Year Without Shopping

twincity said:
I guess she's never heard of LBYM.
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Or creativity, either. The best she could think of was walking her friends around the block? Staying home to watch "The Bachelor"?

It's interesting to note that a book tour requires new clothing. The way you look must have a big effect on the public's perception of your abilities. Good thing that criteria doesn't apply to Keith Richards or Mick Jagger...
 
I hope she never lands in a poverty situation (divorce, major illness,sudden death of spouse for example) or gets laid off with kids to feed. Or loses a pension she was counting on.

I bet there are a lot of people here who go without a lot of material things in order to have some hope of not working even to 65.
 
i live way below my means. the united states in particular is such a consumer society. i would rather not buy luxury items and increase my wealth than be maxed out on credit card debt. the article is kind of silly and pretentious, yes, but to the masses it is a good lesson. i find it particularly odd, when i see people decked out in designer clothes, mercedes, rolex, but don't even own their own home or else are mortgaged to the hilt
 
I didn't read the article but the author was on Oprah today as part of Oprah's series on the "Debt Diet". I think her point was to prove how much a person can save by cutting out the "entertainment budget".
 
When I read drivel like this it bothers me for a couple of different reasons. 

First, there's the drivel itself.  This woman is clueless.  Is the public really so stupid that this seems like insight?

Second, there's the fact that she is getting national publicity.  I suspect she is rich and/or well-connected.  Why would Oprah and various National outlets choose this drivel to highlight? 

:p :p
 
yes people are that stupid. it is drivel, look at what is on t.v. it is mainly drivel. i am always shocked at people's stupidity. something like 25% of the us is one paycheck away from being broke
 
I came home with a new pair of shoes, i think I was about 17, and my Mother asked why I had bought them.

Another pair of shoes made no sense to her since I already had a pair.

You have only one pair of feet, she said, so why do you need more than one pair of shoes.

10 of us lived in a 1200 sq. ft bungalow, one washroom, she did not work outside of the house, my Dad worked for the city.,

My Dad used to say, if she had a dollar in her hand, you would have to break her hand to get it.

My Dad is almost 90,my Mother died at 73, My Dad has a portfolio that is sizeable, to say the least.


Time and Compounding.
 
It's easy to get annoyed with drivel like this, but it is also a sign of something significant going on culturally: frugal living or non-consumerism is at least on the radar of the potentially millions of people who might hear about this. The fact that a hip NY culture-vulture couple is doing this means that saving money might almost be considered cool now (for about 15 minutes) by some of the 'chattering classes'. At the end of the day, it helps more people learn about and stay on the road to financial independence, which can't be all bad.
 
It ended up on tv because the average earn 'n' spend consumer watching Oprah considers going for a year without blowing 110% of their take home pay a train wreck. What? No lattes? You have to watch tv instead of going to the movies or a play? Taking a walk around the block? How horrifying!!!
 
ESRBob said:
It's easy to get annoyed with drivel like this, but it is also a sign of something significant going on culturally: frugal living or non-consumerism is at least on the radar of the potentially millions of people who might hear about this. The fact that a hip NY culture-vulture couple is doing this means that saving money might almost be considered cool now (for about 15 minutes) by some of the 'chattering classes'. At the end of the day, it helps more people learn about and stay on the road to financial independence, which can't be all bad.
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And who knows, maybe it'll even sell a few copies of your book ;)
 
Today, the 5:30 a.m. backwater book show on a regional network, tomorrow Oprah! Somehow I don't think ER will ever be cool enough to rate that sort of treatment.

btw, since when are Q-tips a luxury good?

<deleted unpleasant comments about author's politics>
 
Who needs to go to Movies when you can download them to your PC , then play them on your Big Screen??
 
sgeeeee said:
When I read drivel like this it bothers me for a couple of different reasons. 
First, there's the drivel itself.  This woman is clueless.  Is the public really so stupid that this seems like ensight?
Second, there's the fact that she is getting national publicity.  I suspect she is rich and/or well-connected.  Why would Oprah and various National outlets choose this drivel to highlight?
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First, yes, so technically it's insightful to some.

