Mac or Windows? Drawing the Line on Frugality.

I can compromise on cola, for the sake of frugality, but you gotta take a stand on principle somewhere.

I think I’ll draw my line at computers and operating systems. Two years ago, I paid twice the price for my Mac iBook from Apple, compared to a generic Windows laptop. Never regretted it. Would do it again (not that I can afford a new computer right now).

The point is, I don’t NEED a new computer. Apple keeps sending me free software updates over the Net. If I had bought the Windows laptop two years ago, that balky version of Windows would be obsolete, and I’d be faced with buying the new Windows or a new computer.

My brand loyalty to Apple is stronger than ever. I’m determined to hold out for an iPhone, or at least an iPod, when I can afford it. Right now, Apple is still coming out with significant improvements to the iPhone on a regular basis, and reducing the price as well. So I’m content to wait another year or two until the iPhone is fully evolved, and the price is lower.

Waiting to make an important purchase is a good approach to frugality. Paying more for a product that won’t be obsolete in six months can be thrifty in the long run. Immediate gratification is over-rated.

Coke and/or Pepsi? Now I’m Getting Serious About Frugality

Coke has always been my cola.  Yes, I can taste the difference!  I usually stock up on extra Coke when it’s on sale. But when Pepsi is on sale and Coke is not, I stayed with the Coke.

Just this week I’ve realized that brand loyalty is an extravagance I can no longer afford. Unfortunately, I’ve also noticed that Pepsi seems to be on sale a lot more than Coke. A few weeks ago I was able to buy two-liter bottles of Coke for $1 at one of those “dollar” stores. Then it went up to $1.25.

I’ve searched the supermarkets and the discount stores in the past week. The regular price for a two-liter Coke seems to be $1.79. The lowest price I found was $1.25. But Pepsi is on sale for 99 cents!

Breaking a lifetime habit, I decided I simply could not justify paying 26 cents more for the taste of Coke. Just like that, Coke was no longer an essential in my everyday life. Does this count as an epiphany?

Now I’m getting serious about thrift. You’ll know I’m deadly serious when I shake the cola habit and switch to water or tea.

 

Stupid Bachelor Tricks: Potatoes

Why have I wasted my life eating French fries at restaurants? Why have I limited my home cooking to nuking frozen food?

I should have known better. I read Potatoes Not Prozac! 10 years ago. I told my sister, Rosemary, about it. She read Potatoes Not Prozac! I ignored it, and she took its message to heart.

A few days ago, Rosemary told me how she boils Yukon Gold potatoes. She said it was OK to put butter on them! I think that was the magic word. “Butter.” Or maybe, “Boil.”

“Boil a potato, that doesn’t sound too difficult,” I said to myself. “I can do that!”

Tonight, motivated by the desire for a more frugal lifestyle, I boiled a potato. I knew to use water, but I wasn’t sure how long to boil the potato. I washed it first, left the skin on, and cut it in quarters, exactly like Rosemary said. I used the “stick a fork in it” method to decide when it was done.

I smashed the quartered potato a little and added a liberal amount of butter. I topped it off with a sprinkle of that brand-name “seasoned salt” (no MSG). The potato was great! Why didn’t I think of this before?

I don’t know if Kathleen DesMaisons Ph.D. would approve of the butter and the seasoned salt. She’s the one who wrote Potatoes Not Prozac! Ms. DesMaisons also has a nifty Web site, ”Radiant Recovery,” where her disciples gather to meditate on the virtues of a life without sugar.

Wait a minute? No sugar? I don’t think I’m ready for that. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

Elderhostel/Exploritas

My friend, Rip, has just returned from an adventure in scenic New Hampshire, and he let me in on Elderhostel/Exploritas.

Elderhostel has recently changed its name to Exploritas, Adventures In Lifelong Learning. Here’s a summary blurb I copied from their great Web site:

Discover nearly 8,000 educational tours in all 50 states and more than 90 countries with Exploritas, the not-for-profit leader in educational travel since 1975. Alongside local and renowned experts, experience in-depth and behind-the-scenes learning opportunities, from cultural tours and study cruises to walking, biking and more.

