Friday Roundup
I’ve seriously been slacking off on my Friday Roundups. Furthermore I was kind of lazy about it, because I usually linked to people I had in my blogroll anyway. So here are some new pieces from new sources to shake things up a bit.
- Introduction: Muslim’s Guide to Money Management. If you’ve ever wondered about how Muslims do personal finance since charging interest (riba) is not allowed, this is a great resource. There’s lots of good advice here for unbelievers as well.
- Part 1: Debt perceptions and consumer culture.
- Part 2: Debt perceptions and the Islamic view of debt.
- Part 3: Americans in debt. (Let me point out here, even though I shouldn’t have to, that people exist who are both Muslim and American. Both Muslims and non-Muslim Americans fall into the trap of thinking of it as either/or, almost out of habit.)
- Part 4: Why Muslims are in debt/Money myths!
- Part 5: Debt freedom!
- Part 6: Cars, houses, and… oh yes… STUDENT LOANS. Long-time PF writers and bloggers who haven’t before encountered the Muslim perspective on personal finance will be pleasantly surprised to see their beliefs echoed here.
- And finally, from a different website by a (presumably) non-Muslim Asian, a surprising take on yet another way the American way of life takes advantage of every other culture: Saving is Sin, Spending is Virtue. Sustainable-living advocates already know that we Americans only have our high standard of living because we live it at everyone else’s expense in the form of externalizing environmental (pollution), economic (forcing people to live on slave wages in Third World nations), and social (destroying cultures) costs. I guess it never occurred to me that we siphon off financial resources directly too, while not giving nearly enough back. And by spending instead of saving, we are hurting ourselves directly as well.
My little girl’s dad makes fun of me for WILFing*, but it’s amazing what I find sometimes. 
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*Mindless web-surfing or, What was I Looking For?
Wednesday Weigh-In
I weighed in at 227.5 this morning. Yes, quite obese, nice high BMI, but almost a year ago I was at 237, so I’m still ten pounds less than when I started.
237 | 227.5 | 140
I might do photos this weekend. Don’t know yet.
Gearing up for weight loss and healthier eating
The Tuttle Park recreation center is noted, at least in my mind, for its soda machine that sells 20oz bottles for a dollar–a pretty good deal around here, if you’re going to buy a twenty-ounce bottle of soda. There’s just one problem: they have regular Mountain Dew but not Diet Dew, and I despise Diet Pepsi, the one diet soda in that machine. So I grabbed a regular Dew yesterday while we were at the park, then nursed it for a while because:
1. I am still not used to drinking large quantities of what pretty much constitutes fizzy sugar syrup. I was afraid it would make me sick on top of the migraine.
2. I don’t like the taste of corn syrup nearly as much as I once tolerated it. The Splenda/Nutrasweet/Ace-K sweetener combination that PepsiCo now uses for their Diet Mountain Dew is, as far as I’m concerned, a massive improvement over the regular label.
3. I’ve been reading low-carb blogs and diabetes articles again over the last couple of days and am now massively paranoid that I’m going to destroy my health with this stuff. With good cause, of course–the dangers of excessive carb consumption are way understated by most “experts,” and carb overconsumption has already left me a wreck–but still.
I mean, I drank it anyway, but it took me several hours. I suppose it could have been worse. I think what helped was that all I had for dinner was a burger patty with cheese and then a steak after that–virtually no carbs at all. I also woke up without a headache, so it all worked out in the end, but I don’t ever want to do that again.
I weighed myself this morning (I’ll do a separate weigh-in post) and was pleasantly surprised that the past several weeks of excessive fast food and the occasional ice cream or milkshake had not completely blown me out of the water. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe it’s a down-tick because Aunt Flo just came for a visit last week, or maybe I’m in the beginning stages of that “unexplained weight loss” they talk about as a symptom of diabetes. I really have no idea what is going on and I can’t afford a glucose-tolerance test, so I’m just going to have to approach this with all possible explanations in mind.
