Observation #15 Extreme Couponing

Planking. Tebowing. I’ve never done either. To be honest, I never will. Not because I can’t physically get back up off the floor, but I missed the trend. One “ing” I am trying to get on board with is couponing.

People who coupon are a unique group. They are a dichotomy. In one sense, they love to co-opt others. Turning others on to couponing. Referring others to websites with the best deals. Giving tips. Stoking the flames of savings. Whipping those in the trenches into a frenzy with the potential of keeping money in their pockets. In another sense, couponers are highly competitive. “I saved X amount of money.” The braggadocio. In your face. They may not acknowledge it but they want to save more than the next couponer.

I have been co-opted by the idea but the reality of couponing has confounded me in two ways:

Firstly, I don’t think I can hand the coupons over. It is a real public thing. Maybe I’m too sensitive. What will people think of me if I hand over a bunch of coupons? “Isn’t he a teacher? Why does he need to be clipping coupons?” I am conscious of the perception that teachers are cheap. What is the difference between teachers and canoes? Canoes tip. The other thing is that I like to keep a checkout line moving.  I would feel bad for the people behind me. I guess I just have a deep-seated need to be loved by everyone, including the guy holding the pound of bacon behind me.

Secondly, couponing might cost me more money than I would have normally spent. You may get an awesome coupon for something you wouldn’t normally buy. You may save on that product but overall you lose. Oh great, a dollar off cheese slices. I’ve got a half a pack of cheese slices in the fridge already. Waste.

I watched a show called “Extreme Couponing”. What a gong show. In some instances, the couponers were so proficient the grocery stores were paying them money at the end. Couponing was their lives. Everyone has a calling I guess. The thing is these people were buying things they didn’t need. Plus they had to buy huge quantities in order to maximize the savings. One lady bought over a hundred bottles of barbeque sauce. Now if she donated the sauce she couldn’t use to a food bank I would be on board. A modern day Robin Hood. Instead she had a basement full of food. Next week she was on Hoarders.

I am trying not to be judgemental. I think the only way I could get on board is if I developed some kind of system. If you could make a grocery list then seek out coupons, it might just work. You wouldn’t be buying stuff you don’t need. Then I would do my groceries at 2am so no one would see me do it.

Do you have a system that works? Are you an extreme couponer? Is it worth the time you commit to it?

Observation #14 Self-Made Millionaire

I was a watching television the other day. It might have been Judge Judy. (You can’t always be watching Downton Abbey and Charlie Rose) Someone described himself a self-made millionaire. This made me mad. What exactly is a “self-made” millionaire?

Do you live in a bubble? (Moop) Are you completely isolated? Were you raised by wolves in a cave with no contact with any human, suckling from the teats like Remus and Romulas? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you can legitimately claim the status of “self-made” millionaire. This guy can sorta claim to be self-made:

Even the man living off of garbage in a cave is still reliant on others for his livelihood. People have to throw stuff out for that guy to eat. Every successful person relies on others. They are not self-made. The education system. The healthcare system. Infrastructure. Police and firefighters. Without these things you won’t be successful. That’s why the term “self-made” millionaire makes me mad.

Some people have better opportunities. Some people have to overcome obstacles to be successful. The illusion that people do that on their own is a fallacy. I don’t want sound too political but the better the system, the greater the chance at success.

Don’t get me wrong. To be successful you have to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. That is where the individualism comes in. Working with what you are given.

It is our system. We pay for it. I hate paying for taxes just as much as the next guy. When politicians are charging 16 bucks for a glass of orange juice, I get pissed. For all the waste, I believe that the society that I have helped build and continue to build has given my kids a great chance to be successful. They won’t be self made millionaires. They will be society made millionaires that will take care of their daddy in his old age.

Observation #13 How much is your time worth?

Could you sub-contract your entire life? At least the shitty parts. Someone to do your laundry. Someone to clean up the dog poop after the winter snows melt away leaving a yard o’ turds. Someone to shovel the driveway or cut the grass. Someone to go to the movies to watch romantic comedies with your wife. When is the money worth it?

