Normal or Nuts?
Posted by Gail | Filed under Money Management
I get to meet a lot of people in my line of work. And despite the fact that most people hate talking about their financial situation, they don’t seem to have any trouble coughing up the details to me. One of the things I’ve learned is that so many of us have a different definition of “normal.” What one guy thinks is nuts, another thinks is just fine.
The guy who buys a lottery ticket every week, thinks that’s normal. The person who watches that guy buy $20 worth of lottery tickets every week and then complain that he doesn’t have the money to save thinks the lottery-ticket buyer is nuts.
The girl who goes shopping using her credit card to buy a new, $500 pair of shoes, who has always bought whatever she wants on credit, thinks that’s normal. The girl who has never spent $500 on a pair of shoes, never mind on credit, thinks the shoe-buyer is nuts.
The young couple who have credit card debt, line of credit debt, a mortgage, and a buy-now-pay-later loan, whose families have always lived in debt, think having debt is normal. People who have never had debt think they’re nuts.
The person who changes to a new car every two years regardless of the “negative equity” building up thinks it’s normal to head out for a bright, shiny new vehicle, regardless of the building doom. The person who sees a car as an expense thinks the new-car-purchaser is nuts.
I could go on ad infinitum. The reality is that for many people what’s “normal” isn’t working to take them to a positive place. For them, what’s “normal” is undermining what could be a great life.
And it isn’t always about spending too much either. The chick who refuses to let her family eat out on a family vacation… she’s packed cereal and boiled eggs to last a week… just so they can save money may think what she’s doing is normal, but to the rest of her, she’s nuts.
Everyone has some financial behavior that seems to be set in stone. I hate debt of any sort, but particularly abhor consumer debt. So I’d no more carry a balance on my credit card than shoot myself in the foot. I think it’s dumb to spend money on STUFF when you can’t afford to pay it off immediately. And every lending option I’m offered looks like a scheme to separate me from my cash.
I have less problems spending money at the grocery store, and when I read all those “cost saving tips” they go right over my head. I buy good stuff and I like name-brand cleaning products. I love how Tide makes my clothes smell. I’m a huge fan of Dawn liquid soap. I can spend big money on experiential entertainment particularly with the kids. But I can’t justify buying anything that I’m not going to use fairly regularly, so one-time use holiday dishes or specialty stemware just make me shake my head.
Some of my behavior is learned. Some of how I think seems to be innate. I know where I got the idea that money spent on books is money well spent: there was no library system where I grew up so if you wanted a book you had to buy it. I also know why I think debt is horrible: my mother drilled it into me. She also drilled into me the importance of insurance. She worked in a payroll department and watched people swing in the wind when they ended up with no paycheque.
We can all change the way we feel about the things that are “normal” and the things that are “nuts.” Staying a course when that course isn’t actually working for us is the most nuts of all. If your behaviour is destructive – whether you’re spending too much and putting yourself at risk, or saving too much and having no fun at all – then you have the ability to change.
There are two types of motivation that are active in all animals: the motivation to approach something and the motivation to avoid something. Sometimes all you have to do is switch how you see something to make you change the way you deal with it. Imagine picking up your new car. If your motivation is “approach”, you may be looking forward to the oohs and aahs you get from friends and family. If your motivation is “avoid” then spray-painting the side with amount of “negative equity” – yeah, yeah, it’s DEBT – you’ve accumulated may help you see what you don’t want. That snappy new car isn’t going to have quite the positive impact you were hoping for, right?
How about taking that buy-now-pay-later. Your “approach” motivation may be to have your home furnished and comfortable RIGHT NOW. Your “avoid” motivation may be calculating the interest that going to accrue because you don’t pay it off on time, and then deciding if the new whatever is really worth it. Interesting, isn’t it, how when you switch how you look at something, your needs and wants can change.
Now it’s up to you. What have you been doing that you perceive may be a little nutty? And how are you going to change how you see it – change your motivation – so that you can behave differently?
October 14, 2009 at 6:33 am
[...] News Sources wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI get to meet a lot of people in my line of work. And despite the fact that most people hate talking about their financial situation, they don’t seem to have any trouble coughing up the details to me. One of the things I’ve learned is that so many of us have a different definition of “normal.” What one guy thinks is nuts, another thinks is just fine. The guy who buys a lottery ticket every week, thinks that’s normal. The person who watches that guy buy $20 worth of lottery tickets every week a [...]
