Birthday Checks & Thank You Notes....

My children are now grown and live elsewhere, so their thank you writing habits are either ingrained, or they're not, but recently I was reminded me of one of my standard mommying practices, once they were old enough to write.
Their grandparents would typically send them checks for both birthdays and Hanukkah. Since children don't have to pay bills, the arrival of checks (or cash, for that matter) is totally abstract. The clear message was to save it, not spend it, and that is not very sexy to kids. Actually adults have trouble with this concept as well. If they weren't wanting anything huge or significant, they pretty much ignored the checks and needed a lot of supervision/encouragement/attention to write the obligatory thank you notes.
I hit on the following solution. I would pin the check up on the bulletin board and refuse to deposit it into his/her account until the thank you note was written. Sometimes it would take a few months! Generally by then the grandparents would have called, worried that the check was never cashed. Sooner or later the child would agree to write the note; the reward was getting it off their to-do list and getting their mom off their back. (They have since learned that checks pay bills and are very grateful for any that come their way....)
I think it is crucial for children to learn to write thank you notes. And they should be good, thoughtful thank you notes. When I coached my children on thank you notes, what I emphasized is that the gift is a reflection of a relationship, so try to address both the gift and the relationships. For example, "It was really great you sent me a check for my birthday. I feel so lucky you are there for me for all the special moments in my life" or something like that. Personally I still melt when I get a really good thank you. In fact I save the very special ones, and I once showed my collection to my daughter. Since then she's written terrific notes - I'm sure they're ones other people save!
Given my observation of the abstract nature of check giving, I'm not sure it's the best gift to give children, especially affluent children. 

10 Things I Hate About Shopping for Clothes

When I first started mentally composing this post after an extremely frustrating shopping trip, I doubted I could actually come up with ten things I hate about shopping for clothes, but as it turns out, ten was easy. I like clothes. When I was young I loved to sew and I still enjoy color and nice styling and love beautiful fabric and drape. I am very selective, since I wear my clothes for a long, long time, and am willing to pay for quality. Yesterday I went to a new shopping center in the 'burbs which includes five stores which cater to middle-aged affluent women: Ann Taylor, Talbots, Coldwater Creek, Chicos, and J. Jill. I shopped in all five, browsed, checking out the petites (I am 5'3" and a size 6-8). There were lots of items on sale, though these were retail stores, not outlets. I came home with.... a black skirt. Not for lack of trying.
Here's my list. Am I crazy, or are designers and marketers just idiots?

1. Everything looks the same, with a huge amount carrying over from store to store. This year there are a lot of cutesy dresses, all tight halter tops. Lots and lots of Indian style clothes at twice the price of Indian dress stores. If I'm going to wear clothes for a long time, I don't want things that scream 2007, because I'll still be wearing them in 2015.
2. I hate that sizes are not standardized. Chico's has its own sizes. Some stores have xs/s/m/l/xl. The seem to have no bearing to the size of the clothes. All seem tight and clingy this year, so it seems to be just a question of how tight and clingy. Size 8p fits me well at Talbots, but not all of them. Some of the 8p pants are way too long, and I'm at the tall end of the range. How stupid is that? In one store I am a medium, in another a small. It's a huge waste of time to not know this until you go try stuff on. After a few tries, I am weary and aggravated. This is supposed to be a fun self-indulgence, not a huge hassle.
3. I hate the concept of petites. It's a drag to walk into a store with a large inventory, and be shunted off to a corner with slim pickins. Why can't garments just have a standard lengths, like men's? Men march in, see a stack of pants, and pull out 32/30s and they're done, and women have to go try 20 garments on and hope something will fit.
4. I lament the extinction of whole genres of fashion. I loved jumpers. They were comfortable, flattering, and practical. Alas, they no longer exist. Someone decided they had to go, and now you can only buy them as collectibles. Same with my favorite one piece Laura Ashley summer jump suit - loose, comfortable, pretty fabric. Gone. The one I still wear, and enjoy it every time for its pretty colors, comfortable cut, and soft fabric, is from when my daughter was in pre-school, and she's heading off to college. True story. I had a flowered summer short sleeved dress I wore so long I retired it, but saved it for its pretty fabric. Last year when I cleaned out the fabrics, there it was. I washed and ironed it, and am delighted to have it back, since nothing in style now is as flattering or comfortable.
5. I mourn the palette shrinkage of contemporary fashion. This year you gotta love dark brown, or you're out of luck. Navy, burgundy, and teal, my favorite colors for clothes, are nowhere to be seen. It's like some Invisible Hand turned a big dial and tuned off whole swathes of colors, and if you happened to like those particular colors, sucks for you!
6. I grieve for the demise of patterned fabric. When I look through the garments I have saved for many years I realize many of them are beautiful prints. This year except for Indian/Asian designs or polka dots or enormous checks, patterns have been eliminated.
7. And then there's the lack of eco-friendly fabric choice - no organic cotton, hemp, tencel, or my favorite, rayon to be found. Despite the news about how we're trashing the planet, the main fabrics seems to be versions of polyester, made of petroleum, or conventional cotton which is grown with massive pesticide use.
8. And the clothes are all from China. At least we don't have to risk anything by eating the clothes, but I pretty much assume that Chinese made = sweat shop, though the prices at these stores would make you hope differently. But they provide no assurance or information about their suppliers' labor or environmental practices. When clothes are American made, you can feel more confident about both those issues.
9. I hate how impractical most of the styles are. My pet-peeve - and I know I'm not alone here - is that pockets are hard to come by. Lots of whites, which are obviously not going to stay white very long. They go with the pointy shoes that podiatrists must design to drum up business.
10. Last, but paramount, is the styles are so unflattering! I might forgive #'s 1-9 if I tried something on and it looked great. This year all the dresses have halter tops, and I've seen many a lady bend over and show it all. Likewise, the pants are low rise, and I've seen a lot of the other ends, too. Tops and sweaters all seem to be tight and clingy. Who wants to wear tight, constricting clothes when it's hot? There are many, many styles of clothes which are comfortable and flattering for women that have body fat, approximately 98% of the population. Why do they design these clothes for the 2% who remain? When a size 6 lady feels blimpy in the clothes out there, something is off. (Probably SALES?)

