Border Crossings: Frugality, Disney, Shopping and other Stuff

It's all about borders and boundaries. To get a grip on your finances, you need to have some idea of what you are spending, even on such necessities as food. But I think boundaries are necessary in another sense as well.

I was thinking about this after reading the post at Get Rich Slowly yesterday about the blogger's paid trip to Disney to see a Disney/T Rowe Price collaboration designed to teach the lessons of personal finance. I wondered--in a comment--if the blogger would (or should) reveal how much his freebies were worth. My comment must have been awfully mild because he did not respond to it (though he did respond to someone who wondered more directly about a conflict of interest). But that potential border crossing--between being an objective blogger who promotes sensible personal finance--and a journalist on a trip made me think of border crossings at Disney more generally.

Disney is FUN. And that's fine. It is also pretty expensive. My family has had only one Disney experience. Years ago, Mr. FS and I delivered papers at a conference in Orlando. We took the children. When the conference was over, we stayed on to go to Disney World, where we saw many of our colleagues. Most of our driving costs were courtesy of our employer. The basic ticket price for a day at the theme park is--I would say--worth it. You get a lot of bang for your buck as far as FUN goes.

What's not worth it are the souvenirs. Food is also ridiculously expensive and you are not allowed to bring anything in. This is not the case at EuroDisney; Europeans would not stand for that. Hotels in Orlando can also be ridiculously cheap. I ran into a colleague who had stuffed 6 or so kids from his blended family into their van. They stayed in a motel a little way out for maybe $60.00 a night. But if you stay on-site as my brother did, you may be spending upwards of $300.00 per night.

What is my point? My point is that you should separate experiences. If Disney is about the park and FUN, then it is not too expensive. Like Jazz Fest (see Mr. FS's post on this), you get a whole day of FUN for your ticket price. If you add in souvenirs, it becomes very expensive. Similarly, and unlike Jazz Fest, it is not a food experience. The food is mediocre to bad at all levels. So we ate at the lowest level we could get away with--and as little as possible. We bought no souvenirs. So we had the FUN, but did not "border cross" to food and shopping.

Similarly, I think the T Rowe Price/Disney collaboration border crosses as well, mixing financial education and FUN. As I said in my comment on GRS, this reminds me of companies that sell overpriced items saying that a percentage will be donated to a worthy cause. Border crossing: tee shirts and charity. You could probably send more to charity if you bought the tee shirt and sent your own contribution to your charity. Having a personal finance "game" at Disney strikes me as trying to go left and right at the same time; they are contradictory activities, sending, I think, a mixed message. In fact, some of the comments at GRS and elsewhere spoke about how cool a piggy bank souvenir would be. Why not buy your piggy bank at the Dollar Store?

Indeed, a frugal tip for Disney goers would be to head over to the nearest thrift store. There you will find zillions of Disney tee shirts, pajamas, sweatshirts--even sweaters in adult sizes. All emblazoned with Disney characters. Many seemingly unworn. My sister-in-law, noticing all the Hawaii-themed tees at a local thrift, decided to buy her souvenirs BEFORE the family trip to Hawaii. There's even more Disney merchandise than Hawaii merchandise.

I really believe that you get the most out of experiences when you respect the boundaries. When we go out to eat, we try to go where the food is good. That would be New Orleans (including Jazz Fest)--or Paris--or Montreal. Not Disney. When I want to shop, I prefer Banana Republic (on sale!) to the Disney Store.

I suppose it is to the advantage of Disney and other marketers to try to make us cross the borders--or even not to notice that there are borders. To promote the souvenirs et al as PART of the Disney experience is to border cross and leave prudent personal finance behind. It is related to the bundled packages (internet, cable, phone, cell phone) that are so financially tangled that not even Consumer Reports can figure out what plan is a good deal.

Edmund Andrews Encore: The Last on Busted, I Hope

Why does this guy still stick in my craw? After a flurry of news--both in mainstream media and on blogs--interest seems to have subsided. Why do I check the reviews of his book on Amazon every day? I think I figured out the source of my extreme irritation with him. Read on, if you are interested.

First, in case you don't know who this fellow is: Andrews had a piece in the New York Times with a neat twist: he was an informed economics writer for the paper of record and in dire financial straits owing to a mortgage that ate up most of his take-home pay. He presented himself as responsible for his folly--and then excused himself because he did it for "the love of [his] life." Somewhat contradictorily, he also presented himself as a victim of lenders gone wild. No links to Andrews: he's gotten enough publicity.

