Editor’s Picks

Have you noticed how difficult it is to say something new and fresh about personal finance, especially given how crowded our niche has become? There are only so many ways you can say “make a budget, get yourself out of debt, live within your means, work hard and smart, and save for the future.” That’s why posts that have something original to say and a lively way to say it jumped out at me. Hence, this week’s editor’s picks:

♥ Miss T
Prairie Ecothrifter
How to Save Hundreds of Dollars a Year on Your Water Bill
While most of us have access to the city water we need for drinking, flushing, and gardening, there is one easy way you can cut your water bill down quite a bit while potentially saving thousands of gallons of fresh water this season: by catching the water you need from the sky, free of charge.

♥ TB
Blue Collar Workman
Reversing a Bird Invasion
TB, a man of many war stories, says (with understatement): “One way to live frugally is to maintain your home. In the case of this story, a family didn’t and ended up with an invasion of birds in their attic. Tips are offered to help make sure this doesn’t happen to you and that you maintain your house.”

♥ John
Married with Debt
Give Yourself a Raise (No Boss Required)
John realizes that meeting a debt goal is the equivalent of getting a raise—in this case, a nice one!

♥ PPlan
Provident Plan
Would Jesus Support the Buffett Tax Law?
“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s….” PPlan reflects on the meaning of Christ’s radicalism and its significance for us today, and then asks readers if they think Jesus would support raising taxes on the wealthy.

♥ Crystal
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
Our Food Fight – Month 1 Results
Crystal and Mr. BFS come up with a straightforward way to cut expenses so it won’t hurt much to build up some padding once they close on their new house. Here are the month one results.

♥ Sustainable PF
Sustainable Personal Finance
Green Tip #242: Sharing Toys
Not the obvious parental advice to rival siblings. SPF discovers a toy library in town!

Who can resist this image?

Let’s Take a Stroll Down the Midway

Walking the Frugal Walk

Jeremy
Modest Money
Keeping Up with the Joneses in the Digital Age
As the Internet has evolved and we truly enter the digital age as a society, the biggest enemy of our personal finances has been quietly growing stronger and stronger. No, it’s not inflation. It’s not government taxes. It’s something much less obvious. It’s those pesky Joneses!

Daisy
Add Vodka
Life Lessons From My Mother
Says Daisy: “Yesterday was Mothers Day. You all know that. I don’t live near my mom, so I was sad I wasn’t able to take her out for breakfast or anything like that.”

Steve
Brip Blap
Frugality or Decluttering, or Both
“Now that we have a four-person family,” Steve reflects, “I’ve noticed that I avoid purchasing things more and more out of a desire to declutter.”

YFS
Your Finances Simplified
Ten Common Characteristics of Millionaires You Can Follow
Back in 2007, Forbes Magazine reported that all over the world there are a total of 946 billionaires, and according to Capegemini, a financial consultancy firm, in 2011 there are about 10 million millionaires. All of us probably have this dream of becoming millionaires ourselves, and sometimes we’re left wondering how these once ordinary people manage to make it big.

Ashley
Money Talks Coaching
The Envelope System Works: Even on a 10 Year Old
“I’ve talked quite a bit about my frustration with my daughter and her lack of concern when it comes to money,” says Ashley. “She wouldn’t save money to save her life.”

Karen Bryan
Help Me to Save
False Economies on Car Running Costs
Make sure that you are sensible when looking at ways to save on the cost of running a car. Karen makes an interesting point about the wisdom (or not) of avoiding the use of your car.

Robert
The College Investor
The College Freshman’s Guide to Money Management
It’s finally here: The summer before your first year of college. As one chapter of your life closes and another begins to take root, it’s a prime opportunity to instill sound money management–and set yourself up for a lifetime of financial stability. As you decide which courses to take, start to find your textbooks, and wonder what you’re new roommate will be like, here are a few ways to make sure you’re taking care of your finances as you navigate your way through your freshman year….

FMF
Free Money Finance
Is Joining a Warehouse Club Worth It?
Says FMF: “I have been a warehouse club shopper for many years and it comes down to this: you have to know your prices. If you do, you can spot what’s a good deal at a club store and what’s not. It’s that simple.”

Khaleef Crumbley
Fat Guy, Skinny Wallet
Planning A Financial Diet – Eat Healthy And Spend Less
Eat healthy and spend less…something that seems impossible However, if you follow these tips you can do both!

Melissa Batai
Everything Finance
How to Find Online Coupons for Your Favorite Restaurant
The dining out category can be curbed without sacrificing quality. Finding online coupons for your favorite restaurant is surprisingly easy. Try these strategies.

SFB
Simple Finance Blog
6 Hidden Money Wasters
We think of many ways to save, but what most people don’t know is that many everyday things they buy on a regular basis are money wasters.

Kevin
Thousandaire
How to Save Money on a Date
Save money on your dates by using daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social to find interesting cheap dates.

Alex Manson-Smith
Totally Money
5 easy ways to cut the cost of your commute
How to save money every day during your commute.

Mike Collins
Wealthy Turtle
5 Money Leaks That Are Draining Your Wallet
Seal up these 5 common money leaks before they drain your wallet completely.

Green Panda
Green Panda Treehouse
Eat Well and Save Money—Community Supported Agriculture
How to save money on food and support your community.

Martin
Studenomics
How Much Should You Spend on Your Laptop?
Should you be frugal with your laptop purchase? Martin gets a rise out of his readers with this question.

Broke Bytch, Guest Author
Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance
New Money Series for the Seriously Broke College Grad
Barb introduces a series of posts by Broke Bytch, targeting recent college graduates in their cash-strapped years.

Hey, You! Step Right Up! Hit a Goal and Win a Prize!

Jeffrey
Money Spruce
Setting Financial Goals 101
The most fundamental step in setting financial goals is to gain control over your daily financial affairs by setting up and sticking to a budget. Thereafter, you will need to set longer-term financial goals. At this point, you will need to build a financial safety net to ensure financial independence.

Eddie
Finance Fox
How to Access Cash in a Hurry
Your home is equipped with smoke detectors, and your car carries a spare tire in the trunk, but are you equipped for a financial emergency?

Come On In, Folks! Next Fight Starts in 10 Seconds. It’s the Clash of the Hobbyists!

Wayne
Young Family Finance
Why Hobbies Save You Money
Staying active and finding things that you enjoy can actually save you money. Find out how to define yourself not by the things you buy.

Lance
Money Life & More
How I Paid for My Hobby
Hobbies are a lot of fun, but there is one thing that prohibits many from taking part in their favorite hobby as much as they would like to. Cost. Hobbies, while fun, can be expensive. This post explains how I paid for them.

