Buying time

Today I just sent my co-authors a second draft of a paper we hope to submit to a journal this spring.  A week ago, I gave a math talk on a different paper I'm working on.

Publishing and speaking about projective geometry doesn't sound like it has much of anything to do with the "miser" part of being a MiserMom, but the truth is, I got the chance to do all this math because of frugality.  In particular, I got to do math because my family is so frugal that we could afford to buy my husband the gift of time.

Two professors and a bunch of students at a math conference.
I love this part of my job.

If I retired tomorrow, what I'd want to do most in the world is math.  You'd think that being a math professor means that I get to do math all the time, but in fact that's not true.  My job has a lot of other things to do that keep me away from the research I love.  Some of these things are a lot of fun: I spend a bunch of my time teaching students: preparing classes, grading their papers, holding office hours.  Grading sucks, but the rest of it is usually a lot of fun.  Some of the time-sinks in my job are very worthwhile but not a bucket of laughs: I'm on the promotion/tenure committee, and I spend dozens of hours each week slogging through the reading that goes with each of the cases we consider.  And of course, there are other non-job and non-math things that take my time, like, say, eating.  Spending time with my kids.  Running with my friends (when I don't have a broken arm).  Going to the theater, and having lunch discussions with my colleagues on campus.

So if I retired tomorrow, then I wouldn't have nothing else to do, but I'd still have lots more time to think about the bizarre little objects I love thinking about (homographies! rational field extensions! yay!) Still, I like the non-math parts of my job enough that I'm not ready to retire yet.

On the other hand, because I've spent two dozen years honing my frugality skills (here comes the money side of the post), we've made it possible for my husband to retire.  And let me tell you, having a stay-at-home spouse is fantastic for allowing me to do math.  In spite of all the committee work and course prep that I have, and in spite of random car crashes putting my writing hand out of commission for a few weeks, I've managed to do more math this past autumn than in any other non-sabbatical semester of my career.  And it's been a blast!

Transitioning over to having my husband in charge of the household administration took a bit of communication and juggling at first, but by now my husband is rocking it.  Each Sunday, he fills out the whiteboard dinner chart so we know who's cooking each night, and I am down to being in charge of only about one meal per week (usually, the "Family Fun Night" dinner, which I'm a tad overprotective about, so that works really well).  My husband has become best-buds with the boys' school counsellors, and as a result the boys are having a much smoother year academically than in the past (not smooth, but smoother than before).  The umpteen doctor and dentist appointments that seem to come up regularly?  That's all my husband.  I get to do the Parent Things that involve the heart-to-heart talks, the life advice, the around-the-home stuff.  And all the Stupid Administrative Stuff that sucks time away from family life?  My husband now takes care of that.   I'm living the dream, I tell you.

Two dozen or so years ago when I first read Your Money or Your Life and first discovered the notion of "Financial Independence", I loved the idea of using frugality to buy my own time.  Later, when I married my non-miser husband, I realized that my frugality could eventually help to buy his time.  But I never appreciated until this year that by using my Frugality Superpowers to purchase my husband's time, I'd be giving myself the gift of time as well.

De-cluttering the lotion mosh pit

An odd thing happened to me a few weeks ago.  I got into a funky mood in which I wanted to clean things up, to declutter . . . but there was hardly anything to clean.  I wouldn't say my home is an example of minimalism, because we still have lots of decorations and toys and books and tools around the house, but when I looked around the living room, dining room, and kitchen, I was really happy with everything I saw.  I'd done a major reorganization of our first floor a few years ago, and apparently, it's worked well.  I guess I've been getting really good at heading towards "enough".

But I know that real clutter is like cockroaches -- it doesn't like to be out in the light of day.  The stuff that we see is the stuff we use.  Said another way, the stuff we don't need is not the stuff we keep out in plain sight; it's the stuff at the back of our cupboards.  So after wandering through the house, eyeing all my belongings and realizing that I actually liked everything I could see, I headed upstairs and decided to get rid of stuff I couldn't see.

