Happy Birthday August 5 2018

August 5 2018: That would have been my father's 90th birthday. Surely, we thought, he would make it. How own father had lived to be almost 100.

Instead, he died suddenly a few months after his 80th birthday. We had a difficult, nay terrible, relationship. I had hoped to find a way to repair or forge a relationship with him that did not devolve into arguments (reading various books recommended--pop psychology), but such was not to be.

Two years ago, my mother, with whom my relationship has been in steady decline also (though once, I thought we were quite close) cornered me in Florida. She said "Your father cried because you didn't talk to him. How does it make you feel to know that you made an old man cry?" That is a very short version of a very long list of accusations.

I responded badly, only thinking of what I should have said later.

My family thinks I should get therapy or at least write things down instead of TALKING ALL THE TIME.  OK.

At his funeral, his cousin Ira spoke. He recited a parable about "the TALL Man." The family is proud of its height--though the gene missed me, it went to both my children.

But then he spoke about my father as "the angry man."

THANK YOU ALL

Thanks to all who replied to my panicky call for help in coming to terms with my mother's broker. It is painful to witness the process whereby she has been--and is being--manipulated by this man. 

I am amazed that my little blog, which has a very small footprint in the big world of blogging, should attract people so willing to share their expertise. It means a lot to me that my misgivings and suspicions have been corroborated by others.

My father, whose death propelled my mother within a few weeks into the "arms" of a broker to whom she gave total control of her assets, would, I am sure be horrified. I began this blog a few months before my father's sudden and unexpected death. In rather ironic timing on the part of the universe, my father died in November 2008, in the midst of panic about the Great Recession, revelations about Bernard Madoff, and an uncertain future for many.  My father and I had, to be plain, a terrible relationship, which still pains me to  contemplate.  But he was very good at finances and enjoyed managing his money. I learned a lot from watching my frugal dad. 

Remember: Return the Duds

I am a big believer in saving little bits of money; over time, they add up. Lately there has been a lot of cleaning up and out in our frugal home, both for happy reasons and sad ones. Many transitions.

Miss Em is getting ready to return to school soon. As the neatest and most organized member of our household, she gets it done. Today, she got together stuff that needs to be returned.

I am always recommending sticking to shops with unconditional guarantees. To wit:

Garnet Hill: two sweaters (she's keeping the shoes)
Nordstrom: some shoes that, alas, did not fit well
LL Bean: her backpack ripped at the seams

These guarantees are great, but only if you make use of them. I am always quoting my late frugal dad: You're paying a lot of money for that guarantee, so use it.

Additionally, she is returning items to two stores that you may not know stand behind their merchandise: Sephora and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Yes, if the eyeshadow doesn't please, bring it back.

Being a good consumer can yield more than a few dollars back. The total for the above is going to be SOMETHING, even though everything was bought on sale.

Have you been a good consumer lately?

My Summer (Financial) To Do List and Scary Financial News

At the end of the summer, I am always filled with sadness over things left undone. There are always many. But as I was cleaning up--as we prepare for our last family visit for the summer--I found a list.

RETURN STUFF TO LANDS END
RETURN STUFF TO LL BEAN
TAXES!!!!!!

Yes, I did all those things. Thanks to the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which covers college textbooks, we got a hefty refund, all of which is going to our next summer's travel. Returning unsatisfactory items to LE and LLB is being a conscientious consumer, something my Frugal Dad would have been proud of.

The scary financial news coming every day is reminding me of the dreaded year 2008. Honestly, all I can do is focus on my little frugal ways.

Are you scared by the news these days? How's your To do list?

Father's Day

For those of us who may have had difficult relationships with our fathers: Jill Tamaki.

Remember Me: Not on Frugality

Most days I can't wait to see what frugal thoughts cross my mind. I have so much fun with this blog. But today I want to write on a melancholy topic: grief, memory, mortality. I had intended to write a few posts on my frugal Dad, who died about four months ago. I think I wrote only two.

The other day I recited for my class Emily Dickinson's great poem "After great pain." I had had my students memorize a few lines of poetry, so I did my poem to be fair. I hadn't actually prepared this, I told them; rather, I had read the poem a lot in my college days (more than 30 years ago), probably because of a minor heartbreak. I recited the poem with only a few mistakes. I prefaced the amazing last stanza by saying that Dickinson had an incredible understanding of human suffering. When I had finished (to great acclaim!), several students came up to me to tell me about personal things: one had a baby die at four months, another had a friend die from a heroin overdose, and so on. Usually, teachers extol the virtues of literary study by saying that literature helps us understand the world. But it occurs to me that literary works perhaps simply show us that someone else understands us.

Here is Dickinson's last stanza:

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.