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! See the Underwater Man Escape from Debt!

Matt
Living in Financial Excellence
http://financialexcellence.net/what-i-have-learned-by-interviewing-people-who-are-debt-free/
Matt reflects on a major project: “For the past six months now I have had the pleasure of being able to interview debt free individuals and couples on the Debt Free Living Podcast. So far I have released about 20 episodes and it amazes me how unique each story is regarding how they got debt free. It also is interesting to me to see what each person’s ‘Why’ is. Some got their finances together in order to travel more, some do it to quit a job they hate and do something they love, and for others it was to stay at home with their children. But as unique as all these stories are, they also share one thing. They started to pay off their debt when they started to pay attention and take control of their money.”

Jon the Saver
Free Money Wisdom
Why You Should Be Debt-Free on Your Car
There are many reasons why you should be debt-free on your car. You can spend the money elsewhere instead of on a car payment.

Debt Guru
Debt Free Blog
Basic Rule to Use Credit Cards and Avoid Debt
Find out how to use credit cards and avoid debt all together. It can be summed up in one basic rule, but it often implies much more.

Boomer
Boomer & Echo
How To Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster
When you pay off your mortgage faster, a big part of your household budget will become available to help you achieve your other financial goals.

Sean
One Smart Dollar
How is my Credit Line Determined?
Understanding how your credit line is determined can be a great way to start understanding your finances.

Jason
One Money Design
Average Student Loan Debt on the Rise
Average student loan debt is on the rise and it may get worse if congress doesn’t take action. However, it is entirely possible for your kids to go to school without debt! All the more reason to manage your money wisely!

It’s Sweet! It’s Holy! It’s a Cheap Way to Get Hitched: The Chapel on the Midway

Little House
Little House in the Valley
Cash Gift Registries for Weddings
Says Little House: “Maybe this dates me a bit, since my wedding was over 10 years ago and most of my friends and family married years ago as well (my sister is a lot younger than me), but cash gift registries seem like a terrific idea for a bride and groom who prefer cash gifts over home goods.”

Earth and Money
Planning a Green Frugal Wedding – Guests
At most weddings, there is a fixed cost associated with every guest that attends – food, dishes, venue, all these things are related to the number of guests that you have. So that begs the question: do you really want to invite your dad’s cousin’s nephew’s boyfriend who winds up getting drunk at the open bar?

Amazing! Awesome! See the Astonishing Software Marvels!

Jen
Master the Art of Saving
What Is Manilla and Why Should You Try It?
Manilla is a free—yes, that’s right! 100 percent free—web-based service to make our financial lives more organized and easier to manage.

Lazy Man
Lazy Man and Money
Six Months with a Windows Media Center DVR (No Cable Equipment Rental Fees! Woohoo!)
Interesting review of a Windows-based recording system: “Nearly a year ago, I got pretty excited about the Silicon HDHomeRun Prime that was coming to market. It came with the promise of ending cable box rental fees… fees that have totaled over $2000 in the last years that I’ve enjoyed the wonders of DVR.”

A Blinkin
Funancials
Convenient Banking Technology
A Blinkin finds that easy, reliable online banking services relieve him from the hassle of having to drive to a bank and stand in line to do business.

Right This Way, Folks, to the House of Horrors! The World’s Most Thrilling, Chilling, Terrifying Retail Car Lot!

Jason
Work Save Live
Should You Buy a Car through CarMax?
The need to buy a new(ish) car elicits a cri de coeur from Jason: “Rust buckets, over-sized purses, methods of transportation, and a means of showing worth and status. Maybe it’s needless to say, but there isn’t a topic I detest more. When I hear the word ‘car,’ all I can think about are over-priced machines that have gone from performing a function to being status symbols.”

Hank
Money Q&A
How a Little Preparation and One Question Saved Me Over $1,000 
By doing the legwork before entering the car dealership, Hank saved himself a lot of money on a car purchase.

Luke
Learn Bonds
Why Bond Laddering Is a Bad Idea
If you are investing in the bond market you have probably had Bond Laddering recommended to you as a strategy. Here is why this is a bad idea.

Tushar
Start Investing Money
What to Do When an Investment Pays Out
So you made some money. So…now what?

KT
Personal Finance Journey
Can You Afford NOT to Save for Retirement?
Saving for retirement can be difficult. With the recent increases in the cost of gas and groceries and other basics combined with a loss of income because of the economy or a lack of raises over the last few years, saving for retirement can seem like a goal that is out of reach.

Steve Zussino
Canadian Personal Finance
Why Facebook Should Be Scared with Its Revenue Strategy
We all know the Facebook IPO is happening soon but some big news happened yesterday that, GM (the third largest advertiser in the US) pulled a $10 million dollar order because they figured out that Facebook ads don’t work.

Jim
Bargaineering
Best 529 Plans
A look at 529 plans and which state’s program is best for you.

Teacher Man
Young And Thrifty
RRSP vs RESP Accounts
There are obviously numerous aspects of each person’s financial situation that will come into play when looking at whether a RRSP or an RESP contribution is right for them. (These are Canadian investment instruments, with some interesting similarities and contrasts to their rough US equivalents.)

MR
Money Reasons
Debt Free…Now What? Real Estate
“I’ve been debt free for a while now!” Money Reasons reports. “It’s time to pickup debt to buy assets instead of expenses.”

TRL
The Retired Landlord
Important Traits of a Successful Landlord 
Find out what it takes to be a successful landlord. Do you have these important traits to make a profit in real estate investing?

Squeezer
Personal Finance Success
Why Social Security Should Not Be Your Sole Source of Retirement Income
What happens if one depends on Social Security for retirement? Squeezer explains the risk and other options that are available.

What? Me? Work?

Suba
Broke Professionals
Should You Buy Supplemental Unemployment Insurance?
Who knew you could buy unemployment insurance in the private market? This interesting article is an eye-opener.

Daniel
Sweating the Big Stuff
Secure Your Future by Developing Multiple Streams of Income
If you are like most people, you work hard at your day job. Maybe you used to make what you considered a good salary, but now, with the economy, your income seems to be dwindling. Perhaps you haven’t gotten a raise in several years, or if you have gotten a raise, you simultaneously faced an increase in health care premiums.

101 Centavos
Career Tips for Young Folks
This is a series of blog posts, dormant for a while, resurrected for a while.  These would be career tips #15, #16 and #17, meant for young people entering the work force.  Little practical nuggets gleaned a few years in the grind.