I understand they’ve recently dropped the age limit for their educational trips in order to make them available to more Baby-Boomers.

Recession Vegetable Soup

Now that I’m unemployed again, I’m planning to create a Recession Vegetable Soup. The predominant vegetables will be potatoes and onions, seasoned with salt and pepper. Long on vegetables but not much protein. Why do I have the sinking feeling that this adventure will turn out to be neither simple nor frugal?

Step One: Buy a pot large enough to make soup or stew. And I have an aversion to those non-stick coatings on most new pots and pans (what chemicals do they make that stuff with?)  Note that whenever I embark on a project, I always discover that I don’t have the necessary tools. This is why I gave up trying to fix my own car.

I’ve come to consider Walmart as my supplier of first resort, based on their claim that they “sell for less.”  However, I found what I needed at one of the big-box specialty stores — a shiny eight-quart stainless steel stockpot with a glass cover — for $20. Six quarts would have been adequate, but  the eight-quart size is what they had. So it goes.

The $20 price at the big-box store was less than anything comparable at Walmart, demonstrating once again that it pays to shop around. So I guess the purchase qualifies as frugal. It was also simple, since it didn’t need to be delivered or installed, and there’s no assembly required!

How many soups and stews am I going to have to make this winter to justify spending $20 to buy the pot?

Watch this space for the recipe and a progress report.

How Many Blogs Is Too Many?

Blogging can take over your life, if you’re not careful. I know I’ve been ignoring Life After 60, Simplified, lately, but I haven’t forgotten it. I’ve simply been focusing my blogging energy on my main blog, Maryland On My Mind.

Some bloggers are so proficient! They can juggle multiple blogs. And then there’s me. I feel like I’m not doing all I could be doing with MOMM, but I don’t want to abandon Life after 60, either.

Obviously, it would simplify my life to have only one blog. But I’m already trying to cover Maryland politics and life in Ocean City, plus frequent side trips into national politics and economic change, in MOMM. They  say a blog is best if focused like a laser on one subject. So I want draw some boundaries for MOMM. Two of my major interests (life after 60, and simplicity) simply don’t fit there. What to do?

I’m pondering three courses of action. You can help me decide. Please vote.

History: NOT The Greatest Generation

A new page has been added: A Brief History of the Baby Boomer Generation.

I think the page is almost finished, subject to minor revisions and additions. Photographs to be added later.  Click on the page, “Not The Greatest” at the top of the blog.

When Is It OK to Admit That You Might Not Be Young Anymore?

Am I getting old?  Or am I just getting lazy?

Sixty-something is one of those awkward stages in life. Like middle-school. Or kindergarten. Life is changing, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for change. Sometimes a kid feels like he can’t wait for kindergarten or middle school.  Other times, the same kid wants everything to stay the same. Maybe we could put off kindergarten or middle school until next year? Probably not. Ready or not, change comes on its own schedule.

I think this particular awkward stage starts at around age 51. Am I middle-aged, or am I beginning to feel old? Is it my imagination, or is it really harder to land a job when you’re past 50?

The awkward stage gets discombobulating between 61 and 65. Those commercials on TV for miracle prescription drugs — are those commercials talking to me?

After you hit the big six-oh, it’s not so easy to pretend that you’re middle-aged. Lots of folks over 60 claim they don’t feel any different than they did in their 30s and 40s. (Let’s do a three-mile fun run. Let’s start a new business. Let’s visit China.) Are these folks in denial? Or do they just have younger genes than me?

At 61, I definitely don’t feel middle-aged anymore, and it’s definitely not easy to get a new job, or buy health insurance. But I won’t qualify full Social Security until age 66, and I don’t qualify for Medicare. I’m in between. It’s an awkward stage.

I still have responsibilities, work to do, but my short-term memory isn’t so reliable. I keep a list so I won’t forget anything important.

After breakfast, first thing I feel like is taking a nap. Is that a sign that I’m getting old? Or am I just getting lazy? Was I always this lazy? Maybe it’s depression? Or Seasonal Affective Disorder? Do they have a pill that will make me feel ready to take on the world?

