From the New York Times: A One Percenter Feels the Pinch

[XemaSab]

Back to the Land, Reluctantly

I’M not interested in being hip or a hippie. Nor does my happiness particularly hinge on artisanal cheese. (Odd, perhaps, given that I grew up a stone fruit’s throw away from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif.)

As a 42-year-old Brooklyn mother of three, what I care about is lunch, and feeding my family on a tenuous and unpredictable income. And so I have 20 fresh-egg-producing hens and a little garden that yields everything from blackberries to butternut squash to burdock root.

My turn with spade and hoe started a few years ago when I found myself divorced and flat broke. My livelihood as a freelance writer went out the window when the economy tanked. I literally could afford beans, the dried kind, which I’d thought were for school art projects or teaching elementary math. And I didn’t know how to cook.

Luckily, my late father had hammered into me that grit was more important than talent. So, when I couldn’t afford fancy food — never mind paraben-free shampoo — for my babies, I figured, if peasants in 11th-century Sicily did all this, how hard could it be?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/i-went-back-to-the-land-to-feed-my-family.html

(Trust me, this article is full of lulz.)

[LeftyMom]

1. She can't afford $14 granola anymore! But through pluck and an apparently huge yard in New York!1!

she overcame! and still spends more on groceries than I do! And yep, I eat fancy organic stuff too.

edit: and while I'm at it, how is she saving money by shampooing with olive oil and castile soap? Both cost as much or more by volume than expensive natural shampoo.

[leftstreet]

2. Comments section: 'She had a garden. It's not Little House on the Prairie'

lol

[NOLALady]

3. K and R

[Number23]

7. I want to do the same but people seem to be criticizing this woman for some reason

I think the article was helpful and moderately interesting.

[cui bono]

20. I don't think I've ever agreed with you before but I'm with you on this one.

I don't understand the response this is getting.

So if someone isn't as bad off as what... the lowest 10%, lowest 20%... I don't know... how bad off does someone have to be, or how little salary must one have made before they lost it to be able to fit in this club that apparently exists so that one will not be made fun of for having made a decent living in the past?

What is the cut off point? Perhaps people who make over a certain amount shouldn't be posting here? I don't know, what are the rules then?

Sheesh.

[EdMaven]

30. Actually, I'm criticizing the article that wants people to believe this woman is struggling

& substituting balsamic vinegar for wine in recipes is some kind of cost-saving measure.

Balsamic vinegar is expensive. Cheap red wine is what peasants use in recipes. Because, uh, it's cheap & in spaghetti sauce you can't tell that.

[Skittles]

126. it's a ploy

they use extreme examples of people you could never identify with to trivialize the REAL truth

[XemaSab]

38. I'm guessing that the taxes on her house

are more than I have ever made in my life.

[XemaSab]

43. She spent $100,000 on a kitchen renovation!

:o

[Jamastiene]

47. Shit! That's more than I'll ever make in my lifetime.

:wow:

[alcibiades_mystery]

78. $100,000 is more than you'll make in a lifetime?

You understand that it would only take you ten years to make that if you made a poverty-wage $10,000 a year, right? That's less than $5/hour for a 40 hour workweek for ten years.

[Number23]

60. I don't see that anywhere

I actually did a page search for "100" and the only thing that turned up was when she said "We live this way for $100 a week."

[LeftyMom]

62. Amazon review for her book.

Google harder.

[Jamastiene]

63. She also goes on and on about how poor people shouldn't have children...

according to one of those reviews too. Wow, $100,000 JUST to renovate a kitchen. I'm thinking golden faucets or something. Damn.

[LeftyMom]

64. Thank god for gentrifying hipsters, the prior occupants must have cooked over a campfire or

ate cold beans out of a can hobo style or something. :sarcasm:

Did she do the 100K kitchen model when she had income but couldn't cook, or was that part of her backyard farming hipster fauxpoverty phase? Either way I'm :rofl:

[Jamastiene]

65. You know she has probably got

drawers full of $20 forks in that kitchen too. :evilgrin:

[Marrah_G]

88. .........

:rofl:

[auntAgonist]

119. Doesn't everyone? ? ?

:shrug: :rofl: :shrug:



:hi:

[XemaSab]

66. My kitchen is 10x10

Without blowing out walls, I would be hard pressed to spend $10,000 on a remodel.

[Gormy Cuss]

107. Oh no, it would be easy to spend 10K on that kitchen.

Gut the whole thing, install new plumbing lines in different locations, use top of the line Euro brand appliances, marble counters and backsplashes, new window and/or skylight, Travertine or hand made tiles for the floor, endangered rain forest wood custom-built cabinets. Add labor to that and it's easily over 10K. You just aren't thinking like an upper income person.

[XemaSab]

114. "You just aren't thinking like an upper income person."

Apparently not. :D

(But seriously, I've thought before about getting rid of the garage and having a HUGH kitchen. SERIES. :D

[Gormy Cuss]

115. That's a great fantasy!

Garage vs. kitchen: no contest!

[elehhhhna]

124. she spent 100 K, not ten!

[Marrah_G]

130. So they could "showcase" her husband's cooking when company was over.......

These folks aren't middle class....not even upper middle class. It would take something catastrophic for them to ever know what struggling is.

[elehhhhna]

131. all i know is her husband is a diva

[EdMaven]

72. that must exclude the kitchen remodel.