Philip
PT Money Personal Finance
Make Extra Money as a Dog Sitter
Discusses the idea of making extra money by creating a dog sitting business and shares 2 websites that can help launch your new part-time gig.

Soap Box Central: They’re Mellow, They’re Mad, They’re Sentimental, They’re Wise—Hear Them Now!

Maria
The Money Principle
Politics and Economy in the Eurozone part 2
Interesting rumination, from a Brit’s point of view, about the ongoing economic turmoil in Europe.

Amanda L Grossman
Frugal Confessions
Do You have a Future as the Woman Who Lived in Her Shoes, or the Man Who Lived with His Tools?
Thirty-five year old Carrie Bradshaw had a stunning financial realization during an episode of Sex and the City.

Beaker (Guest Author)
My Broken Coin
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Beaker tells how a neglected debt cost him a friend.

Don
Money Smart Guides
The Money Conversation for Couples
Don spins a discussion off an article that appeared in a recent US News post.

Kyle
Penny Hoarder
University Will Pay You $3,500 to Eat Only Fast Food for 3 Months
Kyle is flabbergasted by news of a couple of bizarre (and, on the surface, unethical-sounding) scientific studies recently announced. Amazing!

Dr. Dean
The Millionaire Nurse Blog
Talking About Ourselves: A Turn On?
Does talking about ourselves really give us pleasure? And how can that knowledge help us increase our income?

John
Wallet Blog
How’s a Little Medical Bill Transparency Sound?
What are you talking about? The system for payment of services in the healthcare industry can’t possibly be broken!

Nick
Step Away from the Mall
Sometimes It’s about Way More Than Math
Nick wonders, “Am I the only one who gets way too caught up in ‘math’ sometimes? Sometimes I lose track of what’s really important to me.”

Glen
Parenting Family Money
Is a Child’s Gift Registry a Good Idea?
Retailers are getting better at helping people shop, aren’t they? One great example is a child’s gift registry for their birthday. But is it really such a bad idea?

JB
My University Money
Are Banks Really In It For You?
Says JB: “Learn from my mistakes and never assume the banks are in it for you. They aren’t, in fact they make a killing off you, so don’t make it easy on them whenever they try to push a product on you.”

PITR
Passive Income to Retire
Why Quality Is Important
PITR has an insight into the relationship between quality content and site traffic.

Maya Ackerman
Great Living Now
How To Save Your Money
A frank discussion on the psychological nature of problems surrounding our ability to save money and be frugal. The article aims to teach us how to save money by understanding the science of persuasion.

Travelin’ On down the Road

Miss Thrifty
Mr Straw’s House
This is extremely cool. If you’re going to England or are already there, do try to get in to see it. Says Miss Thrifty: “If you are into old school thrift and Make Do And Mend, you will love Mr Straw’s extraordinary hose as much as Miss Thrifty does.”

Michelle
See Debt Run
10 Fabulously Free and Family Friendly Things To Do In The Lou
Kids are on break, but you’re on broke? No problemo if you live in the beautiful city of St. Louis, MO! Michelle shares her top 10 FREE attractions the Lou has to offer.

Laura
NerdWallet
Expensify Trips: Turn Your Travel Receipts into a Complete Itinerary
In this interesting report, Laura notes that Expensify is free, easy to use, and it lets you track pretty much every purchase under the sun, but as of May 8th, it just got even more useful for traveling.

Kristen
My Dollar Plan
11 Free Travel Apps to Save Money
Travel can be pricey, but lucky for us, travel apps make it that much easier to not break the bank during travel. Here’s a list of our favorite totally free travel apps for Android and why should download them before your next trip.

On the House…

vh
Funny about Money
Locks & Doors, Doors & Locks
After a neighborhood happening that led to a police SWAT team escorting me out of my home behind a phalanx of bullet-proof riot shields, I go in search of more secure locks and better doors. Doesn’t take long to learn that you get what you pay for in that department. Pay upfront to save over the long run.

That’s it for this week! Thanks to everyone who participated, and I hope everyone enjoys reading these stories as much as I did. Please don’t forget to link back to the Festival from your site, and Tweet, FB, Pin, or whatever else one does social-medially. Next week’s host, Money Crashers, is looking forward to receiving your latest and best—to send in a post, you can go to Canadian Finance Blog’s blog carnival submission form or the FoF contact form at the Festival’s official site.

Related posts:

• Festival of Frugality: The New Year 2012 Edition
• Festival of Frugality
• Festival of Frugality Comin’ Our Way

Lest you hadn’t noticed, stay-at-home parents face a new punishment: if you’re an SAHP, a 2009 change in credit-card rules means that you now cannot get a credit card in your own name, because, after all, what you do is not work.

Yeah.

This is just another of several rules and attitudes that devalue a type of work still done mostly by women. Some of the penalties for raising children and caring for a home and spouse have severe long-term consequences. Most notable of these has to do with Social Security: if you’re not spending your days in an officially recognized “workplace” and so having FICA withheld from your salary, you’re not eligible for Social Security. Never mind that you work 24/7 at humanity’s most important work: bringing up the next generation. If you take time out of a career to care for children and spouse, you’re likely to find your Social Security benefit significantly reduced come retirement age. This certainly was true for me—even though I worked steadily as a freelance journalist while I was married, my income was small and it mostly served as a tax write-off, leaving me with $0.00 taxable income during those years.

Graduate school didn’t help: pay for teaching assistants is even more exploitive than adjunct pay, and when I was overseas doing research my income came from grants and fellowships; thus during that period there were a couple of years where no taxable income appeared on the books.

Besides the insulting implication that the work you do is essentially worthless, the new rule means that as a stay-at-home mom or dad, you can’t establish your own credit history and build your own credit score. This puts you at a huge disadvantage should you divorce or be widowed.

Clearly there are ways around this. Most of them are infantilizing or degrading: they involve your having to beg your spouse to cosign or make you an authorized user (good luck with that, if you’re married to an abuser!), or to prevaricate by filling in the blank for your income with what is really household income—i.e., your spouse’s income.

However, over at Daily Finance, which is reporting on a protest led by one Holly McCall, a commenter comes up with a freaking brilliant idea:

Sit down and discuss with your other half how much you want for being a stay-at-home mom (which in itself is basically considered a luxury by society.) Form an LLC, maybe Holly at Home. Have your other half cut you a check. Don’t forget to take out tax, in case you become unemployed, need SS, or a tax write-off.