When I got to to the bathroom closet, I hit the jackpot.  This particular bathroom has been the primary grooming spot for five different teenage girls over the past 20 years.  All of those teenage girls have now moved out of the home, but a cursory archeological dig through the closet unearthed evidence of their past presence.  I pulled out bottle after bottle of facial scrub, eye make-up remover, and other such concoctions.

lotion in bottles, and bottles in a basket

When my four daughters were here for Christmas, I encouraged them to take what they wanted now.  Most of the specialty stuff left the house with my daughters.  Yay!  By the time my offspring were gone, what remained was two baskets: one with several bottles of sun screen, and one with an assortments of lotions.

Ugh.  The tyranny of lotion bottles.  How the heck do we get so many lotion and sun screen bottles?  I mean, we do use lotion, and sunscreen too, so I understand why we have lotion and sunscreen.  But the vast number of different semi-empty bottles of the stuff was what was screaming "clutter!" at me.  The stuff inside is useful -- but who needs all the packaging that goes with the stuff inside?

Canning jars to the rescue.  Because.  Because I love canning jars, and I miss writing about them.

I emptied what was inside the four bottles of sunscreen into a single, cup-sized canning jar.  (For thick gooey versions that didn't want to flow quickly, I stuck the bottle in the microwave for about 15 seconds; that seemed to get things flowing beautifully).  Last year, K-daughter gave me a pump that goes on a canning jar, and so now I have the sunscreen all together in one easy place to get to.

Baking soda, lotion, and sun screen: my morning ablutions.

Ditto with the lotion; that goes in another canning jar (although no pump on that one).  All of these go on my dresser, which is where I actually use them.  Every morning I use lotion and baking soda as my deodorant, and then I put on my rosacea medicine and a bit of sun screen.

(Just to add: I was surprised at how little space the sunscreen took up once it was outside of the plastic containers -- those four big semi-empty bottles all condensed down into one little canning jar.  So now I'm even happier that I thought of this -- that's a huge reduction in shelf space).


So now, the next time I get into one of those gotta-clean moods, I'll have to dig even deeper.  Because my bathroom cupboards are looking pretty danged good.  Sigh. 

First week of 2017, update

Here's a short update from our family.

We began the week with a good luck dinner: my husband loves taking charge of our annual (Pennsylvania Dutch-inspired) tradition of bringing good luck into the new year with a hearty dinner of pork, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and apple sauce.

And then I left my family, and headed to the giant math meetings in Atlanta, Georgia, where I got to rub shoulders with 6000 of my closest friends.  Well, except that I wasn't actually rubbing shoulders, because my arm was still in a sling (but not a splint). The math meetings were just as wonderful as you would expect they would be -- actually, much better than you would expect, probably!  And encouragingly, my rehab is going surprisingly well -- I can not only bite my fingernails, but also scratch my ear.  Both of these are useful abilities to have!

Back here in Pennsylvania, the boys started school again in spite of several small snowfalls. J-son had what we thought was an ear infection, that turned out to be just a cold.   N-son has enjoyed watching episodes of The Man in the High Castle with his friends and then with his dad.

And we've re-started our trash count, having sent nine garbage cans full of trash to the landfill in 2016.  My husband has been taking care of lots of small to-do items around the home (and wishing it were warmer and less icy so he could be out on his bike); he tells me that all this cleaning means  we'll probably have to put out our first trash can in a week or two.

Talking Trash (a 2016 wrap-up)

Talkin' Trash again.

One of my mathematical friends came up to me yesterday and said, "I just want you to know that now, every time I put out my garbage can, I think of you."  He paused and then asked, "Does that sound horrible to say?"

I guess it's not as bad as saying, "Every time I see you, I think about my garbage can".

Me giving my BFD talk.

Last summer at the big math meetings, I gave a big talk.  The audience contained what seemed like a gazillion people, but it probably wasn't that many: maybe only half-a-gazillion, or maybe a third of a gazillion people.  It was a BFD talk (that's army-speak for a Big Deal talk), and I spent a lot of time preparing the talk, trying to think of some way to launch the talk that would be interesting and new and also understandable for an audience that contained undergrads and graduate students all the way up through senior mathematicians.  So I started the talk by telling people that the previous year (2015) my family put only 11 trash cans at the curb, and from there I sort of led people into the real subject of the talk, which had to do with teaching math.  But people remembered the trash part best.