[EdMaven]

76. Here:

And so, this book contains no real food content to speak of, other than Thomas's telling anecdote at the front, and then near the end, she writes of her and Cal's investment in a three-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Their kitchen and Cal's cooking draws other couples and children into their home and they serve as hub in their social circle. Thomas urges Cal to go to culinary school, but he demurs. Eventually they take on a greater mortgage, redo the kitchen to the tune of $100K to showcase Cal's talents and the amount of time he spends cooking for family and friends.

http://www.potlikkery.com/2011/08/in-spite-of-everything.html


richie rich hipster types no matter what she claims

grew up in berkeley next to chez panisse = trust fund kiddie

[Gormy Cuss]

108. Chez Panisse's neighborhood was not a trust fund domain twenty years ago.

Even now, a modest house in that area can be had for a quarter of the price of a similar house in the hills.

[EdMaven]

116. Chez panisse is within 3 blocks of the Berkeley campus. I think that was the case 20 years ago as

well.

not sure how you define modest. 1700 sq foot with no yard to speak of = around a million.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/919-Shattuck-Ave-Berkeley-CA-94707/24845657_zpid/

[Gormy Cuss]

118. Still a quarter of what it costs in the hills, and frankly that takes it out of "trust fund."

Chez Panisse is also lot more than 3 blocks from the heart of the Cal campus -- Sproul Plaza is more than a mile away. The UC buildings in that area are outbuildings (and quite frankly, some of them are really dumpy from the outside.)

Everything's relative. Berkeley's insanely expensive even in the flats, but that's true of a lot of the SF area. Twenty years ago the relative cost of that neighborhood vs. the hills was more divergent. It was and is hideously expensive but many people in that area are still way below the level of trust funders.

[eShirl]

77. This article is comedy for anyone who has lived below the poverty line for years, that's all.

I don't wish her ill, but neither do I sympathize with her plight.

[Marrah_G]

89. I'm right there with you

No matter how hard I try I just can't work up an ounce of sympathy for her. Perhaps tonight when I return home from my 13 hour workday, half of which is at minimum wage, I will be brain dead enough to feel for her plight.

[Matariki]

111. Yeah, I don't quite get the "article is full of lulz" comment

Just someone talking about cooking from scratch and having chickens and a garden :shrug:

[Shanti Mama]

24. i'm with you cui and 23

If someone is better off than we are, we criticize? Is that what DU is?
I come from an affluent background and worked on that street that everyone hates, just for a few years in my youth. Had I chosen to stay I could easily be in the 1%, on my own or marrying into it.
Does that make me a terrible person?
I think this author is baring a bit of her soul and people here are pouncing on her. The 99% includes a lot of people who are... relatively... well off. Let's remember that we have more in common with her than not in common, or the fight is over before it is begun.

[Beartracks]

34. Yeah, what's up with that?

Supposedly, all DUers are up in arms about the middle class getting screwed by the upper class. But I, too, wonder what the arbitrary income cut-off line is before a middle class person is actually allowed the "right" to complain about it.

============================

[Tsiyu]

40. I think what is upsetting about articles such as these

is that the issue of poverty has NEVER interested most Americans; most telling is that the upper class has dismissed the issue for YEARS.

Suddenly, a formerly well-off person has to live a little less large and you'd think they were Ethiopians for the self congratulations and whining. It seems poverty is only 'sexy' when discussed as some temporary inconvenience to a former 'have.'

WE need more articles about the causes and cures of poverty, not some cutesy piece about some woman playing in her garden and braggin about her chickens. (And yes, I have chickens too) SHE still has a vehicle, a place to live, and cash to buy groceries and pay her bills. Lucky her.

Where are the articles about the truly poor? Oh, yeah. They don't matter. Now I remember....

[EdMaven]

73. poverty is only sexy if it's pretty. but real poverty is not pretty. so poverty is

never sexy.

i think the poster who compared this woman to marie antoinette playing milkmaid had it right.

[Number23]

56. Even some of the comments in the article

are asking what is the point of all this criticism she's receiving. As for DU specifically, I just look at where most of the criticism is coming from. Tells me all I need to know.

The 99% includes a lot of people who are... relatively... well off.

True, but I don't even think it's about all of that. Seems to me this is more about a woman in Brooklyn who decided to lessen her monthly costs by growing her own food and going organic. I think it's kind of interesting.

[Marrah_G]

90. Sorry but the tone of the article is really offensive to those of us who struggle every day

And no your background doesn't make you a "terrible person", however it does make you a person who will never be able to understand what real hardship is and why those of us who are truly the working poor have trouble mustering up any sympathy for her.

[Chan790]

93. As a former resident of the city, county and state of NY.

I'm just amused. Most of these posters commenting have no idea what they're even talking about.

When I lived in Manhattan in 2008 (barely: Marble Hill, situated north of Inwood, should for all purposes be part of The Bronx but is Manhattan.) making $43K a year I was living the standard of living equal to that of someone making $12K/year living in rural TX or El Paso) amd paying upwards of 50% of my pay towards rent. Ponder that...the regionally-adjusted poverty line in NYC for a family of 4 is well over $65K, somewhat-less if you live in The Bronx, Staten Island, Queens or the bad side of Brooklyn. One cannot afford to live there in any circumstance for $30K: It costs that much to be homeless and not-dead. If NYC passed a citywide minimum wage law that said that the citywide min-wage had to at-least equal the standard of living of the national minimum-wage, that wage would be in the ballpark of $18/hr.

Is it absurd she spent $100K on a renovation of the kitchen? Yes.

But to imply this woman is anything other than situationally upper-middle-class is no less so.

[EdMaven]

4. she owns property in brooklyn & is flat broke? she shampoos with olive oil?