Second, no. Just flamboyant enough for someone to notice and to think "Hmmm, she oughta be on Oprah!"

As an experienced archaeologist you'd have a lot of fun watching Oprah re-runs. The research would be sort of like Gibbons writing about the decline of the Roman empire.

Oprah announces show topics on her website and asks people to e-mail her the names of candidates. Then her crew cherry-picks the most TV-worthy submissions and *bam*, there's another Emmy and a couple million $$ more. ("Good job, guys, so, what's on the schedule for tomorrow?") I can only imagine the size of the staff that screens the topics & people plus the number of editors required to keep up with a daily show, but I know that when Oprah decided to give her staff a vacation at a Hawaii resort she had over 500 families.

We've learned that we can show just about any Oprah segment to our 13-year-old kid and she'll immediately grasp the issue, the problem, and the solution as presented by Oprah & friends. Even more importantly, if it's on Oprah then it must be advice worth following (instead of whatever the parental units are braying about that afternoon). I think that means the Oprah show is written & edited to reach the average teenager, but that doesn't mean that it can't be used for good!
 
Still Not Buying the book, but have done a few more scans of reviews and I think I see why her approach is different from what we normally talk about here -- she is motivated not by frugal living or FIRE, but by her green conscience and disappointment with overconsumption and its impact on natural resources/environment. That explains her feelings about Q-Tips...
 
Rats!

Just got back from shopping - Salvation Army is having a 25 cent clothing sale - didn't buy any:

BUT spent the big bucks - $3 for some Florsheim leather loafers. Our 4 month old PUG got my ten year old Walmarts last night, including the duct tape over the holes.

May have to throttle back my new spending mode a tad.

heh heh heh heh

Couldda patched em - but step daughter razzed me about my duct tape - sooo - maybe I should have her watch Oprah?
 
What crap! I read the stupid article. Well, I almost read all of it. It's nothing but some self-indulgent princess finding a new scam to show how "special" she is and sell some books so she can buy lots more of the crap she claimed she didn't buy for a year. There are people that live that way everyday. They're called "the poor." They don't get to celebrate and go on a book tour after the first year.
 
Nords said:
First, yes, so technically it's insightful to some.

Second, no.  Just flamboyant enough for someone to notice and to think "Hmmm, she oughta be on Oprah!"

. . .
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You are probably right about the first point, but I'm almost certain you are wrong about the second. I'd be willing to bet there are hundreds or thousands of people who have better credentials, better insights, and better books that have worked hard to get on Oprah but don't have the connections. Today, the filter process that determines what gets on TV is primarily based on PR machines and insider connections. It's even true of the news. If you have enough money to pay the right PR agency, you can get your message out. Or if you know someone with influence, you can get your message out. :)
 
Come on Sgeee...eeee .eeeeee. Hope I got enough 'e's on there. I aint counting em.

A big show topic was Oprah paying for her gay makeup artist to have some new substance injected into his face to fill in some age-related pockets. She wanted to see how well it worked before she did it to her own face. Whole show on the process and the before-after.

A show on a yuppie cutting out some discretionary spending beats performing medical experiments on the staff and showing them on television... :p
 
Cute Fuzzy Bunny said:
. . . A show on a yuppie cutting out some discretionary spending beats performing medical experiments on the staff and showing them on television... :p
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Well . . . I didn't see either one, but the medical experiments show sounds a lot more entertaining. Maybe we could get her to perform lobotomies on Washington politicians. Would that be redundant? :) :D :D
 
Cute Fuzzy Bunny said:
Oprah paying for her gay makeup artist to have some new substance injected into his face to fill in some age-related pockets.
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geez, you say it like it should be on some ethnicity poll.
 
Cute Fuzzy Bunny said:
I'm sorry lazy...I dont understand your post.
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I think that Lazy is objecting to your characterization of makeup artists as gay. Or maybe of gays as makeup artists.

Just to make things even more complicated, I thought the guy was her hairdresser. But I was just passing through and didn't sit down to watch.
 
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