So I’m upping the ol’ fat intake and starting to cut the carbs to finish out this week, and I guess I’ll probably go into Atkins Induction this weekend. I say “I guess” because I suppose it’ll depend on how well I stand up to stupid temptations. I do way too much rationalizing and not enough looking out for my own welfare. My recent experience with Eddy tells me I have the potential to seriously turn this around, because even a year ago I would have kept obsessing over him and let him lead me around by the nose for a while and now I’ve cut that short before it began, so I have more hope for the outcome of this new weight-loss attempt than I would have had otherwise.
I at least want my gut to go away. Is that so much to ask? Sigh.
Meanwhile I have another challenge to deal with: my daughter is becoming entirely too fond of junk herself. Popsicles are her especial weakness. If I don’t watch it she’s going to wind up struggling someday just like me.
A child her age needs high-calorie, nutrient-dense food because she has a small tummy that fills quickly. She also needs fat in her diet because her nervous system is still developing. It amazes me that nutritional “experts” want little kids to eat like small adults. Never mind that the diet they recommend for adults isn’t so healthy either.
I read recently that a daycare center in the UK was found to be malnourishing the children in its care because they were feeding the children too many fruits and vegetables! You wouldn’t think it’d be possible, but if you think about it, that’s a lot of bulk for too few calories. While fruits and veggies are fantastic sources of micronutrients (i.e., vitamins and minerals), they’re a terrible source of the macronutrients we need to maintain our bodies–they are generally low in fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Considering that many of the micronutrients you find in plant foods are also found in more nutrient-dense foods (i.e., meat, eggs, full-fat dairy), little kids need more bang for the buck with each bite they take.
So I am trying to figure this out. I don’t think that feeding my child a lower-carb, higher-fat diet would cause weight loss; I think it only causes weight loss in people with excess bodyfat. If you don’t have extra weight to lose, all it’s going to do is allow you to maintain your body in a healthy way–the whole point of eating food in the first place.
The irony is that a lot of the time she doesn’t want the junk food. Even when we go to a fast food place because she wants to “climb” (i.e., play on the playground equipment), I don’t think she ever finishes her meal, and sometimes she barely touches it. If I fix something at home that is more or less whole foods and relatively low-carb, however, she tends to eat it up as long as she is in the mood for the specific foods I give her. Her weakness seems to involve sweet treats, especially anything involving ice cream or popsicles, and sometimes cookies.
So I need to figure out a hack for that which would let her enjoy her favorite treats occasionally without blowing her out of the water nutritionally. I already have a nifty little ice cream maker where you stick a metal insert in the freezer and then throw in the ingredients when it’s cold; that would be a big help. I could just throw in heavy cream and berries and bam, she’ll have something good. I think I also want to find one of those Tupperware popsicle-making sets and put it to use, perhaps freezing berry smoothie for her.
I also need to do a meal plan for myself and her because I’m not going to be able to sustain this in the long run if I have to keep flying by the seat of my pants to figure out what’s for dinner. If I keep it simple I’ll also keep it cheaper, as well. The not knowing what’s for dinner bit is exactly why we wind up eating so much fast food. It has to stop.
Well, she’s asking for a popsicle so let me go wrangle with her about that. Yay.
Language of the personal finance bully
Frugal Dad wrote an interesting post about language typically used by the “perpetually poor”, as he calls them. And, well, he’s got a point that oftentimes we argue for our own limitations. (I’ve read Richard Bach’s Illusions and got a lot out of it–if you haven’t read it, you should. Famous proverb from the book: “Argue for your limitations and they are yours.”) However, once again the vultures came out of the woodwork to prance about showing off how enlightened and special they are while tearing down anyone they perceive as inferior to themselves.
The sad part is I don’t think they even know what the hell they are talking about. The truth is they’re coming off as bullies, and since they presumably are writing to help others navigate the world of personal finance, I think “bully” is the last impression anyone wants to give if their self-image is that of a helper.