When a recipe calls for wine she uses balsamic vinegar as a cost-saving measure?

omg.

this is the biggest bunch of crap i've read in some time.

She's a richie rich poser is what she is.

[Desertrose]

5. "She's a richie rich poser is what she is." Hmmm, my thoughts too.

Too much stuff just doesn't make sense to me....

[DeSwiss]

6. She got me with:

''And I always added twice as much garlic to everything.''

- K&R

[tblue37]

11. Wichita isn't the only Kansas city with an event. 100 people

occupied Lawrence, Kansas, too.

[Jamastiene]

8. zOMG

What a load of poppycock. This person is NOT poor. Honey? Has anyone looked at the price of honey lately? Coffee? Who can afford coffee? "Cheap dirt" from Home Depot? Give me a break. Who the fuck BUYS dirt? Olive oil? I can't even remember the last time I could afford olive oil, even a small bottle. This dipshit washes her hair in olive oil? :wtf: The purpose of washing your hair is to get oil out of it, not add super expensive oil TO it.

This person is DEFINITELY not poor.

[LeftyMom]

10. I want to know what on earth she needs 20 chickens for.

I'm not real up on cooking with eggs, what with the vegan thing, but I'd think 16-20 eggs a day would keep a family of five sick of omelettes and quiche, to say nothing of the health effects. And in an urban environment? If zoning didn't come down on her like a ton of bricks I'd think the neighbors would. I'm about ready to kill my dad's neighbors over their much smaller flock of chickens.

[XemaSab]

12. I caught that too

Maybe she's bartering for other stuff with the eggs, but that many eggs is excessive, even if she's making a lot of cakes, egg breads, and other things for which eggs are just an ingredient.

It makes me wonder how much she spends on chicken feed. :shrug:

[LeftyMom]

13. I wonder what a bag of artisinal organic wildcrafted heirloom chicken feed costs in Brooklyn.

You have to figure in the costs of all that reclaimed barnwood and rustic decor at the hipster urban farming store. :rofl:

[musette_sf]

14. are you another fan of "diehipster"?

;-)

[LeftyMom]

18. I never saw it before, but I'm in love.

We have hipsters in Sac. I want to yell at them to get the fuck over themselves, if they were cool they wouldn't live in Sacramento. :D

[petronius]

15. "Wildcrafted" - I thought you made that one up, until I googled

Was there truly a need for this fancy new word? Was 'gathering' just too plebeian for the wildcrafting set? :eyes:

[LeftyMom]

17. "Picked from the median" sounds tacky.

There's a trick to this stuff. Every descriptor adds a dollar: ravioli are $7, house-made organic artisinal ravioli made with wildcrafted, local, seasonal mushrooms and heirloom microgreens drizzled in balsamic reduction and topped with grassfed parmesean cost $19.

[Warpy]

22. I don't find chickens objectionable at all

unless there's a rooster. Those don't belong in an urban garden, noisy buggers. The hens are pretty quiet except for some clucking when an egg comes out. I'm betting it doesn't feel all that good to the chicken.

This woman sounds like she's doing well with reduced finances but she's a far, far cry from being self sufficient. She's just able to eat a hell of a lot cheaper than she used to when she thought that job that overpaid her would last forever.

[Jamastiene]

25. I can't think of any reason to have that many eggs a day,

unless the woman is trying to feed an army. The most each family member could possibly stand when it comes to eggs is maybe 2 or 3 a day at most. Even at that, if they did eat that many, they wouldn't be able to stand being in the same room with each other for the rest of the day. That's just too much all the way around.

That entire article sounded so contrived. I swear it sounded made up by someone who didn't know jack shit about what it is like to be poor. If that is what that person sees as "frugal living," they would literally die of shock if they ever had to actually "rough it." :wow:

[Javaman]

92. On top of that chicken feed isn't cheap anymore...

2-3 chickens is what a normal person raises. 20 chickens? she's either selling the eggs, or has worked out a deal with a local restaurant. if she's not, then she's a complete idiot. the cost of feed to egg produced ratio will kill the average person.

If you don't have kids and you are raising more than 3 chickens then you are in it for profit.

feeding 20 chickens runs into money, plus proper facilities for them isn't cheap either.

this article is BS on top of total BS.

[JVS]

81. Probably in case she has a medical emergency and needs to trade them for health care

[Blue_Tires]

112. I was going to ask about that as well

Unless she has a much bigger piece of land than I'm imagining....

[Gormy Cuss]

113. Those eggs are not just food, they're health and beauty products.

And keeping up that robust Park Slope garden requires lots of amendments, and while she doesn't mention it, another possible use for that big pile o' manure is free fuel for the pellet stove, plus gathering and cleaning down for pillows and comforters.

As for the neighbors, maybe she keeps the coop in the spare bedroom. I know I wouldn't want to tend chickens outdoors in a New York winter.

[Gormy Cuss]

110. Living in the city, one needs to either buy dirt or score some on a visit to the country cousins..

Honey, on the other hand, should really be coming from her backyard hive and "coffee" is easy if you let the wild chicory grow.

[appleannie1]

9. I live in the country, raised 7 kids on homegrown, home baked. Some of what she is saying is BS

What does she use to get the olive oil out of her hair? Or does she like the oily, stringy look? BTW. what did she use for sun to grow enough seedlings in cups to plant outside in the spring? Enough for her and a couple kids yet?

[SmileyRose]

16. We live this way for $100 a week. And I’m still the sole breadwinner.

Bullshit.

[cui bono]

19. I don't understand why everyone is ridiculing this woman.

Do you really think a freelance writer is one of the 1%ers??? Seriously? How much do you think a freelance writer makes? They certainly don't make hundreds of millions/year.

