Your toes.

Yep. You may think it’s a good idea to turn the heat waaaaay down in your house. You’ve got your hat, your socks, your space heater… You’re a hard, money-saving motherfucker. But I will tell you one of the dirty secrets of frugality: this sometimes leads to frostbite in your toes. When you haven’t even been outside. You may think, “I can’t get frostbite! It’s not less than 50 degrees in this house!” This, my friends, is false. You would be surprised at how cold your floors are when your house is at 50 degrees.

I will now be advocating for the use of slippers in the wintertime. Yes, a good pair of wool (and they should be wool) slippers will run you 30-50 bucks. But this is much cheaper than being treated for damage to  nerves and blood vessels.

About the time that I stopped posting regularly, through a series of seriously screwed up events about which I have no comment, my boss was suddenly and unexpectedly fired. And when the staff was asked if there was anyone who would like to take his place, the sound of crickets chirping and feet scuffling was absolutely deafening. So, as the most senior member of the team, and the most generally competent employee, I got “rewarded” with a “promotion.”

Now, I’m not going to get in the habit of blogging about my job — I don’t want to get put on the fast track to unemployment– but here is a good lesson for those of you who are still as young and impressionable as I was:

Hard work does not pay off.

Or rather, it pays off about 10 to 1. In more work. Hard work does not lead to more money, more appreciation, more time off, or more job satisfaction. All it leads to is people knowing that they can rely on you to get. things. done. This includes your boss, your slacker co-workers, your needy clients, and your frustrated contractors. They know that they can lean on you in times of need (or want), and they will. A lot. And while you’re up to your eyeballs in everyone else’s work, everyone else will be over at the water-cooler schmoozing with the boss and getting invited to play golf with the board of directors.

So here is the moral. Say no. It’s good to be accommodating. It’s beneficial to take an opportunity to learn a new skill or do some networking. It is worth your while to come through in clutch situations… it shows that you’re competent, and that you work well under pressure. But when a co-worker comes to you to ask if you would be willing to work on a Saturday in his stead because he “has a thing,” apologetically decline. When your boss comes to you and says, “listen, would you be willing to take on this task that is completely outside the scope of your job, and really isn’t that important, but it allows me to avoid confrontation or a menial task,” tell him that you’re so busy working on your really important project that you just don’t think that you can manage it. Do this periodically, if only to demonstrate that the work that you have is important, and that you have clearly defined professional boundaries.

Just make sure that you close the solitaire window first.

I am the man.

Yeah. Seriously. A lot has happened in the past year or so. I’ve gone from being under-paid, under-employed, and under-stimulated, to being under-paid, over-employed, and stimulated to the point of brain aneurysm. Wicked.

Also, I’m living with my in-laws.

We’ve clearly got a lot of catching up to do.

I was grumping about how I was a year out of school, and couldn’t find a job, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. His response was something like this (cut me some slack, as I was impaired by alcohol):

“Zorak, listen. You don’t want a job. Jobs are work, and work sucks. I myself have never worked a day in my life. Every morning I wake up, go to the office, sit in my big, poofy chair, and think to myself, ‘my god! These people actually pay me to do this!’ This is the goal. Forget about all of the peripheral stuff. Do what you want. You’ll find a way to make it work.”

This sounds like easy advice, but it’s totally not. “Do what you want.” What is that exactly?

But, about an hour later, my caffeine withdrawal headache had subsided, and I have a new perspective. I’m sure that my neighbors downstairs are feeling the pinch. They drive a Ford Escalade, subsist on diet coke and potato chips, and have state jobs in the social services sector. They must be sweating bullets. Each month I see credit card bills the size of dictionaries sitting in their mailbox. But as I look at the figures in my savings account passbook, I realize that the numbers are going up.

Poverty, it seems, has it’s advantages. Unable to afford anything better, I have a cheap, Korean-made, sub compact car. It doesn’t have a tape deck. Or a passenger side mirror. Or air conditioning. I pass on all of these features not because I feel they are unnecessary, oh no. I pass because I cannot afford them. And you know what? I ONLY HAVE TO FILL MY GAS TANK ONCE A MONTH! Suddenly, I love my little, shitty car. YOU TAKE THAT MIDDLE CLASS, SUB-URBAN MOTHERFUCKERS! You keep on whining about how filling the gas tank of your H2 impedes your ability to buy your kid’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

This may seem a little harsh. You may think, “how could you be so scornful of this comfortable, bourgeois society that we live in? Is not this the very goal that you wish us to achieve with your tidbits of oh-so-relevant financial wisdom?” Well my little darlings, let us be clear on one thing. I do not think that this a temporary financial bump in the road for America. I think that we are experiencing a paradigm shift. I think that we are beginning to feel the first pangs of just how un-sustainable a culture of mass consumption actually is. I think that when the dust has cleared, and we find ourselves living in Barack Obama’s liberal, tree-hugging, Utopian jizzporium (Obama ’08!), that life in America will be different. And it is you my little darlings, wearing your little hats as you gaze out of your shrink-wrapped windows, that will be best equipped to deal with that change.

So, chin up. Don’t panic. And watch out for looters.

Unless you are under the age of 30. Then those moms who drive around in their new Toyota Prius’ and breast feed their children until they’re 12 break out their talons.

Let me explain. Vermont has one of the lowest populations of citizens between the ages of 25 and 29… And one of the highest of those between 50 and 54. We also have the highest rates of high-school seniors leaving the state for college. Additionally, of the thousands of college students that attend school in Vermont, 80% leave when they graduate. Some people see this as a big problem, others as the natural progression of life in an increasingly globalized society (after all, we do come back when we’re 50), but either way, we are a virtual wasteland when it comes to young, educated people. And I’m starting to realize why. 

Let me tell you about my day. First, I got a speeding ticket. I got a speeding ticket for going 45 in a 40. Now, I am a pleasant, attractive young woman. It was a beautiful sunny day. My dad is a cop, and I have great sympathy for police officers and the requirements of their job. But this guy was just a fucking douchebag. Instead of coming right up to my window, he stood next to my rear window and barked in my ear. When I tried to lean out the window to look at him he told me to turn around. Then he wrote me a $137 ticket for going 45 in a 40. Whatever. I’m just some punk kid. Never-mind that that is about 1/3 of my weekly salary.

But that’s not all. Later, as I was talking with a customer (the same customer that I was delivering to when I was pulled over), we got on the subject of cool jobs. When I revealed a cool job that I have always toyed with trying out, he rolled his eyes and said, “well sweetheart, better save those pennies and go back to school.” I almost exploded. I’VE BEEN TO SCHOOL, FUCKTARD.  MY “SCHOOLING” COST MORE THAN YOUR HOUSE. And I’m not your damn ”sweetheart.” It was a job that I was more than qualified for, just not one that I could do in Vermont, and the fact that he’d assumed not just that I didn’t have a degree, but that I had DROPPED OUT, was kind of appalling.

Next stop: the gym. I don’t generally go to the gym, but sometimes my Mom gets me in on one of her guest passes. So I’m the only one in the roon…doing sit-ups, and watching The Simpsons on the plasma TV. In walks this late-middle aged woman. She jumps on the treadmill and asks “hey hon (stupid fucking terms of endearment again), are you watching this?” To which I frankly replied, “yes.” “Would you mind if I change it?” ”Yes.” She climbs off her treadmill, picks up the remote from the floor next to me and says, “well, I’m going to flip it to CNN. When you’re a grown-up, you’ll understand.” I’m serious. This really happened to me.

So, Vermont. You’ve got some brain drain going on? Duh. Fucktards.

That’s stupid.

First of all, who is this “they” that says that it is bad form to tell people how much money you make? Does this illusive “they” have your best interest at heart? The answer to both of those questions is that your employers perpetuate the lie that sharing wage information is crass and rude, and they do it because THEY WANT TO KEEP YOU IGNORANT. I’m not saying that all employers are out to rip you off. You may work at a very nice company that prides itself in taking care of its employees by offering the highest reasonable wages and the best possible benefits. But I bet that you don’t.

Employers perpetuate this wage info sharing taboo because they don’t want you to know what people in comparable positions make. They don’t want you to know this, because if you know what other people make then you can create a reasonable case for a higher wage. This is especially true of young people who are in their first job and don’t know any better. My advice to you is this: ask everyone you know what they make, and be forthcoming with that information for anyone who asks you. THIS IS NOT TACKY. It’s smart. If you don’t know what others are making, then you don’t know if you are underpaid. And if you don’t know that you are underpaid, your employer will continue to underpay you as long as they can get away with it. DON’T LET THEM. You obviously can’t afford it.

Like I said, I don’t have many habits. But there’s one addiction that I just can’t kick: food.

Eating is an expensive habit! According to the Associated Press, food prices have risen over 7.5% in the past 12 months, and rose over 1.7% just in the month of January. I’m no economist (I just studied it in college), but that seems to me like some pretty serious inflation. Unfortunately for us, there’s only one way to save money and reduce our dependence on food. EAT LESS.

“But Zorak,” you cry, “I’m already subsisting on nothing but ramen noodles, easy mac, and corn pops! How could I possibly eat less?!?” Don’t lie to me. I may be a faceless, Internet nobody, but I’m not stupid. You eat more than ramen, easy mac, and corn pops. Otherwise you’d have scurvy. You may spend only$15 at the grocery store every week, but you’re ordering Gang Ped from the Thai Garden almost every day for lunch. So, lesson number 1: YOUR MEALS ARE MORE EXPENSIVE WHEN SOMEONE ELSE PREPARES THEM FOR YOU. I can’t claim to be perfect… I opened my macrobiotic, vegetarian udon noodles at lunch today, only to find them overtaken by a yeast colony. So I went to the deli and bought a tuna sandwich. I didn’t have much of a choice, but if we compare the cost of my udon noodles ($1.29) to the cost of my tuna sandwich and side of potato salad ($5.25), we can observe a very large gap.

