Pet Costs: WOW

Because we travel a lot, we have had a pet-light life. We recently gave away the last of our pets: a big fish tank with long-lived denizens went to a student and two cockatiels went to Miss Bonnie at the grocery store. Everyone is happy.

For a while, we had the ideal cat situation: two wonderful cats, mostly neglected by their owner, lived on our porch. But the cats grew old and stopped coming. I asked the son of the owner what happened to the cats. He said, "Oh, I guess they haven't been around for a while."

My mother, newly widowed, wanted a dog and we found her a great one. At the last minute, she backed out, because she had acquired a boyfriend!

So, we haven't had to make any decisions about pets and pet costs. But Funny About Money spent a fortune on her beloved dog a few years ago. And our friends took their aged dog to Texas for heart surgery, which cost many thousands of dollars. The dog died less than a year later.

If you're thinking about a pet, the New York Times has an article on average costs. What do you think of the numbers? And, pet-free peeps: is cost holding you back?

New York Times on pet costs.

My Black Friday....so far

I've never shopped on Black Friday. No, I take it back. We had a family tradition (now outgrown) of heading to New Orleans on Black Friday. We'd whiz past Lakeside Mall, which had nary a parking space to be seen, and headed to the Audubon Zoo, where we had a membership. The parking lot was always empty!

Then we would head to Bloomingdeals, the thrift store of the New Orleans Junior League, which had its annual toy sale.

This morning, though, I shopped. I had a few things on my NEEDS list and I decided to tune out the ads and look today. So now I have a new washing machine to replace the 20 year old one, whose top hinges have rusted off. AND a new microwave, to replace the one that is taking longer and longer to heat up my coffee.

I decided to be a satisficer and not go crazy with my usual indecision. Both items came to around $300 (yes, I bought a cheeeeep washer) and have free shipping.

Some emails I've gotten, if you feel like less utilitarian shopping.

Garnet Hill, the catalog I dream over, is having 40% off sale items AND free shipping!

LL Bean has free shipping, a $10 gift card if you spend $50 AND 10% off everything. That last is applied automatically.

Cuddledown, whose comforters I swoon over, has 25% off everything, today only. I also swoon over their $3000.00 beds, but such will not happen today...or probably ever.

I do need some milk, so I may head out to a brick-and-mortar grocery later. Groceries are quite forlorn and desolate the day after Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone is having a cozy day.

No-Stress Thanksgiving: The Menu

I don't find Thanksgiving all that stressful. It is a low cost meal and the traditional items are EASY. I used to make the beautiful vegetable purees from The Silver Palate Cookbook, but no more. I hate cleaning the food processer.

We decided to spread the side dishes out over two days; this met with approval from the visiting children.

I did manage to spread some Thanksgiving cheer, by developing (extemporaneously, in a split second) the easiest menu imaginable. I wended my way to CVS this morning to get some of their fantastic freebies. While there, I said hi to Gary, one of my favorite former students. Then I checked out.

The woman at the register told me her meal was being prepared by her mother and daughter. She told me she couldn't cook. In fact, she got that panicked look that one gets encountering something that most people find easy but that brings chills and fear and inevitable failure. (This is different for everyone. For me, it's directions. For Mr. FS, it's matching shirt to pants. Whatever.)

I told her what to do: Heat your oven and when it's 350 degrees, put the turkey in. Basting is unnecessary. After a while, put in some sweet potatoes and white potatoes. They will take a bit over an hour. When the turkey skin is brownish, take it out and check. It won't take as long as you think if you don't baste. Open a can of cranberry sauce. Prepare a salad using one of those mixes at the grocery that come with dressing and all. Buy something for dessert.

In all my years of teaching, I have never seen a light bulb moment like I did with my cashier. She told me that she would try next year.

My menu is more complex, of course, but the above menu follows the 80/20 ratio of the Pareto Principle, whereby you get 80% of the benefit from 20% of the effort.

I guess I should have told her to buy some stuffing mix too. Oops!

Have a good day everybody.

Chocolate-Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Coconut Milk

I love finding recipes that use things I already have and NEED TO USE UP. The bread pudding below (copied from New York Times) was part of a feature on a vegan Thanksgiving. The coconut milk subs for the dairy--milk and eggs--that makes a bread pudding bread pudding.

Has anyone tried this? Does it sound tempting to you?



Chloe Coscarelli’s
Chocolate-Pumpkin Bread Pudding

This warm pumpkin bread pudding has a dash of spice and is studded with chocolate chips. It’s a rich and creamy dessert that’s free of dairy and eggs but will leave everyone feeling indulged.

1 cup coconut milk
1 15 ounce can organic pumpkin
1/2 cup brown sugar (can use maple syrup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
10 cups cubed day-old bread of your choice (about 10 to 12 slices of sandwich bread, depending on the thickness of slices)
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (Guittard and Ghirardelli are among those that are nondairy)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 14 4-ounce ramekins (single-serving ceramic dishes) or a 9-by-13-by-2-inch baking dish.

2. In a blender, process coconut milk, pumpkin, brown sugar, salt and spices until smooth. In a large bowl, toss the bread cubes with the pumpkin mixture and chocolate chips until each bread cube is coated.

3. If using ramekins: Evenly sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar into the bottom of each greased ramekin. Fill each ramekin to the top with the mixture and lightly press it down with the back of a spoon. If using a 9-by-13 baking dish: Fill the baking dish with the mixture and lightly press it down with the back of a spoon. Evenly sprinkle about 2 tablespoons brown sugar over the top of the bread pudding. The brown sugar will help the pudding to caramelize on the edges. (Steps 1 through 3 can be done up to three days in advance; store covered in the refrigerator.)