Everyone lives a life style according to their means, for the most part. If she could afford a home in Brooklyn when she was working and then lost her income she is struggling and needing to find ways to adapt to having lost her income. Why does that get her this mean spirited attitude here?

What is she supposed to be doing to make her acceptable to you guys? Jesus christ. We're supposed to be the compassionate ones.

So what about those that still are able to own their homes in Brooklyn and have not lost their income? What scorn would you shower upon them?

Are people supposed to feel guilty if they make a decent living? Is she supposed to feel guilty for having had one and then losing it?

Wow. Just wow. I cannot believe the responses on here.

:eyes:

[MissB]

23. My feeling exactly.

How poor must she really be before she is seen as acceptable here? Would she fare better here if she wrote about how to eat well on good stamps? I really don't get the criticism either.

She is buying less than the average suburban mom. That should be encouraged, not ridiculed. If she didn't do it out of necessity then we should encourage that even more.

I personally don't get the olive oil thing either, but I doubt she is using top quality olive oil on her hair.

[cui bono]

29. Yes, and by doing this she has decreased her carbon footprint.

No using oil to ship her food across the planet. Or to process and package it.

God forbid she were to tell us she washes out zip-lock baggies and reuses them, the horror! How dare she do that when she could easily have afforded to buy 2 boxes and thrown one of them out without using them a few years ago.

[EdMaven]

69. no, she just uses oil to ship the chicken feed, olive oil & zip-lock baggies made of oil.

she washes the baggies. big deal. i did the same in the 70s. you can only wash them about three times before they get ripped or too unsterile. reuseable plastic containers are more practical.

she's a poser.

[EdMaven]

32. she could stop washing her hair in olive oil, for starters.

You can buy enough Suave shampoo for a year for $3.98.

[cui bono]

35. What right do you have to dictate what she should use to wash her hair?

What right do you have to deem olive oil too expensive for her to use?

What is wrong with her washing her hair in olive oil? I'm sure she's not using extra virgin that's expensive. If she bought Suave someone would complain that it's not biodegradable. And why would you suggest she use a product that is bad for our environment? How can you look down on her as you did with that post when you would suggest such a thing?

What items do you use? What cost are they, not only to your pocketbook but to the environment? Are you doing EVERY SINGLE THING YOU CAN to keep your costs down and be socially conscious? I'm sure you are not. Neither am I, though I try to be completely environmentally conscious but I spend my money how I choose because I'M ALLOWED TO. What right does everyone here have to scrutinize how she spends her money? Aren't we the party that doesn't interfere? Aren't we the ones who complain when Republicans want to control how people spend their welfare checks?

The posts here sound like they are from another board entirely.

[cui bono]

51. Apparently it doesn't take much olive oil...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2088308&mesg_id=2088747

But better to just order her around and tell her to use a product that's bad for the environment than look into it first.

[EdMaven]

71. Suave isn't "bad for the environment" anymore than over-priced bronners in the plastic bottle

is.

[XemaSab]

39. When's the last time you bought a $10 loaf of bread?

:shrug:

[cui bono]

44. I don't cuz I'm a bargain hunter and I can find bread I like a lot for less than that.

But I don't buy Wonder Bread either. I buy organic when I buy food for home and it's more expensive than non-organic. Shall I be ridiculed now? And if I told you I could buy a $10 loaf of bread if I wanted to and not have a problem would I be banned from DU? I buy toothpaste that costs probably 3x as much as a national brand because I want to use biodegradable and natural toothpaste, is that wrong too? How about this? I don't mind spending more for a book in order to buy it from a local bookstore. Is that a problem?

I go to protests, send emails to my senators and congressman and to the WH, and to others who are not my rep. I donate to progressive causes and candidates, I have my senators' phone numbers on my cell phone and go to meetings with my congressman. I reuse whenever possible and recycle the rest that is recyclable. I try to use less of everything whenever possible. But if I ever bought a $10 loaf of bread I suppose I would be criticized and called out as a BS artist?

If how much money she made at one point, or how much she used to spend on a loaf of bread discounts what she is presently doing then there are a lot of important people speaking out for the people that shouldn't matter to us either. I just don't see how that discounts the gist of the article and makes everyone not just disagree with her, but ridicule her and want to decide how she should spend her money. I thought that was for the righties.

[XemaSab]

50. You don't see anything startling

with the author's revelation that bread doesn't have to cost $10, or that cereal doesn't have to cost $16?

There's spending a few extra dollars to support a local business or buy a premium product, and then there's conspicuous consumption. $10 bread is conspicuous consumption, and I'm flabbergasted that the author lacked the self-awareness to say "Wait a minute, this will probably immediately alienate most of my readers."

[cui bono]

55. What I find startling is that a board that has the name DU has people on it

who are judging her for how she spends her money and dictating how she should spend it.

Do I find it monetarily wasteful? Yes, I do. Perhaps she has learned something, sound to me as if she has. I think that's a good thing. Hell I can show her how to save a lot by walking her into a Trader Joe's!

And you're probably right about her not realizing how that revelation would sit with readers who could never think of spending that much on bread. But it just is a fact that people have different realities.

I live in L.A. and I say to my friend often that it's weird that this country is where it is because in L.A. it doesn't seem like things are as bad off as I know they are in middle America. And I'm in NYC now and you'd never know we are in such a bad state. All the bars and restaurants are packed every night of the week and they aren't cheap either, I mean they're not super expensive but every night there are tons of people eating out. The fact is that she lives in Brooklyn, probably a nice area of it, and most likely spends a decent time in good areas of NYC and so yes, she probably is a little removed from the struggles. I don't know what she normally writes about...