So here at the winter math meetings, I have lots of conversations about trash, but for once I'm not the person starting the conversations.  I keep thinking I should compile a list of the surprising questions I get on this subject.  Tonight's question was, "Do you use essential oils?"  I totally love the question one serious person asked, somewhat nervously:  "Do you make all your guests eat all the food on their plates?"   (Then the person added, as if this answered the question, "Well, I guess you compost."  I'm still not sure how the cogs were linked up in that person's mental machinery).

But the truth is, the further along I get into the trash-reduction world of mine, the easier it becomes. It's not just easier to avoid trash, but it's also easier to risk being weird in my pursuit of trash avoidance. Today I  breakfasted on home-packed trail mix (zero trash, more habit than challenge by now).  And then for lunch I went to where a bunch of other math folks were headed: the food court at the mall.  At the sushi stand, the only option for getting a meal was to put the sushi rolls in styrofoam clam-shell containers, and so I nearly turned away sadly to look for alternatives . . . but then I turned back and asked one of the cooks, "Is there a way to get lunch without the styrofoam containers?"  Total weirdo, I know.

My planner bag has a zippered pocket
for my spoon and chopsticks.

The chef was startled at the question, but then asked, "Are you going to eat your meal here?"  I was; he handed me a plate.  I filled it up with my favorite sushi rolls, added the wasabi and soy sauce directly on the plate, had them add the sea weed salad, and paid for my lunch.  Since I already carry my chopsticks in my planner bag  everywhere I go, it was a perfect zero-waste meal.  At one point I thought to myself, "Have you really gone over to the crazy side?  What if *everyone* did that?"  But then I realized that if everyone asked for alternatives to styrofoam, the sushi stand might stop using styrofoam, which would actually be a good thing.  So Trash-Free Lunch plus moral certitude.  I'm tellin' you, I'm becoming one of those people.

And the funny thing is, it's not just me.  Because I walk around these math meetings, and people stop me to tell me that they're carrying their own reusable mug.  Or that they've started being much more anal about recycling.  Or that they didn't hear my talk themselves, but someone told them about it, and it's made them rethink why they get a paper napkin under their water or a paper coaster under their beer, if it's just going to go in the trash anyway.

Even my own kids, who because of my "Don't Drive Them Crazy" rule I've tried very hard not to coerce into my garbage-geekdom, have caught the bug.  The year 2016 was even better for trash avoidance than 2015; this past year we put out only 9 cans.  I was telling J-son this -- my ultra-hip J-son, my cool, don't-make-waves J-son, my Mr. Fashion J-son -- and his response was, "Wow.  We're going to have to work hard so we can beat that for next year!"

So here's looking at 2017, hoping it doesn't get too wasted (in the garbage sense of that word).  I'm not only avoiding putting trash at the curb at my own house, but there are trashcans all around the nation getting less use than they used to.  Maybe I haven't helped to avoid a gazillion trashcans . . . but I'll settle for a third of a gazillion, or even a tenth of a gazillion, for now.

last weekly update of the year 2016

Miser Dog, standing guard.

I'll begin with the sad -- but not unexpected -- news that we had to say goodbye to our 12-year-old dog on Wednesday.  It's strange to be in a house where food we accidentally drop on the floor doesn't immediately attract a live vacuum cleaner, but I'm so grateful that Miser Dog  survived as long as he did, got to make it through the holidays so that all the children could see him and pamper him as much (or as little) as they wanted, and that he didn't suffer at the end. 

**

The rest of the week was much kinder to us, and full of lots of adventures.

N-son helps prepare food

On Sunday morning, N-son and I did something I had been hoping to do for years -- we served meals at our local homeless shelter on a Christmas Day.  This was the first time I'd been back since my bike crash, and I got much love back from the guests there -- many of whom I'd gotten to know from my past normal-day visits.  Plus, I got to see my culinary-arts-trained son in action.

We were lucky to have all our kids in the house that afternoon and evening, and then the next day, my husband took off with N-son, J-son, and L-daughter for a three-day trip to go shopping in New York City.  (I stayed home and very happily did math, and I think they were all jealous of me!)  

Pecan pie, anyone?

J-son had a three-mom week: visiting his birth mom on Christmas day, me on Christmas evening, and his foster mom after he returned from New York City.

