Quick Hits 24 March 2008

Shanti is setting a good example for her younger sisters when it comes to money. Who says us girls aren't confident with our money?

Minimum wage is dead tough to live on. Shocker.

Ms. Micah has a three-part series on how to hide money from an abusive partner. (Parts one, two, and three).

This interesting little video accompanying a recent NYT article on the recent popularity of plastic surgery and dermatology as medical specialties has some interesting observations about women in medicine. Like this, from med student Meena Singh: "People [in dermatology] won't feel like you're a burden for being pregnant or having kids during the residency, which happens in other fields and is very unfortunate. Because clearly, our male counterparts can have as many kids as they want." Of course, they're men, so... you know. It's different. [eyeroll]

Race and socioeconomic status correlate to a woman's likelihood of developing postpartum depression. This article doesn't break down the stats for race, but 40% of new Iowa mothers with a household income of $20,000 or less had "clinically significant postpartum depression," compared with only 13% of new mothers with household incomes of $80,000 or above.

In the wake of this wacky Spitzer business, Alternet has a really interesting interview with Sienna Baskin, an attorney with the Sex Workers Project in New York City. A large portion of it focuses on economic aspects of sex work.

Resurrection Sunday--The End of the Compact

Ten points to the first person to identify the musical reference in the post title.

Today is Easter, which means Lent--and my renunciation of retail--has come to a close. How did I do in upholding the Compact?

Well, I wasn't perfect. Here's the tally of what new, nonconsumable items I bought during Lent. All prices are in USD--in the case of those things I bought out of the country, I've approximated the cost after the exchange rate:

a rash guard, for extra sun protection in the water while on vacation. This was one of my caveats from the outset, and the lack of sunburn on my shoulders thanks me for it. About $45, roughly the same as I would have paid in the US.

jewelry while on vacation. OK, two pairs of earrings and a necklace. I did reserve the right to buy jewelry, since it's usually the only souvenir I collect when I travel, but I admit this was overkill, and not really in keeping with the spirit of the original exception. About $60.

trashy magazines, read while (you guessed it) traveling. If I remember correctly, it was two copies of US Weekly, an In Touch, and an OK. For some reason I have trouble reading anything that requires actual thought while in an airport. $US 17.

four yards of a cute fabric that was on sale at reprodepot.com. I don't have a specific project in mind, but I do have two pregnant friends for whom I plan to make gifts, and my fingers had submitted my credit card information before I even realized that I had broken the Compact. $25.

a set of 100 restaurant napkins, bought for the wedding for $75 including shipping--cheaper than renting them. I don't actually know whether these are new or not, since I got them on ebay, but in the spirit of inclusiveness I thought I should list them here as a "maybe."

Obviously I was not 100% successful, but this was definitely a worthwhile challenge. The clear takeaway is that travel bends my iron will in a most embarrassing way.

For the most part, the resolution was surprisingly easy to stick to. I have been really busy at work, which meant very little time I could have been recreationally buying. We also took a two-week vacation in the middle of Lent, when we spent relatively freely, but mostly on experiences rather than on stuff. The few times I have gone shopping during Lent, I have consciously tried to choose consignment, vintage, or resale shops so that my options were necessarily limited to used merchandise.

But when it was hard, it was hard. As evidenced by my abuse of the jewelry exception, when I didn't have a strict limit to stick to it was very easy for me to go overboard. And though I don't shop frequently, when I do it, it's almost instinctive and unconscious. Witness the fabric purchase. As another example, I did have one serious near miss when I spotted a china cabinet and a liquor cabinet online. I showed them to Shiner to make sure he liked it, and when he did, I got fantastically excited that our dining room storage crisis would soon be coming to an end. He said, "you're not going to buy it right now, are you?" "Yes!" I said, giddy, images of magazine-level organization dancing in my head. "But what about Lent?" D'oh. I had completely forgotten. I didn't buy them, promising myself to wait until Easter. I'm not proud that I inadvertently came so close to such a big slip up.

On the other hand, I had a number of what I consider to be successes, too: times when I was sorely tempted to buy and did not. Three of them (apart from the now notorious china cabinet) are especially memorable. First there was my friend's baby shower. I had intended to make her a quilt, but then work exploded and I didn't have time to even cut the fabric, and the night before her shower I still didn't have a gift for her. I very nearly walked to the bookstore and bought her a couple of board books, but instead I whipped up some soft toys with scrap fabric I had in my stash. Then in preparing for our trip, I wanted to buy a couple of new novels that had been recommended to me. Instead, I took a trip to the library and dug into our own personal collection and found four books to keep me busy on the beach. A couple of those turned out to be real gems, too. Finally, and most ridiculously, in following along with the folks over at Apartment Therapy who are doing the Spring Cure, I suddenly felt compelled to buy home decor magazines. I know. They are mostly ads, and I could never afford much of what's in them anyway, but this was like an irrational, all-consuming fever. I had a Barnes and Noble gift card! Surely that's what the cosmos intended me to spend it on! For two days this fever raged, and I valiantly fought back, eventually winning.

It's a little hard to compare my expenses during Lent to my expenses during a regular six-week span. For a third of Lent I was on vacation, which means my spending patterns weren't normal, and that vacation was to a country with a very cash-based economy, so I can't just compare credit card statements to identify exactly how I was spending money differently. But taking those things into consideration, I spent noticably less under the Compact than I do in the average four-week period. For example, the credit card bills that I'll pay at the end of March are less than a third what they usually are, and that's some difference coming from someone who doesn't think she shops very much.

Part of me would like to keep going with the Compact, because I feel like 6 weeks is not really enough time to create new habits, and that's part of what I was hoping to get out of the Compact.

On the other hand, I cannot imagine, say, continuing to plan a wedding while buying only used items. I'm sure it's entirely possible, but I'm trying to make planning less of a hassle, not more of one--the thought of combing ebay or pawn shops week after week to find the right ipod dock and speakers (much cheaper than a DJ, and something we will happily reuse in our home) seems like a special brand of hell.

And then there's the fact that I just don't get off on self-abnegation. I am down with the goal of not buying things just for the hell of it, but when you do have a need or a long-held, well-considered want for something, I have a hard time thinking of it as a party foul to go out and buy it. Yes, I put off ordering the china cabinet for the sake of following the rules of the Compact. But aside from strictly adhering to to rules of the game, I'm not sure I got anything out of delaying that purchase. After a couple of years, am I going to change my mind about needing one by thinking it over for six more days? No. And I am picky enough about aesthetics that I would rather go without that get something that is not really what I want--that's why I've gone without for so long already. So used is not necessarily going to get me there, either. But I do think it would be worth revisting the Compact again in a year or so, after the wedding, after more or less completing our furnishing wish list. I do think there is a point of enoughness to which I am extremely close. I remain very interested in whether I can identify what that point is, and whether I can honestly stop when I hit it.

By the way, I ordered the furniture this morning.