What's Good for Weight, Mood, and Finances: A Granola Bar

Funny About Money started a new dieting blog. I'm not on a diet (too undisciplined), but I read it anyway. Recently, Funny succumbed to temptation and--starving--ate a hot dog. She was remorseful.

I have the solution! A granola bar, or similar. I tend to have meltdowns after being out and about for too long. Shopping makes me crazy (except at thrift stores). I seldom shop except when my daughter is around. She has learned to carry a granola bar and a bottle of water, so Mommy doesn't have a meltdown.

This is a family tradition. Mr. FS and I would take our little ones to the zoo or the aquarium on weekends. Then we would go to a coffee shop. After a while, the kids wanted more and more to eat. Then they would have meltdowns. Sometimes WE would have meltdowns because of a caffeine deficit.

So we learned to bring a thermos of coffee and a few snacks in the car. I suppose this practice has saved us, oh, $1,000,000.00.

Interestingly, Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don't Get Fat, attributes the thinness of French women, in part, to carrying the secret granola bar for emergencies. (The other part would be all the walking that Parisiennes do.)


So weight control, mood, and finances? So much from a little snack.

Do you have any similar strategies?

Gift Advice from the Duchesse of Gifts

Duchesse left a lovely comment the other day:

A dinner you make for a loved one as Funny About Money did is a gift; making a CD of an elder's favourite music, or restoring an old photo (not very expensive). Writing someone a poem, or playing a board game with kids until they want to stop... I could go on. It's not about spending money.

Now, if you read Duchesse's blog (on vacation now), you know that the gifts she selects are simply perfect. Really. She's got the gift.

Note, though, that her concept goes beyond buying. Mr. FS doesn't buy me gifts. That's because he knows I don't really want anything PLUS I'm too picky and he knows he could never figure out what I want.

Every now and then, he surprises me. Out of the blue, he'll say, "I finally got around to putting up that extra shelf you wanted." OR "I got some whatever so now I can fix the whatever you complained about." Half the time (nay, more), I don't even remember making the request. But he does.

He does the same for Miss Em. She is always creating artworks, some very large. He's always figuring out how to frame or display these sometimes oddly-shaped artifacts.

As Duchesse pointed out elsewhere, the key to gifts, whether in the material realm or outside it, is paying ATTENTION.

What's the best gift you've ever given? Gotten?

Can middle-income people retire in high-cost cities?

Poor Funny About Money. She wrote about her dream of moving to San Francisco, only to have her dream dashed when she realized that she had miscalculated her income.

But is this really true? A time-honored retirement strategy has been to sell the house in San Francisco or Boston and move to a lower-cost area. Can it go the other way? Are those of us who live in lower-cost areas doomed to never see the big city?

I mentioned to Funny that people rented garage apartments in Houston. I wondered if such were available in San Francisco. She was horrified. That's because she pictured living IN a garage. But the garage apartments I visited in Houston were ABOVE garages, behind very tony houses in good neighborhoods. The apartments were NICE. And very inexpensive.

So, readers: any ideas? San Francisco? Chicago? Philadelphia? Boston? Montreal? Toronto? Vancouver BC? Any way to live on a modest income?

Holidays vs Well, Everything

I was reading one of my favorite blogs Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. Her post concerns something she read on Yahoo--how to save $1000.00 for the holidays by cutting this and that: vacations, landline, movies, whatever. Like BFS, I went through the list too--you can't cut something you don't have or don't do, so these lists work best for those high on the profligacy meter.

So I was thinking and thinking...only to realize that I don't have to save $1000.00 for the holidays because I don't spend that much. The only recipients of holiday largesse are my two kids, neither of whom wants all that much, or so they say.

It's easy for me, because my family was completely lackadaisical about holidays and birthdays. Mr. FS grew up with blow out Christmases, but he has gradually converted to the lackadaisical.

I give this background to warn you: for me to give up the holiday blowout is like me giving up cable. I don't have cable. I don't want cable.

With my lack of credentials established, let me ask: why would you want to give up, say, a vacation in order to have a holiday giftfest? Isn't it better to have a nice pace of treats now and again, rather than scrimping to have a major over-the-top fest?

You know what my answer is? What's yours? Are holidays a sensitive area for you?

Why Would I Want to Refinance a Paid-Off House: A Financial Fantasy

As an expansion of my last post, which struck many as mad.

Here is the fantasy. Let's just say I did a cash-out refinance* for about, ohhhh, 1/4 of the value of my paid-off house. Let's say, I just put it in an insured CD. At that point, I'd be paying about 2-3% on my loan, the difference between the CD and the super-low mortgage rate.

Let's say I kept rolling over the CDs as they matured. I have a feeling that rates are going to go up, at least some time in the next 30 years.

What is the origin of this fantasy? My parents got a 5% mortgage in the early 60s. Their Principle and Interest payments were minimal. In the 70s--when I was in grad school and had NO MONEY--interest rates went through the roof. My parents and many others were able to invest in newly-available bank money market accounts that were paying 20%. Even Treasury Bonds--risk-free then as now--were paying in the teens.

Still thinking about it, though I'm probably toooooo lazy to go through the process.

Does my financial fantasy still seem mad?

*Cash Out Refinance is when your mortgage includes CASH. My friends in the biz were urging such a refi during the housing bubble--for college savings, for kitchen remodels, and the like. If you've kept up with the news, you will see many stories of families that ended up owing $500,000 on a house they originally paid $100,000 for. The other $400,000 (based on the house's appreciation) went to vacations, tuition, credit card debt, Viking stoves, major remodels, SUVs, and Coach bags.

Is It Time to Refinance?

I always seem to be out of sync with the financial cycles. When we bought our house, interest rates were 10%. Hard to believe. Equally hard to believe is that the money market account from which we drew our down payment was paying around 9%.

So horrified was I by the payments that I paid extra each month, and ended up paying off the house a few years ago. Can we say AHHHHHH? Meanwhile, and I suppose it was lucky, I missed out on all the cash out refis some of my "friends" in the mortgage biz were urging upon me.

But now...I read last night that mortgage rates are at historic lows--under 4% for 15 years. Now I don't have any immediate need for a big wad of cash (college costs are taken care of). AND I certainly can't get more than a 1-2% return on any sure thing. At the moment.

But surely interest rates will rise some time in the next 15 years, right? Or, even more surely, in 30 years. There is a school of financial thought that says "Always have a mortgage." Can you imagine how little my new mortgage payment would seem in 10-15-20-30 years? Heck, I might not make it that far.

I may do some more math on this. Would this not be a decent way to get some "income" in retirement? It would be cheaper than a pricey and complex reverse mortgage.

Any thoughts on this? Is it a crazy idea?

Cheating! Good Deals for College Students Double Post

My first slacker activity of the new school year. I just posted this on the College Cooking blog. It's useful information, if you are or know a college student.

Sam's Club offers college students a $15.00 gift card with its regular $40.00 membership. Math majors: This makes the membership $25.00, right? You have to get this in-store, I think. Miss Em is going to join, with a parent as a co-member.

We don't buy much there, but it's worth it for cheese. Most of the goods are sized too large for college students.

Meanwhile, Amazon is working towards world domination by offering students free Amazon Prime. Needless to say, this is designed to get you to purchase your textbooks from Amazon. Prime means you don't need to get to $25.00 for free shipping. Plus, you get 2-day shipping.

So, students, in addition to whatever else you need: remember your rice cooker.