Looking for cheap silverware, dish sets? Fur coats? Try thrift stores. It takes a dedicated thrift store shopper to find good deals, but you can definitely save a lot of money.

My favorite trip was in San Francisco years ago when I lived with my sister. She sent me to Community Thrift in the Mission to shop for a dresser. I didn’t want to pay the prices they were asking for on dressers. ($400 when my sister said I should be able find one for $150, but those were the booming Internet years). I bought a full set of silverware and a nice tablecloth, which I still have. Its ugly brown stain is totally my fault, an accident with a pot of tea.

It’s not for everyone or everything, but many knitters like to find old sweaters they can unravel for nicer yarn, i.e. cashmere, or felt into mittens or bags.

As far as fur coats go, often times in a metropolitan area, there is one store in a chain of thrift stores that has all the luxury items. In SF, it was the West Portal Goodwill. In Baltimore, I think it’s the one in Reisterstown. I used to go to the SF store and look at the mink coats. I really like fur. I fantasize about mink coats when it’s 20F outside. They cost a tenth or less of the original price. They’re not well-stored, but if you want to look money, it’s not a bad place to start. We used to have ‘thrift store tuxedo’ parties in SF. The guys would find the ugliest ’70’s peach-colored tuxedos with light blue ruffled shirts to mismatch. Hideous, but lots of fun. Cheaper than going to a nightclub, that’s for sure!

Keep in mind that real people owned these clothes and so you might not find your size. Most fur wearers were plumpy and the coats were all too large for me. I could sure use a coat now. It’s horribly cold here now and I refuse to turn up the thermostat.

Oh! The point of this was not to ramble on about San Francisco memories, but to illuminate that you can find cool things for very cheap at thrift stores. Sometimes you have to dig, or visit regularly to see what’s new and special, but you can find stuff you NEED there, and not just stuff you WANT.

I heard this story about poorly written tattoos on NPR.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. There really isn’t any extra meaning just because you write in foreign pictograms. I can’t think of too many other stupid purchases than tattoos that are incorrect. I don’t have a tattoo and I will probably never get one since there’s nothing I want permanently on my body except all my original body parts, less maybe those wisdom teeth.

If you wanted Chinese or Japanese characters you should probably do some research and see a tattooist whose native language is one of these languages. But keep in mind, what you think is a damn fine translation in English doesn’t mean much in that language. For instance in Latin, ‘ignis caput’ means ‘fire’ ‘a head’ in English, but it doesn’t really mean the idom ‘Fire ahead’. But you could get that tattoo and I’m sure someone out there would think you’re depth of Latin knowledge is incredibly profound and cool.

FWIW, I can recommend a tattooist in LA. She’s awesome, but she probably wouldn’t do a Chinese character tattoo. I’ve seen lots of examples of her work. Erika Stanley is her name, but she isn’t taking new clients right now. Check her out.

Silk. Wonderful, beautiful, lustrous silk.

It’s expensive to buy and to care for.

WRONG! Treenway Silks of Canada has a great article on caring for silk. Please note the part which reads, Commercial silk garments are marked ‘dry clean only’ as protection for poorly dyed goods more than for the silk.

My mother is a dry cleaner and I used to live in the shop during the summer when I was child. I can’t tell you how many times she told a customer that her solid colored blouse might spot after cleaning and that there was no guarantee that the color would hold. So dry cleaning is still no guarantee that your item will not be ruined.

Washable silk is the way to go if you can find it. If you see something you like that is dry clean only, try to stay away from solid colors which are deep and dark. Those are more likely to have problems with dry cleaning. I’m sure you’ll hear people say that dry cleaning is much better now, dyeing is different, etc, but I’m not so sure. If you buy silk, get patterned stuff which looks busy, or paler colors which will hide variations better.