Anyway... I'm up way past my bedtime, good thing tomorrow is a holiday. :)

[EdMaven]

74. they're judging her for being a fraud, not for how she spends her money.

[JVS]

83. I'm startled that one could even find a $10 loaf of bread. I've seen maybe 4 or 5 euros but that...

was for a whole kilogram loaf at a train station bakery, and those places tend to be expensive. For $10 it better be something like a 5 lb loaf.

[Chan790]

101. Zaro's...which is only slightly-high-end for an NYC bakery says:

$38 for 6lbs of bread...that's $6-and-change/lb.

I have no idea how many euros that is though or how much 6# of bread is by volume or loaves.

[JVS]

102. You mean this

http://www.zaro.com/page/ZBB/PROD/homemade_breads/FNP

No shit it's expensive. It also isn't just bread. It includes a 2 lb babka (which is more or less a cake) and ruglach (which are pastries).

Buying that as your normal source for bread would be like getting all your cheese from the Swiss Colony catalogue, or all your sandwich meat from the Honeybaked Ham company.

[Chan790]

98. Actually it's not conspicuous for that market...

which is what I've been trying to explain.

That's what it costs there. It's why I no longer live there.

[treestar]

80. Also, wondering about the $10 loaf

What if she bought it from a local business? Even a high end one. That's not the "corporations" that make huge profits selling stuff like Wonder Bread. The $10 loaf might be baked right on the premises locally - and yet we often see DU criticizing people for going to Wal-Mart. The huge corporations can sell for less, and that's how they get so rich.

[XemaSab]

96. Loaves at the farmer's market here

are $5 for organic, whole-grain bread that came out of the oven 2 hours earlier. :shrug:

[treestar]

125. They're talking NYC

But anyway my point being - if you buy really expensive bread that came out of the oven recently over something packaged in China - that should be a good thing.

[Chan790]

95. I regularly pay $2-3 off the day-old rack.

I only buy the fresh stuff for "company".

A bakery loaf of sliced bread that contains no chemicals or preservatives here in DC would cost you more than $6 and $10 is not unreasonable depending on what you were looking for.

[Chan790]

94. How much does a freelance writer make?

That's a good question as the numbers will vary greatly-based on talent level, diligence, how often you write, what you write about, where you live and several other factors that I can't even brainstorm at this moment. I can answer for me and I encourage others to post theirs too.

This year, I have made thus far $16K (actually $30K if you include the $14K I made from the bank before I was fired for not disclosing that I'm a writer...and whistle-blowing.) but the following are also factors:
-I usually keep a second job because writing pay is notoriously uneven and for benefits. (Most recently, I was a licensed business banker and FA, working on the teller line.)
-It's eminently possible to make $4K in one month and not earn another paycheck for weeks or months.
-I'm also allowed UI from the bank because the termination was illegal and that's supplying $268/wk. minus any earned writing pay for 28 weeks.

The most I ever made writing was $29K in a year. I have a screenplay that was picked-up off treatment for $120K pending completion by May 2012...but as I have not yet finished it, I don't get paid until I do.

[XemaSab]

99. I think knowing what her ex-husband does

is the missing detail here. I doubt she was able to support herself being a freelance writer.

[JVS]

123. Speaking of the ex-husband, does she get child support?

The hit or miss income of a freelance writer is a little less hard when there is a regular check coming to see that her kids are kept in the manner to which they had become accustomed (which was pretty good to hear her tell it)

[shanti]

103. $100,000 kitchen remodel?

not poor. sorry, but i have no pity.

[Whisp]

117. I don't get it either.

some people are just chompin at the bit to snarl at any fucking thing, it seems.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. If she hadn't gone hippie punching in the first sentence, I might have been more sympathetic.

:shrug:

[cui bono]

28. She didn't. She simply said that's not her choice of life style.

Just as I would never join a sorority or eat at McDonald's or have kids. If I say I'm not one to do any of those it doesn't mean I'm slamming them. Everyone is different and has different tastes. Because they say they wouldn't want to live a certain way doesn't mean they are "punching" those that do.

[Safetykitten]

26. I had no idea Gwyneth Paltrow lived in Brooklyn.

[provis99]

27. completely made up shit.

Probably read a similar article in some Better Homes magazine, and plagarized the idea.

[cui bono]

31. Why do you say that? n/t

[EdMaven]

33. There was a similar article I read recently. Also about a yupster with

money problems who started growing her own food to save money.

Then she started a foundation to send seeds to other yuppies for free. And started soliciting for donations to her foundation. Which would pay her a nice tax-free salary.

Got national coverage for that brilliant scamming idea.

The whole country runs on scams. We don't actually do anything anymore, we just run con games on each other.

[cui bono]

36. So now she's a scam artist.

What the fuck is wrong with this place?

Seems to me everyone on this thread must have an interest in keeping her buying corporate processed and packaged foods or something.

Why would someone becoming self-sustainable, or very close to it, warrant such a response? Unbelievable.

[LeftyMom]

37. She got paid for an article about having a backyard garden, with no useful information.

I wish my grandmother had known that was worth dislocating your shoulder patting yourself on the back over, she could have written about canning her garden output and reusing breadbags, and the NYT would have granted her sainthood.