October 14, 2009 at 6:38 am
Gail,
One of our nutty behaviour’s was spending $600+ on groceries for 2 of us. Thats food we brought intot he house, no eating out included in that. Sure thing we had great food. but after joining the Kitchener/Waterloo Gail club, we realized that this spending was nuts. We’ve been able to cut back to $300 a month and are on track to lower that still. We haven’t lowered our standard of food we consume but we do look for deals and stock up on really good deals.
regards,
Jason
October 14, 2009 at 7:22 am
Going to auctions are an amazing way to see people’s nutty behaviour on display in front of you. I go to auctions to get good deals for gifts on the most amazingly expensive things. And each time I go, I am amazed at all the “stuff” – and think about the people who had the stuff before – how much they paid for the stuff, and how little it goes for at auction. I’ve bought baccarat crystal at auction at a fraction of its retail price. I’ve bought gorgeous pieces of china for the special people in my life at anywhere from 5-10% of its original retail price. If people want to see what their stuff is really worth, they should sit in on an auction once or twice. It might make them think twice about purchasing stuff.
Auctions are fun for me, I go with a set budget and only specific things in mind – if they aren’t there, I leave. And if I want something, I decide before bidding what my upper limit is. Sometimes I don’t bid at all because my upper limit ends up not even being close to the opening bid…and I feel decent about it because I am supporting a local business – the auctioneers – and not contributing to global warming because the stuff I’m buying is recycled…and I have a rule, bring something into the house to keep, something of equal size must go out of the house so that the house doesn’t get cluttered. Makes me think twice about what I want to buy.
Some people think that I’m nuts though….
October 14, 2009 at 8:25 am
My nutty behaviour was misusing my credit card. Plain and simple it was nutty, and I know that. My normal behaviour is paying a chunk to debt with every paycheck before I can use any of the money for variables. At least this way I know I’m correcting the nutty with a normal!
October 14, 2009 at 8:38 am
People think I am nuts for tracking every cent that we spend. So I tell then how do you know where to cut back if you have no idea where you have been spending it?
I love getting a good deal, like when something is on sale AND I have a coupon for it! or better yet free! lol and am quite excited when I get home and tell my hubby how little I paid for the item lol he thinks I’m odd, usually just laughs at me now.. he’s use to it
October 14, 2009 at 9:28 am
My nutty behaviour (one of them) was tracking every penny but then not actually budgeting. We’d been tracking our spending obsessively since 2001, but had nothing in place to save for anything specific. We just recorded expenses and took all the unspent money and put it on the mortgage. The result was that I could justify “necessary” expenses like buying our water heater instead of renting, but never felt good about “frivolous wastes” like restaurants and holidays. We were never strapped for money because I spend very little, but I took all the pleasure out of my husband’s spending by criticizing him for being extravagant (and he really isn’t…).
Now, thanks to Gail, I have a planned spending category for vacation and restaurants. I still find it hard to spend money joyfully, but I’m really looking forward to the vacation we are allocating money for. Hetty Green is no longer my hero.
October 14, 2009 at 9:51 am
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten”. That’s how a lot of nutty behaviour ends up being normal; it may not be sensible or work, it may even be destructive, but it’s comfortable and has a sense of stability because you can predict what will happen.
When I watch the show, I feel like giving up on a lot of the families by the second clip, but Gail doesn’t and in the end, for the most part, she’s right and they totally change. I think it’s because they finally take the plunge and do something totally new to them, then run with it when it works. I always wonder how Gail comes up with some of those challenges. They seem nutty to me but they really work for those people.
When I was doing my clinical placement for school, I had no phone. People thought that was nuts. I tried to explain the “I have a student loan to repay and don’t want to add to it” method I was using, plus there was a payphone across the street from my apt and I lived down the road from where I was training (unpaid), but they still thought having a phone was a necessity. It’s all about perspective.
October 14, 2009 at 10:03 am
Gail: Sounds like someone has been watching the ongoing facebook rants between living a little vs. saving everything
My nutty behaviour is basically when I say screw it and go to the mall with a card and spend some money (not alot, but you know too much to spare). I don’t do that anymore though.
I’ve seen quite alot of nutty behaviour…I generally just shake my head
October 14, 2009 at 10:18 am
My nutty behaviour was essentially using my credit card for no reason other than ‘I ran out of money’. I used to think that was what everybody did…
Another place to see the ‘true’ value of stuff–estate sales. It’s really kind of sad and sobering–things that were worth so much to that person being worth so little to everyone else. I will tell you–EVERYone seems to have a crystal/stemware/glass collection, and they pretty much ALL go for so very very little.