Then, Megan McArdle of the Atlantic, busted him in her blog. It turned out that his new wife had declared bankruptcy twice, the second time after they were married. Most unsavory was the revelation that her second bankruptcy involved wiping out a $29,000 loan from her sister.

So at first I thought my irritation with this guy came from his omission of relevant information that pretty much ruined his narrative. Then, when the responses from the mainstream media started coming out, my irritation increased.The New York Times presented Andrews as a victim of a scary blogger; NPR presented him as a nice guy with an oopsie. Now I know the blogosphere can be a nasty place, but all this reminded me of the vain efforts of the power structure to control new media back in the sixteenth century. Ye olde (then the relatively new) printing press was making it difficult for the power structure to control information. Flash forward to the English Revolution! I was really put off by the circling of the wagons around Andrews; cronyism ("I'll promote your book if you promote mine") trumped ethics, in my opinion. (No links to all this either; you're probably sick of all this too, if you were ever interested.)

And now for my finale: the source of my irritation. I figured it out! The book just came out. In it, Andrews presents himself as now having not paid his mortgage for 8 months. He claims he is waiting to hear from the lender about terms.

Uhhhh. Didn't he get his book contract a few years ago? Presumably. That would mean that his desire to present a narrative of victimhood shaped his behavior. This makes me question the choices he chronicles in the book, since he was writing about them as he made them!

I also find it interesting that his advance (he mentioned $30,000, not sure if that is the whole thing or just a portion) is about the amount he owes on his mortgage AND is almost the exact amount that his wife borrowed from her sister (which has been excused by the bankruptcy filing). So he has two good places to put that advance.

Thanks for reading, folks. Does anyone have anything to add or should I just give it a rest?

How to Make Country French Bread

Wait till you see this, folks. Frugal Son has spent the last few days putting together a video featuring the bread making prowess of Mr. Frugal Scholar. Mr. FS has been baking this bread for about thirty years. Perhaps in other posts I will tell some of the many bread anecdotes we have accumulated over the years. The original recipe came from Bernard Clayton's The Breads of France. It is modeled on the famous Poilane bread of Paris. However, I think M. Poilane would be shocked to see powdered milk in the sourdough starter.

Right now, let me link this to the ostensible topic of this blog: frugality. Bonnie McCullough, who wrote a wonderful book on organizing that includes a section on finances, remarks that baking bread will save a family at least $1.00 per day per family member on food. This is not because of the money you save on the bread. This is because when you eat good bread, you're not eating other stuff.

A note from Frugal Son:

Having grown up with my dad's bread readily and constantly available, I think it was easy for me to take it for granted and even occasionally wish we could have Bunny Bread like a normal family. I was always surprised and slightly amused by my friends' reactions to the bread. They would scarf down as much as they could get their hands on. Once I even paid a friend to take care of my sister's bird in loaves of bread! My bread renaissance came about after I left home at 16 to go to my beloved residential high school. While the school offered many things, delicious bread was not one of them. Maybe I was being punished by some Bread Deity for all my youthful Bunny Bread desires. Upon returning home I understood how my friends felt and I could not keep my hands off the bread. I even enjoyed eating it plain, something which I would never have done before.

This bread is as versatile as it is tasty. A toasted slice rubbed with raw garlic and adorned with freshly ground pepper and a pinch of salt makes a delicious snack which we have creatively named "Spicy Bread." Rubbing a slice with butter and a drizzle of honey makes a perfect late night sweet treat. Or you can simply use it as an accompaniment to your eggs at breakfast or soup for dinner. Try out the recipe--which is a lot less intimidating in real life than it looks on paper--and see if you fall in loave with this bread (sorry I couldn't resist).

The bread recipe can be found here.

Baking Bread: The Frugal Scholar Blog from SLF on Vimeo.

Memorial Day: The Lay of the Last Survivor

On Saturday, we went to Miss Em's graduation. We will spare you the video of the graduation speech delivered by our own Miss Em. Sunday, we recovered from the long drive. Today, I was planning to write yet once more on the Edmund Andrews saga, which gets curious-er and curious-er. Then I remembered that it is Memorial Day. Today, if any day, we should count our blessings and remember.

Even though I don't teach too much "war literature," I am lucky enough to have repeatedly taught two of the greatest masterpieces of the genre: The Iliad and Beowulf. Both poems are about mortality and the meaning of life. Both are also about memory.

