Saving Money

I'm all for suggestions about saving money, and with a name like Kiplinger, you'd expect good ones, worth a second or two to click.

Alas, I did not learn at all how to "turn $451 a month into a million bucks."

Disregard the fact that their calculation is based on someone four years younger than I, and still I can tell you that, no, I really do not have $200 or $450 to spare.

Maybe some of my friends do. Click over on writing fallout and read about the trials of someone whose one little indulgence is, as another colleague calls it, "professional coffee." I know she has little room to spare expenses, though the two health-related "suggestions" might apply; I doubt it, though, as I have looked into the so-called medical savings account old Kippy recommends, and it is no bargain.

Maybe I'm not understanding; note to self, look up what is a "flexible spending account."

The one about having three more exemptions is bogus, too; I know my tax person inquired about these, and so, no, it doesn't seem I'm in the 25% bracket. Actually, I have no idea. Note to self, more work — look up tax bracket.

I echew the two hints about not going out to eat. I don't go to lunch, and I don't buy coffee out for the most part. Once a month. I eat out-lunch about three times a month. I eat dinner out about five times a month. Maybe six. We only go to movies when it's a mom-related holiday (I am not in that "we," but it is a pair of tickets nonetheless).

I can't change my husband's habits.

Also, their calculation is crazy: $33 per person on dinner out? Only when it's not happy hour at la Bodega.

Raising the car insurance deductible? I don't know what mine is, either. Self, … I get it confused with the medical one. Hey, out there, do most of you know these figures by heart? It seems mine change so frequently and are needed so infrequently that I don't carry them around in memory. This may be why we're not well-invested. I always forget even to check the one account there is. Another friend of mine was lamenting the dropping value of his retirement, and he's a truck driver with 20-plus years. He's thinking of cashing it in now; hard to say what the longer term will bring, and he would rather pay off his house.

Sigh, I already do buy the generic store-brand versions of pills, and we do take care of the car's innards.

And, where do I find a fund that averages 8%?

Trying to like potatoes.

Then what's this I hear about Yahoo and Microsoft laying down together? Eew, doesn't Yahoo know how dirty it's going to get? Hotmail is horrible. (In addition, experience dictates that Lycos is mean and that Google is oggling.) And, of course, let's not even mention Vista. (Sorry, couldn't think of telepathic or rhetorical way to convey indirectly. Some things are better stated clearly.)