We used to have a person to come in every other week to clean the house. Man, did I feel guilty. Not about the rings in the toilet but about the money. It was $75 for three hours. The house would sparkle. It would smell good. For a brief time you would forget that you had a dog as the dog hair disappeared and that weird wet dog/poop on the paws smell evaporated. It was nice and yet for months I kept our housekeeper as a secret from my parents.

Cleaning house made my mother crazy. She worked full time so Saturdays were her day to catch up on cleaning the house. Unfortunately my brother and I took the full brunt of the madness that went along with the whirling dervish that was my mother on a cleaning mission. My father worked on Saturdays and he knew we were in for it. He would look at us as he left with eyes of sympathy. Maybe they were eyes of relief. Better us than him.

My parents recently got a cleaning lady. It was a bit of a waste because my mom would clean the house before the maid got there. “We don’t want her thinking that we are living like pigs over here.” When we had a cleaning lady we would straighten up abit but the majority of our cleaning was done by her. Was it worth it?

Our cleaning lady found another job. She referred us to someone else but we have yet to call her. We are cleaning our own house. Like Chris Rock would say, “You’re supposed to clean your own house.” That is an extra $150 a month. That is $1800 a year.

The question that begs to be asked is, “How much is your time worth?” The time that is now spent on cleaning, how much is it worth? What would I be doing instead of cleaning? Is the money worth the frustration of scrubbing the toilet?

I like a clean house. There is also a certain pride you take in your house. Point blank, there are just certain things in life that suck. Vacuuming is one of them. It would be arrogant of me to say that the time that I spend dustbusting is wasted because I was writing the great novel of the new millenium or I was sequencing DNA. I still have time for those things.

I miss that feeling of walking into a squeeky clean house. At this point the cleaning lady is on the shelf until we are in the black or our bathtub turns black.

Do you have a cleaning lady? Could you give it up?

Observation #12: What the hell happened to us?

There comes a weird point in your life when your parents become real people. You can have conversations with them. Talk as equals. Although I’m sure my mother still wouldn’t hesitate to grab a wooden spoon. She is tiny but she is mighty. I had a discussion with my folks about how they afforded to build my childhood home.

When you are a kid you are oblivious to the nuts and bolts of the operation. Food appears on the table and you just play soccer. You don’t know how it all gets financed. The one thing you do see is the effort. I know my parents worked hard. There is no question. How did my parents afford to build a house on their salaries?

My parents were not doctors and lawyers. I make more money than they did and yet I don’t think they would have ever carried as much debt as I do. They come from a generation that did not use credit. They bought it when they had it. It seems so simple. Make the money, spend the money. My generation does it ass backwards. Spend the money, make the money.

They are very conservative. They much prefer to invest their money in vehicles with guaranteed return. I would always say to them, “Mutual Funds, live a little”. They looked at them as voodoo. By doing so, they missed all of the market volatility of recent years that would have hurt their retirement nest egg. 

Despite their conservative investment strategy, they did one thing that seems completely contrary to their personalities. They bought a rental property in the 1980s. They bought it for cash from someone trying to quickly unload it. They cleaned it up. Rented it out. Sold it. They made crazy money. Enough money to be mortgage free when they built their new house. 

Not sure I would have the cojones to pull that off. More sadly, if I did and made my ass like they did, I would have surely bought many more rental properties. They didn’t. They didn’t re-up. They took the money and ran. That is discipline. That is what I lack. Not to generalize but I think my generation is in the same boat.

What happened to us? Did the success of our parents create a comfort level that killed our desire? The safety net always being there allowed us to take a university degree that wouldn’t lead to a job. Racking up debt because we always had what we needed as kids without seeing behind the curtain. Needing it now. Getting it now. We can complain all we want about demographics and how the baby boomers f**ked us. Instead of complaining about their lousy driving, instead of resenting them, let’s learn from them. Discipline.