Below is a brief excerpt from Beowulf (translation by Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy, 2002). Like most poems that purportedly glorify war, this is also an anti-war poem. Beowulf explores the threats to peace that come both from without us and from within us. This poignant moment is a flashback. A nameless man laments the death of his community as he buries their treasures.

Hold now, Earth what men may not,
the hoard of the heroes, earth-gotten wealth
when it first was won. War-death has felled them,
An evil befalling each of my people.
The long-house is mirthless when men are lifeless.
I have none to wear sword, none to bear wine
or polish the precious vessels and plates.
Gone are the brothers who braved many battles.
From the hard helmet the hand-wrought gilding
drops in the dust. Asleep are the smiths
who knew how to burnish the war-chief's mask
or mend the mail-shirts mangled in battle.
Shields and mail-shirts molder with warriors
and follow no foes to faraway fields.
No harp rejoices to herald the heroes,
no hand-fed hawk swoops through the hall,
no stallion stamps in the keep's courtyard.
Death has undone many kindreds of men.

Jazzfest and Free-fest

By Mr. FS




Jazzfest (a.k.a The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) is, in my opinion, the single most important event of the year in New Orleans, eclipsing even Mardi Gras. Jazzfest has it all—food, music, arts and crafts, parades, people o all ages dancing like crazy. Also heat and sometimes rain, although this year was an exception in both cases (highs in the low 80s; no rain to speak of).

But is it worth it? People complain mightily about the cost of tickets--$50 at the gate, ort $40 (plus $3 handling fee) if you get them early from the box office. This year was the 40th Jazzfest, and I heard a lot of festgoers reminiscing about when the tickets were $10 (or less). Of course, the first Jazzfest, which took place in Congo Square (rather than on the fairgrounds, its current venue), only had a couple of stages, while now there are 12, and on a typical day you can hear 70+ performances (theoretically, that is, although you’d spend most of your time running from stage to stage). That means that you get a lot for the price of a ticket.

For example, here’s my Thursday, April 30 itinerary. (I went by myself, so I could move quickly; it's harder to cover as much territory in a group.) I got there right when the gates opened at 11:00, and after a peep into the Gospel tent went to hear Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone in the blues tent. Then Corey Ledet and his Zydeco Band at the Fais Do Do stage, then the Honey Island Swamp Band at the Gentilly stage, then Rumba Buena at Congo Square, back to Fais Do Do for a bit of Sonny Bourg and the Bayou Blues Band, then to the Acura stage for Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes; back to Fais Do Do for the Creole Zydeco Farmers then over to the Gentilly stage for Theresa Andersson, back to Congo square for the New Birth Brass Band, then to Acura for The Meter Men (Leo, Zig, and George), then to the Jazz tent for George Wein and the Newport All-Stars featuring Howard Allen, Anat Cohen, Randy Brecker, Lew Tebackin, Jimmy Cobb, and Esperanza Spalding, then to the Gentilly stage for a bit of Emmylou Harris, then to Fais Do Do for a bit of Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys, and finally to Congo Square for Solomon Burke. I’d say that’s worth the price of admission (at $43 this works out to about $3 a performance).

However, the music to Frugal Son’s crawfish peeling instructional video (the great Dirty Dozen Brass Band) got me to thinking that one of the best aspects of Jazzfest is absolutely free. This is the street scene when the Fest lets out, and particularly the To Be Continued Brass Band, which usually plays on Gentilly just outside the gate. We first heard them a couple of years before Katrina, when the band members must have still been in junior high school, and they’ve played every year in the same spot. They even played Jazzfest last year, on the Jazz and Heritage stage.

So now that Frugal Son has shown us how to post clips, I thought I’d give you some samples of this Free-Fest. I wish the clips were better quality, but they’ll give you an idea of what it’s all about. At the end of the clip you will see a couple of kids on the opposite corner who are just starting out in the world of New Orleans brass bands--just like the To Be Continued six or seven years ago.

To Be Continued Brass Band from SLF on Vimeo.

The Conversation: Mandatory, Discretionary, Frivolous

My title comes from the New Yorker article that many have written about: The Death of Kings by Nick Paumgarten. Paumgarten's title is from Shakespeare's Richard II and is quoted by an English major turned master of Wall Street when he is fired. He also thinks of a story by Kakfa. So is endorsed the theory--long espoused by teachers of the humanities, and college loan officers at fancy liberal arts institutions--that college is a good investment and that liberal arts degrees are intrinsically enriching to the recipient. (In spite of my snide tone, I do still share those sentiments.)