Aside from the fact that none of the details of this article support the narrative (and that most of them seem fishy) having a backyard garden isn't really special or exciting. Writing badly about your trust fund hobby and portraying yourself as some starving economy-victim is kinda scammy. And watch, she'll spin the attention into a book about growing arugula in rusty coffee cans, and all the hipsters will buy it. She's not unemployed, she's a writer with an angle working on a book and scamming publicity from the NYT, I'd bet money.

[cui bono]

41. I think it is a little special and exciting. If everyone did it we'd lessen our carbon

footprint substantially.

And again, what does her getting paid for doing her job, being a freelance writer, have to do with your grandmother? What is all this resentment about? Paul Simon once said a lot of African-Americans resented him making his album... I forget the name of it (Graceland?), the one that used African musicians on it. What right did he have doing that as a white man. He said something like well no one else did it. Does that make it wrong that he did it? Any AA musician could have done it but they didn't. A lot of people could have done a lot of things if they had just done them. Your grandma didn't write that article. What does that have to do with it? And what's with the sainthood crack? Where did she get "granted sainthood"?

Lots of bitterness here because someone has a backyard, grows food in it and wrote an article about it and got paid for that article.

Weird. We should be encouraging everyone to have a food garden in their yards, or window boxes, or where ever they can and not be bitter and resentful that she was able to afford to buy her home at one point in time. Assuming she bought it, she may be renting, can't remember if the article made that clear.

[LeftyMom]

42. There are two big problems with the article: first is that the premise is false, and second is that

the details don't support the premise. The author states she's not a hipster when she obviously is. She says she's broke when she's obviously not. She's presenting herself as having gained expertise on eating well on a budget when she's still spending more on food than is anywhere near frugal.

The second major objection is that the details sound either badly thought out or made up. Why would a family of five need twenty chickens worth of eggs, or would their yard possibly have room for so many? Since when does oil clean hair, and on what planet is it cheaper than shampoo? Balsamic vinegar isn't cheaper than good enough to cook with red wine on this or any planet. Where on earth would one find $14 granola and $10 bread, let alone base one's food budget around them? The details are sooo laughably goofy that it's obvious the author is as qualified to talk about eating well on a budget as I am about flood control in Bangladesh. Maybe less, I read a National Geographic article once.

[cui bono]

46. But the OP called her a One Percenter. How far off is that?

I don't see where you get that she obviously is a hipster. She never said she was broke, she said "tenuous and unpredictable income". Quite different.

I don't know why she has 20 chickens. I think she said she started with 4 so maybe a stray rooster got in the yard and they reproduced and she doesn't have the heart to kill them and eat them? ;)

She said she used diluted balsamic vinegar mixed with other stuff, and doesn't use pure olive oil to wash her hair, it's mixed with Castille. I don't know how much that costs. So maybe she is still spending more than other people do, but if she is spending less than what she used to and writes about how she is doing it, is that so terrible?

And btw... I'm working in NYC for a few months and it's VERY easy to find $14 granola. It's more expensive here than in Los Angeles, that's for sure. Of course they do have Trader Joe's out here so she could've gotten cheaper granola, they have my favorite! But should we curse her for having had the good fortune to have been able to buy that when she's now needing to change her way of living due to decreased income?

[LeftyMom]

53. She's got a spread with room enough to farm in Brooklyn.

Presumably in some expensive hipsterfied neighborhood, because if it looks like a hipster and writes pretentious articles about local food like a hipster and has no regular gainful employment like a hipster, it's a hipster. She spent $100K on a kitchen remodel (it's in the Amazon reviews for her book, which sounds even more insufferable than the article.) She's wealthy. Maybe not 1% wealthy, but that's definitely getting pretty close. This sort of wealthy hipster asshole playacting at genteel poverty crap is fucking insulting to people who've ever actually had to stretch their food budget in any significant way.

Castile is just olive oil soap. It's not cheap. Mixing it with olive oil doesn't make shampoo, it just makes two things that will build up and make a mess of your hair, both of which cost more than shampoo.

[cui bono]

57. So you excuse the OP calling her a One Percenter even though that is waaaaaaaay off

but she doesn't get a pass at all, for anything? And even gets labeled by your presumptions? And given less than zero compassion from you because she was successful and has had to adjust due to an income drop?

So how about if we put your terms to health and sickness? So if a perfectly healthy person falls ill do they deserve less compassion than someone who was already disabled? Or do they not deserve any compassion from someone who is disabled? How dare they try to adapt to losing a limb when for their whole life they had all four? Kind of ridiculous don't you think?

And I think you're wrong about the shampoo. Someone posted a link to a recipe.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2088308&mesg_id=2088747

[LeftyMom]

61. Do you know this crazy hipster or something?

Admit it, you guys eat at the same bicycle powered cupcake cart.

[canetoad]

48. Well, here's the recipe

Shampoo

In a blender, blend together a half cup of liquid castile soap with a beaten egg, 1 teaspoon of olive oil, and a teaspoon of lemon juice. Whip until smooth. Use immediately and follow with a hair rinse. Put any leftovers into the refrigerator and use the next day.
http://ecobites.com/eco-news-articles/holistic-beauty/359-diy-shampoo-recipes

I haven't used it, so don't know how effective it is. Found by Googling.

[LeftyMom]

58. Okay, I just did the math.

A gallon of Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap is $50.06 on Amazon. If DIY shampoo uses half a cup and expires in one day, that's sixty eight cents a day for castile soap for hair washing, plus the olive oil, egg and lemon. Assuming her eggs are free (which of course they're not, the chickens need feed and various upkeep expenses) figure seventy five cents a day. Organic shampoo is $49.92 a gallon on Amazon. It's the brand I use, so I know it doesn't take a quarter cup a day to wash hair, but it's cheaper even if you assume the same daily volume used, at $0.39 oz . She'd come out miles ahead by just using fancy, expensive shampoo instead of putting a slumber party prank on her head.