What do I mean by “coming off as bullies”? Hm. Let’s see.
Criticizing others for complaining. In my observations and my own personal experience, when someone complains, it is because they either can’t do anything about their problem or they don’t know what to do about their problem. I have noted that when someone knows they are capable of solving a problem, they go ahead and solve it rather than waste time whining about it. This is true even of people typically branded as whiners.
Take me, I’m the world’s biggest crybaby sometimes when things go wrong in my life–but if I’m hungry and there’s food in the pantry, gosh-darn it, I eat! If I’m cold, I put on a sweater or turn on the heat. If my child has hurt herself I comfort her. I don’t just sit around going, “I’m hungry… I’m cold… My baby just hurt herself…” and do nothing about it.
Heck, I just had a migraine for most of yesterday. What did I do? Took some medicine and got on with my day. I still complained about it because all I can do is take meds–I have no control over whether they always work perfectly, and this time they didn’t, so I was still hurting. But I had taken some small action to do something about the problem as well.
Don’t assume that just because someone’s complaining, they’re being lazy and unproductive about their problem. For all you know they have exhausted their own resources and the complaining is a cry for help and/or advice. Which leads me to:
Assuming that because someone is worse off than you, it’s because they’re lazy. It must take some staggering amount of arrogance to come to this conclusion about someone about which you know nothing, someone whom you’ve only encountered through a news story (yeah, we all know reporters are completely fair and unbiased, and even if they’re not, their editors surely are!) or a blog comment on the Internet. If you’ve never met a certain poor person in person, you don’t know jack about their situation and are certainly not qualified to comment on their character.
Even if you know the person and see them every day, it is amazing the amount of denial people will indulge in rather than admit that a friend or family member of theirs is grappling with a serious problem such as mental illness or addiction. While there is a certain amount of personal autonomy involved in both these conditions, there is also a certain amount of involuntary behavior involved. Speaking as someone who has suffered varying degrees of mental illness, I can attest to this. Sometimes you just go through motions and you don’t really understand why.
Furthermore, laziness should not be confused with lack of productivity. There are lots of productive people out there who take the lazy route and try to figure out the easiest, most efficient way to do something. This is normal human behavior. (For that matter, it’s standard practice in nature–look up the principles of permaculture sometime.) And sometimes a person just can’t figure out what to do with themselves–possibly due to mental illness or addiction, possibly due to some other factor–and they’re trying to get along in life with as little hassle as possible. If their behavior isn’t affecting you, don’t worry about it. If it is, seek help. Don’t just sit around complaining about them being lazy, which is really funny coming from someone who doesn’t like complainers in the first place!
Pulling the “welfare queen” card. What in the world is it about women below a certain income threshold who stay home to take care of their kids that arouses the ire of just about every personal finance blogger in the Western hemisphere? These same people often write about how great it would be if they (if they’re moms) or their wives (if they’re the dads) could afford to stay home with their own kids. Why do we believe it’s a good thing to stay home with the kids? Because we love our kids and we want to do our jobs as parents and help them grow up right. What makes you think a low-income mom doesn’t have the same desire for her own children?
“But this welfare mother I know just sits around on her butt watching soap operas and letting her kids run wild,” you sputter. You know what you sound like? People who criticize middle-class stay-at-home moms for supposedly… sitting around on their butts eating bonbons, watching soap operas, and letting their kids run wild. It’s the oldest propaganda game in the book. OK, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I really am tired of hearing it. Even Betty Friedan, bless her heart–and I’m a feminist–once claimed that boys turned homosexual because their mothers stayed home. People love to slam stay-at-home moms. Toss in the fact they’re being supported by tax dollars instead of men’s paychecks and you have quite the volatile mix for a socio-economic rant-fest.
The best part is when people say welfare moms should “get a job” or “go to work,” as though raising children were no trouble or work whatsoever. I think any personal finance blogger who utters this drivel should be sentenced to six months at hard labor chasing two-year-old triplets around the house while keeping it clean enough that, should Child Protective Services be dispatched to the residence due to unusual noises, they will not immediately remove the children from the home. And I wish you the best of luck.
