No New Plants, Period.

Gardening, after storms and the economic downturn, is akin to living with the dogged devotion of a Mets or Red Sox fan. As I wander through the garden and see the places crushed by the ice storm or rotted by the ceaseless rain I say to myself, “Wait until next year.” I say this too as I leaf through garden catalogs and dog-ear the pages. I know I can’t buy anything because I am on a recession diet: NO NEW PLANTS, PERIOD.

The economic downturn hit our house hard when I lost my part time editing job and our health insurance in March 2008. Then the stock market debacle turned our savings into dust. My response was denial; I just refused to open my account statements. It is possible to practice denial in dealing with retirement or college tuitions accounts, but I had to walk out my front door and no amount of denial would allow me to over look the havoc wreaked on my garden.

The first thing I had to do was clean up the disaster. Then, since I am known to be a positive, plucky person, I decided to make gardening in a time of recession into a game, a challenge. How to garden when there is no money for plants or accoutrements? Not a penny. Luckily plants divide, unlike stocks of late, and what the economic community call “the green shoots of growth” seem to abound in the garden. I just had to learn to notice…

Comparing Sharing: Should You Rent Handbags, Movies and Pets?

Mom always told you to share. But it turns out her advice might not always be best—at least, not when it comes to saving money during a recession.

According to the Washington Post, companies with a business model based around the concept of sharing are faring well lately, with car services like ZipCar seeing a 70 percent bump in membership since last year and the book-swapping website BookMooch increasing its membership roster by 30 percent.

While sharing sure sounds recession-friendly, we couldn’t help but wonder if it works out as well for the people doing the sharing as it does for the companies themselves. To find out, we’ve did the math on some of the most popular sharing-based businesses.

HANDBAGS
For a monthly membership fee of $5 to $15, sites like Bag Borrow or Steal and From Bags to Riches let users rent handbags for months at a time. But membership fees aren’t all users have to pay, since actually renting the designer purse can cost an additional $20 to $200 (or more!) per month…

For a Cheap Date, Get Creative

Periodically, things go really well. Property values grow at unprecedented rates. The S & P 500 grows 13% year over year. And, once in a blue moon, a single pretty good (but not great) idea will catch the right executive’s eye and move someone from the creative class into the realm of the nouveau riche (and they will buy Jet Skis for all of their friends). Then other times, the unemployment rate more than doubles inflation and the best solution anyone can think of is to tax high-earners in excess of 50% of their income. In the latter scenario, romance, entertainment and romantic entertainment* become a bit superfluous when budget time comes around. That’s when the tough get creative.

Downturn Deals: Half-Price Food

Most of the time, I believe that fresh food is best—like just-pulled-off-the-tree or yanked-out-of-the-water fresh. That’s why I like shopping at the farmer’s market. At the same time, for full disclosure: I have been known to test the boundaries of food freshness, more out of sheer laziness than frugality or a sense of adventure.

According to the Egg Safety Center, eggs will keep for five weeks past the expiration date with “minor loss of quality.” But let’s say late one winter night there’s nothing in the fridge but a three-month old carton of eggs. Trust me: Go hungry. DO NOT fry them up and eat them.

That said, somewhere in between just picked and mildly poisonous you can find some amazing food bargains…

How Colleges Can Save You Money

Remember college? The late night study sessions, the lack of responsibility, the keg parties, and—best of all—all the stuff you used to get for free. (Or at least, it seemed free.) Who knew prescription medications and gym memberships would be so expensive in the real world?

You don’t need to re-enroll to take advantage of the many discounts given to college kids. Many universities offer reduced (or free!) services to alumni and non-students, too, assuming you’re willing to work out in a gym surrounded by 20-year-olds. Some of what you can get from campus…

10 Tips for Learning to Cook from Scratch

Two years ago I could go for days without setting foot in my kitchen. Work had taken over my life, and I didn’t even make coffee for myself. I had lots of nice things—four sizes of pots, skillets, a stock pot, a wok, baking sheets, pie plates, a slow cooker, a rice cooker, a bread maker, a KitchenAid mixer—but they were just crowding my kitchen.

While fantasizing about a balanced life, I read the book Apartment Therapy by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan. To get the most out of your living space, it advises cooking at least one meal a week at home. So one evening I invited a friend over for dinner, thinking: How hard can it be to make pork chops? My friend, who was raised in Italy and can make gnocchi from scratch, said the pork chop was fine even though it tasted like shoe leather. I was mortified and vowed to change.

So I was lucky—when it became necessary to cut back on my expenses, I was already cooking a few basic dinners a week. Now I take lunch to work, do takeout even less and watch my ingredient costs. Right now a lot of people are considering cooking to save money, and I’m pretty sure many are in the same boat as I was: starting from scratch skills-wise and cursed with a rarefied palate from so much eating out. Here are ten tips I learned along the way…

Work Off Your Costs

These days it might not be easy to find the cash to pay all your monthly expenses, from rent to membership fees. Yes, you can negotiate for lower rates, but there are also ways to create your own discounts—with a little labor.

According to the Times, many landlords have started shaving hundreds off rent for tenants willing help out with tasks like changing lightbulbs and taking out the building’s trash. But these “super-tenants” aren’t the only ones getting discounts on their monthly costs. Across the country, more and more companies are letting their favorite clients handle work exchange for taking money off the dues and fees they’d otherwise be paying.

And why not? Everyone’s a winner, since the company gets a free service and the customer gets a discount on dues. Wondering what kind of businesses are up for letting you volunteer your time in exchange for a better rate? A few ideas:

Landlords
Whether you volunteer to pick up packages for other tenants or work as a weekend handyman—there’s no limit to the services you can offer to take over for your building’s landlord…

Hedge Fund Husbands or Married to the Mob?

There has been some serious financial meshugas as of late, has there not? In short order, the bond rating agencies, banks, treasury, hedge funds, Federal Reserve and aggressively optimistic (and greedy) homeowners conspired to play Jenga with the house of cards that the American (world) economy was (is) perched upon. But it was really (says this guy) only a few Gordon Geckos that got us to this point. But what about their families?

When it comes time to pay the piper, Bernie Madoff’s family may not get off any easier than the Gottis got (though they may not land a spiky-haired reality TV gig). I read a good book once that said the sins of the father were visited on the son but made no mention of what the wife catches. Presumably, by hook or by crook, she visits whichever hell, heaven or purgatory that the husband earns.

Love in the Time of Layoff: Surviving a Split

Getting laid off by your boss is one thing, but downsized in your relationship? Often, that’s harder.

Jessica did not see it coming. According to the celebrity press, Ms. Simpson and Tony Romo had locked it down. He had won over her finicky dad and the rest of her posse. They ignored the hounding press and developed their own happy hideaway. But July 9, Romo called it quits, leaving Jessica “sad, mad, and confused.”

Getting dumped always sucks, no matter what else is going on in your life, or in the world. And recessions are no barrier against divorce and separation. Just ask Jon and Kate, or Amy Winehouse (well, not the best example), or Timothy Hutton, who is splitting with his wife of nine years…

How to Survive and Thrive in the Recovery

An ounce of a prevention is worth a pound of cure, they say, and many of us wish we’d thought ahead about the downturn we’re in (it’s not like you couldn’t see it coming, with teetering mortgages built on nothing and monolithic banks crumbling all around).

So, lesson learned. Now we look ahead to recovery. What are you doing to prepare? The signs of an end to the recession are inconsistent, at best, with economists and banks — and politicians — all over the map on their predictions. But the day may come when the economy is robust and healthy, and you need to be ready for it. No longer will lavish spending be something you want to flaunt. Frugality is in; it’s here to stay. If you don’t want to be caught all bespoked and besotted with pecuniary privilege, you’ll need these essential tips for slimming down now, before it’s too late (with apologies to U.S. News):

1. Rethink your lifestyle. It’s okay to live at home for a little while. Call it shag chic à la 1970s basements.

2. Couponize. They’re better than food stamps.

3. Downsize permanently. Ditch the manse and live on the road. It worked for Jack Kerouac.

4. Get competitive about it. Isn’t there a reality show about scraping and scrounging? Oh, right. The Real Housewives of New York City…