As for wool. What is wool? It is merely the hair of a sheep. To wash it, just handwash it with a dab of cheap shampoo. No need for fancy wool wash products, and DEFINITELY DO NOT EVER USE WOOLITE. Woolite was specially developed for synthetics, not for actual wool. It has some detergents and chemicals that eat into the natural fibers of wool and protein-based fibers, i.e. silk (see above).

When you wash your wool item the essential thing is to use warm water that’s not hot, and all through the wash process, keep the temperature constant as best you can. The temperature change of hot to cold shocks the wool and makes it felt. Fill your sink and add the soap after its full. Dunk your item under the surface until there are no air bubbles trapped in the garment. Soak your item for 20 minutes in soapy water, and then transfer to bucket. Drain your sink and fill again. Put your item back in. Repeat transferring to a bucket and filling the sink until the water is clean enough for you. Roll up your garment in a towel to soak up excess water. Then lay flat and reshape your item to dry. It takes up to 3 days to dry your item depending on humidity, etc.

I hope this saves everyone some money on their winter sweaters this year.

This isn’t a recipe per se, but a recipe idea.

I had stew cubes last week. I bought some more last night. I didn’t like the beef buillion so this time I used Lipton Onion Soup Mix (still the best sour cream & onion dip mix ever) for the soup base. I added one giant clove of garlic, a half of a large sweet onion, chopped into strips, not minced, beef cubes in bite size pieces and water to cover, probably about 3-4 cups.

I put it all into the crock pot and went to work yesterday. I came home about 9 hours later and it was ready to eat. I didn’t have any bread, which would have been excellent with it.

Wow. I’ve just lost all credibility with personal finance bloggers.

I went to work at the yarn shop late and I started off on a personal buying spree.

Now keep in mind I get a pretty good employee discount. But I also had a special gift certificate for an extra 10% off. It’s a year old and while it doesn’t expire, I actually had received two of them and I think it took me around 7 months to use the first one. I decided to go whole hog today since I probably won’t go nuts like this again.

I spent $429.04. For this amazing sum, I got:
A 3 session course + materials fee
2 books which you can’t find in a library
2 felting needles
5 silk cocoons
11 ounces of dye powder
2 balls of cotton for a present
5 balls of yarn for a class
2 balls of yarn for a costume
9 balls of yarn to make into scarves for sale/gifts
1 inflatable ball for making felted vessels

Keep in mind that I have to add value to all the yarn and dye by knitting it up, dyeing with it, etc. I am really stupid since the 5 balls I got were for a different class and I forgot to sign up for that one. (I might return all of them if I decide not to take the course altogether.) I’m not 100% what I have done, but I am darn lucky the shop has a liberal return policy for the most part.

It’ll take me most of the year to work off this purchase. But I will be occupied for a really long time too!

HMMMM… Staring at the receipt some more, I see there is something wrong. I didn’t get my employee discount at all… le sigh. I will have to call the shop manager tomorrow to fix this. I should have spent under $400. I knew there was something funny about the numbers.

Over the last 3 days, the design of this site has changed a lot. Well, okay, only the sidebar really. I’ve put in more Google ads, claimed by blog at BlogShares, and put on FeedBurner links so you can subscribe to this blog more easily.

Sometimes it amazes me that I’ve actually had people click on the Amazon books I’ve recommended. And that just by having AdSense ads, I’m generating revenue. I like this passive income! (I think I made about 15 cents this week, but that’s 15 cents more than I had before!)

I’ve been in a bit of a social rut lately. My friends are all wonderful people, but I’ve been choosing to dedicate myself to getting this blog thing going. I guess I want to ‘fix it and forget it’ when it comes to the layout and design. I also think I’m slowing down on content ideas, which is a good thing. I’m actually getting some sleep now.

I’ve written around 42 posts for the month, and there’s still 10 days left, and I got this started only about 2 weeks ago. I know that every month, there will something to report, something that arrives in the mail which is blogworthy, whether it’s my credit card statement, my W-2’s, mortgage offer, etc. This is a never ending world of personal finance management. You can’t ignore it.