But, at least I have a black skirt for fall, to replace my last one from 1999.

How do you all fare when shopping? Is there something I'm missing? Help!

Post # 100: Ten Things I have Learned about Blogging

This is my one hundredth post since I impulsively created this blog a bit over six months ago. I've learned many interesting things about this medium, blogging, and here are 10 of them:
1) I love blogging! The instant gratification of writing a piece and putting it up online, right then and there, is delicious.
2) I have had no trouble finding a topic or focus on a daily basis; in fact, I've had to limit myself to one topic a day. I seem to like blogging way more than the day job....
3) I really like the aesthetics of this particular blog - figuring out the daily layout and photographic image. Thanks to the blogger from whom I lifted this image from his 100th entry, by the way.
4) I love using MoneyChangesThings to keep track of resources. In a way it's my own personal filing system of great resources I want to keep track of, and am delighted to share and publicize.
5) When writing for print media (I write a monthly column for The Shuttle, the newspaper from my local food coop), once that piece is written, it's done. In a blog, a topical piece lives forever, since it becomes accessible through search engines or other links. I can also go back and rewrite a section of an old post, or update a post with new information. Cool! Someone might leave a thoughtful comment on a an old piece, since it's new to them.
6) I didn't know exactly what directions blogging would take me in, and have found the Label function to be a great way to cross-index my eclectic set of interests. I love how when a reader - or just me - clicks on one of my labels, all relevant posts appear. Magic!
7) I hadn't realized how few people write comments, since I am a huge blabbermouth on other people's blogs. So thanks to those who have shared ideas and/or responded to my questions. Please share more!
8) I have been looking around since the beginning for like-minded blogs and come up quite short. I was thrilled to be discovered by another blogger just today, a great symbolic boost. I am confident the topic of using money wisely is one that will eventually find a larger audience, but it seems to be taking time.
9) I have learned that my target audience, babyboomers (because they have had time to accumulate a surplus), are largely blogophobes - friends often tell me they "don't do blogs". I am 54 years old, ancient by blogger standards!
10) Blog traffic is very gratifying. For about 6 weeks, my GreenDimes piece was linked on the GreenDimes homepage and I got hundreds of hits every day. On Earthday I got over 1000 hits! That was great, but I have learned that it's not the number of hits, but developing the right readers, that counts.

The $300 Prom Challenge!

I've decided to repost this, since it's prom season again, and I wrote this when I had many fewer readers. Enjoy!