—theycallmeroy3

Wow. Think of that. Wish  my ex and I had thought of it, thirty years ago. (And, btw, notice the attitude implicit in “basically considered a luxury”: bringing up your children in their home instead of warehousing them in daycare is a luxury).

I spent a fair amount of my time as a corporate wife and SAHM…during which I did not rack up a salary and did not pay into FICA. If my husband had been paying a household budget to me as “salary” or into an LLC as contractor’s pay for housekeeping, child care, and public relations and marketing, possibly I could’ve claimed unemployment when we divorced. But more to the point, I would have been paying into FICA, and when I suddenly found myself laid off at 64, too old to get another job, I would have had a significantly higher Social Security benefit.

When you’re married to a heavy-hitting lawyer, doctor, or corporate executive who can afford to keep you at  home, you’re doing a lot more than scrubbing floors and chasing kids. You’re helping to build and maintain his public image and community presence by engaging in volunteer activities (as high-profile as possible), serving on nonprofit boards, entertaining clients and colleagues, and hosting social events. Basically this is marketing and PR. And it has a significant market value: PR people earn a decent wage in our culture.

Housewives generally don’t. However, the cost of replacing a housewife, should a stay-at-home spouse die or leave, reflects what that work is worth. In 2006, nannies were earning between $15,600 and $52,000, plus benefits. In my part of the country, a cleaning lady—who takes no responsibility for raising the kiddies—typically earns between $80 and $100 a day: that would come to between $20,800 and $26,000 a year. So, in Arizona a SAHP who does not spend a significant portion of her or his time doing PR for the working spouse would be worth $36,400 to $78,000.

This assumes the conjugal duties are unpaid. Try hiring a call girl or keeping a mistress and tell us what that would cost.

Clearly, then, the SAHP’s work has objective monetary value.

So, it should be reasonable to pay that person through an LLC or an S-corporation. The implications are huge.

• First, as the person draws money out of the entity as salary, she or he pays FICA on it. That means s/he gets credit toward Social Security for work done for the household and the children. And it means that should the SAHP be widowed or divorced, she or he would not have to rely on the spouse’s Social Security credits—or be shorted if she spent some time working after the kids were grown but not enough to rack up the best possible benefit.

• Of course, it would also mean the SAHP would be able to claim, without having to lie on a credit card application, an income. Credit-card issuers could not deny a card by asserting that the applicant does not “work.”

• The SAHP might be able to create her own IRA or 403(b) through her corporation, allowing the couple to salt away a larger amount of tax-deferred savings.

• And of course, tax advantages always accrue around corporations. If the SAHP’s business entails schlepping children around town, driving to grocery stores, and attending charitable events, obviously the car and gasoline become deductible. If she is paid to clean house and she supplies the cleaning supplies and tools out of her pay, then the Windex, the Simple Green, and the vacuum cleaner should be deductible. If her duty is to represent her husband in the community by maintaining a public profile, then the cost of entertaining clients, serving on boards, and belonging to organizations such as Junior League, the art museum guild, and the zoo auxiliary should also be deductible, assuming she pays those costs with her income.

• Should the couple divorce, as some 50% of American newlyweds do, the implications could be significant. If the “working” spouse is paying a salary or contractor’s fee based on the market value of the SAHP’s work, it could limit the amount a court would award for support; or, on the other hand, it could serve as a floor for the amount to be awarded. That is, it could represent either a minimum or a maximum amount of alimony, depending on how courts viewed the arrangement.

Interesting idea, isn’t it? What say you, readers? Would you take a job as a stay-at-home spouse? How much do you think your services would be worth, objectively?

Image: Stay-at-Home Dad. BCantrall. GNU Free Documentation License.

Hey! Ryan just invited me to host the venerable Festival of Frugality on the 22nd. Yay!! It’s party time!

So, don’t just sit there: send over your best frugal posts through this handy submission form.

Related posts:

• w00t! Best of Money Carnival Comin’ Our Way!
• Best of Money Carnival
• Independence Day Totally Money Blog Carnival!

Ever have the feeling that every single time you sit down (or stand up) to do something, you get interrupted about every 30 seconds? It feels like that most of the time around here, which is weird, because there’s no one around to interrupt but a couple of dogs. Yesterday, when I was trying to get out from under the two- or three-day task of rewriting and posting this summer’s English 102 course, the phenomenon seemed to be working in full force.

Woke at four, as usual, which should’ve given me plenty of time to get my act together. Wrote blog posts, started back to work on the course, eventually got around to fixing breakfast. If it’s not dogs barking and mock-fighting, it’s phones ringing, e-mail notifications binging, timers going off, the teapot whistling, people showing up at the door, plants crying out for water as temps hit 100 degrees, the pool pump making a weird noise, pool cleaner stopping dead in the water… Even Gerardo the Lawn Dude Extraordinaire surfaced, bearing a check I’d written a few days before. He’d left it in his pocket when he put his pants through the washer, and the ink washed off. Would I write him another?

Hateful HP scanner software made me rescan a check for deposit four times. It operates so slowly that I’ll get up while it’s dragging its way through a process and go do something else: self-interruption, as it were. Went off to make the bed. Came back, restarted the program. Went off to feed the dog. Came back, restarted. Went off to put a load of laundry in the washer. Came back, restarted. And so on to infinity.

The whole day went that way. Got a lot done, but it was all done in fits and starts. Gestalt is the pattern of my life.

Came down with a sore throat yesterday. Cringe! Surely not a relapse of that hideous disease that made me so sick…and with which La Maya is still sick after six weeks of it???

Had to go to choir, that notwithstanding. Dragged home, dropped a Zyrtec knockoff, hoping the throat was an allergy symptom. Climbed into the sack around 10:30. Fell asleep over detective-novel copy, due back to the publisher on the 23rd.

Awake again at 4 a.m. At that hour, dawn is just barely beginning to break. How does the body know when the sky is only just starting to grey out? Must be magnetic, like a bird’s brain. Oh well. At this time of year, that’s a fact of life: the alarm is set to go off at 4 in the morning.

It’s kind of nice, because it does provide time to approach the day at a leisurely pace.

Throat still hurt. Must not be an allergy: otherwise the Zyrtec would have fixed it overnight.

Out the door at 6:45, off to the weekly business group meeting. So, so, sooo tired I could barely drive. Almost fell asleep at the wheel while stopped at a light. Realized…uh-oh. Shouldn’t have been driving at all.

Still zombified by the time the Scottsdale meeting broke up around 9:30. Had to consciously fight falling asleep as I drove back across the city. WTF?

