Spending

I WOKE UP ONE morning, looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the person looking back at me. Who is this person? It can’t be me. I’m not the same person I was five or six months ago. I don’t know if it’s the pandemic that caused me to behave differently or if I’m going through some kind of midlife crisis.
No, it can’t be a midlife crisis. I’m almost 70 years old, plus I don’t feel my life is boring,

SENTENCES THAT BEGIN with “I can’t” drive me nuts—and I especially dislike the sentence, “I can’t save.”
“Pish-tosh,” I say.  Every household in America earning at least the median income can save for the future. If they try hard, many lower-income Americans could also save.
Of course, the amount saved will vary, but even small amounts can help over the long haul. If a household earning $40,000 a year can sock away enough to generate $300 or $400 in monthly retirement income to supplement whatever they get from Social Security,

BACK IN APRIL, I WROTE the last in a series of articles about my ill-fated cruise around South America, the last few weeks of which were spent in quarantine. In that article, I mentioned efforts to obtain a refund for airline tickets we bought to fly home but couldn’t use, because the ship was refused permission to dock in Punta Arenas, Chile.
For several weeks after our return home, I attempted to get the refund.

YOU MAY HAVE HEARD me say this before: I don’t think people need to budget if they have an effective spending and saving system. Recently, a reader of my blog challenged me on that point, arguing that you need a budget to ensure you’ll have enough to pay off your credit cards in full.
Au contraire, as we say here in New Jersey.
You may also have heard of the envelope method, where some people place money in envelopes for specific expenses.

BEING CONFINED TO home—except for trips to the grocery store for “necessities”—is changing me. My frugality has evaporated, my prudent buying habits destroyed, my healthy eating falling by the wayside. What’s happening?
No doubt there is a diagnosis, but in simple terms it’s called stir-crazy—and I’ve got it bad.
I’ve made two trips to the supermarket in the past two weeks. I had a shopping list. But as a result of my affliction, I instead roamed the aisles,

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has made the past two months feel like a cruel rollercoaster ride, with sharp drops in the stock market, businesses closing and millions displaced from their jobs. The overall mood has been unsettling, to say the least.
Want a little more financial certainty? There are steps we can take that’ll give us greater control over our life, both in the short and long term. For me, I’ve gained comfort from revisiting my living expenses.

ARE YOU WORTH IT? According to many sellers, you are—even if they have no idea who you are.
Economics generally divides consumed goods into necessities and luxuries. But behavioral economists understand that we need luxuries, at least psychologically. Purchasing things for ourselves is a way to self-validate, to say we are more than our base needs.
Who hasn’t felt good about an accomplishment and used that as a reason to splurge,

IF YOU TOOK AN economics class in high school or college, you might see its usefulness as limited to helping with your grade point average. But the basic ideas you learned can still be valuable. Take this introductory microeconomics question: In a typical transaction, who has more power, the buyer or the seller?
When I started teaching economics many years ago, I gave the nod to buyers. Invoking the notion of “consumer sovereignty,” I’d explain to students that buyers have the power to vote with their feet—by walking to another store.

WHEN MY YOUNGEST son graduated college, he had two solid job offers. One would have allowed him to live at home for free and the other was halfway across the country. Guess which one he picked?
In fairness, the job far from home was more interesting to him and provided a great start to his career. I remember him sitting down with his mother and me, and telling us he was planning to move to Texas.

BEEN A DILIGENT saver during your working years? Upon retirement, you’ll likely find it tough to transform yourself into a happy spender. This is not a problem you’ll read much about—because it isn’t exactly a widespread affliction.
The fact is, most folks struggle their entire life to control their spending, only to reach retirement with too little saved. At that point, they have no choice but to tighten their belt. Indeed, the statistics are alarming.

CATS ARE NOT MY favorite animal. They don’t like me, either. I’m allergic to them. If I go into a house with cats, within minutes I have trouble breathing. I once saw Cats on Broadway. Even the actors dressed like cats rubbing against my leg creeped me out.
Recently, I was in a restaurant. In the booth opposite were two young women, probably in their mid-to-late 20s. They were chatting away between texts.

SOME PEOPLE ARE into fashion, changing what they wear depending on the season, their whims or what others say should adorn our bodies. In fact, I would go so far as to say some of us are addicted to clothes.
Don’t believe me? Check out sites like Poshmark, which—it says—is “a vibrant community powered by millions of Seller Stylists, who not only sell their personal style, but also curate looks for their shoppers, creating the most connected shopping experience in the world.” Got that?

I’M A DOG LOVER. I’ve had four Cardigan Welsh Corgis share their lives with me. Over the past 25 years, dog food, veterinary care and training classes have consumed a large percentage of my disposable income. By necessity, I’ve learned a few simple ways to reduce the cost of pet ownership—including these five strategies:
1. Pet insurance. One of my Corgis, Riley, needed a $5,000 orthopedic surgery when he was a puppy.

OVER 600 YEARS AGO, Geoffrey Chaucer gave the world The Canterbury Tales, a caustic look at a cross-section of English society. While all the stories are still worth reading, one tale is especially relevant to today’s consumer.
For those who don’t remember The Canterbury Tales, it’s a story about a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury. They pass the time on the road by having a contest to see who can tell the best tale.

WE ARE ALL VICTIMS of continually rising costs. Here’s the oft-repeated drill: The service provider sends the yearly renewal bill by mail or email, or the new annual cost is simply posted to our credit card account or deducted from our bank account.
Assuming we even notice the charge, the head-scratching starts. What the heck was the cost last year anyway? The new fee may have increased just 3% or 5%, which doesn’t seem like a lot.