My step-mom gave me a subscription to Parents magazine last year for Christmas, and most of the time it's a fairly light, enjoyable read.
They do have the inevitable "moving" story - the woman who's four-month old died from SIDS or the woman who was artificially inseminated because her husband had AIDS and who died from AIDS related complications days before his children were born...
And, of course, they have the awful "400 ways that other parents make cooler things than you do" articles with cakes that look like pocket books or snacks that look like ladybugs or whatever... stuff that I really hope to god that no one actually does because if they do, they should be shot.
But, most of the time, I like it....
And then there's this month's little doozy:
Easy Ways you can FIND MONEY:
Essentially a little lecture about how Americans spend too much money, go too deep in debt and can't afford to invest for their retirements (something we all need to do because Social Security isn't...)
Here's the list of things to do to cut costs followed by my own situation:
Get rid of the second car. Can you carpool, drop your spouse off, etc. Hmph. We had a clunker, now we have my dad's old car that he hated. We still have the Ford because we haven't gotten rid of it yet, but we're not keeping it. We haven't had two cars in.... six years? And when we did, they were both clunkers.
Commuting Costs. Take a bus or train instead of driving. Bah. We live less than .7 miles from Kevin's work. The only thing he could do that would be cheaper is walk and there's this big 6 lane freeway between here and work.
Groceries. Shop for a week's worth of meals at a time. Yep. Do that. Clip coupons. (Don't do that. the sunday paper around here doesn't have them.) Belong to the frequent shopper's program. Do that.
Clothing and Shoes: Do you really need a new black dress or three pairs of heels (can we see who that's directed at? sexist article). Hey, I own exactly one pair of jeans and one pair of shorts and about three dozen tee-shirts, most of which were bought for me by someone else. Do I spent too much on Jess's clothes. Not if I can help it. We usually get her stuff from consignment shops or the Wal-mart or hand-me-downs or as gifts.
Kid's Activities: sports, music lessons, dance lessons. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Phone Service: get rid of land line or cell phone. All ready did that years ago. Shop around for the cheapest cell service. Did that.
Gym or Health Club: Never had one of those.
Resturant Meals: Add up how often you go out. Cut that in half. (Kevin and I go out .... oh, maybe once a month. If that. Dad takes us out from time to time, but he pays, so that doesn't count.)
Takeout food: Ok, so we probably order Chinese or catch fast food at the mall more than we should. We mall it once a week taking Jess to her playgroup because that way she actually gets to play. If I had to feed her before we went to playgroup (and us too) we wouldn't leave the house til 7:30, get to the mall at 8 and she could play for 2 minutes before we went home again. And there really isn't another good day to go.
Coffee Shops: Don't go. Well, I do Starbucks maybe once a month, if that. Usually I'd rather do Wawa's if I can get it, so...
Household Help: "You can live without that lawn service or cleaning lady." What fucking cleaning lady. I'm the damn cleaning lady.
Entertainment: Cut back on your entertainment. Fuck, the last movie I saw uin the theater was at the 2nd run movies about... three months ago? We haven't paid for a babysitter since ... sometime before September, I think.
Vacations: Kevin's sick for his vacation this year. We had sort of tentatively talked about taking a trip, but I don't think we will.
Grooming expenses: Don't get manicures, waxing or tanning treatments. get a haircut only when you need one. Kevin hasn't had a haircut in over a year. I got a small dye job done last week that cost me $22. Which was the first time I'd done anything to my hair since last year.
Books/CDs/Videos: Go to your local library. Yeah, I do already. We get movies from netflix instead of renting them from the blockbuster. These days I might buy something like 5 books in a year and maybe 10 movies. Perhaps I could cut that down some.
Gifts: Cut down on the presents you buy for people. Didn't I bitch about this earlier that I could not buy as nice of presents for people as I'd wanted to?
So, where exactly is this extra money supposed to come from? I'm supposed to give up luxeries I don't have?
I do note, for the record, that they don't say anything about giving up magazine subscriptions.
Posted by tisfan at February 19, 2005 08:24 PMI was kind of grateful when my subscription to Parents magazine ran out, precisely because of this assumption it made that every reader was a suburban soccer mom.
I mean, it had some good articles and some good ideas and some useful information, and I appreciated all that. But it didn't address any kind of urban issues, it didn't talk about families on a tight budget, it didn't even pretend to cater to fathers, and I always felt that they had a distinct, if disguised, bias against working moms.
Most of that stuff doesn't even apply to me, but it still irritated me. I'm sure they've done their market research, and maybe 95% of their readership *is* suburban soccer moms, and that's why they lean so heavily on that angle. But it wasn't me.
Posted by: Liz on February 19, 2005 09:58 PMWell, thanx a freaking heap. The penguins on top of your website just exploded. Now I have to buy a new monitor, after the emergency room staff gets through picking glass shards out of my disintegrating 41-year-old body. May the Knights Who Say "NI!" drag you before the Spanish Inquisition, who I hope sentence you to 30 days on Crunchy Frog chocolates and Chateau Chunder, you toffee-nosed, malodorous pervert!
The Minister of Silly Walks, Monster from the Id
Yes, yes, you are. These are the sort of articles you see in Real Simple and the like, the sort of money-saving tips for the people who can afford to live otherwise anyway.
Posted by: Daniel M. Laenker on February 23, 2005 08:41 AMHow you feel about Parenting is how I felt about Working Mother. When Dante' was going to the Children's World in Fredericksburg, we got an automatic subscription and once out of perhaps 3 years did they acknowledge that singlem-moms existed. Then they only dedicated 2 back pages to the issue that were also heavily margined.
I wrote them to tell them how I felt. I even had them call for my comments one time but the lady was not all that interested in my feminist rantings about how they excluded the realities of single motherhood, not to mention their lack of other ethnicities on their covers or within their pages.
So I just stopped reading it finally and donated them to Dante' and Zoe's (niece) cutting up piles. Now he goes to an urban public school and after-school program which is so much better for us.
And I just realized I've been reading your blog for an hour or something so I need to go to sleep since it is 1am after all.
Posted by: a nut on March 17, 2005 01:10 AM