Got home. Crawled into the sack around 10:15 or 10:30, after a few minutes of doggy exuberance. Charley soon gave up trying to drag Cassie off the bed and settled down on the floor. Slept all the way through until two o’clock in the afternoon! Holy mackerel. I don’t usually sleep in the daytime at all, much less for four hours.

Woke up feeling refreshed, for the first time in weeks. And the sore throat was gone.

Googled Zyrtec. Decided the toxic drowziness was probably a side effect. When they say “24-hour,” they’re not kidding.

Started to write this post. Ignored Charley. He responded by depositing diarrhea all over the family room. Cleaned that up. Remembered the frying plants. Pavement too hot to walk on barefooted; went to get shoes; interrupted by discovery that Charley had already retrieved shoes (he is a retriever, after all) and was eating them. Retrieved shoes from retriever. Watered plants. Back to computer. New e-mail. Decided to check neglected college e-mail system. Important message from departmental secretary, nearly missed. Cope with that, after retrieving another stolen shoe from the retriever. And so on, again, to infinity.

Many, many, many interruptions later, came back to this post, which by then had managed to disappear. Rewrote the first part. M’hijito showed up an hour and a half late. Miserable day for him, no doubt: when he refrains from complaining, that’s when you know he’s beyond his endurance level. Played with dogs. Consumed whiskey. Saw son and dog out the door. Came back to finish this. “This” interrupts plan for dinner, which interrupts need to finish editing the detective novel, which once again will interrupt sleep tonight.

And so, to work….

Related posts:

• What’s Your Choice: More Years or Better Life?

Jeez. This door and security lock business is turning into a huge (and hugely expensive) project. Yesterday the locksmith was here. He wants to sell me four high-security locks, to the tune of something over a thousand bucks. Medeco is the brand he recommends. Says it’s more secure than the Schlage high-security locks that remain on the market. Consumer Reports seems to agree that one model of the Medeco is probably better than other deadbolts out there. Most deadbolts can easily be picked or drilled, and the Kwikset locks I bought the other day at Home Depot seem to be about the most vulnerable of the lot. Whether the Medeco is really worth the price remains to be seen: we have here this entertaining report, in which our intrepid hackers used keys fashioned from plastic credit cards to let themselves in the Medeco-armored door…in six seconds.

Not every burglar hangs out at DefCon listening to hackers report on their latest exploits. However. The fact is, it is a pin-tumbler lock, and it is vulnerable to attack. Possibly there are other ways to discourage the Perp.

This afternoon Chip Marvin, owner of my favorite skylight, door, and window retailer came by to check out the situation and give me an estimate on replacements for the sliding doors that no longer lock and the front door whose lockset has to be screwed back on every two or three weeks. He came up with several alternatives to replacement that could save a ton of money. To wit:

• Don’t replace the steel front door, which, though boringly generic, is a perfectly good door and can be refurbished. The old hole where the former lockset connected can be sealed with car body filler, and the new lockset I so unsuccessfully tried to install can be put on properly. There’s really nothing wrong with it that a little repair work and some paint won’t fix.

• The problem with the back door is the two layers of kitsch created by the plastic mullions that came with the cheapie HD kitchen door overlaid by the ridiculous fake wrought iron of the new ugly security door. I proposed to ameliorate that by replacing the door with a 32-inch single-pane entry door (to the locksmith’s dismay). Instead, he suggested, if what’s wanted is a clear pane, the cheesy mullions can be removed and the cheesy glass can be replaced with a single low-E pane.

• To his mind the sliding door is actually easier to secure than French doors. While the all-in-one lock does extend upward and downward into the sills, it’s simple to get them open.

Yes! The front door I’d seen at Home Depot was almost $800; by the time it was installed, the cost would have come to around a thousand bucks. The single-pane back door was a mere $288, but it was made by some outfit I’d never heard of and presumably fabricated in China or Bangladesh or Nigeria. Again, add a couple hundred bucks to install that thing—which because it only comes prehung would entail removing the new security door and reinstalling it—and we’re up around $500 or $600.

So. That’s a significant savings.

Savings, we might add, that can be thrown at the stuff I’d really like to have, to wit: upgraded Arcadia doors and replacement of the last of the tinfoil windows from the 1970s.

Chip showed me Milgard doors that match the excellent windows he installed shortly after I moved into this place. They’re low-E (none of the old sliding doors come under that heading), come in the wide-framed “French” style that I find very handsome, and they even come with the Frank Lloyd Wrightish mullions that I like in the windows I have.

When I moved in here, I didn’t change out the window in back, because there was only one of them and because I’m a cheapskate. Should’ve done that then. But as long as his crew is here installing doors, they might as well put in the one remaining bedroom window and maybe the little bathroom window, too. That will make all the doors and windows low-E, which I doubt will make a lot of difference but at least is…righteous. And it certainly will make the house look nice.

Arcadia doors can be fitted with sliding barrel bolts, which will back up the regular locks and require the Burglar to break the glass twice to get in. So with the standard lock plus one or two barrel bolts plus the traditional stick in the slider channel, the Burglar will at least have to earn his pay. And they really are very attractive doors.

Related posts:

• Shoring Up the Barricades

So as I was saying yesterday, among the several things the Funny Farm needs is a new paint job. Was feeling mighty proud of the Behr paint samples I got, and expected at least a couple of the colors to look swell and elegant on the walls.

As you know if you’ve ever painted a house, those tiny little paint chips you get at the Depot or the paint store are a cruel joke. There’s NO way you can estimate what the color really will look like, because the leap of imagination between the sample and a wallful of the paint is just too large for the human brain to traverse.

One strategy is to get paint samples in the coveted shades and paint splotches on the walls, in one- or two-square-foot patches. This works effectively, but it sure makes your house look funny until such time as you make up your mind. If you’re the finicky type, “until such time” can be a while. There’s a better way, though: Make your own paint chips.

Get a pad of low-end artist’s paper from someplace like Michael’s—don’t get the good stuff for this project—or, if you’d like sturdier samples, cut up a cardboard box into as many six-inch or foot-square pieces as you have sample colors. Then simply paint the sample colors onto the paper or cardboard. Allow to dry, and then you can tape the samples to the desired walls, leave them there, and watch how they look as the light changes throughout the day.

This is an effective way to see how a given paint color will actually look on your walls. It saved me a lot of time and probably some money. The shades I thought were gonna be just great turn out to be just ugly. Of the six I tried, the only one I really liked was “peach fade.” The other off-white, which judging by the Behr paint chip looked like an extremely pale beige, looks pink when a large enough sample is hung on the wall. A better name for “Adobe straw” might be “Necco candy chocolate.” The “flint smoke” is bluish-gray, a blah color—much duller than it appears above. “Blanket brown” has a grayish overtone that clashes with the kitchen cabinetry. And…a whole house full of off-white, beige, and brown? Bleyach! There’s a reason those brightly decorated houses in Mexico appeal to me.

After staring at the colorless “neutral” color scheme for awhile, I realized that dammit, I like the colors my friend and I put in the house when I moved in here, except that I’m mighty tired of the orange hall. That orange replaces a kind of tangerine orange that came with the Alexander Julian line we were working with, and I never liked that color. That’s why I put the terra cotta color in the hallway. All the other colors are just fine.

And the truth is, I know exactly where to get a much, much better shade to cover up that orange: at my son’s house. We painted his place a kind of…hmmm…what’s the word? It’s a mellow sort of beigey terra cotta—not a harsh orange like mine—that looks really, really pretty with the saltillo floors. He still has the paint can. All that’s needed is to trot over to Dunn Edwards, buy a pint of that, and test it on DIY paint chips. I’ll bet it would look really, really nice in that hallway.

See the teal in this image? That’s pretty close to swamp blue: the color of the accent wall in the living room, which has an archway through which one views the hallway. And that salmon color on the Mexican wall is a little brighter but not very far off from the color I have in mind.

If I’m right—that most of the walls can stay the same color they already are, with a little touch-up here and there—then those home-made paint chips saved me a great deal of money. Instead of repainting the entire interior, all that’s really needed is to repaint the hall (I can do that myself!), touch up the paint around the kitchen and front doors, paint the woodwork some shade of brown compatible with the cabinetry, and maybe repaint my office. Oh…and I do want that garage painted. Adobe straw would do just fine in there.

Related posts:

• Shoring Up the Barricades

Okay, so assuming I’m not moving away from Crime Central anytime soon—because I can’t afford anything I want to live in anyplace where I want to live—then presumably it makes sense to shore up the defenses. This house’s barricades are easy to breach: three old sliding doors, all of them ugly, two of them installed by different previous owners, two of them with locks that don’t work, and none of them energy-efficient. The handle set on the front door is falling off; every now and again I have to screw it back on. Neither of the two wooden gates is very sturdy, and one is falling apart.

I can’t afford to fix all this stuff, either…but doing so would be one helluva lot cheaper than selling this place and moving. So, I suppose I’m just going to have to raid Survival Savings and get some work done.

Friday we made a start: a Home Depot subcontractor came by and installed a security door on the kitchen door. It’s not too ugly, and unlike the gate on the front door, its metal screen lets you see out.

Well. It’s not too ugly when the kitchen door is open. With the cheapo door closed, it’s plug-hideous.

Also at the Depot, I picked up three sets of bump-resistant locks. Because these don’t have pins, they supposedly can’t be bumped. Of course, they can be drilled, but that means the Perp has to bring some equipment that can’t be carried in his pants pocket. While these KwikSet Smartkey locks can easily be picked or smashed, they’re much sturdier than the existing locks, and they’re actually quite handsome pieces of hardware.

Heh. I just learned how vulnerable they are while researching the present post, and so will return them to Home Depot and get something better (I hope) from the locksmith. Lissen up, folks: DON’T BUY KWIKSET SMARTKEY “BUMP-PROOF” LOCKS!

The door installer put these on the new security door, and while he was here took out the double-cylinder deadbolt I’d installed on the kitchen door by way of avoiding having to put a security door there and put the old single-cylinder deadbolt back on. With the security door making it harder for the Burglar to break out a light, reach in, and unlock the deadbolt, I no longer need a lock that’s keyed on the inside. That means in the event of a fire, I won’t have to grope around searching for the key to get out.

Couldn’t talk him into installing the other two lock sets on the side and front security doors, which is just as well, since I’ll have to have the locksmith come over with better locks, anyway.

Yes. The cheapo kitchen door combines with the mid-cheapo security door to hideous effect. Plus one of the unlockable sliding doors resides adjacent to the newly secured kitchen door.

So, what I’m thinking is to replace all three sliding doors with single-pane sliders, and to install a matching door in the kitchen—the kind that has just one large glass pane in it. Then all the Arcadia doors would match, they’d all have halfway decent factory-installed hardware, and once they’re supplemented with bars dropped in their tracks, screw-on locks, and door squealers, they should be relatively safe. The back door, then, would be mostly clear glass, so when you look out through it, you’d see the “decorative” (heh) ironwork of the security door: only one layer of kitsch instead of two.

These little gems are not cheap. Each will cost about $1500. On HD’s website, however, I found Anderson knockoffs by some outfit called “Masterpiece” for about  half the price. They’re probably junk—I’m having the company that installed the windows and skylights in this house give me a call, tho’ I don’t expect them to underprice anything at Home Depot, since they carry top-of-the-line products and do first-rate work. I’d rather not spend any money on this  kind of thing, but still…closing costs alone on my house would run over $12,000; and then we’d have the cost of moving my stuff across town, plus the usual mountain of bills that invariably accompanies possession of a new place. Clearly, making the place a little more perp-resistant trumps selling this house, finding a new one, and moving.

Meanwhile, as long as I’m spending money on the house, the interior really, really needs a paint job. The Alexander Julian color scheme my friend and I cooked up when I moved in here about six or seven years ago was very stylish at the time, but it’s pretty…uhm…idiosyncratic. I think I’d like to replace the surprising colors with more neutral shades, and also paint the white doors and trim brown. The color of dirt. I am tired of scouring dirt off the doors and woodwork!

Paint the woodwork the color of dirt, and the dirt won’t show.

While visiting the Depot, I came across a gorgeous paint color, or so it appears in the chip. Behr is calling it “faded peach.” It’s really an off-white with just a tiny touch of peach in it. The effect is a very warm, rich neutral that picks up one of the subtle shades in the floor tiles. If someone didn’t tell you it had peach in it, you’d never know. My plan is to put this in the living room, dining room, and up the (presently orange terra-cotta) hallway. The accent wall in the living room, which is now swamp blue a kind of murky teal, will give way to “adobe straw” (a soft grayish brown) or “blanket” (brown brown, which is also going to be the color of the doors and trim). The gray in my bedroom will be covered with “adobe straw,” and the swamp blue accent wall in there repainted with “flint smoke,” a much lighter, subtler sort of misty teal. The master bathroom will be “Arabian sands,” another neutral brown that’s close to “adobe straw” but goes better with the travertine in the shower. The office and other two bedrooms: variants of “peach fade,” “adobe straw,” and “flint smoke.” Overall, the effect will be much more subtle; keeping the woodwork clean will require a lot less elbow grease, and should I decide to sell the house after all, the paint job will be neutral.