Here are other passages that have flooded my mind of late:

From Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia or Urne Buriall:

Oblivion is not to be hired: The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of God, not in the register of man. Twenty-seven Names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living Century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current Arithmetique which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life, and even Pagans could doubt, whether thus to live, were to dye. Since our longest sunne sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot belong before we lie down in darknesse, and have our light in ashes.

From Milton's Paradise Lost (note: this is spoken by a devil--Belial--in Hell. He is not a good guy!):


To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion?

And, of course, the words of the Ghost of Hamlet's father to Hamlet: "Remember me."

But to all that have made it this far, it is a beautiful day here. Let us listen to Wordsworth:

OH there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than to me

Entrepreneurs, Bubbles, “I Know what I’m Doing,” Frugal Dad

“The time is out of joint”: so says Hamlet, lamenting, "O cursèd spite,/That ever I was born to set it right!" (1.5). Luckily, unlike Hamlet, I don’t have the responsibility to set anything right, outside of my own very limited sphere of influence.

But, in honor of our out-of-joint time, I present a disjointed series of thoughts economic, entrepreneurial, and other, ending, as Hamlet begins, with the ghost of a father.

Shabby Chic: while noodling around the blogosphere, I came across a notice of a fabulous sale at Shabby Chic, the super expensive furniture and accessories store. Why the sale? Because the business is in chapter 11. Founder Rachel Ashwell’s blog entry on the financial troubles of her company is heartrending, truly poignant: she refers to herself as a “flea market girl” with a dream caught up in a complex business in difficult times. I read some of her books (library copies!) back in the day: I was impressed by the coherence of her vision. Then I read some comments on the blog Apartment Therapy. There were a few acerbic ones, noting that for a flea market aesthetic, her stuff was awfully expensive (true dat!). Also noted was the fact that her business, born in affluent Santa Monica 20 years ago, perhaps rode the housing market, expanded out of control, and then burst, like the rest of the bubble.

My Dinner with Andre: Andre is someone I knew slightly. Our chat dates to the late 1990s, as will be obvious. Andre’s husband was the scion of a New Orleans family known for a chain of furniture stores, then recently defunct. I’m not sure if he had a job or lived on the proceeds of the business. Andre said, “I know I should get a job, but I make more money playing the stock market than in any job.” I, envious, since the mutual funds in my retirement accounts never achieved spectacular returns, said, “Ooh, could you tell me what you do?”

She said, “I just know what I’m doing.”

Bubble, anyone?

The House Down the Street: A nice but shabby house down the street sold a few years ago to serial flippers. They fixed it up and decorated it in shabby chic style, as it happens. My son worked on the house for a while, in the company of two high school friends who had been hired by the flippers. One of the boys explained that the couple bought houses and sold them for huge profits, which they used to live on and to buy the next house.

He said, “They really know what they’re doing.”

The house was put up for sale at a huge price, now reduced by a third. Need I say it remains unsold?



EBay: My experience with EBay is strictly anecdotal. About seven years ago, I had a pair of Birkenstocks that hurt my feet. A student said, “I’ll sell them for you on Ebay!” At that time, listing was difficult, you had to have a digital camera, you had to find a hosting site for your pictures, and you had to take checks. So, selling was very challenging. The shoes sold for $70.00! I spite of the difficulties, I sold a few other items, and was always amazed that my several year old clothes generally sold for what I had paid for them. Cool. I really felt that I knew what I was doing.

Now the selling is easy: EBay hosts pictures, everyone owns a digital camera, EBay owns Paypal, etc, etc. A few years later, I found at a thrift store the same Birkenstocks I had previously sold—same style, size, everything. With visions of $70.00 dancing in my head, I put them up for auction. I got $7.00. The buyer left me a positive rating and said, “Thanks for the great deal.”

Interestingly, my anecdote is quite in line with the business fortunes of EBay and its sellers as recounted in the financial news. Sellers are angered by the huge fees EBay levies and by the low prices that most items command. From my perspective, I’d say the problem is that listing is easy now, hence an oversupply of goods. For buyers, why bother paying a lot, since hundreds of identical items will be listed later. Did the sellers know what they were doing? A bubble, once more.

My frugal Dad: It’s fitting that I began with Hamlet, which is concerned with that “common theme" of "nature,” the death of one’s father(1.2). My frugal Dad died suddenly in November. Perhaps one reason that I have always been skeptical of people who say they “know what they’re doing,” is because he was always skeptical. He was a very intelligent man, one of whose greatest points of pride is that he attended the famous magnet school in New York, Peter Stuyvesant. But he was always very modest about his own intelligence, always pointing admiringly to the intelligence of others. This is, as most of us know, an unusual attribute.