I found the tone of this article quite portentous. There was also a strange cast of characters, most notably a seriously ill market "divvy" (the term is from those Jonathan Gash novels, in which a "divvy just has a feel for what is an authentic antique and what not).

So, the essay was rather rough going for me, as I felt mired in the portentousness. But there was some excellent personal finance advice. Michael Cembalest, chief investment office at J.P Morgan, wrote, in an internal memo I'd love to see (google search being in vain) on "the Conversation."

The conversation can take place between a husband and a wife, or a parent and a child. Its subject is affordability; its only requirement is honesty, and rudimentary math. In some cases, the Conversation, or the underlying reality, can lead to estrangement or divorce; an absence of money will expose differences in values and taste.

Cembalist divided [his expenses] into the categories "mandatory" (mortgage, taxes, transportation), "discretionary" (distilled spirits, gym memberships) and "frivolous" (electronics, jewelry, art works). He then outlined some of his decisions: "cheaper booze, cheaper jewelry," and so on.

The useful nugget here is the third category: frivolous. I think this is a useful addition to the usual dyad of "needs" vs. "wants." So under "need" (or "want") may be college education. But the third category enables us to say that private school tuition might be frivolous for our income. Under"want" might be vacation, but we can decide whether to go to Montreal (reasonably priced for us, since we go to New England every summer and Montreal is a short drive) or Antarctica (kind of expensive!).

This also provides a better way to distinguish between "good" and "bad" debt. The usual suspects for good debt are housing and education. I hardly need to point out that some versions of these can be "frivolous."

So I guess that the now-notorious Edmund Andrews had that Conversation with the spouse. How much better to have it before you get married!

As Nick Paumgarten notes, "The numbers do not lie or flatter."

On a frivolous note, dear Readers, what frivolities do you partake of? And which ones do you look forward to?

Cheap Chic: Garbage Couture

Another post whereby Frugal Scholar mooches off her kids. This time, the mooch is via the Divine Miss Em, whose talents are numerous. Miss Em is a senior in high school. Those who have been followers for a while may recall that she goes to a wonderful state-supported magnet school, the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts. This is a residential high school, located on a college campus. It is available to all who qualify for the sum of $700.00 a year for room and board. What a gift for my children!

We received a recent email full of news about the senior class activities, including the Senior Breakfast. The theme this year was garbage. So all the girls made dresses out of garbage bags. Would I be too doting-mama to say that Miss Em won the Best Dressed Award?


There is so much here to emulate: pick a theme that will lead to frugal fun. Their prom had an India theme. So Miss Em borrowed a sari, bought some cheap Indian jewels via a website, and--being artsy--painted henna designs on many hands. This was perhaps a $20.00 prom. I read a blogpost on conscientious spending, where another proud mama noted that her daughter stuck to a $300.00 prom budget, which was a far cry from the over $1000.00 average. Well, I think we can do even better than that!

Similarly, the Senior Breakfast could have had a country club theme or such. But no--the kids thought of something creative and frugal.

So below we have an excerpt from Miss Em's email and some pics from the festivities. I have no idea what the guys wore. The pics show what I have always thought: the important thing for the girls is getting dressed up with your friends.



What is Senior Breakfast, you ask? Well let me tell you! It's an LSMSA tradition where the night before "Dead Day" (Dead Day is the day before exams start, where there's no class and dead silence because all the students are studying themselves to death) we have a late-night breakfast. As in, it starts at midnight and ends around 1AM. We are served breakfast and hang out with our classmates and we dress up in accordance with the theme. This year, the theme was trash-bag formal. You make formal attire out of trash bags, duct tape, any "trash" you can think of. Being a crafty girl, I worked super hard on my costume. I made it entirely from trash bags. It was a floor-length gown with ruching and layers. I must admit, it was very impressive by the time I was done with it. I made it ball-gown-big at the bottom by blowing up garbage bags with air, tying them off, and putting them underneath the dress. I'll attach a picture of it. I think you'll be impressed. It was also fun to spend so many hours on the dress, wear it, and then literally rip it off my body. Wheee! I also made accessories out of duct tape. Duct tape earrings and headbands and even a bracelet and a ring.

Although the pictures may have a girls gone wild vibe, let me assure you, this is a studious and accomplished bunch. Indeed, I am sure they will all do well in college, and, thereafter, will rule the world.