Food, Home and Style
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Frugal Fitness
Maybe you’re finding it hard to justify your expensive gym membership. Or maybe, like me, you’ve lost your sweet corporate discount on said expensive gym membership.
Either way, lots of us are looking for less expensive ways to work out. There are some obvious options, like walking or running outside, doing crunches in front of the television, and taking the stairs. But if they were so effective, you probably wouldn’t have joined a gym in the first place, would you?
We’ve found several ways to get a yoga/cardio/muscle-building fix on the cheap. Our promise: None involve using soup cans for bicep curls.
I Miss My Dry Cleaner
His name is Willie, and he has a young granddaughter. He runs Jan Sun with his wife, Peggy, and is so known for his skill with an iron that one customer who moved across the country still mails his best shirts to New York to be pressed.
I give them my dry cleaning but not my laundry, because there are (or were) three shops on my block, and I wanted to spread my business around. My laundry goes across the street, where my guy always remembers my last name, and how to spell it correctly. When I owe him, say, $15.30, he takes only the bills and leaves the dimes on the counter.
When I lost my job at the end of 2008, I started spending more time in my neighborhood—but spending less money there. Since I don’t have to dress up for work, I have little that needs dry cleaning. My heels don’t get worn down, and when you’re not buying new clothes there’s no need to visit the tailor. Fresh flowers are an indulgence. I reluctantly began to do my own laundry.
I felt poorer, but not in the way I had expected.
The Bull and Bear TiniMeter
Current price of one martini at the Waldorf Astoria’s Bull and Bear Bar: $18.50. That same amount will buy you these items, with change to spare:
- 18 slices of pizza at 99cent Fresh Slice
- 10 shares Ford Motor Company Stock
- Round-trip ticket, NY-Boston on BoltBus
- 3 pitchers of beer at Rudy’s Bar & Grill, + free hot dogs (before 5pm)
What Wedding?
Last spring, quite a few people—from Kiplinger to the National Association of Catering Executives—were suggesting that weddings might be recession-proof. As with so many ideas in the early stages of the downturn, that proved to be wrong. Everyone is getting pummeled now, including couples, vendors and honeymoon locations.
What’s an engaged pair to do? DIY Bride offers some practical advice on how to recession-proof the big day.
And The Royal Plantation Collection and ABCNews.com are hosting an online contest for a free honeymoon. Send a video (by March 9) explaining how the economy has affected your plans, and you could receive a five-day, four-night trip.
Biological Clocks Don’t Stop for Recession
When Marco got laid off in January, friends who knew of our family-launching plans asked us whether we’d continue or put things on hold. I just turned 40. Marco is seven years older than me. Our biological clocks are not in sync with the dipping of the Dow.
Sure, it occurred to us for half a second that this might not be the wisest time to be spending my grandmother’s inheritance on fertility treatments not covered by health insurance, but it’s expensive to adopt, too. And we really, really want a child.
Depression-Era Dinner & Flick
One of FDR’s favorite meals and a damn funny movie make for an evening of festive frugality….
Dinner-and-a-flick can easily run you over $50, so why not whip out the cookbook and pop in the Netflix? Better yet, make it a themed evening with a Depression-era recipe and a classic movie. This chicken dish is a flavorful alternative to a wallet-breaking restaurant meal. Lucky for me, PBS was airing the 1958 fav Auntie Mame the night I made it. The film stars Rosalind Russell as lovable New York bohemian Mame Dennis and chronicles her hilarious responses to the Great Crash – which she mitigates by marrying a southern oilman, of course. Mame’s famous line, “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving,” remains an excellent motto for hard times.
Recipe from The Tabasco Brand Cookbook
by Paul McIlhenny with Barbara Hunter
“Country Captain Chicken”
This chicken and rice dish has graced southern tables for many a generation and continues to be popular today…
At the End of Your Robe: Cashing in Your Cast-Offs
Each week, stylist Julie Greene offers expert advice on looking fierce in a financial crisis.
You’ve tried them on, mulled it over, considered repairs, and still can’t make certain clothes work for you. So they’ve been voted out of your closet, have been bid “Auf Wiedersehen.” Or, maybe you’ve decided to let go of some beloved pieces in order to put some money in your pocket.
Fortunately, one Fashionista’s trash is a Recessionista’s treasure (this goes for guys, too). As a former vintage clothing store-owner and power Ebay seller, I am all too familiar with the second-hand clothing market and how to get the most out of what you no longer need. Here are five ways to say farewell to your unwanted clothes with no regret or guilt—only gain.
Cookin’ for Love: Hot Tomato
When the hot blond fitness blogger peeks over her Us Weekly and purrs from the couch, “Baby, I’m in the mood for a little Italian,” a keen, anticipatory pleasure takes over all 5-foot-6-inches of me. Often though, all K-Food (as she will heretofore be known) really means is that she wants me to make tomato sauce.
Tomato sauce is easy enough to cook, especially for someone raised on it. But I like to reach into the immigrant’s cucina povera cookbook for an alternative to pouring it over pasta. You should too–face it, you may not be an immigrant, but odds are you’re working the whole cucina thing because you’re a lot closer to povera these days.
This recipe doesn’t have a name. It showed up at my mother’s house regularly in the 1970s, and reappeared in the Cobble Hill co-hab I share with K-Food—right around the time I noticed my fellow Conde Nast executives actually reading budgets rather than just nodding and checking out each other’s shoes.
At the End of Your Robe: 10 Tips for Making the Most of Your Closet Misfits
Each week, stylist Julie Greene offers expert advice on looking fierce in a financial crisis.
We all have them: Outdated, worn out, tired looking clothes that need a little—or a lot of—TLC. In more prosperous times, we can just toss and replace them. These days, it makes sense to get the most out of what you’ve already got. With a little creativity and a few dollars, you can make awkward items live up to their potential.
No Crisis in This Country
Ever since I left Manhattan for the quiet country life two years ago, I’ve missed the feeling of being in the center of the action: Buying the latest boots or colorful trench or micro-mini the morning it hits the stores, knowing about the hot new book before it’s on shelves because I met the author at a cocktail party, swapping ideas that just may become the next cultural trends. But being on the periphery is much more appealing these days. In New York City, everyone is talking recession. In New Paltz, the village up the Hudson where I live, everyone is discussing seed catalogues and tire chains and the estimated date for the last freeze.
The recession just isn’t happening with the same force in the Catskills. Sure, housing prices are down, grocery bills are up, and my babysitter just lost her day job at a non-profit. But most people in this laid-back, outdoorsy, grow-your-own-food-then-compost-it college town didn’t make or spend much money in the first place.
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