gadget like this cooks more evenly or something?  Even so, if your oven can't cook pizza properly, either figure out a way to make it work, or get a new oven.  The only way I could see someone needing a gadget like this, is if they lived in a dorm room or studio apartment with no oven, but this might violate the dorm room hot plate rule, so do some research first.

An excellent message

I'm planning on recapping the year that was 2010, just as soon as I go through my budget and examine areas where I failed and succeeded. Despite the setbacks: underemployment, a commute, general lack of money I think I've done pretty well this year. But that's another post.

One thing that burns me up is the way we're constantly told we need more stuff. We get this from advertisers and we do it to ourselves too. I've quit reading most frugality blogs because instead of actually being about spending little and living well for less, they end up being about getting good deals on stuff you don't need. Yes, I get sucked in sometimes too, I'm certainly not perfect, but it seems like some people will buy something just because it's two dollars, rather than because they actually need it.

The frugality blogosphere is abuzz with talk of this new TLC show Extreme Couponing. I haven't seen it, I most likely will not watch it, but the premise in a nutshell is that it profiles some of those extreme couponers that stack coupon on top of coupon and somehow manage to get thousands of dollars worth of stuff for practically free. I also find it incredibly bizarre that there's one show called Hoarders that derides filling your house with crap, and this new one that seems to celebrate it.

One of the extreme couponers "has more than 10,000 items stockpiled in his garage" Another, " Amanda is preparing for her largest checkout ever consisting of nine baskets of food, beauty and pet products including 218 boxes of pasta, 268 containers of noodles, 100 bottles of sport drink and 150 candy bars.

Retail value: $1,175.33. Amanda's cost after utilizing her coupons: $51.67."

Ok, good for her? Personally, I've had a terrible time trying to eat all of the boxed pasta I hoarded back in the day, and now two years later, I still have some left. And 150 candy bars? Why would you ever, ever want to buy 150 candy bars? This stuff has an expiration date, isn't very healthy in the first place.

This is a bit of a rant, but my point is, we need to stop buying stuff we don't need. I recently read the statistic that American spend about 12% of their disposable income on food. Compare that to the 25% that Mexicans spend or even the 14% that Canadians spend, and we come out looking pretty good, but we take it to such an extreme when it comes to looking for deals, that we seem like crazy people. My resolution, for New Year's and forever, is and has been to buy less stuff. I have what I need, my life is comfortable, everything else is just clutter and something I'll eventually have to move.

I'm not a huge fan of Bill Maher, but I saw this yesterday, and he really got it right: