Twain and our Economy

I was listening to CraftLit today while I was working on some knitting.  I'm a bit behind on the current episodes, so I'm still stuck on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.  I'm nearing the end of the book and have been loving it so far.  I just wish I had more time to sit down with the podcast, but carving an hour out of any day can be daunting with Marrok, Chesh, and the kids hovering over me.  I'm beginning to think I'm just not allowed a moment of peace and quiet unless I'm working on my book!

During the podcast Heather made an interesting observation on the chapters we would soon be hearing.  She observed that Twain would make a commentary on the state of the economy, something that's still true today.  She kind of wished everyone would be required to read these chapters.  I have to say, I'm inclined to agree.

In this book, Twain makes a really good point.  People talk a good deal about wages.  Minimum wage gets a lot of attention these days.  When it was $5.12 per hour, people thought it was incredibly low.  Now it's up to $7.25 per hour and rising.  A lot of people see this as a great thing.  Everyone on the low end makes more money, so we must be doing economically better, right?

Unfortunately not.  With the rise in minimum wage we've also seen a matching, possibly even exceeding rise in cost of living.  For example, when I got to Texas just over two years ago we were paying $2.50 for a gallon of gas and that seemed steep.  The gas cost skyrocketed up to nearly $4 per gallon the very next summer.  Granted, gas prices drop and rise in a crazy way, but that's how everything is.  The cost of living isn't as close to as low as it was back when minimum wage was $5.12 per hour.

I hate to say it, but what we're looking at when we talk about wages is the base wage.  We're not talking about purchasing power here.  We're not taking a look at how much you can buy with that money.  Sadly, the amount we can buy with our dollar is going down faster than the minimum wage is going up.  What does this mean?  Our economy is going to tank, not because minimum wage isn't high enough, but because the cost of living keeps on going up faster than our minimum wage.

It was proven time and time again that your average family cannot afford to live off of minimum wage.  It would take approximately three minimum wage jobs in any given area to cover the cost of expenses to maintain your average home and family with two kids.  This isn't even talking about excesses such as car payments and things like that.  That should be telling us something.

I've heard a lot of people blame the feminists.  If they didn't insist that women work we wouldn't need two incomes just to get by.  The problem isn't the feminists, it's our standard of living.  Our need to live in excess, create debt for ourselves, and live above our means has caused the need for two working parents in a family. If we could all learn to live within our means, not buy unneeded things, and make the most of our time, perhaps the face of our economy would change.  I know it's just food for thought at this point, but isn't that where everything starts?

So what am I going to do?  I know there's really nothing I can do about the minimum wage or the cost of living, but I can take a stand and make sure my dollars count.  Instead of buying expensive toys for my kids, I'm going to focus on affordable, as I have been.  I'm going to watch my personal spending and make sure my money is only going out to things I can actually condone and support.  I'm going to make sure the items my family has are quality, even if that means paying a bit more or doing a bit more work.  In the long run, it will be worth it.  If it outlives it's value, that's all that I care.

In the end, we're not really so much better than all these other countries out there.  For a little bit of a shocking reality check, take a look at this article, courtesy of Heather Ordover from CraftLit.  Go down the whole list.  Pay attention to both the prices, and how much food their family survives off of.  You might just be surprised at the degree to excess in which Americans live...

Another Green Suggestion to Holiday Shopping

This weekend's crazy sales have got me thinking a good deal about holiday shopping.  While everyone else is out raiding the sales, I started to think about some ways I could handle my own holiday commitment without, well, ending up committed!  Yesterday I talked about the benefit of home made gifts.  Today I want to think about those family members that simply aren't...well...the right match for hand-made crafts.  Let's face it, not everyone in our lives is willing to accept something that isn't store bought with excitement and joy.  Some will just shove it to the bottom of the closet and only pull it out when they know you're coming to visit.  To keep everyone happy, I've decided there are some people I just won't do crafts for.

Of course, handling the holiday crazies are bad enough when you've got people on your list to shop for, but I don't believe in going out of my way to shop for presents.  With the crowds and traffic of the holiday shopping weekend, often times it isn't worth it to go out just to hit up the sales.  There are plenty of alternatives to hitting the big sale weekend shopping and they'll save you on effort and gas.

Here's a few of my suggestions for getting all of that holiday shopping out of the way:  Some of these will definitely help you save some money during the holidays too!

1. Plan ahead.  Know what you're going to buy everyone in advance and where you can buy it.  If you don't know what to get someone, search around online for some ideas.
2. Stick to your list.  I know it's really tempting to change plans when you see that perfect gift for Aunt Mary, but you'll likely go through that about ten times during this holiday season.  Changing plans is a great way to get off budget or overbuy for your family because you simply "can't resist".  However, this is the perfect time to pull out a notebook and start getting ideas for next year!
3. Calculate your holiday budget.  Come the holiday season I can't count how many people I've known who stress about how they're going to afford everything they need to get their family for Christmas.  I know many families that put themselves into a great deal of debt, sometimes so much it takes the whole next year to pull themselves out of it.  Other families are choosing which bills not to pay so they have a little more for the holidays.  Instead of going broke for the holidays, just sit down with your family budget, calculate your expenses (if you haven't done this already) to see how much you have left over for holiday spending, including big family meals, something to bring to the potluck, whatever engagements you'll have.  You can also see where you can cut the budget for the month if you don't think you'll have enough to comfortably cover all your gifts, such as eating on the cheap for a while.  Once you've got that, calculate how much you can budget for each holiday need, decorations, cards, a tree (if you buy one each year), and shopping.  This should help you stay on track throughout the holiday season without going broke (unless you choose to!)
4. Keep within your budget.  If something you had planned to purchase turns out to be more expensive than you thought it was, take a moment to consider whether you can really afford to put out the extra money.  Also keep track of any items you get on sale or otherwise manage to save on.  If you've managed to hit great sales and stay well under budget, it's a lot easier to justify spending a little bit more on something that cost more than you estimated.
5. Plan holiday shopping trips with your other errands.  If you know that quirky little parenting shop you plan to get those cute diaper covers for your expecting sister is right near the grocery store, plan to go on your grocery shopping day.  If the book store is right near the post office, stop in while mailing out your Christmas cards, picking up packages, or buying stamps.  If you've got a bunch of locations that aren't near any of your scheduled errands, set them up in localized groups to save on gas and traveling.  Remember, the less you have to drive, the more you save on time and the less pollution you produce to damage the environment!
6. Check for sales and see if you can work your errands to coincide.  For example, if there's a great weekend sale where the toy you're buying for your niece is going to be 50% off, perhaps you could get up early to hit the post office's Saturday hours.  Sometimes these sales don't always hit, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
7. Don't wait until last minute!  Last minute shopping leaves you prone to panicking.  This doesn't do anyone any good.  You'll also be less likely to find the item you're looking for if it's a hot ticket item that year.  Shopping early allows you time to find the gift, even if you can't find it at the first locations you check, and if all else fails, you can always order online with plenty of time for the package to arrive.

These are just a few of the things that help me get through the holiday season without too much trauma.  I know many of these sound like they're obvious, but you wouldn't believe how many people don't know how to use these simple tactics to make the holidays as little stress as they can be.  With all of the plans for travel, arranging for big dinners, and everything else, there's plenty of stress to the holiday season.  Why add to the problem?  Just take your time, plan it out.  Budget, and enjoy the holiday season.  Isn't that what it's all about?

Green Alternative to Black Friday Shopping

What is it about Black Friday that gets everyone up and shopping?  I know it has some of the best sales in the country, but are we really that much of a consumer culture?  I've been dragged shopping on Black Friday with a friend of mine and the sales may have been good, but the crowds were horrible.  I didn't really see the point.

Shopping on Black Friday also isn't great for the world around us.  Think of all the fumes expelled from vehicles as shoppers race from store to store.  Think of all those pollutants!  Then there's all the extra electricity use so stores can be open longer hours, earlier in the morning and later at night, if not all night.  All of that energy adds up.  What about all the people who eat out rather than eating a nice home-cooked meal because they're already out and it's convenient?  All in all, it's not the greatest concept for the world around us.

This year instead of hitting up the Black Friday sales, I'm looking for alternatives.  I've already decided many of my gifts this year have to be hand-made.  I guess a Black Friday sale at the yarn shop would be quite dangerous for my budget, but that's about it.

Making gifts has a seriously positive impact on the world around us.  Not only are the gifts made from the heart, and therefore have personal value, they're also higher quality than many store-bought items.  These items frequently come at a lower cost and require less energy to make.  Aside from making the materials themselves, the only energy expended is that of making it yourself, which leaves a much smaller impact on the environment.  After all, at most you'll eat more.  Hand-made gifts require more thought, since you're not going to spend all that time to make something the recipient will hate.  They're also generally more useful than many store-bought items.  Hand-made items come in such a variety too that there's always something for everyone.

This year while everyone else is running around doing their Black Friday sale shopping, I'm going to be taking some time to truly enjoy the start of the holiday season, kicking back and spending some time with my family.  Yes, I might miss the sales that so many other shoppers are hitting, but at least I'll know I can spend some quality time with my family and my room mates, possibly even making up some Christmas gifts while we're at it.  I think that's more than worth it.

Downsizing Again...

I feel like a company that's going under.  It seems like every day I'm downsizing.  In part it's because I keep moving into smaller and smaller places with less and less space for all our stuff.  It seems like there's just no way I'm ever going to be a material person again.  I suppose that's a good thing, in a way.  Who needs all of this stuff anyway?  It's just taking up space, space that we don't have right now.  In some cases, I can make a few bucks off of it.  In some cases I'm just tossing it at GoodWill where they can make the best out of it.  It doesn't really matter (though the money would always be nice) because I'm lightening my own personal burden.

Today I've started the process of going through the house to get rid of clothes we don't need again.  A huge bag full of socks just got tossed.  They're socks no one can wear anymore, or those that have been worn to the point of developing their own sentience.  In some cases, their mate disappeared several moves ago.  I had hoped this would happen as I started making socks to replace the store bought ones, but we're not going to be so lucky.  It's time they go.  We'll keep enough around to keep our feet happy, but most of the rest of them need to go on their way.

I'm also going through my dance costumes and accessories.  I've come to realize there are just some I never wear anymore.  In some cases, I never really wore them in the first place.  It's time for them to find dancers that will love them as much as I thought I would.  Clearly, I've developed a much more particular sense of style, and the pieces I once thought suited me so well really don't anymore.  I hope I can make a few bucks off of them, after all, they were all very expensive.  In some cases, they're things I've made for myself and just need to get rid of.  I'd love to keep them, but you do what you must when times are tight, and I can always make more.  I wanted to make a business out of making and selling them anyway!

Finally, I've been sorting through all our other stuff again.  It's time to start wrangling up toys that don't get played with again, though this time it seems like there aren't many to sort out.  Most of the toys are well used and loved.  It's also a good excuse to organize and putt all the like with like again.  That probably won't happen until we finally move, since there's no place for the toys here, and we won't be staying long enough for it to make a difference.

Then there's the clothes.  My oldest daughter is my only daughter.  At this point, I've decided not to hang on to any of her clothes.  If I had a baby girl tomorrow, it would still mean holding on to them all for seven years or more, waiting for her to get big enough to wear them!  That's going to take up a lot of space.  It's not even going to be a short while, as I'm not planning on any more children yet, and if I decide to have one, I can't be sure it will be a girl.  That seems an awful big chance to save on.  Of the baby clothes, I'm keeping very limited stuff.  Anything I don't absolutely adore is going away.  I'm keeping all the little shirts, since it's hard to find shirts and not bodysuits for babies.  With the use of longies and shorties, shirts are far more practical.  I'm going to keep all of the hand knit stuff, since I adore it.  However, a lot of it really does need to go.  I'm not planning on another baby any time soon.  By then we should be in a better financial situation to buy new stuff, even if it means buying it second hand.  I'm keeping all of my older son's clothes, as that only makes sense.  In two or three years the littlest one will be growing into them, so it's not like I'll be holding them forever, and I know for certain there's another little boy to grow into them.

I'm even starting to go through all the old things I've been hanging on to for so long, like all of my old notebooks and journals.  I'm starting to sort through the projects I started and never finished.  I'm even looking to destash some of my yarn and fabric!  I know that's a shocking concept, and I may just have to destash by using it on things I can sell or use myself, but it's time I stopped holding on to things.  I can only drag it around with me for so much longer and it's starting to hold me back.  In the end, you can't take it with you, so what would be the point of holding on to it my whole life when someone else could actually use it to make something they love?

It feels good to downsize again, in a way, but at the same time, it's difficult.  It's hard to let go of things you've carried around for years.  It's hard to simply drop everything and move on.  It's also hard because it has that foreboding sense of moving again.  I can't entirely complain.  The situation we're moving into will be great to us.  We'll actually be paying rent and bills, so we're earning a good tenant history.  The place is inexpensive, so we're not paying as much as we could have to.  Our soon-to-be room mate is a wonderful person.  Finally, it will be closer to where I teach.  My partner is also winning out as he's being transferred at work to a place that will allow for more hours and a schedule he wants.  This is a wonderful, positive change for us.  It's also added incentive to get rid of all the extra baggage we've been carrying around.

As for the news on moving (if you didn't already know), it's just a stroke of bad news for the friends we're living with.  This is what happens when the economy takes a turn for the worse.  They're suffering through their own hard times.  We're parting in peace, and I really do hope they land on their feet.  I wish much the same for my own family.

For now, it's back to downsizing.  It's back to releasing the things that are holding me back.  It's time to start accepting that sometimes stuff is just stuff and all it does is get in the way.  By the time I'm done, it may feel sparse, like we have nothing, but at least we'll know the only stuff remaining is that which we'll truly enjoy.

What I Learned from Laundry and our Wardrobes

The past few days have been filled with a lot of laundry.  Since moving to our new home in the country, we've been sorting our belongings, unpacking, putting away, and washing just about everything we have.  As a result, I've been given a pretty good appreciation to exactly how much stuff we really have.

Before we moved here, we didn't have our own washer and dryer.  Laundry was done in big batches when we could haul it off to the laundromat.  Often times we only pulled together the things we thought we needed.  Most times it ended up a random assortment of children's clothes, half of which didn't even suit the season or wasn't even the right size, and a collection of the most needed adult cloths.  Our laundry took over the house.  There were dirty clothes cast off just about everywhere.  The floor in my room was piled with clothes that never got put away and cloths that desperately needed to be washed, but we could never afford to run through it, load after load, time after time.  We just got behind, and because we only did laundry when we needed it most, behind is where we stayed.

Now that we have our own laundry facilities, I've been spending more time than I care to think about washing clothing, folding, putting away, and organizing.  I didn't really know just how much we had until I looked at the growing pile in the hall as I tossed it all out of the room.  There is still laundry on my floor and a waist high pile of baskets and bins in the hall of stuff that needs to be cleaned.  I've been trying to find homes for it all, but I'm starting to realize just where our biggest problems lie.  All of our wardrobes need a serious overhaul.  Thankfully, this mass laundering has been inspiration to start.

Starting with the littlest one in the house, I shouldn't have been surprised by the mass amount of clothing we've piled up.  Babies generally have a lot of clothes.  Not only do they go through it like crazy because of spit up, drool, and everything else, but they need a wide variety of sizes on hand, just in case.  Until a child is about two-years-old, they go through multiple size changes in a year.  As a result, it never hurts to have the next size or two up on hand because it will seem like one day everything will fit fine, and then with no warning, nothing will fit at all.  I've got such a variety of clothing for my littlest that I could probably outfit him for the first year with no question, and I have some garments that should fit until he's two.  Thankfully, as he gets older, that giant stack of baby clothes will thin out and I'll be left with only needing to plan ahead a season or a year at most.  I can get behind hanging on to what he can grow into, especially since I know we'll be moving into yearly size changes before I know it.

Unfortunately, the little guy still needs a wardrobe overhaul.  I knew I had a bunch of clothing that simply wasn't going to fit my little man.  He'd outgrown all of his newborn clothes and the next size up was starting to get small on him.  Since we're choosing to go with cloth diapers, most of the "6-9 months" clothing isn't going to fit over his bottom, nor will many of the pajamas and rompers.  Most clothing isn't meant to be worn with big, bulky bottoms.  Thankfully, I intend on making plenty of longies and shorties, so my little guy will have plenty of bottoms to wear and I won't have to worry about it.  This means his wardrobe has a lot of weeding out to do.  There are a few select garments that I've decided to keep for the far-off day I decide to have another child, but there's a growing pile marked for "donations" to go to GoodWill or Salvation Army.  If I can't use them, someone else might as well have them.  Little body suits aren't as ideal as they used to be.  Pajamas, rompers, and pants are being tossed because we don't use them, though we've kept a couple that will still work well enough.  Unfortunately, finding normal shirts for babies this age is quite the challenge, as I'm finding out, so his wardrobe is going to be slightly lacking for the first year.  Even so, we're finding that we can make things work, even if we leave bodysuits unbuttoned.  Thankfully, all the outgrown and impractical clothing we have packed away can now find a home with another family, reducing the burden of storage and clutter of things we don't need.

My older son had the exact opposite wardrobe problem.  We found ourselves washing his clothing all the time, yet he never had enough to last.  With his preferences of wearing shirts for days at a time, he didn't have a problem with this, but come laundry day I was always frustrated to only find two or three shirts and one pair of pants or shorts.  I knew we had bought him more than that, but it seemed they somehow all disappeared.  With sorting through all the laundry in the house, I'm finally starting to find it all and fit it all into his dresser.  Since his clothing was so greatly outnumbered by all the other clothes in the house, it was kind of like finding a needle in a haystack.  Much of it was also packed away in random boxes, places I never would have found it otherwise.  If it wasn't for the efforts to pull everything out to pack away and store in a logical manner, I probably never would have found it all, and I'm sure when I got through the few remaining boxes, I'll find even more of his clothing.  Much of what we've got for him is too small and needs to be put away until the littlest one grows into it, but there's plenty that he can get through a week without doing laundry.  He's got the least clothing in the house, but he's got enough to get by.

My daughter, on the other hand, has a wide variety of sizes as well.  She's gotten a lot of hand-me-downs from friends and neighbors.  A good deal of it just needs to be put away for later, but she's also got clothes she's long since outgrown that somehow keep making it back into her drawers.  She loves those garments, but she just can't fit them anymore.  That doesn't stop her from wearing them.  She really just needs a complete wardrobe overhaul.  I need to make sure everything she still has fits her, and whatever doesn't is either put away until she grows into it, or is given away so she can stop trying to fit into things that are much too small.  She also has a horrible habit of wanting to wear the same outfit for days on end, but I think that will be easier to manage once all her clothes are in her dresser and can no longer use the excuse that she can't find any clean clothing.  Of course, that won't stop her from trying, but at least I'll know better.

Sorting through my clothes has left me with mixed feelings.  I've started to notice that I don't have just one style, but I'm finding I've got much more defined preferences than I once had.  Over the past few years I've downsized quite a bit.  I had tons of clothing given to me over the years by friends and family or when I was living in the shelter.  Some of it was clothing I've held on to from high school.  Most of it didn't suit me anymore.  For one reason or another, I just never wore it, so it was time to pass it on to someone who would wear it.  Now I'm realizing that I've still got way too much.  I have black jeans from working at LensCrafters as an optometric technician.  I've got khaki colored pants from when I was in the lab.  I've got all sorts of shirts that just don't fit me right, or I don't wear because I don't like the cut or the fit.  Most of it I held on to on the off chance that I would need them again, or because it meant I could wait longer between laundry days.  Now that I can do my laundry at the house, I no longer need most of it.  When I look into work again, I'm going to be looking for more of the business casual or business professional look, so much of what I've held on to simply won't be appropriate anymore.  It's time to let much of that go and only hang on to the stuff I'll really wear, the stuff I need.  I will admit, letting it all go isn't going to be easy, but it's high time I did.  It will feel so much better to see all my clothing fit neatly in my closet and dresser, and it will be incentive to do laundry more often, instead of waiting for the mountain to get so high it will take days to clean and put away.

Then there's my boyfriend, who really is the woman of the family.  He has more clothing than perhaps the rest of the family combined.  He's got cloths for every occasion, though most of them he hardly ever wears.  He's got a good selection of professional-looking clothing, which I can get behind.  He wears them for interviews and hopes to some day get a good job where he may just need that kind of clothing.  He's got a drawer full of nothing but industrial-style club pants, which he wears all the time.  He's got a collection of band shirts and other t-shirts.  He has jeans and button-down shirts for that more preppy look.  Some of it he wears all the time, and I completely understand wanting a variety of clothing to dress to suit the mood, but he's got clothing that he only wears when there's nothing else.  I really wish he'd cut back, but he keeps telling me he needs more clothing because he doesn't have enough!  I love him dearly, but he takes up more of the dresser and closet than I do!

In reality, looking at the way my family is dressed has taught me some valuable lessons.  The most important lesson to know when it's time to let something go, no matter how practical it is.  I'll have plenty of opportunities to buy more clothes as time goes on, things that more suit my current styles, tastes, and needs at the time.  I'll be making room for more pretty hand-knits and other things that I would truly love to have, but would get lost in my endless collection of clothes I never wear.  It's better to have fewer things that I adore and wear all the time than to clutter my home with "once in a while" selections that distract me from the things I really love.

So here I am, trying to cut away all the dead weight in my wardrobe, and you know what?  It's freeing!  I'm breaking away from the modern ideal of materialism.  The more you have the happier you'll be doesn't truly apply to my life anymore, at least, not in a physical sense.  In many ways, the less you have, the more you'll appreciate and be happier with what you do keep.  I wonder if whoever first said "less is more" had any idea how true that statement really is.