October 14, 2009 at 10:34 am
my nutty behaviour was trying on a pair of $160 jeans and being swayed by the sales girl to buy them. Okay, yes, she was right, they were (and still are) the most comfortable jeans I’ve ever worn, but they are not really my style, nor are they worth $160! I could have bought two to three pairs of jeans for the same amount.
This is why I shop so infrequently. I get “guilted” by overly attentive sales people into buying what I’ve tried on.
October 14, 2009 at 10:45 am
I am experiencing a really nutty behaviour right now that I am unable to control. I am now semi-retired and before retiring I paid off all my debts except my mortgage. While I can control all other financial aspects of my life, I spend far more at the grocery store than I want or need. I work at this grocery store and everytime I go to leave, I convince myself that I just have to buy something. It is driving me crazy! I live alone so I don’t really need a lot of groceries but I buy thinking that ‘oh, I will have it in the house for when the grandchildren come to visit’ or ‘oh, I am going to make this recipe’ and then I don’t use it for that purpose and it sits in the cupboard. I must be sabotaging myself into thinking that because I no longer have debt that I deserve this but it is throwing my budget off track. So, I guess that I will once again try to leave my debit cards at home, draw up a menu plan and only buy on the menu plan. I feel like two people, the person out of control and the other person dragging me kicking and screaming saying ‘I don’t want to; leave me alone!’
If anyone has any other ideas let me know. I have a budget and an actual spreadsheet so I can see my expenses from moment to moment and I can see the impact on my budget but knowing I have less saved isn’t working. If I can get this under control, I can move towards a healthier emergency fund!
October 14, 2009 at 11:02 am
Wanda, I have no problems sticking to my grocery list because I’m not a junk food fan and I rarely shop hungry, but perhaps you can go just 30 minutes before the store closes. Then you won’t have time to browse and be tempted.
October 14, 2009 at 11:14 am
Wanda, I would suggest if you are a cash budget that if you are going to work to leave your money at home. That way, you have no opportunity to spend the money. If you are still using your card to make purchases (as I am, I’m on a budget but the account only has the budget money it so I can’t overspend), then leave the card at home. I started to do this and found that it has made it easier to stay on budget.
I really enjoyed this blog as I’ve been one of the ones making comments on facebook about enjoying life while you can. My nutty behaviour has been justifying using my credit card to buy things that aren’t quite covered by my budget. I always tell myself that I’ll pay it off right away but when I get home I just procrastinate and only end up paying the minimum on my card. I have been able to conquer this problem but temptation still rears its ugly head every now and then.
October 14, 2009 at 11:40 am
My nutty behaviour was scoring a good deal on items from LandsEnd (whether I needed them or not), especially a few years ago when our dollar made us Canadians Rock Stars (as one Customer Care person put it me). This was pre-Gail and here we are again closing in on a par dollar. I get daily emails from them and they must be hit hard by the recession because they’re practically paying me to shop there. Well, I was tempted and perused the website and for the first time realized, I have everything I need right now (a sentiment I never prescribed to back then). A more expensive season is soon upon us and I’d rather have the funds for that than scoring a good cross boarder deal. Thanks Gail.
October 14, 2009 at 11:40 am
Nuts is my husband’s parents trying to guilt us into spending $5000 to go on a vacation with them to “spend time together.”
Normal would be just inviting us over for dinner once in a while, since we only live five minutes away.
October 14, 2009 at 11:47 am
Wanda, would it work to designate a few dollars each week for these “extra” discretionary purchases? If you have a limit on it (in cash) it may help, in yet you won’t feel totally deprived. Keep the cash in a seperate envelope, and once the cash runs out, then that’s it.
October 14, 2009 at 11:50 am
My nutsy behaviour would definitely be my clothes/shoe collection. I have a 4-bdrm home that is packed to the gills – every closet is full! It hit me when I switched over the summer clothes to my fall/winter items. I whispered to myself – ‘this is outta control’. I kept pulling more and more items not even realizing or remembering I had that brown sweater or that pink shirt . . . in my defense though, some of the items are more than 10 yrs old. I now regularly donate every few months as I try to de-clutter on a regular basis. Since I’ve become an avid follower on Gail’s blog – when I do find myself in the mall – I often try on items, walk around with them in my hand with the intention of buying but then quickly put them back because I think I’ve definitely reached the ‘enough is enough’ place in my life where I just don’t need too much (more) to make me happy.
