Harry Potter meets Cheapskate Dad

So the girls are way into the Harry Potter series these days -- thanks to Gramma, who got them the books. They are both reading the series avidly, watching the movies, playing Harry Potter games, etc.

Of course, Dad gets to mess with the story a bit.

For example:

Abra: I'm wearing the sorting hat! I'm in Gryffindor!
Thalia: I'm wearing the sorting hat! It put me in Huffenpuff!
Me: No, I'm wearing the sorting hat: I'm in Cheapenskate!
Abra and Thalia: DAAAADDDDD!!!!

or:

Abra: I'm reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!
Thalia: I'm reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets!
Me: I'm reading Harry Potter and the Wallet of Closure!
Abra and Thalia: DAAAAADDDDD!!!!

This is kind of fun....

Bailout, Abra Style

So recently the girls and I were chatting about fiscal responsibility ("Dad, why can't we go to Disney World?" "Because I'm CHEAP!") and finances ("How much money do we have, Dad?" "Can't we just go the bank and get more?"), etc.

I made the comment that the girls were doing very well, that their piggy banks were stuffed with cash (which they were, at least until Abra went on a recent book-buying binge).

Anyway, when we went to bed later that night, I found this on my pillow:


If it hard to see, at the bottom there is a dollar coin taped to the page, surrounded by the words "Keep it, Keep it, Love Abra"

Yes, I'm so cheap I'm now receiving a bailout from my 7 year old daughter....

Yet Another Reason Why I Love My Wife

I walked into the kitchen the other day and found this:


So I'm not sure which I'm more impressed by: the fact that she's saving the last few drops of the old syrup bottle into the new syrup bottle, or that she's doing this using generic ValueTime syrup.

Bestill my cheapskate heart!

Chip Off the Old Block...

Abra's class wrote letters to President Obama. Here's Abra's:



Heh: "Make thi[n]gs cost less."

THAT'S MY GIRL!

The cheapskate's guide to online Christmas shopping

OK, so it's time to do a little Christmas shopping, cheap-cheap-cheap style!

For about 5 years, I've been wanting a new jacket. Finally decided it was time (my current jacket which I've worn for at least 10 years now is not all that warm, the seams have frayed out, and just last night Tango peed on it while we were asleep). Since it's getting close to Christmas, I figure I can get the jacket and Brenna can give it to me for Christmas. I get the jacket I want, she doesn't have to shop, we all win.

We also need tights for the girls. Since even in the dead of winter they insist on wearing dresses, tights are a must. And as cheap as I am, even I understand the importance of actually getting decent quality tights -- the dime store ones wear out after 3 wearings...

So off to Land's End we go. This jacket looks pretty good:


It also came in a red/black combo which looked pretty nice, but that was way too close to Ohio State colors for me -- I imagine I will be wearing this jacket quite a bit in Michigan Stadium, and I don't want to be mistaken for some intellectually-challenged Ohio State "graduate". So blue and black it is.

Then off to the girl's tights section: white tights for each of them, plus a purple snowflake set of tights for Thalia and pink butterfly tights for Abra.

Hit "checkout" and the order comes out:

• Jacket: $99.50
  
• 4 pairs of tights: $38.00
• Tax: $8.12
• Shipping $13.95
• Total: $159.57

And now, time for the cheap magic!

• Jacket on sale: -$27.90
• Tights on sale: -$4.68
• Apply free shipping code: -$13.95
• Apply 3 Discover cashback bonus Land's End vouchers: -$79.57
• New total: $33.47

On top of that, by ordering via the ShopDiscover/Land'sEnd link, I should get another few bucks credited to my Cashback Bonus total next month, depending on how Discover does their convoluted accounting.

So we're looking at knocking a $160 order down to about $30. Boogie.

Update: when I fished my jacket out of the dryer just now after washing it as a result of the Tango-peeing incident, the zipper pull had broken off. So, yeah. Definitely looking forward to that new jacket....

Bailout

OK, I like to keep this blog lighthearted. But I'm just really really angry right now. So here's a warning:

If you don't like angry sanctimonious rants, leave now.
If you don't like potty words, leave now.
If you're just looking for cute pictures of the kids, leave now.

You're still here? OK, well, you've been warned.

So I'm really, really getting pissed about this whole financial bailout thing. I keep hearing "It's not just one thing that went wrong, there's plenty of blame to go around."

Well, you know what? That's bullshit. The blame doesn't go all around, and it certainly doesn't come here.

I didn't buy a house I couldn't afford.
I didn't take on revolving credit.
I didn't take out equity from my house for luxuries.
I didn't make stupid leveraged investments in narrow high-risk sectors to squeeze out an extra 3% in return.

People tease me about being cheap. Hell, I tease me about being cheap. But you know what being cheap has done? It's made it so that we can make our mortgage payments -- on both houses, including the one we can't sell because the housing market is so fucked up. It's made it so that we can pay the credit card bills IN FULL every month, so that we don't get deep into debt. It's made it so that we can save some for retirement, so that we won't have to live off our children when we get old -- I hope. And it's made it so that on top of all that we can save a little bit for college for the girls.

So what have we given up? Vacations, for one -- haven't been on one in years. I'd like to -- it would be nice to finally have a honeymoon, but not when we've got these expenses. Stuff, for another. The last time I bought a "toy" was in 2005, when I bought the HDTV. We don't have iPods, or fancy cellphones. We haven't decorated the house -- the appliances are old, the wallpaper's peeling, but everything is functional. The cars are beat up, but they run. There's no need to fix the cosmetic stuff. And there's no need to buy a flashy new car. I take my lunch to work, or just skip lunch. We buy generic. I pick up pennies I see on the sidewalk. What we can't afford, we do without.

Do I like it like this? Honestly, does it matter whether or not I like it? The important thing is that we live within our means. Thankfully, I've got a wife who fully agrees with this approach.

And because of all this, we've saved, we're not in debt, and we're not being foreclosed upon. Our reward? Bailing out the rest of the stupid motherfuckers in this country who didn't manage their finances responsibly.

Yeah you know what? I don't care that the banker told you you could refinance down the road. Buying more house than you can afford is stupid and reckless. Not knowing what you can afford is stupid and reckless.

I don't care that the credit card offered you a low interest rate. Taking on credit to pay for toys is stupid and reckless.

I don't care about what you "want". Yeah, I want things too. But a huge problem with society today is the inability to differentiate between "wants" and "needs". An HDTV is a luxury. A cell phone is a luxury. Yes, it really is. Eating out is a luxury. And there is no right to own a home. If you can't afford to buy, rent.

So I don't want to hear about "Main Street" being screwed by Wall Street. Main Street took out the loans and took on the credit. Main Street bought into this culture of consumerism and pretended they had money they didn't have.

So Main Street, eat it. You lived high off the hog off someone else's money, now you have to pay the bill. Don't lay it on me.

And of course, Wall Street is a bunch of crooks, too. They closed their eyes to the obviously fabricated loan applications. No, I take that back. They fabricated the applications themselves. They made stupid investments in sub-prime mortgages because they were greedy, and made even stupider investments to cover their losses on the stupid investments. They created and flourished in this ponzi scheme of debt. They pushed the culture of debt and convinced people that they needed more, more, and more. And it worked for a while, until finally people started noticing that, you know, they didn't actually HAVE that money that they'd been spending. And so that train just came crashing to a halt.

So Wall Street, eat it. You took the profits in years past, now you can take the loss. Don't lay it on me.

And politicos, left and right? Just stifle it. This isn't a Republican or Democratic issue. Both political sides closed their eyes to this problem, and indeed both sides made it worse. Sure you can point at one specific or another that one side did, or the other didn't do. But the bottom line is that this is a bipartisan fuckup of gigantuan proportions. Both sides have been in the pockets of corporate America. So spare me the political talk -- I'm just not buying it. Obama's not going to get us out of this, and neither is McCain.

This bailout nonsense is just that -- nonsense. I'm not inclined to bail out the companies that made this mess. Let them fail. Sure it would do awful things to the economy, but you know what? WE'RE ALREADY SCREWED. Yes, it could get worse. But I've seen nothing that makes me believe that this bailout is going to make things better. It's a band-aid. A huge, expensive flimsy band-aid that rewards the ones who fucked it all up to begin with.

And I'm not inclined to bailout the homeowners who are losing their houses, either. You chose to take on the mortgage that you couldn't afford. Don't come crying to me.

So those of us who lived within our means, didn't mismanage our finances, tried to actually save something for the future -- we're the ones who are now going to be called on to prop up the greedily criminal banks and investment houses, and to cover the mortgage payments of the irresponsible, ignorant people living in bigger houses than ours.

This isn't about rich vs poor, about haves vs have nots. It's about greed and irresponsibility, and the rest of us paying for it.

SCREW. THAT.

No bailout. Let Rome burn.

Fourth of July

OK, another admission -- while I like fireworks shows, I don't like going to fireworks shows. It gets crowded, it gets hot (except in Cleveland), you gotta walk all over the place (now with young children), etc, etc. Yes, I'm lazy. Plus I broke my neck at a fireworks show on the National Mall when I was younger, and I guess I still have bad memories from that.

Luckily I married a woman who shares this opinion. Our daughters, however, do not. Yesterday when Abra woke up she said "Are we going to see fireworks, Daddy?" Oh, groan. I was hoping we'd get through the day without them even realizing it was the Fourth of July, like we did last year.

Then I remembered that we had an old pack of sparklers stuffed in the back of a kitchen drawer. The box had come from Brenna's house when we packed it up 18 months ago, and was probably well older than that. I wasn't even sure they would light, so I tested one when the girls weren't looking. It lit. We were in business.

So when it got dark, I started lighting them up and passing them to the girls. Abra ran around waving them and making wishes. Thalia was a bit afraid at first, but then got brave and held them. Being old sparklers, half of them would die out halfway through and need to be relit. But they held up. And after we went through the dozen sparklers, the girls chased fireflies for ten more minutes. They would name the fireflies "Ted" and "Sally" and the like. Then it was bedtime.

And when we tucked the girls into bed, Abra said "That was the best Fourth of July EVER!"

Heh, the joy of exceeding low expectations.

Young Consumers

So cheapskate me keeps track of spending by logging receipts into Quicken so I can see how much we spend on food, gas, pets, etc. So Brenna, bless her heart, has gotten used to leaving grocery store receipts and the like on the counter for me to enter into the computer.

Recently, Abra started with an allowance -- a whopping $2/week for now. The other day she went to the grocery store with Brenna and made her first purchase with her allowance: some handisnack pudding!

Well, this was all very exciting -- when I got home that night the girls were telling me all about it: how they went to the store, and how Abra picked out the pudding, and she paid the cashier with her money, and got change, etc, etc.

And then Thalia piped up: "And she got a receipt, too!"

That's my girl.

Married Life Discussions #1,314,215

Driving home from Target today, Brenna and I were having an in-depth discussion of which brand of toilet paper did the best job of combining quality with price-consciousness. I was advocating the "Target Premium" brand, while the wife was extolling the virtues of buying "Charmin Basic" if and only if it went on sale.

After a few minutes of this, Abra asked from the back seat: "Are you guys talking about toilet paper?"

In a few short years, she's gonna be so embarrassed to have parents like us.

No country for cheap men

So the local public library lets you put reserves down for DVDs, and you can reserve from the entire pool of northeastern Ohio libraries. As far as I'm concerned, who needs Netflix or the like when you can just reserve from the library for free?

Now there are some downsides, of course. The biggest issue is the wait. About six weeks ago, when No Country For Old Men won the Oscar, I logged in to the library system and put a reserve on it. At that time, I was #1,123 in line. So I figured it would be a while. As of this morning, I've moved up all the way to #372! It'll definitely be here by the end of the month.

(I'll probably look like this by the time "No Country..." shows up...)

In the meantime, I'm #59 for Sweeney Todd and #125 for Pirates of the Caribbean III.

Yes, yes, I could go to Blockbuster or sign up for Netflix and get them faster, but half the fun is watching the numbers tick down. (That, and it gives Brenna enormous pleasure to roll her eyes at my cheapness every time I update her on the number.) And of course, there's no way in the world I'm gonna pay Blockbuster $3 for a movie when I can get it for free from the library, even if I do have to wait three months.

Found on the Refrigerator

I was getting some juice this morning, and noticed this little note had been quietly placed on the refrigerator door:


Cheap, cheap, cheap!

Snowbomb!

You may have heard we've had some weather up in these parts. Well, it's been an eventful week, and this was just the capper.

Actually, I'm not even supposed to be here. I was supposed to go to the telescope on Wednesday for a good, long nine night run under the Arizona skies. Being the cheapskate that I am, I was ever so proud that I had managed to snag a $300 round trip airfare, no less! (Note to my NSF program officer: note how efficient I am with my grant money!). But then, as we Case astronomers say, Schmidt happens. A little of this, a little of that, some nefarious assembler bugs here, some bad solder joints there, and I've got to postpone the trip at the last minute. Which means of course I'm playing right into the airline's hands. You need a change? Cha-ching! $100. Your new airfare? Cha-ching! an additional $500. So my cheap cheap cheap ticket just became a $900 boon to the airlines. Sigh. But you do what you have to, and I rebook to fly out on Sunday morning at 8:30 am.

Then Mama Nature steps in, and a winter storm comes screaming up from the south. On Friday, the snow starts to fly. The forecast looks downright nasty. A foot of snow perhaps, all set to pound away at Cleveland. It's supposed to finish early Sunday morning, just in time for me to try and fly to the observatory.

So I'm going to have to keep ahead of this sucker. No way I can dig out a foot of snow on Sunday morning. After dinner on Friday, I snowblow out the first round, maybe 4" or so. Saturday morning, I wake up, and there's another 5" on the ground, and I snowblow that off as well. And we're just gearing up for the day!


Now if you're a cat, who cares about all this snow stuff? You just lie curled up on the warm radiator while those dumb humans go out in that wet white stuff and get all huffy-puffy. So there was a round-robin of cats parked in the front window all day, watching me with disdain as I struggled mightily to clean the driveway and sidewalks.


But then by midafternoon, the beef of the storm was hitting us. By that time, it was parked over Cleveland and just rotating in place, bringing moisture off the lake and dumping it on us in classic lake effect snow style:


The airport shut down at noon, and was scheduled to reopen at 7:00am on Sunday, just in time for my flight! Raise your hand if you think I'm leaving on time in the morning. Yeah, me neither. So it's time to play. After I snowblew another 4" off the driveway, Brenna and I dragged the girls out of the TV room and threw them into the snow.




Brenna got into the action, and we all had a snowball fight:


And then all the women made snow angels:


Of course, we took Wacko out with us -- he loves the snow. Each time I went out to snowblow, I would tie him up in the yard, and he would lie on the snowbank getting whiter and whiter. And when I finished, did he want to go in? No way, he always wanted to go on a walk afterwards. By this time, the snow is up to his shoulder, but still he would bound through the snow, jumping up through it in front of me like a porpoise leading a boat.


Snowdog:


So at 5pm I grab a shovel and start clearing the couple more inches of snow that has fallen while we've been playing. It's a lot of snow in total -- I'm guessing 14", maybe -- and the house looks beautiful:


And the girls help me shovel the front sidewalk, too:


So after dinner, I log into my Continental account to check the flight status and see that the airline has actually already rebooked me on a later flight.

ON TUESDAY!

Well, nuts to that. I have to come back on Thursday anyway, what's the point of leaving for one day of work out there? So I call the airline and cancel the whole shebang. No trip to the observatory for me this time, but at least I get this crazy $800 airfare refunded! (A piece of me was just dying inside over having to pay that fare....).

My apologies to Paul, who is now alone at the telescope. But now I'm inside, snug as a bug in a rug, drinking hot chocolate and contemplating what I'm going to do with the girls in the snow tomorrow. Sledding sounds good....

(Update: the airport reported 15" of snow from this storm, and we usually get more than the airport does.)

When the kid's right, she's right.

So yesterday, Abra was playing outside in the cold, and rang the doorbell to come back inside. We then had an exchange that went something like this:

Ding dong!
Me: Who is it?
Abra: It's me!
Me: Me who?
Abra: Me, Abra!
Me: How can I help you?
Abra: I want to come in!
Me: WHAT?
Abra: I want to come in!
Me: What's the password?
Abra: The what?
Me: The PASSWORD!
Abra: oh -- "PLEASE"!
Me: Nope, not this time
Abra: ????
Me: "Dad is...."
Abra: ????
Me: "Dad is...." (OK, clearly here I am fishing for "smart", "nice", "good-looking", etc)
Abra: CHEAP!

OK, she pretty much nailed it on that one. So she got inside.

Mrs. Cheap Cheap Cheap!

So is it any wonder I married this woman? Check out the email I just got:

Today's Expenses and Cheapskate Report (all items charged to Discover Card):

• Gas at Get/Go, $23.80 (for a FULL TANK!--savings of $21.10 in FuelPerks)

• Old Navy, stuff for Abra primarily for next winter but including a summer nightgown, $7.57 (total "sticker price" on everything was $58.50 plus tax, but I got everything on clearance plus used a $25 gift card from MyPoints).
  

• $32.98 at CVS, which included the $5 off extrabucks. I earned another $1 (whee!) for buying Colgate kids' toothpaste which we were actually out of anyway.
  

• And I found a dime in the parking lot.

Be still my heart! All that savings, and a dime's worth of new income, to boot! She's the perfect woman for me...

Cheap, Cheap, Cheap!

OK, today we start a new recurring blog theme called "cheap cheap cheap!" As many of you are aware, I am one cheap bastard. I'll go out of my way to save $5 (as long as I dont have to spend $5 in gas to do it!). Perhaps the only person I know that's cheaper than me is my buddy Mark -- and it's close.

So whenever I score some particularly cheap savings, I'll crow about it here. Today's feat of cheapness, courtesy of Walgreen's, was a doozy.

Last Wednesday, I notice (courtesy of slickdeals.net) that the Walgreen's website has a "$5 off $20 in in-store purchases today-only" coupon. So I print it out, go to the local Walgreen's and load up on some on-sale knock-off meds (you think I'm gonna buy the brand-name stuff??).

When I get to the checkout counter, the clerk says "sorry, we dont take internet coupons."

Say what? It's from the Walgreen's website and can only be used in-store.

Naturally, I tell the kid to call the shift manager. The shift manager agrees, they don't take internet coupons.

OK, so I walk out (leaving everything behind -- I'm not buying things after that!) and go home. The wife comes home to find me drinking a 7&7 and typing out an email to Walgreen's corporate office. You can imagine the content: "false advertising", "bad customer service", "i'll continue shopping at CVS after this", all the usual.

Yesterday morning, I get an email from the head store manager apologizing, saying the clerk and shift-manager i dealt with were wrong, and that they *do* accept the coupons, and here's a $20 gift card for your trouble. OK, that works for me.

Then today, again courtesy slickdeals, I see that Walgreen's is offering an even-better "$10 off $30 today-only coupon". So off I go to Walgreen's to stock up on on-sale store-brand meds and vitamins. And here's the haul:

Equivalent price of name-brand meds :~$75

Pre-sale price of store-brand meds: $52

On-sale price: $43

After $10 coupon: $33

Final price, after $20 giftcard: $13

Oh yeah, that's sweet. And to think they could have had me at $5 off!