I seem to have lost all squeamishness about ad placement. But do tell me if it’s intrusive. I figured information about myself is not so important, so I stuck it at the way bottom of the sidebar. I also thought my goals were very important, so those went to the very top.

One reason my blogroll is very short is that I like sites that are designed well. I make very few exceptions for busy looking web pages, i.e too much sidebar content. The ones that I think look too busy or distracting are on the list because their content is actually very good and too useful to ignore. Or else I just think they are nice people deserving of exposure.

Lots of advertisements can get in the way of a good design. I hope I’ve picked ads and colors that fit well into the dot template I’ve chosen. If I were really good, I know I’d put the sidebar on the right, but alas, I am not so good at web design. When I mess it up, I go to a friend’s site which uses the same template and fix it from his source code.

If anyone out there would like to be added to the blogroll, please let me know. I’ll also be adding an RSS feed of some sort soon if I can figure out which feed service/counter is best. (I know ATOM is already used by Blogger, I’m still figuring this all out.) I am open to suggestions!

1) Please don’t leave anonymous comments.

2) If it’s not something you’d say to my face, don’t leave it here.

3) If you want to be critical privately, you can email me directly at mapgirl [at] rangers [dot] org.

Thank you.

I’ll get around to serious financial topics someday when I’m fired up about it. I’ve just got too many posts in my head right now that it’s bursting. I should retitle this blog, Mapgirl’s Fiscal Obsession. I’ve been dreaming of new posts in that sleepy state right before full sleep.

I hope I’m not the only one!

ps- I’ve just added Personal Finance Advice to the blogroll! I couldn’t resist. I was totally drawn to his blog with its sound advice.

Talk of the Nation had a conversation on Tuesday with John Edwards about poverty in America.

I’d say I’m a liberal. I’m not a fan on John Edwards per se, but my old roommate works for him now as a policy analyst. What I liked about the interview is that Mr. Edwards talks about helping everyone who is poor in a holistic kind of way, not just a temporary band-aid. He seemed to have a genuine clue about all the things that keep people in poverty. I didn’t know that the percentage of people in poverty after LBJ’s War on Poverty program actually did fall significantly.

I like that he talked about folks who had 3 jobs to make ends meet and if that any of the jobs offered healthcare, that would mean they could quit one job and try to have some quality of life with their families. It’s a real problem when people actually work hard but can’t rise up out of poverty. I think that’s why the Wall Street Journal article means so much to me. My parents didn’t have a lot when they arrived here 32 years ago, and while they aren’t stunningly rich, they are solidly middle-class. I would like to think America is still a place where hard work and saving money means security. Otherwise, what are all these personal finance blogs about?

I struggle to moderate my wishes for finer things. Tonight I was at a yuppie bowling joint in Downtown DC. Yes, I did end up carpooling. The parking was miraculously cheap tonight with validation, $7, which my friend paid. I picked up a beer for me and one for her and tip for $11. The restaurant had a sign out front about a dress code. I almost stopped my friend there and said I’m going home.

I don’t like being told how to dress to go out, and I liked it even less when I saw that everyone was there to be seen. The deep irony was the artwork on the wall. It was done by Shepard Fairey, one of my favorite artists. He is well known for his Andre the Giant OBEY posters. His work used to be plastered all over the then-yuppifying Mission District in San Francisco during the mid-late ’90s. To me, his work is about not OBEYing advertising and what our eyeballs intake in the media, hence my lack of a TV at home. I admit it. I am sheep. Advertising has an effect on me. That seemingly contradicts Marshall McLuhan, but the OBEY posters give me hope that I can fight the powers out there that are enticing me to spend my money away until I’m in debt. I will NOT OBEY and buy things till I’m deep in debt. I will obey myself and my life goals, and that little Save-O-Meter in the corner.

(ps - I dropped a little cash into ING today. Not enough to move the Save-O-Meter, but enough to make some progress.)