I have to stop blogging now. Looking at the computer screen makes my eyes feel dry and scratchy. Yes, those commercials for soothing eye drops are talking to me.

Here’s my plan: One soothing drop in each eye. Look at the list to make sure there’s nothing that can’t be put off. Take a nap.

I’ll think about getting old tomorrow.

Mary Travers, 72 — Her Folk Songs Forever Blowin’ In The Wind

Peter, Paul and Mary's first record album, 1961, Warner Bros. High Fidelity Monophonic. Album cover photograph at The Bitter End, NYC.

Folk singer Mary Travers passed away Wednesday. She was 72 and had suffered from leukemia.

Mary Travers, Peter Yarrow, and Noel “Paul” Stookey – Peter, Paul and Mary – came together in 1961 in Greenwich Village, and were advocates for peace, justice and equality for nearly half a century.

Mary once said, “We may have marched with Martin Luther King and sung “Blowin’ In The Wind” on the 1963 march on Washington — but we also sang it with Archbishop Tutu and in a political prison in El Salvador. We sang it over the grave of Andrew Goodman, one of the civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964 — and we sang it when an 8-year-old boy was killed by the Contras in Nicaragua.”

Noel "Paul" Stookey (left), Mary Travers, and Peter Yarrow.

For more about Mary Travers’ life, and statements by Peter Yarrow and Noel “Paul” Stookey, click on www.peterpaulandmary.com.

Noel and Peter will carry on the work and the music, I believe.

Those of us who can remember the peace movement and the civil rights movement of the 1960s will have to put away the notion that we’re forever young, but Puff (The Mighty Dragon) will continue to roar.

Best Places To Retire, According To Money Magazine

Bangor, Maine, Is Among Top 25

Geography of Frugality? Some of the Top 25, But Not All.

A little bit of Main Street in downtown Bangor, Maine.

It’s a good thing my niece and her husband, along with my sister, have a signed contract to buy a wonderful 100-year-old house in Brewer, Maine. Money Magazine has named Brewer’s neighbor, Bangor, Maine, as one of the 25 best places to retire in the U.S. Do you think house prices might go up?

Money mentions Bangor’s “four-season” climate as one of the area’s attractions. But I’m thinking retirees will not stampede to enjoy the frosty, northern climate. More likely, retirees will consider some of the magazine’s Sun Belt recommendations. Bangor and it’s twin city, Brewer, just across the Penobscot River, will remain unspoiled by fame, is my prediction.

Some, but not all, of the cities recommended by Money could qualify for my “geography of frugality” concept. Here are the top five on the list of 25:

1. Port Charlotte, Fla., home prices down a whopping 63 percent; price of an average, three-bedroom house, $170,000.
2. Palm Springs, Calif., home prices down 44 percent; average three-bedroom house, $$250,000.
3. Traverse City, Mich., home prices down 20 percent; average three-bedroom house, $250,000.
4. Pinehurst, N.C., home prices down 27 percent; average three-bedroom house, $300,000.
5. Surprise, Ariz., home prices down 48 percent; average three-bedroom house, $150,000.

Hmm, Port Charlotte and Surprise sound like good places to hunt for bargain-priced  housing, if you’re interested in the Sun Belt. But Pinehurst, where an average three-bedroom house is $300,000, doesn’t sound so frugal. Money Magazine provided the average price for three-bedroom houses for all 25 cities listed. Unfortunately, it  gave the percentage price decline only for the first five.

In Bangor, number 23 on Money’s list, the average price of a three-bedroom house is $165,000. My relatives snapped up their bargain house for less than $150,000. Bangor also has an international airport, a great bus system (I have this fantasy of saving money by living without a car), cultural attractions, and major regional medical facilities.

Then there’s the city of Philadelphia, at Number 10 on Money Magazine’s list. With an average three-bedroom house costing $375,000, Philly is way too pricey, in my opinion. I think I’ll investigate Surprise, Ariz., where prices are down a whopping 48 percent.