Queercents

This is my fourth post in our series about stretching your food dollar. Perhaps now more than ever, adopting a vegetarian diet (or at least abstaining from meat once or twice a week) is more attractive than ever. In last week’s post I talked about the effect that higher corn prices have had on the beef industry. But the chicken and pork industries are also feeling the crunch, and there will be pricing spillovers in every aisle of the grocery store this fall. Ian Cooper at Wealth Daily explains:

In the Corn Belt, flood waters are high. Crops are destroyed. And corn continues to set record highs, with some calling for $10 a bushel, near-term. Current estimates peg Iowa loss at one million acres of corn and two million acres of soybeans, or about 20% of grain output.

That means supply is tight. And it’s too late in the season to start replanting corn and any opportunity to plant soybeans in time for the fall is quickly disappearing.

For grocery shoppers, the destroyed corn means pricier corn, soda, cereal… even cough syrup, pudding and gravy. It’s also used to feed livestock like pigs and chickens. Soybeans are in everything from flour and milk to oil.

In fact, the US Department of Agriculture is predicting that food prices will continue to rise through 2009: Read the rest of this entry »

“What Women Want: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held. What Men Want: Tickets for the World Series.” – Dave Barry

Max Deale is a ticket hound. As a self-described Ticket Jedi, he knows the ins and outs of getting cheap tickets for the best seats in the house. I met Max last weekend at a friend’s summer soiree. When the conversation turned to his pending book tour and the promotional power of blogs, he jumped at the chance to give me an autographed review copy of Sold Out… So What!

As I was still savoring my first cocktail and trying to get my hands on some hors d’oeuvres, I glanced at the cover illustration and couldn’t help but peg him for a fan of Howard Stern or perhaps, Joe Francis, the guy that made the Girls Gone Wild videos. Apparently, his target audience is the twentysomething, straight dude with a love of heavy metal bands and sporting events.

I thought about giving the book back since I didn’t think it was a fit for Queercents readers, but then I decided to be a bit more open minded. After all, he seemed open-minded. Here he was, upon the invitation of his girlfriend, working the room at a party primarily filled with hot-looking gay men. The least I could do is try and have the same inclusive mindset. Read the rest of this entry »

And there on the TV is the umpteenth financial ‘talking head’ stating the grim obvious, such as “we are going to be well into next year” before the housing market settles down, and banks re-start to lend. This is the financial economic guru from one of the biggest investment banks in the world. He’s just another face on the same breed of cat - the very same know it alls MBA’s and Ivy League graduates / mathematical geniuses, who with sophisticated computer models and algorithms, attempt to set up a portfolio that doesn’t lose money, but in a whisper - takes some risk. Go figure… The very premise behind risk is that you very well might lose money. That’s why commercial banks don’t belong in the securities industry in the first place.

I would ask our esteemed members of Congress and the regulatory authorities to consider putting Glass Steagall (or some evolved form of it), back in force. Glass Steagall was a law enacted in 1933 that did not permit commercial banks from being involved in investment banking pr brokerage operations. This would have meant that a bank like Citibank and Citibank Securities would have to be two separate and distinct companies with separate balance sheets and types of risk exposure.

If Glass Steagall were in place during this sub prime lending mess, big banks would have been prohibited from overly investing in the sub prime securities – or any part of an investment bank (aka brokerage firm) that was cooking these things up, in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

My name is Jennifer, and I’m a WAHM.

No, that’s not some new addition to the ever-expanding LGBTQ alphabet soup of queer identities; it stands for work-at-home mom or dad. I’m part of a growing trend; an increasing number of folks are WAHMs or WAHDs. Between the lame-ola economy and the wonders of wireless technology, more and more parents are combining work with child-minding. When the kids are little, this requires some paid assistance, unless you are lucky enough to have family who will watch your kids for free. I’m in the unlucky group who has to pay for someone to watch my daughter while I work at home.

I’ve already written some tips about how to find the ideal (or at least competent and LGBTQ friendly) nanny. But once you’ve found her, how do you best utilize your time while she’s minding your kid? It’s a bit trickier than it may seem; it takes a while to adjust to working while your kid and another person are around. Here are some tips that I hope will help WAHMs and WAHDS best utilize their at-home work time:

1) Expect to lose some work time at the beginning. When you first start having your nanny come, expect that you, your child, and the nanny will all need some time to adjust. Lower your expectations for how much work you will get done the first few times the nanny comes. Instead, work on establishing a routine for the day. Make it clear what you want the nanny to do with your child, when and how you’d like to be interrupted in non-emergency situations, and so on. Articulate to the nanny that you understand that she or he can’t instantly fill your shoes. It took us about four days before we all really transitioned. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my pet peeves while shopping is to see the packaging get smaller or more air put into the bag or the item in a box will be smaller when the box itself stays the same size. Of course the prices don’t get smaller, they either stay the same or go up in price. Downsizing the item, but not downsizing the price isn’t anything new and it seems to be a popular trend with the weight of Americans going up and up.

That is why it is so very important to take a look at the price per unit and compare them when you are grocery shopping for the best deal, especially now that food costs have gone up over the last year. When I do my large shopping trips I can get out of the store for about 175.00 with enough food for the next 6-8 weeks. This last shopping trip, I got everything I needed and the price was just about 225.00.

If you are unfamiliar with checking price per unit, it would be on the shelf sticker with the full price of the item. If the information isn’t handy like that, then having a calculator (cellphone calculator works) handy when you shop is a good way to determine the unit price. Just divide the price of the item by the ounces, lbs, servings, etc. and you would get the unit price.

The importance of unit pricing is handy when you see some new packaging on an item that you buy regularly. For instance: Read the rest of this entry »

I am pretty diligent about reviewing my monthly expenses periodically to see where and what I can trim. Recently, I got back into doing an overhaul of expenses in light of the increased cost of every little thing and as part of the Week 1 exercises in the Business Rescue teleseminar series I’ve been attending. When it comes down to it my philosophy is to minimize necessary expenses (insurance, taxes, utilities) while consciously choosing what I want to spend my money on and why. The why factor is important to me because we all place different values on different things. The key is finding the right balance while doing right with your overall financial goals.

One of the monthly expenses that constantly confounds me is a combination of my cell phone bill and household/home office landline phone. Because we both live a distance from our families and I use the telephone extensively in my coaching business, we have one of those unlimited long distance type plans from Verizon. It’s a pretty penny each month, somewhere around $70 or $80 but it sure beats paying actual long distance when I am on the phone for hours at a time conducting or attending teleclasses or coaching sessions. Believe me, I did that early on and almost had a coronary when I saw the monthly bill. Read the rest of this entry »

“I play more tennis than golf now.” – Greg Norman, who recently married Chris Evert

Like typical lesbians, Jeanine and I enjoy the game of golf. But with each round, I’m always conscious of the cost. After all, my money personality feels tested every time we shell out $75 to $150 to tee off at a nice public course in Orange County or Palm Desert.

Over the July 4th holiday, we used a gift certificate that Jeanine received for two rounds at a nearby course. We had never played there before so I asked the guy in the pro shop how much the round would have cost us: $178 a piece! We had a fantastic time, but not 356 dollars worth of fun… especially if I had to pay for it.

No matter how you slice it, golf is expensive. Jeanine would likely play more, but I’m the one holding us back from a money perspective. Whenever she suggests that we play, my typical first reaction is, “I don’t want to spend the money.”

She wins out about 5 or 6 times a year: usually because it gets tagged on as part of a weekend in Palm Springs. I’m an easy target when pool-lounging-in-the-desert is part of the package. I’m less likely to want to play when we can be doing other things that are free around Southern Cal… like riding our bikes, going for a hike or playing tennis. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m about to head off to Maryland to meet with my Dad and help him move into his new apartment. After being given early retirement from his job, he took a mini retirement and was then able to get a new job working in pollution control. Before I go though, a roundup.

• The other week I was just talking about the benefit of libraries, and it turns out there were a couple of points I missed. (Read it at Consumerist)
• A customer at our bank makes weekly deposits into what he calls “The Slush Fund,” an account he deposits the weeks change and a few bills. After a few years he’s built up a solid emergency fund. Using a similar method, one woman, mentioned in the Boston Globe managed to save thousands of dollars. (Read it at Get Rich Slowly)
• Philip Brewer also has some thoughts to contribute about whether or not you track your expenses. (Read it at WiseBread)
• Buried in the middle of the article are three fantastic tips for leading a more fulfilling life. I’ve been working on them myself, and I have to say that it’s led to the best summer I’ve had. (Read it at The Happiness Project)
• Trying to keep on top of everything you’ll be doing though if you decide to follow those general goals means you’ll be fitting a lot into a day. Fortunately, there are some tips over at Zen Habits that will help you out. (Read it at Zen Habits)

Queercents flashback: Speaking of career changes, careers may not be all they’re cracked up to be.

Last week The New York Times tried to coin yet another gloomy term for our vernacular: vacation deficit disorder. As if “staycation” didn’t spark enough scorn about leisure in current economic conditions, we now have a pop psychology diagnosis for the consequences of skimping on what has become a costlier luxury than ever.

By foregoing vacation, as the Times article mentions, we stunt the brain’s reserve capacity to cope with stressors. More stress, body wears down, body falls apart. On top of that, we’re missing out on potential bonding experiences with travel companions.

I think we get it. This is basically preaching “Take a vacation no matter what!” to a disappointed choir that can’t afford it right now. Quite a pickle there.

While theoretically we can cut expenses elsewhere to pay for a vacation, I’m not sure how many of us feel comfortable diverting money from savings accounts or debt reduction during uncertain times.

So then what does one do to keep body and mind healthy until vacation is within means again? Read the rest of this entry »

I know very little about estate planning and execution of financial and legal responsibilities for someone who is deceased. I know it all falls under the term estate administration, but other than that the details escape me because I have never had to do it. What I learned recently as a result of the death of my grandmother is that just because you’re already dead doesn’t mean they can’t bill you. You see she was in a nursing home at the time she passed. My father was busy settling her affairs there when he discovered she was being billed for medication purchased and administered two days after she had died.

Sorry Charlie, but the woman is dead, the meds won’t help.

OK, perhaps that is a little harsh and sarcastic, but it does leave you scratching your head wondering who is paying attention to what in the place?

For normal expenses and debts, a person’s estate is responsible for them even after death. However, personal family members are not necessarily responsible for the debts if the estate does not have the assets to pay for them. Read the rest of this entry »