While the painter’s here, I think I’ll have him paint the garage walls “adobe straw,” too. Same strategy: hide the dirt.

So, by the time these projects are done, the house will be a little more secure and a lot more attractive. I think.

Related posts:

• Locks & Doors, Doors & Locks

Okay, so today I’m wrestling with the pool—its filter pressure is running twice as high as normal, so I’ve backwashed it and now go to prime the pump. This is easy: just turn it on with the pressure release valve open to drain off the air; then when the pump is primed, shut the valve and go on about your business.

Well. No.

Turn the breaker switch to “on” and the system kicks in and looks like it’s gonna run OK…for about 10 seconds and then holeee gawd it’s suckin’ air out of the skimmer basket. A great water tornado has formed in the skimmer and it’s pumping air into the system. Shut it off. Cuss.

This is the second time that’s happened in a week. Last time after I fiddled around with it, I got it to stop. But don’t know what on earth I did to make it stop. This time no amount of fiddling makes the phenomenon quit. So…it’s on the phone to schedule a visit from Leslie’s repair service.

Since it’s been less than 90 days since there were out here expensively repairing the leaking pump, and since this started after the guy adjusted the drain valve (thereby changing the force with which water is sucked in through the skimmer basket weir), I figure they should give me a break.

No. Base price is $110. That’s just to show up out here.

Soonest the guy will schedule a trip is next Friday. That is a LONG time for a pool to just sit, in 100-degree weather. The upshot will be an algae infestation. The pump needs to circulate to keep the chemicals in balance and moving around.

So, I ask if he has any recommendation for how I can keep the pool from turning green while we’re waiting for a Leslie’s technician to show up. Get this…

Oh, this is too, toooo good!

He says (no joke!), “What you can do is add the chemicals and then sit on the edge of the pool and kick your legs in the water real hard!”

LOLOLOLOL!  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a funnier eff-you from a customer disservice representative, not in many years of trolling punch-a-button systems and putting up with rude, stupid, and uncaring reps. This guy truly takes the cake.

Tomorrow I’m calling Swimming Pool Repair and Service to set up a business relationship with them. When last heard from, they were still a locally owned company. They don’t answer the phones on Mother’s Day. But that may simply mean they don’t hire overseas and cross-country slaves.

Meanwhile, I tried to reach Phil, the manager of the Leslie’s shop nearest my house. He’s worked for that illustrious corporation forever, and before taking on a store job he was a field technician. He does know how to make a pool work. Interestingly, the guy who answered the phone said “Phil no longer works here.”

Telling.

Anyway, so I ask the new guy if he thinks he could give me a clue as to what might be the issue. He thinks backwashing drew the water level down too low. I say it’s only a quarter-inch below the middle grout line…not like it’s anywhere close to the weir. He think the pump could be drawing hard enough that it’s sucking so much water in through the weir that it’s pulling in air.

I adjust the drain valve, cutting the suction a little. He suggests filling the pool above the middle grout line (the “full” line, for those of us who are not pool aficionados) and then turning on the pump again. If it doesn’t suck air at that point, it means I should overfill the pool a bit to keep the thing from doing that.

This requires running the hose about 30 or 40 minutes at full blast.

A-n-n-n-d…yeah. Overfilling and fooling with the drain valve seems to have worked. Right now it’s running pretty well. Nice for swimming in, too: the water’s perfect!!

“Kick your legs.” Heeeeeeeeeeee!

Related posts:

• 2012 Baptized!

Being self-employed certainly has its benefits—you can choose your own hours, you have only yourself to answer to, and if you’re ill, you don’t have to phone in sick.  On the downside, as well as the occasional inconsistency of income (if you don’t work, you don’t get paid), you also have to sort out your own tax, national insurance and insurance.

There are several types of insurance you might need for your self-employed business.  If you have any employees (or even people who help you voluntarily), you must have employers’ liability insurance in place.  In any event you might want to also pay for public liability insurance (if customers come to your premises) and for professional indemnity coverage.

Professional indemnity insurance is what covers you should you give advice that turns out to be bad or inappropriate for the client.  If you give bad advice or make a mistake in the professional service you give to your clients, then they could sue you for damages if they suffered loss as a consequence.

A good example of this is will-writing.  People can set up as self-employed will-writers with no qualifications or experience, and there is no requirement for them to have professional indemnity Insurance in place. However, if the wills they draft are poorly written, or if they mistakenly include or exclude a beneficiary, or if they do not ensure that the will is executed properly, they could later be sued.  Although a suit might be filed by the person who had the will written (the testator), who might seek to recover the amount they paid for the will, it’s more likely that mistakes will not be discovered until after the testator has died. In that case, the beneficiaries or executors could sue for their losses or on behalf of the estate—or both.

That’s where the timing of your professional indemnity insurance purchase comes into play.  If a client makes a claim against you several years after you have done the work for them and, in the interim, you have allowed the insurance to lapse, then having had professional indemnity insurance at the time the work was carried out makes no difference—you won’t be able to claim against it.  You’re only covered if you have a professional indemnity insurance policy at the time that the client sues.

Since many small businesses don’t last, you could find yourself in deep water years after your business has folded.  Let’s say you ran a business from 2001 to 2006 and had professional indemnity during that entire period, during which no clients sued. If a client who you worked for in 2006 makes a claim against you in 2010, then you’re not covered. Amazingly, if you didn’t have professional indemnity insurance at all between 2001 and 2006 but took out retrospective professional indemnity insurance from 2007 (perhaps for a new business venture), then claims arising from 2001 to 2006 would be covered.

This is an important fact to remember.  If you need professional indemnity insurance, then you will need it for many years to come, even after your business has ended.  For most types of business it is safe to say that six years after your last job, you can stop paying for your professional indemnity insurance (or ‘run-off’ insurance, see below) because most claims are barred from being brought if six years has passed (this is known as the statute of limitation).  For some businesses, though, like Will-Writing, a claimant might be able to persuade a judge that they didn’t know about the negligence within the six year period and they might be given permission to sue.

If you don’t like the idea of paying for professional indemnity insurance forevermore, you could pay for run-off insurance instead for six years (or more, as above).  That type of insurance generally carries a lower premium and usually reduces each year as the risk is deemed to diminish.

This is a sponsored guest post by James Rowland.

Related posts:

• Insurance Frolics
• Getting an Insurance Checkup
• Health Insurance Eye-Popper

Look at this. And this. Or maybe this.

A hundred and ninety-five grand for that first hacienda, and I’ll bet you can get it cheaper. Matter of fact, I’ll bet I could rent something like it for less than a 5% return on investment from the proceeds of sale of the house I’m living in right now.

Gardener in: clean up courtyard, plant flowers, plant una jacaranda. Owner’s furniture out. Local purchases in.

Aquí: all my furniture goes to my son. The junk, like the books and the piles of trash I never even look at, goes away. Dog gets a double dose of every vaccine known to veterinariankind.

I throw my clothes, a few favorite pots and pans, and the dog in the car and drive to San Miguel…never, with any luck, to return.

Why in the name of God am I still in this place?

Consider:

I don’t want to work anymore, but I can’t live here without working. I have to work like a horse to keep a roof over my head in an aging tract bordered on two sides by increasingly dank and violent slums, under siege by pistol-waving thugs pursued by legions of cops. The central part of the city, except for three or four small, elite, and expensive enclaves, is steadily deteriorating; it’s already reached the point where young adults say they would not live in a home south of the Loop 101…that’s nine miles to the north of here. If you covet middle-class neighbors and infrastructure, you have two choices: you can live in a sea of elbow-to-elbow cookie-cutter houses built so shabbily that by the time they’re ten years old they’re falling apart, or you can mortgage your first-born son to live in Scottsdale or Carefree. There really is surprisingly little in between.

The U.S. is turning into a third-world country. Why not move to a real third-world country and enjoy the amenities?

Amenity numero uno being that I could live like the Queen of Sheba on my Social Security in this place.

Amenity numero dos: For as little as half of what I would clear from my shack, a fun and original and downright unique place awaits.

 ← Go ahead. Just try to find a detail  like this in the US for $135,000…

How about a brand-new colonial-style hacienda? ↓

For just a few…

…thousand dollars more than I could get for my house…

Amenity numero tres: Hired help in Mexico comes even cheaper than the real estate. Much cheaper, as our industrialist friends know, the folks who have sent our jobs down there. You and I could own a place like this and afford to have someone come in and clean it and take care of the grounds. And still have enough left to go out to eat!

Just imagine: this for about what I can get for my dowdy little tract house…

Okay…whence this little frenzy?

Welp, in the aftermath of the most recent little drama, a strange blue funk settled over me. Weird, because there’s really little reason for it: I was not harmed, was not even especially alarmed…although I surely would have been had I not moved myself to go check the locks on the garage and back doors. The could’ve been, it develops, is more disturbing than one would expect. So, too, is the bizarre irony that as the most recent episode was coming down, I was cruising the Web looking for “better” places to live. Whatever those might be.

Know how long I’ve been looking for a “better” place to live?

Not weeks. Not months. Years.

Because the houses in this neighborhood are solidly built of masonry (unlike the standard stick-built Phoenix-area tract house, which is ticky and tacky), because they are well designed, because they’re a block from a very nice park, because they abut a tract of $500,000 to $1 million homes, because they’re centrally located, you can’t find a thing that’s a few blocks further from the Conduit of Blight for anything like what a normal person can pay. Yes. I could sell my house and apply the proceeds as a down payment for a comparable (but not as nice) house further from Crook Central. But for what looks like an even exchange but is not, I would end up owing about $60,0000, get a teensy little lot with about six feet between buildings, and drive halfway to Yuma, Prescott, or Tucson for the privilege.

In the unlikely event that I could get a 30-year loan for such a balance, I’d add $304/month to my already straitened budget; more likely, the best I could get would be a five-year loan, with a monthly payment of around $1100. Let’s say I netted $200,000 on the sale of my present home and invested that in instruments that return, on average, around 6% (as has been the case with retirement savings…with, alas, some notable exceptions). That would pay $1,000 a month…less 15% taxes, for a net of $850. A $200,000 loan at 4.5% would cost me $1,013 in principal & interest alone, meaning I’d have to come up with an extra $163 a month from someplace.

This means I don’t have much choice but to buy a house for no more than what I can net on the sale of this house. After closing costs, the best I could do would be around $190,000. Right now, not counting foreclosures (which are problematic), there are 12 houses in that price range in one North Central zip code, none of them in good areas (one does not want to be in Sunnyslope; one does not want to be east of Seventh Street or west of Seventh Avenue); thirteen in another (including a house in my neighborhood but closer to the Conduit); in another, one kinda cute little patio home that backs onto a shopping center; and in two in the last—one of them a decrepit patio home and the other one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise. I’ve looked at the latter; if claustrophobia is your preferred state of mind, it’s perfect.

Following the white flight, we find one, count it (1), house in the $150,000 to $200,000 range north of the Loop 101; several in Scottsdale but most are apartments and most overlook the freeway; quite a few in the cookie-cutter tracts in Mesa, Chandler, and Gilbert (invest in oil futures to fund your driving habit!). On the west side, where you have to go past mile on mile on mile of blight to get to middle-class tracts, there are about three trillion vacancies in Sun City; several new tracts are (still…) under construction on the far, far, far west side (more oil futures!), and KJG and I saw some gorgeous new houses going up on large lots for around $265,000…plus.

Moving to these distant suburbs requires you to invest in a reliable vehicle and resign yourself to spending half your waking hours on the road. I could no doubt afford a tract house sitting on top of five adjacent neighbors’ houses out there. But it would mean I would have to give up seeing all my friends, give up choir, give up teaching at Paradise Valley… For heaven’s sake! If you’re going to move away from your entire life, why move into a tract where the houses will be “old” and need renovation in ten years? Why not move to Mexico?

* * *

A day or two ago it occurred to me that my paradigm is wrong. Something is wrong with the search paradigm. But what?

• Could I be searching for the wrong thing (should I be looking for an apartment, not a house? How about a big RV?).

• Or maybe I’m looking in the wrong place (somewhere other than Phoenix, for example? Like…say, Mexico, the south of France, Yarnell?).

• Or…maybe the search should not be for new-to-me housing but for better ways to secure this house and for more accuracy with a pistol.

Maybe the reason I can’t find anything I care to live in and that I can afford in an area where I want to live is that I really don’t want to move. Possibly I’m complacent. Or possibly I actually have found housing that’s as ideal as it’s going to get at this time in my life: paid off, relatively low in maintenance, centrally located, and except for the occasional moment of drama, mostly pleasant to live in.

On the other hand…in Mexico, one could live reasonably well on one’s Social Security benefit alone.