4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until top is lightly browned. If using ramekins: Let the pudding cool a few minutes, then carve around the edges with a knife to loosen and unmold. Garnish with powdered sugar if desired and serve warm. If using a 9-by-13 baking dish: Let the pudding cool a few minutes before serving. Cut into portions, then garnish with powdered sugar if desired and serve warm. The pudding can be baked right before serving or earlier that day and then reheated for 8 to 10 more minutes right before serving.

Yield: Serves 14.

Or should I make the traditional (in my family) pumpkin brulee?

Budget Busters: Little Recurring Expenses

Ah, those recurring expenses: cable, cell plan, internet access, health club membership. These are examples of some of the biggies; financial experts always exhort you to negotiate on these or cut them out entirely.

Some are really big. When my in-laws moved from the house in Pasadena with the under $500.00 annual tax bill (thanks to Proposition 13), they incurred a tax bill on their new home about 20 (not a typo) times higher, even though the houses were of equal value. My parents bought a condo in a Florida community with a clubhouse, which now costs my mother about $500.00 a month. Without it, her social life would be non-existent. Both parties would, I am sure, say these monthly expenses were worth it. I guess the moral is: be aware at the outset. My mother said some people left the community and moved elsewhere (Or tried to. Florida condos are not easy to sell) because, with the decline of their investment portfolios, they simply could not afford the club.

Then there are the little recurring expenses. These are ones we barely think about, because they are measured in dollars, not hundreds or thousands. I have an Amazon gift card (a great gift! Thanks to the giver!). I was looking under Grocery and Gourmet items, because they sometimes have decent prices on food, my favorite gift, because it is--literally--consumable. I sorted by Bestsellers, because often the ephemeral bargains show up there: the limited time markdowns.

Guess what most of the top-sellers were in Grocery and Gourmet foods?

. . . . . . PAUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DIAPERS (not food, I know, but they showed up) and COFFEE PODS.

All I have to say is: if I, the least domestic, slacker-type housekeeper on the face of the earth, can use cloth diapers, anyone can. At least you only need them for a few years. When I see the prices, I realize that my children's college funds were jumpstarted by the cloth diapers we used.

As for coffee pods: do these have any redeeming features? You buy one of those coffee makers and are forever locked into a wasteful, expensive, un-green system. And, in my experience, the coffee isn't very good. I read a while back about a GREEN coffee company (organic, fair trade, and so on) that had a crisis about these: they were big money-makers, but the antithesis of green practice. They ended up making the product somewhat less wasteful, but still...I forget how they justified the product.

Have you gotten locked into monthly fees that end up being budget busters?

Sometimes You Gotta Pay the Price: Bargains vs Community

We had two annoying auto expenses in the last 2 weeks: one (my fault, when I scraped the underside of the car on a curb) cost $170; the other (car's fault, hate the Honda) involved the fan not working, during a terrible rainstorm, en route to work. Scary drive. Mr. FS estimated that the second would cost $500.00.

He returned with the news that it was ONLY $280.00. "So, he said, "I spent $150.00 on bicycle shoes."

No, he wasn't kidding. He had ordered bicycle shoes from a mail order company a while back. They didn't fit right. Luckily, they do fit Frugal Son. Meanwhile, he had gone to the local shop and tried on some shoes, which seemed like they would work for his hard-to-fit feet. They didn't have his size, so he decided to wait.

This decision--the UNFRUGAL CHOICE--was made after reading a Frugal Traveler column in the New York Times. The author was looking for some shoes for travel. I can't remember the brand he ended up with. But he spent a lot of time with a helpful young salesperson and THEN BOUGHT THE SHOES ON-LINE.

I was appalled. So were lots of other people, judging from the comments. So Mr. FS and I decided: if you try it, you have to buy it, especially if you have received lots of personal service from an employee.

Have you paid extra for community of late?

The Best Gifts for Kids 3-8

Even though I'm bad at gifts, I do know several excellent gifts for kids 3-8. These are not the kinds of gifts that will cause a moment of ecstasy when the wrapping is torn off. In fact, they might get a rather low-key response....or even be ignored. But long after Tickle-Me Elmo is in the donation box, your recipients will be playing with these. In fact, if you take cost-per-play (based, of course, on the cost-per-wear concept), these items are practically free.

1. UNIT BLOCKS. I bought these when my kids were little and they were played with every day for 8 or so years. They became roads, puppet theaters, and Noah's Ark. Make sure you get UNIT BLOCKS (this will embed math in your child's head); mine were maple. Twenty years ago, my set of 60 cost over $100.00. I got mine from a school supplier. Like many other things, these are now available from Amazon and are cheaper, perhaps for ecological and economic reasons that might upset us.

2. PATTERN BLOCKS. These make fantastic patterns and provide hours of fascinating play. These are fun for adults too.

3. CUBE BLOCKS. These were a particular favorite of Miss Em, who called them quilt blocks. Here is something similar.

All you need for the rest of the childhood years are a few dolls/animals, some plastic animals, some little cars or similar. Maybe a marble run.

4. OK. Can't resist that memory. Get a marble run too. You need to watch the little ones with the marbles, however.

And remember: GOOD art supplies. Your children can play with the toys du jour when they visit their friends. Their friends can play with the blocks at your house.

With the money you save on toys, you can .... do something wonderful. Your choice.

Any other good ideas?