October 14, 2009 at 11:58 am
@Wanda, I totally agree with Stephanie. Leave your money at home. It’s amazing how this works. I used to take my entire wallet with me when I walked the dog. Now I take my driver’s license and $5 so that way, when I wind up walking into the jewish bakery and cafe for a cup of coffee, I don’t walk out with $10 worth of rugoleh, a $5 loaf of challah bread and a $4 tub of chive cream cheese. Know what I’m saying?
I know you can do it! Allot yourself “no spending” days, that way on days when you do need groceries, you can buy them, but on the “no spending” days, you have no choice but to NOT spend because you left your debit cards, credit cards and cash at home.
October 14, 2009 at 11:59 am
Don’t ask me why I take my driver’s license…in case I lose my memory and someone has to help me find my way home? A nutty behaviour of a different kind I guess.
October 14, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I think my normal is scrutinizing all of our expenses and finding ways to keep them as simple and low as possible to ensure we are always living below our means. My normal is using cash for our variable expense to help keep us from over spending.
My Nuts is having high anxiety yesterday when my fiance and I went to our new community Rec Centre and got yearly memberships for $970.00 for both of us. My fiance couldn’t understand why I was freaking out about the $970 expense as we both are slightly overweight and need to start focusing on our health more and this facility has an amazing fitness center, walking track, arenas and every sport imaginable. So he was saying this if for our health and entertainment in the winter months and its not like we can’t afford it. He’s right we can afford it, the money is there to pay it off. But I couldn’t shake the anxiety of spending that much money. My nutty behaviour is that I try hard to be as smart as I can with our money that when something like this happens it freaks me out alot.
Another example .. I thought I had one more winter I could use my winter tires before I had to buy new ones. Nope I don’t. We just got our first snow fall and the roads became horrible. So we checked out the winter tires in the garage with the tread depth gauge and yup I need new ones! Ugh. Called around got some qoutes. $700! For good quality tires (thank goodness my wheels are small), installation (that I asked for free since we are buying them there) and studding. Again the anxiety kicked in. I know they are a Need as you can not do without winter tires in Edmonton, but it wasn’t planned.
I need to get better a budgeting for things that “just pop up”.
October 14, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Chris, I bring my health card and metropass when I go for walks. You never know what might happen, so better safe than sorry!
Wanda, I agree with the idea of not bringing money or cards with you to work. There’s a Tim Horton’s across the street at my work, and I’m always tempted to go and get a timbit or donut, but I conquer that with a) not bringing money, b) knowing I have to write it on my expenses, or c) knowing that I’ve already allocated money for savings and loan repayment, and spending my money on junk food isn’t really what I want my entertainment budget to be used for.
My nuttiness – well, I’m lucky if I can get my computer to turn on, and I need to back up all my photos. I’ve known that my external hard drive isn’t turning on, and that I need to get my data from the hard drive, but I keep putting off replacing the hard drive because I didn’t consider it a need, and didn’t want to justify the expense. This past weekend, I realized that my warranty on my computer is running out and if I don’t replace the external hard drive and backup my data, I’ll lose everything when I take my computer back to the store for replacing. I kept saying I was waiting for a sale, but wasn’t looking for anything. Last night, I finally bought the hard drive so I can take care of my computer on Sunday. It’s been over two months since I started having trouble turning my computer on and getting blue screens, but I didn’t want to pay a little less on my loan repayment to replace the hard drive to back things up.
It’s silly because my computer will be fixed or replaced for free – and all I have to do is backup my data, but I was being lazy and didn’t want to take the money from my loan payment (and take an extra month to pay off my loan – $100 for a hard drive is a lot cheaper than paying for an entire computer, PLUS a hard drive!).
October 14, 2009 at 2:05 pm
My nutty behaviour is spending way too much on crafting supplies. Fabric and yarn are expensive and add up quickly, but somehow I don’t mind. I would totally object to paying $100 for a sweater, but I’ll pay $150 for fancy yarn to knit it with. Nutty, I know.