Every specific detail about her faux-frugal, back-to-the-enormously-expensive-land experience makes that little sense.

[Marrah_G]

87. You can make Castile soap with non virgin olive oil, lye and water.

I pay 25 dollars a gallon for my Castile soap and I use it to make non toxic cleaners and bath products. I haven't tried making the Castile myself yet, but I plan to.

You can make lots of cleaners out of cheap kitchen products.

20 chickens is alot of eggs.... either she is giving them away or they really like eggs....

[sammytko]

127. she should just use baking soda followed by a vinegar rinse

leaves your hair shiny and clean. No vinegar smell. coud add some lavendar oil to the vinegar.

[JVS]

86. I hate to defend the author, but a few points.

1. The definition of hipster is flexible, although I am personally inclined to agree with your judgement over hers.

2. I don't know how this happened, but somewhere along the line broke stopped meaning "I don't have a bit of money" to "After taking care of all my needs (and maybe some luxuries) and tucking away some money for retirement, I don't have any money left over".

3. A lavish budget is still a budget, although I see no reason for any reader to give a shit.

4. Balsamic vinegar probably is a way to save money because when you cook with wine you're popping open at least a $7 bottle of Gallo and committing yourself to its consumption, a little bit of balsamic vinegar goes a long way and you only have to use the little bit that you need. So although it costs several times as much as the wine, it can also be used several times.

[XemaSab]

45. I've tried to grow all my own food before

Unless you're really, really, really gifted at it, it's a good way to grow some $10 tomatoes. I have learned this the hard way.

Also, I resent her slam against peasants. x(

[cui bono]

49. My bro and his friend grow all sorts of stuff in their yards.

I'm about to start it myself. Hoping to get a few neighbors involved since I have the yard and they have more time then we can split what we grow.

I didn't take her comment as a slam against peasants, she's simply saying why not do it if they could then she can. I don't see what's wrong with that.

Why did you call her a One Percenter? She clearly isn't one.

[XemaSab]

54. As I said upthread, spending $100,000 on a kitchen remodel

makes her a one percenter.

[cui bono]

59. OMG.. no it doesn't. Not even close. You must not live in a big city.

And you must not realize how the One Percenters live.

Besides, spending money on your dwelling, when done right, is not a total "loss". You should recoup at least 80%, sometimes even make a "profit", due to adding value to your home. For all you know that kitchen hadn't been redone at all. If you've ever seen how some of these places in NYC were before being renovated you understand.

[EdMaven]

70. anyone who can spend $100K on a kitchen remodel has more money

than the vast majority of americans, whether they live in nyc or podunksville.

Only 15% of households (2005) even *make* $100K or more.

Whether she recoups it when she sells the place is irrelevant. She has a *lot* of money compared even to nyc residents in general, & she's playing at being a poor farmer, or worse, lying about it.

Those who don't get this from sentence two have never been anywhere near a farm or a garden & have never been anywhere near "broke".

[yoyossarian]

120. No, you're totally wrong. 100K for a kitchen remodel is something only the WEALTHY can afford.

And btw, I've lived in a big city. I lived in SF about 3 years ago, and in the final 6 months all the bread was FREE... cuz I was homeless, and just took it from the garbage bins on Stockton like lots of other "bums" did.

The bakery there threw away about a ton of it EVERY DAY... thank god they didn't go and get those fancy new locking bins. They knew they were feeding the homeless, but they were cool that way.

See, the point is not that this woman should drown in olive oil or anything like that. No one's telling her how to spend her hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It's just that she's actually QUITE rich, yet has NO IDEA that she's rich, cuz she's never been down in the dumps, let alone the dumpsters, like some of US.

Let me make this clear: I'm NOT mad at her personally. I'm mad at her blithe ignorance of what so many of us are experiencing right now. I'm mad at how insulated struggling yuppies can be from real struggle, that they can write and publish a piece like this without a clue as to how it seems a slap in the face to so MANY people out there who can't afford 100K for a house, let alone a kitchen.

I can't afford a house. Hell, I can't afford a kitchen. And I sure as shit can't farm in a cheap apartment or hotel room. Nowhere to keep my chickens, don't ya know?

Which I haven't been able to feed in some time, so they're all dead anyway... so I guess it's a moot point.

Fuck it. Everyone's been trying to explain this to you over the entirety of this HUGE thread, and you just keep asking us why we hate her and America so much. You MUST be pretty well-off yourself, and I suspect you know that this is so, but don't want to admit it... at least that's my best guess.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe you're pretty lower-middle-class, but just really really REALLY nice, and can't find it in your heart to begrudge the rich a nice 100K kitchen remodel now and again, no matter how out-of-reach that would be to you personally.

Believe it or not, I'm pretty nice myself... but boy, sometimes I just gotta draw the line SOMEWHERE.

Okay, nuff said. I gotta go milk the mutant mice that I cohabitate with, anyway. I like milk with my pie.


http://dogknob.com/2011/10/09/the-sad-lil-economic-pie/">Sad Lil' Economic Pie

Oh shit... that's not much pie... isn't there ANYTHING to eat around here?



Self-cannibalism: It's what's for dinner.

[JVS]

122. We have expensive remodeling outside of the big city too. It's something that rich people do.

[EdMaven]

75. this year i got lots of tomatoes and potatoes but about 6 beans.

last year was the opposite.

you can always grow something, but it ain't dependable unless you put some money into it.

