Tag Archives: money

The not so great pretender

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The above depiction is my little foot ensconced in the finest of paraffin wax. From the ankle down, I occasionally look as pampered and fine as any lady in the court. Above the ankle, I am’s who I am, which is more Popeye than Lucretia Borgia.

In the passing of age, and in the passing of various and sundry jobs to pay the bills, I now find myself side by side with the hoi polloi. For reals, I don’t just work for the one percent, I work among them. People who pay people with calluses to remove their calluses.

I swirl glasses full of fine wine and make decisions on morsels and settle expense accounts. The thing about experiencing luxury on someone else’s dime is that it starts to make sense to set aside a couple of centimes to buy your own comfort.

And, so we do.

Yet, I am’s who I am. And, as I took an apple and a honey stick from a very nice spa that dipped my feet into the above-depicted wax, and I drank their proffered champagne, tea and infused water, I considered survival.

So, here’re some tips for fine living on a shoestring budget, especially if you ever find yourself maybe getting a room on an expense account but otherwise needing to pay for food and survival and whatnot.

First rule of the one percent: Turns out their lives are cushier than ours. They get 800 count sheets, pristine logs in their fireplaces, real honey and a lot more snacks. A lot more snacks.

Corollary rule to live like the one percent: Take your share, everyone else is. Also, take another share. Live as they do. More is more. The rich don’t want, because they take what they need (and maybe a wee bit more).

(And, you know what? They get more. Wee little shampoo bottles are bigger the better the hotel. Bars of soap approach full size, not the bare little wafers lost in skin folds at the lesser establishments. Two-ply to clean your unmentionable crevices not industrial strength sand paper in single ply is how the other half lives.)

At hotels I can afford on my own, there is occasionally a card table set up with a carafe of lukewarm coffee, non-dairy creamer in powdered form, and maybe, just maybe, a box of doughnuts purchased, you hope, that same day.

At fine hotels, there is usually coffee you can brew in your room and coffee service, freshly brewed and monitored frequently, in the lobby. Better yet, fresh fruit is often freshly placed daily in a sparkling bowl somewhere for the guests’ enjoyment. Sometimes there is fresh fruit lovingly place on every single damn floor. Pass by, take an apple. Pass by, take a tangerine. Pass by, take another apple. Go to another floor, see what they’ve got.

You could wake up to gratis arabica beans, but you can live a day on free fruit with no gout to speak of.

Similarly, fine hotels dole out water, like it’s water. When you see a tureen, crock or glass dispenser of cool, cool H2O, often infused with fabulous fruits, juices and petals, grab a cup and drink long and deep. Hydration is easy in four-star hotels. No need for feeding a wrinkly dollar bill into a humming vending machine next to the ice machine.

Second rule of the one percent and of access to water: Fine hotels are an oasis, even if you don’t have a room. The key is acting like you belong.

Clean toilets off the lobby with real towels! Cold and dirty from a harsh walk in the grimy streets of a major city? Listen for the whistle of a uniformed doorman, pass through the doors and the cleanliness that is next to godliness awaits you as the mean streets recede into hushed tones of opulence.

I still own a hand towel I stole one cold winter night, drunk and seeking refuge at the lovely Charles Hotel in Harvard Square.

More snacks — head to hotel bars at nice places. When the well-off drink, even if it’s the same bottled beer or glass of modest wine as schmoes like me imbibe, the bartender passes snacks. In the olden days, a lot of bars were generous with salty treats, but now snacks are left for the elite. I’ve had prosaic Goldfish and gilded, gourmet Chex mix and the humble peanut.

And, then there’s wifi for them that is bold enough to ask. I’ve yet to have a front desk turn me down when I’ve asked for the password, even as I was nursing a glass of wine at the bar not planning on spending the night.

And, thus, in that last little bit is my ultimate survival tip — Even with the rattle of coin in my pocket, I will remain more like the peoples behind the desk than the ones in front of them. They are my people, my allies, my friends.

Event planning has reminded and taught and refined for me to always be nice, fair and generous to the staff anywhere and any time. Your brother, your friend in arms, your contact to the perks the wealthy demand.

Back about a thousand years ago, I scooped ice cream for my job, when a small cone cost a mere 63 cents. (Total tangent, I still remember the price scale of small and medium cones — 63 and 79 cents respectively. Ice cream sodas with a single scoop were $1.19.)

Some of the clientele were demanding, entitled and willing to push a full-court press to get their penny’s worth of frozen sugar and cream. They got no more than exactly the training manual allotment of cream into their cone and a quick swish in the dish of what Bostonians call jimmies with an extra shake to make sure not too many sprinkles clung.

Manners and attitude, a friendly smile or the humility of a hand digging deep to count out the change penny by penny got you a heaping helping. The small cone teetered into 75 cents worth of ice cream, and the medium might require a cup to handle the excess weight.

The same philosophy holds in the upper echelons. The masters of the universe, they need people like us, and people like us help each other out.

Go ahead, put on your nice shoes and your company manners and mingle in the corridors of the well-to-do. They have snacks.

(By the way, all of the above is part of my ultimate retirement plan. You’ll catch me in a pressed suit, skipping from fine establishment to another with high-end retail adding extra spice and cookies to my day.)

More on money, but not mine

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After a 20+ “career,” or something like a career, I guess the kids call them “jobs,” working in non-profits and grant management, I ended up in a strange little niche. Instead of looking for money, I help give it away.

The environment is greater than first world conditions, it's privilege and quality of life and life-work balance.

Smack dab in the world of the richies, my poor self works.

Life is literally a buffet, at least on some days of the week. And, almost every damn day, having been trained as the accomplice to my mother's many capers, I have to squash deep down the desire to tuck a free bagel or yogurt or two, wrapped in a reused plastic bag, into my purse.

Allah will provide

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Growing up I had an a mythical or maybe horrific relationship with money and finances. It was a semi-idealistic view, but with an undercurrent of mixed messages and vague dread.

The basics were covered. Food, clothing, shelter, yup, we had them. So I didn't want. At least I didn't identify with the kids in the government-subsided apartments in town or the ones who carried their tattered meal cards that promised hot food every day. I had my ham and cheese sandwich on white bread and an apple, thank you very much, I was good.

Yet, I wanted. I knew my pants might get tighter and shorter for a few more months than the better dressed girls growing alongside me. Some of the same designer labels hugged my back and backside except in my case the labels were cut out or over-imprinted with another designer name — The House of Irregular.

I never noticed at home, but when I went out and ate at friends' houses, there was variety we didn't have. Or maybe freshness. Much of my gastronomical intake was from a chest freezer in the basement loaded down with day old bread and treats from the bakery outlet and meat bought in bulk and repackaged in plastic wrap in suitable meal chunks.

Ground beef was stretched across multiple days in various disguises. Burgers, chopped with onions and spices, mixed with mac and cheese, sloppy joes and fabulous taco fiestas, a new an exciting food idea in our white bread town.

It wasn't until adulthood that I understood the magnitude of my mother's feeding five kids, maintaining a household, paying for the house and all on a public school teacher's salary. I cannot type that we were poor, because that betrays what an incredible job Pat had done keeping us afloat. But, we weren't rich.

The climate on these issues was hot and cold. We didn't talk about money. Grown up stuff was solely my mother's domain, and she felt no compunction about keeping the details under her hat.

However, at a moment's notice, an unexpected squall would kick up and the lack of money would rush to the forefront of the drama. Want the coat with the little extra design and worst of all retail, first-run tag? Better run for cover before the barrage of “Who do you think I am?” “Who do you think you are?” “I work so hard, and you kids don't appreciate me.” “I work my fingers to the bone for you.” “You just take, take and think money grows on trees.”

Worst of all: “Fine. If that's what you want, you can decide. I'll just go without a coat this year, if it's that important to you.” Followed by silence. A thick, ominous silence.

Speaking of coats, Pat rocked a red dress coat with a real fur collar on special occasions, like holidays and church. On ordinary days, she'd wear the kind of ordinary, drab jackets and “car coats” that got folks through New England winters, and she wasn't opposed to wearing a hand-me-up from one of her own children. I have a dim recollection of Elmer's glue, the collar and tragedy that had my mother soaking and scrubbing fur for days. That dress coat had to survive another year, and by god she'd make it happen.