October 14, 2009 at 2:19 pm
@Wanda – try having one day a week that you’re allowed to buy whatever you want for $10 or less (or whatever amount works for you). I did this when I was pregnant for treats – on Wednesdays, I could go to the grocery store and buy whatever made me happy and looked yummy. But only on Wednesdays. It made a big difference to my weight gain – maybe it would work for your shopping at the end of work? Either that, or look for another cashier job in a store where you don’t like the items for sale!
October 14, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Gail, it’s like you are reading my mind! “I think it’s dumb to spend money on STUFF when you can’t afford to pay it off immediately. And every lending option I’m offered looks like a scheme to separate me from my cash.” Hey, that’s ME! I abhore paying interest on anything, it’s my money and I have precious little of it to waste just giving it away to lenders… AND I’d rather spend time with my family than have to work extra hours just for paying off interest for some depreciating trinket!
But it does get a little nutty too… This weekend I saw an ad in the paper for a flooring place that had cork flooring for 65% off. That was my floor covering of choice to replace our terribly crappy bedroom carpet (that we have been living with for 10 years). At the cheapest I have seen it, in a colour and style I actually like, a made-in-portugal product, with a decent warrantee… yet I still felt absolutely SICK handing over the money (even though it came out of the planned spending savings account, not credit).
October 14, 2009 at 2:51 pm
My nutty behaviour was going out for a fast food lunch every, single Friday. I would pay with my debit card out of our joint chequing account and my poor husband would have to “fix it” every weekend, as he’s the keeper of the accounts in our household. A few months ago we decided that we each needed a monthly allowance for things like lunches, books/comics, makeup, etc which we take in cash. Since we started the allowance system I have only bought one Friday lunch. Seems I am loathe to spend MY money on something so frivilous. I’ve benefitted by saving about $40/month and have even dropped a couple of pounds to boot!
October 14, 2009 at 3:44 pm
In terms of our personal life choices, I am sure a number of the things we do others think are nuts, like self-employment, or homeschooling, or being vegetarian, etc. But all those things work for us, for the most part, so we don’t find it nuts.
Financially, we were doing a few things that I now think were poor choices, and that came to light when we did the budget. We spent WAY too much on groceries, and somewhat too much on “educational stuff / experiences” (contrary to my earlier way of thinking, your young children CAN have too many educational toys/puzzles/books). And we were spending money on some conveniences that added up to a LOT–parking downtown ($25-30/day!) was crazy, for example, when we were saving nothing towards RESPs or some big travel (Europe, Australia, among others) we want to do with our kids. We now have money being set aside for the “good things in life” like travel, and it is a joy to watch the ING account balances grow, and know they are there to be spent and enjoyed without any worry, as all our other ducks are in a row now.
The one thing we were doing that was WAY NUTS though was being a single-income family sans emergency fund or disability insurance. Since TDDUP and this blog we’ve maxed out our TFSAs and are poised to do it again in January (ta da! EF done!) and finally got confirmation about disability insurance yesterday (a more than 2-month process, involving family doctors who left practice and would not release medical records, among other things).
So while given our non-mainstream life choices I’d hesitate to call us “normal”, I don’t think we’re nuts either. As Gail says, you can have anything you want in life with hard work and a plan!
October 14, 2009 at 5:37 pm
A little nutty? Two things.
First, I don’t haggle — I feel that haggling is rude beyond belief. I am aware that if I do not haggle I’ll be paying the surcharge that will benefit people who are willing to be rude. I have no idea how to solve that because attempting to solve it feels like trying to develop a taste for kicking puppies.
The second is, an offer for zero-interest buy-now-pay-later on an item I could easily afford would, from a perspective of pure number-crunching, best be handled if I put the money in a savings account and do auto-payments from it, instead of putting it cash on the table. I might get over it on the joy of fiddling with numbers, but again I’m not sure I really want to.
Seriously nutty: I starve myself when I’m on vacation. I can go through a three-week vacation on a hotel breakfast and a candy bar per day. It’s a relic from a time when I could afford travel or food, but not both. I’m trying to tell myself how much of a waste it is, traveling foreign countries and never even tasting their food, but it’s an uphill battle.
On the thin line of nutty vs. normal, I spent an insane amount of money (2000 Euros) on clothes, shoes and handbags in the last 12 months. I know that there are people for whom this is normal, but on my scale it is far out in nutty-land.
October 14, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Nuttiness is a matter of perspective.
My son thought my Gail-inspired envelopes filled with cash were nutty.
He is now travelling in Europe and suddenly is having to budget out his daily expenses as he has a finite amount of money for his 2 months away. He has done really well keeping track and doing things frugally.