It's prom season, and plenty of parents have their credit cards at the ready, financing this perfect teen Night To Remember. Some high schoolers take on extra jobs to help foot these gigundu bills. Our daughter attended a private, affluent suburban high school (which I generally loved), so I braced myself. While her friends were generally more distinguished for their idealism than their materialism, when the occasions arose, the money was there. For Junior Prom, I looked the other way and encouraged her to spend what seemed appropriate in such a context. I didn't want ruin the fun or embarrass her with my soapbox preaching about waste and excess. She found a great dress on-line, in the low 3-figures, needing alteration ($50). There were the shoes, the requisite Up-Do , also $50, the boutonnière, the ticket ($75, chivalrously picked up by her date), and the one that really got to me, and mortified my daughter, too: the Hummer Limo. She skipped the manicure and day-at-the-spa, but quite a few of her friends added that to the day's prep. They all looked great and had a lot of fun. About a million pictures were taken by adoring baby boomer parents.
Senior year the story was different. She had decided to take a gap year and was focused on earning money to cover her living expenses, so we made her a deal. We figured out a prom budget of $300 based on Liz Pulliam's article citing the American average of $296. We told her if she came in lower than $300, she could pocket the difference. I figured I'd rather spend it on her than on all the trimmings, and she quite agreed.
Here's how it all worked. She went to a conventional department store to see what the dresses were like. Awhile later she called from Daffy's, a designer discount fashion store, to ask if she should buy a terrific black long dress that looked great on her and cost $35. The answer from her mom was "Yes! What are you, crazy?" Score. She wore junior year shoes, bought a brooch on Ebay, tried (unsuccessfully...) to lobby against limos and do a trolley bus, which would have been cheaper, and covered her ticket. I read up on boutinniere-making, which is simple as could be. The yellow roses were in bloom, and I made her date's boutonnière. I will never see yellow roses in early summer without happily thinking of her senior prom.
The biggest challenge was the hair. Having performed in scads of musicals, Nomi knew how to use a curling iron and copious hair spray to do fancy hairstyles. I volunteered for the job, though I hadn't done hair since her pigtail days. It takes a very long time, and I unfortunately wielded the curling iron against skin a few times, but eventually I got the hang of it. She was very patient. It did cross my mind that I might have been better off springing for a professional to do it, but slowly beautiful ringlets, and a radiant daughter, emerged. It was actually quite a creative thrill, and something very special to share. That night when the cameras snapped and friends complimented her on her hair, she winked at me, and said "My mom did it!" Priceless.
The bottom line? She socked $115 away for her gap year, aced the financial challenge, and looked like a million bucks!

The Revenge of the Baby Boomer Parents

Baby boomers do not like getting old, it cramps our styles. Prosperous baby boomers seek challenges, take good care of themselves, and like adventures. Some are finding their children are offering new opportunities to visit cool places. Your kid goes to study in South Africa, so you go too. Ditto many other places on the planet.
My visit to Israel has evoked many memories of my being a student abroad here in 1972. I was part of a program of 47 students and unless my memory fails me, I don't remember parents coming around to visit. My parents did, but as part of a tour. On my daughter's program, virtually every kid had a parent visit, some more than once!
Visiting your young adult student/child is actually a nice balance of parenting and following. The fact that the child knows his/her way around a place where the parents are completely unfamiliar and out of control shifts the power, even though the parents are still the ATM. And parents love seeing the kids confident and capable in a foreign environment. The kids love a little pampering - it is exhausting living and studying abroad.
Another thing that baby boomer parents are doing is going on adventures and sharing experiences with their kids. On the bikeride my husband just finished - hooray, it went well! - there were at least half a dozen baby boomer parents participating with teenaged or young adult kids. This is not a bikeride for the faint of heart - they went 300 miles on desert terrain. How cool that they can share the physical challenge, as well as using their privilege (it is expensive to gear up, train, and travel for this ride) for philanthropy. I can truly not imagine, in my wildest dreams, any of the moms and dads in knew in the 1960's doing anything this edgy. They didn't have the time, the money, or the exposure to any of these possibilities. My mother would have considered a 300 mile bikeride in the desert in the same category as a trip to Mars.
The word is generally that baby boomers and their kids are much closer than the youthful baby boomers were to their Greatest Generation parents. Sounds right to me.

Lake Wobegon Stock Exchange: Where All the Returns are Above Average

In the last few years, quite a few of the companies we use have started publishing glossy mags, especially investment services - probably to keep us Baby Boomers paying attention, especially to our retirement accounts. I usually glance at them, and often find something interesting amidst the tables, graphs and lingo-filled articles on "Mid-and Small Cap U.S. Stock Funds". (I suspect there's a PR person somewhere who instructs the staff to throw in something for the English majors.)
Charles Schwab's magazine had a fascinating article on a new area of research, Behavioral Finance, which studies the irrational behaviors people exhibit when it comes to money. While some of them are heartbreaking, a lot of it is pretty funny. My favorite in the article is "The Lake Wobegon Effect", when according to the author, Greg Forsythe,

Most investors believe their portfolios will perform better than market averages -- a statistical impossibility since the market is the average of all investors. This is sometimes referred to as the "Lake Wobegon Effect", or the tendency to overestimate one's achievements and capabilities in relation to others.

Another behavior is panicking and selling when the market tanks, even though taking risks in order to achieve larger gains is the whole point of investing in the stock market. A wise broker once told me, "When the market is down, stocks are on sale. It's a great time to buy!" But a wiser investor [who will not get a commission] would say, Go with the Index Fund, since you're never gonna beat it.

One irrational financial behavior that has always amused me is people standing in line to buy lottery tickets ,when the pot gets to be several hundred million dollars. Their chances stink no matter what the pot; it's only worth it for $250 million? For $25 million it's not worth buying a ticket?

P.S. Daniel Kahnemann won the 2002 Nobel Prize for applying psychological insights into economic theory, creating the new field of behavioral economics. Zach particularly loved his book Thinking, Fast and Thinking Slow. Kahnenam's thought partner/hevrutah Amos Tversky died before the Nobel, but they really earned it together.