[Jamastiene]

52. No one is really complaining about growing your own food.

It's the extremely expensive supposed "bargains" she is using. She doesn't even need half the shit she is saying she uses to cook with.

And I don't care if she wants to wash her hair in olive oil and bathe in it too. It seems ridiculous to me, but whatever floats her boat. That still doesn't mean she is anywhere near where the majority of us are financially to be offering any sort of "frugal living" advice. That's the whole point. The majority of us cannot relate to someone who is that well off that they see how they are living NOW as opposed to before as somehow scraping by. Scraping by is a whole 'nother animal than what she is doing.

[FloridaJudy]

67. And most poor people in urban areas don't have room

For a garden. Try growing your own tomatoes when you live in a high rise in Harlem. I have a minuscule sunny plot in front of my apartment where I might try it next spring, but one can't live by tomatoes alone. And I can just imagine what my landlord would say if I tried to raise chickens!

She's playing at being poor the same way French aristocrats played at being milkmaids or shepherds at Versaille. And the crack about peasants? Tacky. Really tacky.

[Jamastiene]

68. You are right.

You might can have a few veggies on the side. Plus, it is super fun to grow them. It takes a lot of space and a lot of work to grow enough to live off of without still having to go grocery store.

My favorite thing to grow was always potatoes. Back then, we had plenty of land and plenty of pine trees. I layered the potatoes as they grew with a layer of pine straw and a layer of compost. In a city environment, I'm not sure what I would attempt to grow. The potatoes would not work because they grow underground.

Most likely, you can grow a salad or two. If you aim for that, you might be successful.

Yes, the peasants comment was way out of line. Very tacky.

[FloridaJudy]

121. My grandfather really WAS a peasant

He fled his landlord's estate during the Russian Revolution: slavery had been abolished several decades before, but people were still pretty much stuck where they were born and were slaves in all but name. He couldn't make a go of farming, and he was one of the smartest, most hard-working people I've ever known. He somehow managed to teach himself how to read and write in both English and Russian within a few years of arriving in the US, no easy trick for someone pushing forty.

So I get more than a little bent out of shape when people describe something as so easy a peasant could do it. I'd really like to see those nit-wits try to survive the conditions the average serf or share-cropped has to contend with! I've nothing against people who try to grow their own food - more power to them! But it's not as easy as one would think. My mother and grandmother got pretty good at it, but it took a lot of trial and error.

And my grandmother raised ducks, not chickens. She claimed they were easier, and had the advantage that they would eat garden pests, like snails.

[JVS]

104. Actually, I'd say it's even less a matter of room and a matter of not having control over the space.

Anywhere you'd be able to garden is likely to be under the authority of the landlord, and the landlord isn't going to have you tearing up his little courtyard area (shitty as it might be) to put in a row of squash.

[marions ghost]

79. YUK

:puke:

I want to know what happens to her when she and her kids get sick, or a few years from now if she develops a disease needing extensive treatment. This noble new "lifestyle"'s gonna get real old.

Hope she gets back to us a decade from now. :eyes:

[mod mom]

82. "A One Percenter Feels the Pinch"? Where does it say she's a 1%er?

[mainer]

84. Wow. Some of the comments here reveal the worst side of DU.

I don't know if the article is BS or not, but I think the article is pretty inspiring and thought-provoking. Here in Maine I know many people who live this way -- with a few chickens for eggs, greens from the garden, and and tons and tons of tomatoes put away for the winter. Some of them are struggling, some of them just like living off the land. The fact that she could once afford ready-made bread and store-bought granola does not make her a target for ridicule. How far down the economic scale must one be before one gains the respect of DU? If buying premixed granola is a reason to call her disgustingly rich, then what else marks one as part of the filthy 1 percent? Owning a car? Having two flush toilets? Because, compared with the rest of the world, that DOES make one part of the filthy 10 percent at least.

[rdking647]

85. i love how some du'ers

think that if someone isnt poverty stricken then they are somehow not worthy of anything. well guess what.. the middle 70% are the ones that matter most.. while everyone is important (even the 1%) its teh middle 70% that are the vast majority..

Just like catering to the top echelon is wrong so is catering to the bottom 10%

[JVS]

100. Why is the middle 70% so important and what would be so wrong with some catering to the bottom 10%?

[rdking647]

105. we shouldnt cater to the bottom 10% any more than we should cater to the top 10%

[JVS]

106. Why not?

Explain how helping the poorest needs to take a backseat to helping the middle

[Marrah_G]

129. Cater to? You do understand how poor the bottom 10% are right?

You don't think that means we should try to help them more? Your posts in this thread are really confusing.

[eShirl]

91. Hey, I'm not ridiculing her. I chuckle because it's kind of cute; it's not going to hurt her.

[Quantess]

97. Good for her.

Not really a lot to criticize.

[rug]

109. I lived in four of the five boroughs over 47 years and never had a garden.

The closest I came was a tree in front of the building that was covered in dog shit.

[hunter]

128. An affluent person's fantasy of what it's like to be poor...

"Flat broke" in the real world is couch surfing if you are single, or living in a run down "emergency shelter" weekly motel if you are a family with kids or a woman escaping domestic violence.

This article strikes a very sour note with me too.

I want to say, "Sure, give me a call when the bank kicks you out of your house, you have medical bills you can't pay, you are living in a one room apartment with your kids and your sister and her freak boyfriend and your bathroom door is an old blanket, you cook with mystery off-brand "vegetable oil" bought with food stamps, and use even scarier dollar store radioactive green shampoo... and you are thinking that oil and shampoo are a treat.