K-daughter is keeping busy with her Reiki work, and her occasional job as wedding coordinator at our church kicked into overdrive at the end of the week, with a wedding that went on for hours and even included a fainting groom!

My husband finished out the year by (surprise) riding to and from Philly.  He did not make 10,000 miles this year -- "only" 9,859 miles.  He has more statistics for anyone who is interested.

On Friday, I got my splint off and started informal rehab on my arm.  Whoop!  My left arm is swollen, tender, and puffy, and has a (hopefully temporary) restricted range of motion -- for good or ill, I can't bite my fingernails!  But it's incredibly nice to be able to type and write again; I'm glad to return to the ranks of the bi-dextrous.

Here's wishing you all the best in the new year!

The "Please Remove Us" grind

In spite of my best efforts (well, maybe not my best efforts, but at least my substantial efforts) to get off of junk mailing lists, those junk mailers keep gifting me unwanted cards, catalogs, and brochures.



The credit card offers that come with postage-paid return envelopes, I return with the request "please remove us from your mailing list".  In fact, because somehow my husband keeps attracting new credit card offers, I printed up a bunch of mailing labels with that phrase that I slap onto the credit card offers, just to save time.  In double fact, I like these mailing labels so much that I printed up multiple sheets of them, and gave copies to my daughters for Christmas, so they can do the same.  (You're welcome, daughters!  Nothing but the best for you!)

By the way, those "privacy" statements that I get annually from the credit card companies?  I've taken to reading them carefully, and then contacting the companies (or delegating my husband to contact them, since they're mostly his credit cards) to limit sharing if that's not already the default.  That has also helped a lot in reducing unwanted junk mail.

If junk mail doesn't come with its own return envelope, I save it in a yellow folder titled "please remove us", and when the folder gets full, I spend an hour or two removing myself from mailing lists.  Fortunately, this folder takes longer and longer to fill these days; I think the last time I had a "please remove us" binge was eight or nine months ago.

I've made extensive use of a web-based organization called Catalog Choice.  If Catalog Choice has the company on file, usually a few clicks will stop future mail from that company.  Today I managed to get on the "please remove us" list of four or five companies in about 15 minutes. But that left six more pieces of mail where the only way to stop new mail was to make telephone calls.  Ugh!

Enter N-son.  I offered him an exorbitant fee (50 cents per catalog or flyer) to do the calling for me.  He, of course, was reluctant; it's scary talking on the phone with a business when you're just a kid.  But his apprehension just convinced me all the more that this would be a good life skill for him to have, so I coached him through how to make a call, and I gave him one piece of mail at a time so I could ensure each call went according to plan.  The only company he didn't reach directly was a place called "Carpet Mart", and he left a message on their answering machine.  We'll see how that goes!

N-son did so well that I wish I had thought of conscripting my children in my anti-junk mail crusade several years earlier.  Not only would I have saved a bunch of telephone time myself, but I would have given my children lessons on how to talk to a sales person or customer representative, and let them realize how non-scary it actually is.  Parents with younger children, take note!

Here, in case you've never done it yourself, is how to get off a mailing list with a phone call.  Usually, the hardest part is finding a number to call.  Call that number, and when someone answers, say "we would like to be removed from your mailing list." Sometimes they transfer you to somebody else.  You will need to read the name and address off the mail you already got, and sometimes a catalog number and/or customer number.  Say thank you, and you're done.

Miser Family update, pre-Christmas

Early this week, I went to the surgery center where they gave me fancy booties, a monogrammed bracelet, a hat, a gown, and pins to go inside my arm (but no matching purse).  After being treated so decadently, I embraced the hedonistic lifestyle; the past few days, I've been lying around in bed, doing drugs.  

My new internal jewelry.

My step daughters LJ and LA are back in town, and they came by for a family photo.  The impromptu selfie that we took afterwards came out even better than the posed photo, I think.  

Me with five of my kids (K-daughter was off visiting other friends).

LJ, a more avid dog lover than even I am, took over caring for Miser Dog, hand feeding him raw meatballs that she has made herself.  He's still very skinny and weak, but enjoying the attention.

My husband and the boys are doing well, I think.  (Did I mention I'm a little bit out of it?)  My husband will probably not make it to 10,000 miles on his bike this year, but he'll get darned close. The boys are looking forward to having some time off school.

We're wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas.