I think Camus, as translated by Justin Brown in 1991, has a possible answer to your question: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
THAT HUM YOU HEAR ISN'T A REFRIGERATOR October 21, 1993
By Eric Zorn
How to solve the financial crisis in the Chicago Public Schools?
Two words: Humberto Cruz.
Humberto Cruz, a man who does not just pinch pennies, but who wrestles them to the ground and squeezes them until Abe Lincoln passes out; a man who has managed --on a Tribune salary! --to amass a net worth of nearly a million dollars.
My fascination with Cruz-my Humbertomania if you will-began this spring shortly after his syndicated column, "Savings," began appearing every Thursday in the Tribune's "Your Money" section.
What started it? Was it when Cruz revealed that to save on electricity he and his wife, Georgina, make a game out of how quickly they can close the refrigerator door after they open it? Was it when he advised readers that by wearing gym shorts and old T-shirts to bed they can bank the price of pajamas? Was it when he boasted that one of his favorite business suits is a $50 pinstripe job he bought at Sears in 1972?
All I know is he quickly captured my fancy. I used the scraps of personal information contained in his savings tips to build an outline of his life-he is 47 and the editor of a Tribune-owned publication in South Florida-then filled in the rest. One morning in May I found myself writing a poem about how I imagined him to be. Part of it went:
He wires his house with stripped twist ties
And walks ten miles for better buys
On toothpicks, sealing wax, and grout
(Or better still . . . he does without!)
A man who stacks his cupboard liner
With ketchup packets from the diner;
Who uses tin cans 'stead of phones,
Eats his ice cream without cones,
Then reuses plastic forks,
Baggies, floss and soggy corks.
A man whose cards of Christmas cheer
Are just the ones he got last year
But with the senders' names erased
and "Love, Humberto" in their place.
I shared this with other Humbertophiles (we are a small but hardy cult), even as I called their attention to Humberto's subsequent bold declaration that one of the reasons he saves 66 percent of everything he earns is that he and his wife have absolutely no vices. What, we wondered, must they be like socially?
This led another follower and me to compile the Top 10 reasons Humberto and Georgina go to a lot of parties (No. 7: "Hi my name is. . ." tags can later be cut into strips and used as masking tape; No. 4: Bringing along greeting cards cuts down on postage bills.)
We pored over his columns for true bits of Cruz lore: Because Humberto believes that the longer one stays in a grocery store, the more one spends, Georgina races through the supermarket aisles at off hours. Her record, he wrote, is 16:49; they wash all their clothes on "cold;" they haunt the brochure stands at hotels near their home looking for coupons and discount tickets intended for tourists; they spent less than $40 on each other last Christmas.
This latter intelligence prompted us Humbertians to compose the Top Ten Ways to Have a Merry Cruzmas (No. 5: With grass clippings, the cardboard from a pizza box and Elmer's glue, one can construct a very plausible wreath for the front door; No. 2, Celebrate Orthodox Christmas instead-12 days after the Western one-to take full advantage of post-holiday sales.)
What is he really like? We do not want to know. To meet or talk to him would dilute the Humberto experience. We know him only by his imparted wisdom: "Do not disdain saving small amounts," he told us in April. "They add up to staggering sums over time."
We believe. Which is why he is the man to take over the financial reins at the Chicago Public Schools, where the budget deficit now hovers around $300 million.
Buses? Cruz wrote that while on a business trip, instead of renting a car to get around, he walked-so can our schoolchildren. Utilities? Cruz wrote that he keeps the air conditioner at 82 degrees in the summer. Supplies? Humberto wrote that Georgina, also a writer, carries file folders held together with rubber bands instead of a briefcase and, he noted, "we never buy paperweights."
Staff will wear their pencils to the nub, use overhead lights only at night and employ old socks instead of costly blackboard erasers. The bureaucrats will emulate Humberto and tote their lunches to work in plastic bags from the grocery store. The deficit will vanish.
And we Humbertites will put the final touches on the Cruz family version of "West Side Story." Say it soft and you don't feel like paying, Humberto. . .
My husband and I, also, were raised to be thrifty and always have practiced many of the small frugalities mentioned. They add up over time and repetition.
An acquaintance regularly used to make fun of my habits: "Oh, do I hear your little birdies again? -- cheep, cheep, cheep!" So guess who several times has had to come seeking a loan because he never learned to minimize spending and put aside some of his once-bountiful salary for the future? Humans haven't changed much since Aesop related "The Grasshopper and the Ant."
I laughed out loud at the thrift ideas, while I checked several boxes. I would also have checked the 'tear paper towels in half'. I learned my habits from frugal relatives, that I mentally chuckled about when I was a youth. I know my grandparents and parents went through tough times and many of us have known recessions and inflation. I wonder how much of our behavior is learning the always useful virtue of 'waste not want not' and how much is learned from adversity.
I'm always trying to be thrifty: saving napkins, reusing plastic cutlery, aluminum foil if clean, ripping paper towels in half, and adding water to dish and laundry soap for many years. Dividing dishes of food into smaller portions to last longer is new, but higher prices have forced me to be more careful and make sure I consume all leftovers. Drinking more water in place of other beverages is also helpful in keeping my grocery bill lower.
I predominantly agree with Eric's definition and description of 'white privilege', but I do not believe that those that coined the phrase (and use it most) would agree with him. I do not think we will ever be in a bias-free society because biases are human nature. But I do think that the disadvantages that you list are trivial and irrelevant, I question the 'pain', and I don't think they confer any particular benefit for whites. I agree that we should all think about our biases and assumptions, because such things are not exclusive to whites, and do affect our decisions and behavior. We should always try to be better people.
I also do not intend any insult to Eric's meaning or intent in using 'brown'. However, 'brown' people, is not a creation of communities of color but of activists and the media. My primary issue is that it is meaningless nonsense that is used by activists and politicians to declare a purported common interest against a common enemy. It was invented to attempt to create a broader political base. It presumes that skin color is the primary criteria on which society operates and on which government should act. And that brown people need special assistance and support. 'Brown' people is almost as meaninglessly broad as Asian. Are people from India brown or Asian? Or are they twice smitten in spite of being one of the wealthiest and highest educated ethnic groups? The hundreds of ethnic/cultural heritage and economic groups within Brown and Asian do not share monolithic common interests or demographics.
I agree with your objection to the term "brown people." Depending on who is using it, my interpretation is that sometimes it means only Latinos (itself NOT a racial or skin-color term); at other times it means everyone who's neither black nor white. The way it's vague, and sometimes smooshes several disparate groups together, makes it a term I won't use. "Asian" of course is also vague, given the huge size and racial diversity of the peoples of Asia. I can use it as a term referencing geographic origin, but no more.
Totally agree with your slogan comments. I believe that the vast majority of people are moderate, sensible, and open-minded. It is the media and our political processes that enhance and reward the fringes. Electorally, rank order voting in primaries and elections would be a huge benefit to reducing the influence of the fringes. I don't know how to get people out to vote and am depressed by the 'energize the base' model that fuels and relies on anger, fear, distrust, and misinformation.
Is it correct? Yes, some of it, but it's too binary. 8 of the top 10 median incomes in the U.S. are non-white minorities. Suicide rates are much higher among whites than blacks, along with many cancers. Let's look at all races and complexities when assessing.
Is is productive? It can be, but most people are either turned off, or on the other side of the spectrum, turned into indoctrinated witch hunters. It doesn't add any more than "racism exists" or "being a minority comes with some disadvantages".
Is it politically savvy? No, it's horrible coalition building. Trumpism and social justice overreach have been feeding off each other for almost a decade.
Focus on helping people who need help. Drop the slogans, and support causes like Project Hood, Cara Foundation, CRED, Off the Street Club, Greater Food Depository, etc.
Toure Reed's "Toward Freedom" is a good book on the subject from a progressive labor standpoint. Here's his take on terminology like "white privilege" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIKt5CrvWf0
Another thought occurred to me this morning. If all things Eric were the same except for his skin color, I bet that his life would be very little different. Otherwise, one has to make the leap that his skin color precludes some or all of his life advantages. This occurred to me as I was reading the Trib reviewer Nina Metz article about the new John Wayne Gacy documentary. In the review she says that Gacy's success as a serial killer was facilitated by being a white male, which insulated him from suspicion.
omygosh. I voted for them all...I had an incredibly frugal mother who likely instilled me in this to my husband's, um, acceptance. She had a great mantra in our apt. in Brainard, "don't waste a trip" if I was going to the basement to do....there might be laundry to take down or bring up etc.
I am also a gardener (volunteer for Master Gardeners) so I rake leaves and put them somewhere for mulch, have a yard rake hooked up to our mower to scoop up grass and leaves and use for mulch have a non use compost pile (we buy the real stuff) on our five acres for household stuff. My husband grows most of the food we eat and preserves the rest in our basement or canned Think asparagus for a month-every day- and give it away.
I keep old laundered dish cloths to do the paper towel stuff and recycle stuff we have to travel 2 hours round trip to drop, but get a chance to trade in a bigger city and have lunch by a river. Seriously I can wash our 2 people dishes in like a gallon of water, and brush and floss my teeth in a few oz.
A friend of a friend of a friend, rinses out dental floss to reuse which, even for me crosses the line. Over 40 years we have driven old VDubs, Toyotas (husband a mechanic on those), then CRVs. We've grown a lot of our own food and preserved for 30 years and supported local growers in our coop (of meat and veggies) too and have bees. We have award winning State Fair Salsa (and honey) until the ones with prepared spices emerged then he bowed out. We also hang our clothes on racks indoors in winter to improve the humidity; 3 seasons it's out on the line.
I learned from my parents to use cotton rags (made from cut-up old clothes, not store-bought) for the household wiping that many people use paper towels for. I'll use paper towels for wiping stuff that I don't want to run through the laundry on a rag. Hardware stores do sell packages of rags, for those building-related jobs which put waste on rags such that it's not appropriate to try to clean them for re-use. I save lots of money on paper towels by using rags for most wipe-ups.
Also we have repaired our fridge and washer a few times thanks to a local person that is thrilled to do it. During the pandemic our fridge was acting up a bit and bought a crappy new one as we were afraid we couldn't find one to purchase during the Covid...and took the old to the garage (for summer produce) It was so awfully plasticly build that we hired the local guy to fix the old Fridgidare and moved it back in in the house. He's also fixed our Maytag washer that I bought used in the 90's (built in Galesburg Il closed now for a long time, several times including recently, and it runs like a top now. The new stuff can't be fixed easily or cheaply...guess my parent's knew that as we had historic appliances in our apts. in my youth.
I kept thinking about all the ways we reuse the daily print newspaper, beyond just clipping out articles to send to friends and family. We wrap china and glasses, start the charcoal, wash the windows, make folded hats and boats, wrap packages, stuff packages, the list goes on and on! You can’t do any of that with an online newspaper on an ipad!
I suggest that Modest Frugalities is exactly the wrong approach in difficult times. You need to look for one or two major frugalities and treat yourself on the small stuff. When I was a graduate student (therefore living hand to mouth), I formulated a "Guide to Gracious Living Through Little Luxuries" whose thesis was basically finding very inexpensive ways to feel luxurious. For example:
- Every cup of tea gets a fresh teabag
- Sprinkle lime on almost everything
- Fresh razor blade for every shave (back when the blades were not good for much more than one shave and were cheap)
- A fudge-covered Oreo cookie for dessert
This all made having chicken legs for dinner (again) a lot more bearable. I invite contributions of other such Little Luxuries to promote gracious living in difficult times.
Another angle of approaching frugalities to focus on is, what is the benefit/cost ratio or sum over the course of a year, of a given frugality, on your budget? For example, without doing the math, I'm pretty sure that using home-made rags instead of paper towels, wherever practicable, saves a lot more money than squeezing two cups of tea out of each teabag.
Buying items in resale shops, discount department stores, and clearance prices saves money, and sometimes even snags you a "Little Luxury."
Neither of your suggestions is likely, as both policies are consistent with progressive taxation. For most taxpayers, the contributions to a traditional IRA were deducted from income when they were made and were not taxed. Traditional IRA distributions are taxed as regular income. The Required Minimum Distribution is intended to ensure that the contributor pays the deferred taxes on the original income plus pays regular income tax rates for the capital gains in the account. The tax on Social Security payments is just part of the progressive tax rates. If you are in a higher tax bracket, you also get part of the SS taxed, just like deductions get phased out.
If you mean tax simplication is unlikely - I agree. However you miss my point on RMD - why force a distribution at any particular time? It just causes grief for folks that don't want/need a distribution.
Also Social Security being taxed twice is hardly progressive and the folks I know take their social security and then need to work to keep paying the bills. And they try to earn enough money to live but not quite enough to have to pay taxes on their Social Security. Working folks get hit hard by this - Elon Musk and friends handle this "progressive" tax situation very easily.
I have some comments on the frugality items in the list, and one of my own:
1. I do wash out and re-use some Ziploc bags.
2. I do save unused paper napkins and "disposable" cutlery from restaurants and other eat-away-from-home events, for future use - at home, in case there might be a temporary problem washing the permanent ones I normally use.
3. The little bottles of shampoo & conditioner provided by hotels: I've read that if you don't use up a bottle you open and leave it there, the hotel will throw it out (for safety reasons?). So take home any bottles you didn't use up.
4. Plastic cutlery that's well-made gets washed and saved for future use.
5. I learned from a friend to save gift wrap for re-gifting.
6. My mom used bread bags to line a container (with a lid on it) she reserved for food garbage. I just take those produce bags and paper-product plastic wrappers to a grocery store which gets them recycled.
7. Some brands of paper towels are already perfed so you can tear off a half-sheet.
8. My mother set the example for getting a second life from worn terrycloth towels & washcloths. She folded big ones, and sewed small ones double, with stitching lines across the middle as well as the edges, as if quilting. These are great for padding delicate items, serving table hot pads, and for soaking up spilled water on the floor. When my upstairs neighbor had a broken water pipe in his kitchen, I brought up an armload of these and dropped them on the floor to soak up the water - it was faster than a mop would have done it. He laundered them and returned them.
This doubled-sewing method can also be used with flatweave towels which have gotten holes. Cut out the hole and sew the pieces in a double layer. Their uses are various.
I have been known to cut up clothes as well-it's fun to see my old faves..I basically buy resale-thrift and had a consignment store for 10 years about 10 years ago and still have clothes I bought there. My husband is a fan of old tymie cotton dishrags and as those get stained and tattered use those for nastier jobs and clean old ones on dishes full stuff that stains too. I'd rather spend $$ on plants, (tho I dig, divide, move or give those) or a nice bottle of bourbon.
I use certain clothing items, cut up, for rags. Others, when used up, might be saved for use in quilts someday. I've bought some great fabric pieces at thrifts and garage sales.
I think Camus, as translated by Justin Brown in 1991, has a possible answer to your question: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
.....and let us not forget Humberto "The Savings Game" Cruz. (I voted for 8 of the 10 in the poll.)
This was one my favorite columns ever:
THAT HUM YOU HEAR ISN'T A REFRIGERATOR October 21, 1993
By Eric Zorn
How to solve the financial crisis in the Chicago Public Schools?
Two words: Humberto Cruz.
Humberto Cruz, a man who does not just pinch pennies, but who wrestles them to the ground and squeezes them until Abe Lincoln passes out; a man who has managed --on a Tribune salary! --to amass a net worth of nearly a million dollars.
My fascination with Cruz-my Humbertomania if you will-began this spring shortly after his syndicated column, "Savings," began appearing every Thursday in the Tribune's "Your Money" section.
What started it? Was it when Cruz revealed that to save on electricity he and his wife, Georgina, make a game out of how quickly they can close the refrigerator door after they open it? Was it when he advised readers that by wearing gym shorts and old T-shirts to bed they can bank the price of pajamas? Was it when he boasted that one of his favorite business suits is a $50 pinstripe job he bought at Sears in 1972?
All I know is he quickly captured my fancy. I used the scraps of personal information contained in his savings tips to build an outline of his life-he is 47 and the editor of a Tribune-owned publication in South Florida-then filled in the rest. One morning in May I found myself writing a poem about how I imagined him to be. Part of it went:
He wires his house with stripped twist ties
And walks ten miles for better buys
On toothpicks, sealing wax, and grout
(Or better still . . . he does without!)
A man who stacks his cupboard liner
With ketchup packets from the diner;
Who uses tin cans 'stead of phones,
Eats his ice cream without cones,
Then reuses plastic forks,
Baggies, floss and soggy corks.
A man whose cards of Christmas cheer
Are just the ones he got last year
But with the senders' names erased
and "Love, Humberto" in their place.
I shared this with other Humbertophiles (we are a small but hardy cult), even as I called their attention to Humberto's subsequent bold declaration that one of the reasons he saves 66 percent of everything he earns is that he and his wife have absolutely no vices. What, we wondered, must they be like socially?
This led another follower and me to compile the Top 10 reasons Humberto and Georgina go to a lot of parties (No. 7: "Hi my name is. . ." tags can later be cut into strips and used as masking tape; No. 4: Bringing along greeting cards cuts down on postage bills.)
We pored over his columns for true bits of Cruz lore: Because Humberto believes that the longer one stays in a grocery store, the more one spends, Georgina races through the supermarket aisles at off hours. Her record, he wrote, is 16:49; they wash all their clothes on "cold;" they haunt the brochure stands at hotels near their home looking for coupons and discount tickets intended for tourists; they spent less than $40 on each other last Christmas.
This latter intelligence prompted us Humbertians to compose the Top Ten Ways to Have a Merry Cruzmas (No. 5: With grass clippings, the cardboard from a pizza box and Elmer's glue, one can construct a very plausible wreath for the front door; No. 2, Celebrate Orthodox Christmas instead-12 days after the Western one-to take full advantage of post-holiday sales.)
What is he really like? We do not want to know. To meet or talk to him would dilute the Humberto experience. We know him only by his imparted wisdom: "Do not disdain saving small amounts," he told us in April. "They add up to staggering sums over time."
We believe. Which is why he is the man to take over the financial reins at the Chicago Public Schools, where the budget deficit now hovers around $300 million.
Buses? Cruz wrote that while on a business trip, instead of renting a car to get around, he walked-so can our schoolchildren. Utilities? Cruz wrote that he keeps the air conditioner at 82 degrees in the summer. Supplies? Humberto wrote that Georgina, also a writer, carries file folders held together with rubber bands instead of a briefcase and, he noted, "we never buy paperweights."
Staff will wear their pencils to the nub, use overhead lights only at night and employ old socks instead of costly blackboard erasers. The bureaucrats will emulate Humberto and tote their lunches to work in plastic bags from the grocery store. The deficit will vanish.
And we Humbertites will put the final touches on the Cruz family version of "West Side Story." Say it soft and you don't feel like paying, Humberto. . .
Admission, of course, will be free.
It seems like only yesterday, does it not?
My husband and I, also, were raised to be thrifty and always have practiced many of the small frugalities mentioned. They add up over time and repetition.
An acquaintance regularly used to make fun of my habits: "Oh, do I hear your little birdies again? -- cheep, cheep, cheep!" So guess who several times has had to come seeking a loan because he never learned to minimize spending and put aside some of his once-bountiful salary for the future? Humans haven't changed much since Aesop related "The Grasshopper and the Ant."
I liked 'she pinches a penny until it squeals'.
I laughed out loud at the thrift ideas, while I checked several boxes. I would also have checked the 'tear paper towels in half'. I learned my habits from frugal relatives, that I mentally chuckled about when I was a youth. I know my grandparents and parents went through tough times and many of us have known recessions and inflation. I wonder how much of our behavior is learning the always useful virtue of 'waste not want not' and how much is learned from adversity.
I'm always trying to be thrifty: saving napkins, reusing plastic cutlery, aluminum foil if clean, ripping paper towels in half, and adding water to dish and laundry soap for many years. Dividing dishes of food into smaller portions to last longer is new, but higher prices have forced me to be more careful and make sure I consume all leftovers. Drinking more water in place of other beverages is also helpful in keeping my grocery bill lower.
Man, you were on a roll today!
I predominantly agree with Eric's definition and description of 'white privilege', but I do not believe that those that coined the phrase (and use it most) would agree with him. I do not think we will ever be in a bias-free society because biases are human nature. But I do think that the disadvantages that you list are trivial and irrelevant, I question the 'pain', and I don't think they confer any particular benefit for whites. I agree that we should all think about our biases and assumptions, because such things are not exclusive to whites, and do affect our decisions and behavior. We should always try to be better people.
I also do not intend any insult to Eric's meaning or intent in using 'brown'. However, 'brown' people, is not a creation of communities of color but of activists and the media. My primary issue is that it is meaningless nonsense that is used by activists and politicians to declare a purported common interest against a common enemy. It was invented to attempt to create a broader political base. It presumes that skin color is the primary criteria on which society operates and on which government should act. And that brown people need special assistance and support. 'Brown' people is almost as meaninglessly broad as Asian. Are people from India brown or Asian? Or are they twice smitten in spite of being one of the wealthiest and highest educated ethnic groups? The hundreds of ethnic/cultural heritage and economic groups within Brown and Asian do not share monolithic common interests or demographics.
I agree with your objection to the term "brown people." Depending on who is using it, my interpretation is that sometimes it means only Latinos (itself NOT a racial or skin-color term); at other times it means everyone who's neither black nor white. The way it's vague, and sometimes smooshes several disparate groups together, makes it a term I won't use. "Asian" of course is also vague, given the huge size and racial diversity of the peoples of Asia. I can use it as a term referencing geographic origin, but no more.
Totally agree with your slogan comments. I believe that the vast majority of people are moderate, sensible, and open-minded. It is the media and our political processes that enhance and reward the fringes. Electorally, rank order voting in primaries and elections would be a huge benefit to reducing the influence of the fringes. I don't know how to get people out to vote and am depressed by the 'energize the base' model that fuels and relies on anger, fear, distrust, and misinformation.
on "white privilege":
Is it correct? Yes, some of it, but it's too binary. 8 of the top 10 median incomes in the U.S. are non-white minorities. Suicide rates are much higher among whites than blacks, along with many cancers. Let's look at all races and complexities when assessing.
Is is productive? It can be, but most people are either turned off, or on the other side of the spectrum, turned into indoctrinated witch hunters. It doesn't add any more than "racism exists" or "being a minority comes with some disadvantages".
Is it politically savvy? No, it's horrible coalition building. Trumpism and social justice overreach have been feeding off each other for almost a decade.
Focus on helping people who need help. Drop the slogans, and support causes like Project Hood, Cara Foundation, CRED, Off the Street Club, Greater Food Depository, etc.
Toure Reed's "Toward Freedom" is a good book on the subject from a progressive labor standpoint. Here's his take on terminology like "white privilege" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIKt5CrvWf0
Another thought occurred to me this morning. If all things Eric were the same except for his skin color, I bet that his life would be very little different. Otherwise, one has to make the leap that his skin color precludes some or all of his life advantages. This occurred to me as I was reading the Trib reviewer Nina Metz article about the new John Wayne Gacy documentary. In the review she says that Gacy's success as a serial killer was facilitated by being a white male, which insulated him from suspicion.
omygosh. I voted for them all...I had an incredibly frugal mother who likely instilled me in this to my husband's, um, acceptance. She had a great mantra in our apt. in Brainard, "don't waste a trip" if I was going to the basement to do....there might be laundry to take down or bring up etc.
I am also a gardener (volunteer for Master Gardeners) so I rake leaves and put them somewhere for mulch, have a yard rake hooked up to our mower to scoop up grass and leaves and use for mulch have a non use compost pile (we buy the real stuff) on our five acres for household stuff. My husband grows most of the food we eat and preserves the rest in our basement or canned Think asparagus for a month-every day- and give it away.
I keep old laundered dish cloths to do the paper towel stuff and recycle stuff we have to travel 2 hours round trip to drop, but get a chance to trade in a bigger city and have lunch by a river. Seriously I can wash our 2 people dishes in like a gallon of water, and brush and floss my teeth in a few oz.
A friend of a friend of a friend, rinses out dental floss to reuse which, even for me crosses the line. Over 40 years we have driven old VDubs, Toyotas (husband a mechanic on those), then CRVs. We've grown a lot of our own food and preserved for 30 years and supported local growers in our coop (of meat and veggies) too and have bees. We have award winning State Fair Salsa (and honey) until the ones with prepared spices emerged then he bowed out. We also hang our clothes on racks indoors in winter to improve the humidity; 3 seasons it's out on the line.
I'm good
I learned from my parents to use cotton rags (made from cut-up old clothes, not store-bought) for the household wiping that many people use paper towels for. I'll use paper towels for wiping stuff that I don't want to run through the laundry on a rag. Hardware stores do sell packages of rags, for those building-related jobs which put waste on rags such that it's not appropriate to try to clean them for re-use. I save lots of money on paper towels by using rags for most wipe-ups.
Also we have repaired our fridge and washer a few times thanks to a local person that is thrilled to do it. During the pandemic our fridge was acting up a bit and bought a crappy new one as we were afraid we couldn't find one to purchase during the Covid...and took the old to the garage (for summer produce) It was so awfully plasticly build that we hired the local guy to fix the old Fridgidare and moved it back in in the house. He's also fixed our Maytag washer that I bought used in the 90's (built in Galesburg Il closed now for a long time, several times including recently, and it runs like a top now. The new stuff can't be fixed easily or cheaply...guess my parent's knew that as we had historic appliances in our apts. in my youth.
I kept thinking about all the ways we reuse the daily print newspaper, beyond just clipping out articles to send to friends and family. We wrap china and glasses, start the charcoal, wash the windows, make folded hats and boats, wrap packages, stuff packages, the list goes on and on! You can’t do any of that with an online newspaper on an ipad!
I suggest that Modest Frugalities is exactly the wrong approach in difficult times. You need to look for one or two major frugalities and treat yourself on the small stuff. When I was a graduate student (therefore living hand to mouth), I formulated a "Guide to Gracious Living Through Little Luxuries" whose thesis was basically finding very inexpensive ways to feel luxurious. For example:
- Every cup of tea gets a fresh teabag
- Sprinkle lime on almost everything
- Fresh razor blade for every shave (back when the blades were not good for much more than one shave and were cheap)
- A fudge-covered Oreo cookie for dessert
This all made having chicken legs for dinner (again) a lot more bearable. I invite contributions of other such Little Luxuries to promote gracious living in difficult times.
Another angle of approaching frugalities to focus on is, what is the benefit/cost ratio or sum over the course of a year, of a given frugality, on your budget? For example, without doing the math, I'm pretty sure that using home-made rags instead of paper towels, wherever practicable, saves a lot more money than squeezing two cups of tea out of each teabag.
Buying items in resale shops, discount department stores, and clearance prices saves money, and sometimes even snags you a "Little Luxury."
Like your suggestion on IRS software. I have some other IRS suggestions (and to Congress)
1. Eliminate Miminal Required Distributions - what is the point except complications?
2. All Social Security payments should be tax free - we pay into it once - should not tax us again.
Takes away another process as well on the tax form.
Neither of your suggestions is likely, as both policies are consistent with progressive taxation. For most taxpayers, the contributions to a traditional IRA were deducted from income when they were made and were not taxed. Traditional IRA distributions are taxed as regular income. The Required Minimum Distribution is intended to ensure that the contributor pays the deferred taxes on the original income plus pays regular income tax rates for the capital gains in the account. The tax on Social Security payments is just part of the progressive tax rates. If you are in a higher tax bracket, you also get part of the SS taxed, just like deductions get phased out.
If you mean tax simplication is unlikely - I agree. However you miss my point on RMD - why force a distribution at any particular time? It just causes grief for folks that don't want/need a distribution.
Also Social Security being taxed twice is hardly progressive and the folks I know take their social security and then need to work to keep paying the bills. And they try to earn enough money to live but not quite enough to have to pay taxes on their Social Security. Working folks get hit hard by this - Elon Musk and friends handle this "progressive" tax situation very easily.
I have some comments on the frugality items in the list, and one of my own:
1. I do wash out and re-use some Ziploc bags.
2. I do save unused paper napkins and "disposable" cutlery from restaurants and other eat-away-from-home events, for future use - at home, in case there might be a temporary problem washing the permanent ones I normally use.
3. The little bottles of shampoo & conditioner provided by hotels: I've read that if you don't use up a bottle you open and leave it there, the hotel will throw it out (for safety reasons?). So take home any bottles you didn't use up.
4. Plastic cutlery that's well-made gets washed and saved for future use.
5. I learned from a friend to save gift wrap for re-gifting.
6. My mom used bread bags to line a container (with a lid on it) she reserved for food garbage. I just take those produce bags and paper-product plastic wrappers to a grocery store which gets them recycled.
7. Some brands of paper towels are already perfed so you can tear off a half-sheet.
8. My mother set the example for getting a second life from worn terrycloth towels & washcloths. She folded big ones, and sewed small ones double, with stitching lines across the middle as well as the edges, as if quilting. These are great for padding delicate items, serving table hot pads, and for soaking up spilled water on the floor. When my upstairs neighbor had a broken water pipe in his kitchen, I brought up an armload of these and dropped them on the floor to soak up the water - it was faster than a mop would have done it. He laundered them and returned them.
This doubled-sewing method can also be used with flatweave towels which have gotten holes. Cut out the hole and sew the pieces in a double layer. Their uses are various.
I have been known to cut up clothes as well-it's fun to see my old faves..I basically buy resale-thrift and had a consignment store for 10 years about 10 years ago and still have clothes I bought there. My husband is a fan of old tymie cotton dishrags and as those get stained and tattered use those for nastier jobs and clean old ones on dishes full stuff that stains too. I'd rather spend $$ on plants, (tho I dig, divide, move or give those) or a nice bottle of bourbon.
I use certain clothing items, cut up, for rags. Others, when used up, might be saved for use in quilts someday. I've bought some great fabric pieces at thrifts and garage sales.