“But Zorak,” you ponder, “you’re telling me to cut  my food costs, and yet you are buying macrobiotic, vegetarian udon noodles… I feel like I’m missing something.” This brings me to lesson number 2: FIND DISCOUNT STORES. My town has this great little discount natural foods store, where I can buy all sorts of tasty, organic food that is about to expire, has damaged packaging, or just isn’t moving like stores would like it to, for less than half of the retail cost. Sometimes, my udon noodles are housing an entire civilization of yeast cultures, but generally it’s worth it.

All the eating in and buying at a discount, however, isn’t going to make the least bit of difference unless you follow lesson 3: MAKE GOOD BUYING DECISIONS. What does that mean? Well, I take it to mean two things. First, if you don’t already, learn to cook. Pre-packaged, processed foods are a major no-no. You can buy yourself the ingredients to make 10 pizzas for the cost of one pre-packaged, frozen pizza. Second, be economical. No, Westsoy soy milk is not quite as delicious as Silk. But it’s WAY cheaper, and when all you’re just pouring it over those corn pops, you won’t be able to tell the difference.

So, you’re bringing your own lunch, you’re shopping at discount stores, you’re making economical decisions… now comes the final lesson: EAT LESS. I know it sounds scary, but bear with me. The first step towards eating less is making the food that you DO eat more satisfying. This concept is called “Nutrient Density.” For example, next time you’re making a sandwich, don’t just throw some hummus and a couple of pieces of lettuce between white bread. Spend the few extra cents and throw

on some shredded carrot, a piece of cheese, a slice of avocado,  maybe some tomato, and put it all on whole grain bread. At the end of the day, the extra cost per sandwich is maybe $.25. But you’ve packed so many extra nutrients into your lunch, that when every one else is running to the vending machine for a 3pm pick-me-up, you’re still going strong on your one sandwich. And it was a lot tastier than even the oriental flavored ramen noodles. Analyze the nutrient density of all of your meals, and a guarantee that you will see a much friendlier grocery bill in addition to dodging scurvy.

Energy is expensive. My heating oil sets me back a whopping $3.50 per gallon. And I live in northern New England, where I am heating my apartment from October to April. Monthly, I pay almost as much for heating oil as I pay for rent.

The solution is simple, right? Just use less heat. But keeping your apartment in the 60 degree range is hard… no one likes to be cold. And 60 degrees is a bit chilly. But I have a suggestion:

Wear a hat. I know, I know. It seems almost stupid in its simplicity. But did you know that you lose 70% of your body heat through your head? That’s a lot of heat that you can’t afford to be losing. So, break out that fuzzy hat that Nana knit for you when you were twelve and wear it around the house… 60 degrees will suddenly seem a lot more manageable. Take it a step further and put on some socks, and maybe you can handle 55.

Wearing a hat isn’t the only sneaky way to save heat in your apartment. Shrink wrap your windows. It seems weird, and you may argue that shrink wrap doesn’t go with your decor, but that’s what those heavy curtains are for, right? 

Nothing warms you up like a steaming hot cup of tea. So drink it in excess. Not only will you save on your heat, but since filling your stomach with hot herbal infusions supresses appetite, you’ll save on your grocery bills too!

Turn off the thermostat completely when you go to bed. Or when you’re not in the apartment. In fact, if you’re not married to the idea of spending a lot of time at home, then don’t. Bring your laptop to your favorite cafe and hole up there all night using their electricity and heat. Visit your grandmother. If you’re going to burn the midnight oil, do it at work. It could save you some serious cash.

1. A spice rack: You can make packing peanuts mouthwateringly delicious if you have a well stocked spice rack. Spices can be expensive; however, when you’re living on a relatively bland diet, a well spiced meal can make you much less likely to splurge on a tasty meal out.

2. A George Foreman Grill: If you have one of these and a stockpot, you can cook anything. Veggies, sandwiches, meat… and all that cleanup involves is wiping the damn thing down with a sponge. Chicken breasts? 4 MINUTES! I don’t like to promote products unless someone is paying me, but this one is a total keeper.

3. Compact Florescent Light Bulbs: Not only do they save you a bundle on your electricity bills, but they’re… less bad for the environment!

4. Curtains: They make a HUGE difference if you live in a region where you need to heat your home. And, they give a homey touch to your crappy apartment.

5. An Electric Space Heater: Why heat your whole apartment when you can just heat the room you’re using? Bonus points if electricity is included in your rent! But be careful about the whole… burning down your house thing.

6. A Toaster Oven: Why heat an entire oven for one slice of pizza? You can make a whole bunch of awesome things in a toaster oven. Those two slice, button toasters are stupid. Would  you rather have a bagel with cream cheese or a tomato-avocado-onion-hummus-cheddar bagel melt? Yeah. I thought so.

These are the 6 things that I couldn’t function without in my own apartment. No doubt you have your own items. Feel free to share your ideas with the rest of us!