Good at math and figures and observant, I started to piece together the situation. But, money was an abstract concept for me about which I hadn't learned to manage. I only learned there wasn't enough.

The vague dread lingers in adulthood.

I seemed to have inherited Pat's knack for money management. In fact, I pretty much have made a living largely because of that knack, managing million-dollar budgets for other people.

I can make some calculations in my head. I know the logic of compounded interest. Putting together a contract or grant or spending plan is more muscle memory at this point in my career. I literally made four times what I put into my first condo when I sold it. Car dealers don't intimidate me, they are a game.

Still in all, I worry about money. Sometimes rationally. Sometimes not. I dream of having the kind of nest egg that negates any possibility of concern. Hedge fund billions.

I remain a thousandaire.

However, my mother's lessons end at one crucial point. My whole lifetime, or maybe not the first few years before my dad died, Pat scrimped and saved for survival. Only in her later years, with a paid off mortgage, a remodeled house thanks to a well-insured fire, five grown children with their own jobs and homes, a pension and a scattered but flush shoebox of investments, she still scrimped and saved as though it was for survival.

Her final years were Campbell soup, and they could have been caviar.

Worry as I might about cash, I don't live in privation.

I used Pat's money, my small inheritance, to buy a new car, finance a move cross-country, help create a settled household for my partner, who had less than me growing up. I shopped and paid off debt and created a new chapter in my life, but with a jumble of happiness, anger and bitterness.

If I had realized how much she would leave behind, I would have angrily tried to shake loose her self-induced deprivation. It's a remaining regret I have for not having done more before she died.

So, today, I worry, but I talk myself through it. I may not have a nest egg, or this week even much in my savings account. But, I have a comfortable life. My only debt I couldn't pay off in a minute is my car and our house. It's worked out in worst times than these, I remind myself.

Maybe the future will require cheese sandwiches and raman noodles again. Worry? Yes. But to live and live well and as best as I can, that is imperative. Otherwise, what's the fucking point?

I've said it before…

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Women is losers.

Because of the crazy chick at work who’s been asking for my help, I picked up a couple of books from Amazon.com. She asked me to buy this one, which hasn’t arrived yet:


“Hiding Your Money : Everything You Need to Know About Keeping Your Money and Valuables Safe from Predators and Greedy Creditors” (Jerome Schneider, Allison Weiner, Allison Hope Weiner)

On Amazon you can pick up used for short money. Because I’m me, and I like buying books in general (with which I then taunt myself by not actually getting around to reading), I figured I’d pick her up another one that looked a bit more to the point.


“How to Hide Money from Your Hu…And Other Time-Honored Ways to Build A Nest Egg: The Best Kept Secret of Marriage” (Heidi Evans)

When it came yesterday to work (‘cuz we always have stuff delivered to work given we are seldom home during delivery times), I was a bit weirded out. I didn’t want to open the box and have one of my co-workers ask me about it. (Not to mention the folks with whom I’m friendly would probably ask, because they’ve all met M. and would be like “What the…?”) So I held the box until the very end of the day until maybe one person was left in my area.

And, then I thumbed through. Holy shit, you know the slogan “We’ve come a long way, baby?” Turns out, not so much. I mean, sure, maybe it’s a smaller subsection than say in 1952, but that book was published this century.

For me, the thing is, Pat left me with one life’s lesson, if she left me anything. Always, fucking always, have your own dough. Man, woman, child, whatever, your life your reigns to grab. It’s so deep in my psyche, I’m sure I’m an asshole to date, being as I’m all vagina-possessing and thereby weaker sexed. Can’t imagine not having some cash and holdings that are my very own. But, on the other hand, if I were a dude, I’d be like “Hell ya, woman, you got yours, I got mine, now let’s see what we can do together.”

I left it for her in a plain brown envelope in her work mailbox. I didn’t sign the note I left. I mean, if her husband is of a criminal bent, as has been implied, I ain’t have him searching out my name.