My father was an entrepreneur for a while. First he owned a business with a partner. Later, after working for a company in Philadelphia for a year, he started his own business (market research) in around 1965. He had an office in New York. The employees consisted of my father and a secretary, plus, after a bit, my mother. Occasionally he had temporary workers. He paid very well, and I and many of my high school friends reaped the benefits of a $4.50 hourly wage.

After about 12 years, my father decided to close his business. He had had some very bad years. A few of the people who had passed work on to him had opened competing businesses. There was a recession. I asked why they were closing, and my mother said, “We don’t want to lose our savings.” What savings?

Little did I know that they had had a few very good years. The reason I didn’t know that was because our visible standard of living did not change. They saved.

I’ve been thinking about this because of all the stories about people in their 20s and 30s who have gone from making high salaries to hard times. Many of these sad stories feature mortgage brokers and people otherwise in the real estate or banking business. (“I worked hard! I knew what I was doing!”) This does not even include the upscale tales of the now-unemployed MBAs who worked in investment banking, and, supposedly knew what they were doing. (Which is why there is a shriek of pain at Obama’s proposed pay caps for executives: “But we’re worth it. We know what we’re doing!”)

My father, I now see, had the gift of modesty; he never thought he knew what he was doing. He saved during the good times. Thanks for the fine example.

Why I Love John Bogle

Lots of people have linked to today's Wall Street Journal column by the great John Bogle of Vanguard.

Bogle offered some wise advice and perspective on the current economic downturn. Here's the link if you haven't seen it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137479520962869.html

But here's a statement from Bogle that I love even more and that I have recited many a time over the past few months. This is, I believe, from his book on mutual funds. I took a copy of this book from my father's shelf after his recent death. I am not ready to open the book and get the exact quotation, but it runs something like this:

"Everything tends to the average." This was part of Bogle's advocacy of index funds. But what this also means is that, just as we shouldn't trust the market highs and assume they will go on forever, so we shouldn't trust the market lows and assume they will go on forever. Here's hoping that's right.

So John Bogle, an early Valentine's card for you. Thanks for your good sense.

Leftovers and Painted Cactuses

One of the challenges of frugal living is what to do with all those leftovers. Food isn’t a problem (at least for this family, although I’ll let Ms Dr. FS tell you why). But what about those bits of paint that are always left after a project is done? Of course one’s temptation is to put the lid on tightly and stow the can in the garage until . . . . well, usually until it dries out and gets thrown away. (Yes, I’ve tried caulking the top, and a dozen other methods, none of which has been foolproof.)

If you can’t save it, use it. (This is also the basic principle behind leftovers, by the way.) My late father-in-law Bert had a wonderful way of using up leftover paint which shows not only his own creativity, but proves that creative frugality can thrive in even the most hostile environments. By which I am thinking of the cookie-cutter communities of South Florida.

My in-laws’ development does not exactly encourage variety or distinctiveness; uniformity is not only expected, it is enforced. A few years ago a number of residents started to add little cutesy things to the tops of their mailboxes—gnomes, miniature golf bags, artificial flowers, etc.—a touch of the individual to make their condominiums easier to find among the proliferating sameness. This was ruled in contravention of the community’s rules, and now the mailboxes are all nice and clean and interchangeable again.

But Bert found a solution that not only made his condo easier to find, but beautified the landscape and used up all the bits of paint he’d accumulated: he painted the cactuses.

The result is what I think is a real work of folk art. (Note the strategic placement of unused nails.) How it has managed to survive the scrutiny of the powers that be is beyond me, although I suspect that they simply didn’t want to mess with anyone who paints his cactuses. He could be dangerous.

My frugal Dad: wastepaper basket

My frugal Dad

In Memoriam: BG 1928-2008

My father died unexpectedly last week, just a few days after a doctor told him that, with his strong heart, he could look forward to 10-15 good years with my mother.

My dear and difficult father taught me to be frugal, though I probably surpass him in the pathological department. There are many ways to be frugal: save money on things you need, don’t buy things you don’t need, make things yourself, make do, and many more. My dad was also a fearless manager of his own money, and it is a tribute to his skills that, after years of owning a small business, followed by 12 years of teaching, and NO pension or inheritance, my mother is OK for money, even after the dreadful downturn of late.

My first tribute will be a small one. Although it was not his strongest frugal suit, my father did have a streak of creative frugality. When my husband and I were helping out my mother by emptying a small trashcan by my father’s desk, we discovered that he had lined the mesh trashcan with….a collage of used tyvec envelopes from priority mail. That’s creative, and frugal, and good for the earth…all at once.

Thanks for the unexpected moment of pleasure in the midst of sadness.