He just emailed me that he is going to start on the Gail system when he gets home!!
Suddenly my nuttiness is a good idea, ha ah.
(I love it when mother know best, but I refrained from saying “I told you
so”).
October 14, 2009 at 8:13 pm
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October 14, 2009 at 8:29 pm
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October 14, 2009 at 8:50 pm
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October 15, 2009 at 1:48 am
My nuttiness which I think is entertaining and funny!! Is when we bought our first house.. In the master bedrm has a small closet which fits only one person clothes in it but we squeeze both clothing in closet. So when item is old and needs to thrown out Time to buy another item.. We could also have more one dresser in rm but we share one so when shirts, underclothing etc.. get replaced when only get worn out since not enough in one dresser…
My nuttiness was having fabricland card to buy fabric but I have anuf fabric to make projects so I haven’t renew it since it expire it Dec. 2008..
I bought yarn for another project but it time to move it on since I have anuf crochet projects on the go…
Having pay later stuff (bed, freezer, desk, couch)even though we always pay it off item on time but last time came to close not have anuf cash to pay it off in six months.. Now it time to save for the item before buying item..
Nuts to have a not proper budget to never get ahead in life.. But now we do and feel more ahead than behind with debt and debt is still going down and we both on same page…
Having a flyer route to get exercise instead of joining a gym so we have to exercise twice a week while earning cash for extra things we seem never to afford it ( a finally short vacation).. (Get in shape and some fresh air since we work to much in doors) My family thinks I’m nuts but it’s rewarding to get pd for exercise…
October 15, 2009 at 8:07 am
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October 15, 2009 at 10:54 am
I think nutty/normal is a learned thing. How many people watched how their parents did things and when they were on their own did the same? Or, they thought their parents were nutty and did the exact opposite? We learn by watching. Guess that is why we all watch Gail!
I think my nutty is checking all the flyers for flooring on sale as I’d love to replace our carpeting with wood…but know I won’t because it’s not worth putting the money out if we’re selling the house down the road. Sure, we’d enjoy it for the time we’re still here, but, take money out of my TFSA to do this? Not on your life! Is that nutty? So, I play pretend and redo the floors in my mind and my hubby continues to vacuum the carpeting.
@Wanda – I think going back to menu planning is your best bet – check the flyers and plan your meals around what is on sale that week
@Chris – if I can navigate back there, later today I’ll put Ina Gartens recipe for Rugelach there for you so you can make your own! I made them a couple of years ago for the Radiologist at work who is Jewish and he had to google them to find out what they were as I guess his family didn’t make them for Hanukkah – hilarious!
October 16, 2009 at 2:28 am
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October 17, 2009 at 12:53 pm
My nutty is buying lottery tickets when the jackpot gets big. Yes, I know it is volountary taxation, but what I am buying, for a short while, is the opportunity to fantasize. Retirement to an idyllic country property we own outright is not far off, but work and city life are driving us to distraction, so this is how we counter it.
When I was with my ex, we lived well beyond our means, ’cause he liked to spend and I couldn’t deny him. Our credit cards, all in my name, were almost always full. I would ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’. The stress was enormous. That was my NUTTY. Having been a saver before him, I was horribly uncomfortable.
Now, 15 years later, my spouse of 13 years and I have savings and retirement investments, plus the retirement property, and we use our cards wisely. Either they’re paid off every month, or they are interest-free periods that are ALWAYS paid off. After having no car loan for 2 years, I recently had to buy a new one. That car loan is now gnawing at me, which I find a little nutty. We look at folks around us, wallowing in debt, and acknowledge that we could not do that, it would just be too uncomfortable.
October 20, 2009 at 3:49 pm
The one thing that I do that is nutty is go to the craft store all the time and look but not buy, it drives my husband nuts that I can go to the same store over and over again and just window shop. I cannot help it, I just love being around crafts and dreaming of things that I could make, as well as watching people excitedly picking out thier next projects. Trust me, if I had the availiable time and an unlimited amount of money there would be very little window shopping
What others do that I find nutty? Its when I read blogs on the “Mommy” sites that talk about how much financial trouble they are in and are going to declare bankruptcy, and then ask “How long till they will give me a credit card again or a car loan”… can you belive that!! just plain nutty!
October 22, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I immediately thought of the not really 4 women solution for the first puzzle, then switched to the linear solution. ,