Setting themselves up as representative of the universal human experience. I don’t think I even need to elaborate on this one; we’ve all seen it. “I’ve worked my way out of a homeless shelter in less than six months with my parents’ credit card in my back pocket and good college English at my disposal, so nobody should be homeless!” This is like the ultimate distillation of every other bullying tactic I’ve gone over here. If you’ve ever uttered any variation on “I’ve done X so anyone can do it,” you are immediately disqualified as a personal finance blogger and you may feel free to go work triple shifts at McDonald’s under an irate welfare-to-work mother who hasn’t seen her kids in two weeks.
If you are in the blogosphere to help people, you are not about to accomplish that mission by being a condescending jerk. If your fans step up and defend you by claiming that you have helped them, they probably didn’t need the help to begin with. Or not your kind anyway; I can’t speak to their possible need for intensive intervention before they lose any chance they have left at developing a conscience and a sense of empathy.
The blogosphere can do so much better than this. I know it. You know it. Let’s make it happen.
Where I’ve been lately: burying old ghosts
I have really been letting this blog go slack lately and I apologize. I know I don’t have that many readers in the first place, but at the rate I’m going that’s hardly going to change for the better. Know that I am still here and at this point I have no intention of letting this blog die.
It’s just that sometimes I get caught up in personal drama and it diverts my energies away from more positive ends to become a Sucking Vortex Of Doom™. And that’s what’s happened in the past several days, I’m sorry to report.
I think I mentioned here several weeks ago that I had signed up for an account at Reunion.com and discovered that someone had been looking for me, and that upon plugging a certain person’s name into Google and locating him at Classmates.com, I realized I had been searched for by an old lover and Army buddy. (OK, I might not have gone into that much detail on who he was, but now you get the idea.) So I left a message for him at Classmates and about two weeks ago, give or take, he left me a response.
I was actually pretty excited at first. Now, when we got involved back then it was not under the best of circumstances, but that was pretty much the story of my life at that point (in fact, it was the story of my life until fairly recently where “romance” was concerned), and I figured that with thirteen and a half years of life under the bridge, anyone can change in that amount of time.
If only.
It’s a sad, sordid tale, and if you’re really curious I suppose you can go dig up my personal blog and read it for yourself. The main point is, I think, that being faced with the possibility of seeing him again disturbed what emotional equilibrium I’d managed to achieve and sustain for the past several months–again, where “romance” is concerned–and it rattled me to the teeth. I am someone who gets all sappy and schmoopy and miserable and depressed when it looks like I am about to be rejected in some way. I thought I had grown a bit beyond being this kind of person but I found out otherwise in this particular situation and it was an unpleasant realization to say the least.
(I know it’s normal to feel disappointed when one is rejected. I go well beyond simple disappointment, I’m afraid. We’re talking endless obsession coupled with self-loathing and constant second-guessing of myself, him, his motives, my motives, what it all means, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum et ad nauseam. It is disturbing to watch, and even more disturbing to experience.)
I suppose I achieved some small victory, however. I found that I could accurately assess the situation for what it was, call him on his shit, cut the “reunion” short and cut off all contact with him–and I’m more or less OK in the aftermath. Considering that I used to face situations like this by making all manner of excuses for the guy’s behavior and then pushing myself very hard to change my own desires and expectations to make myself more appealing to him even at the expense of my own self-worth (which, of course, never works–even the biggest schmuck can smell the lack of personal integrity a mile away and is repelled by it), this is progress.
If I could now evolve to the point where this sort of episode doesn’t hurt anymore, that would be better still.
The only question now is whether I keep his old photos or consign them to the circular file, I suppose. I think I’ll keep them. I haven’t been disrespected, lied to, or taken for granted yet by a piece of paper and I don’t anticipate it happening any time soon.
