What our household has changed financially/economically over the past 12 months: We've cut back on organic and natural foods due to rising costs. We buy more generic brands. We drink more water (and less other stuff) and are buying cheaper wine (darn!) We bought a more fuel efficient car (needed one anyway but might have gone with an SUV if not for gas prices). We also put a temporary stop on our 401k contributions since our earnings went negative two quarters ago (and since we get a greater yield elsewhere, for now). And we thank our bless-ed stars that we are a two-income household with decent earnings such that we can probably weather the storm better than most.

(On the other hand, we don't think things are quite as dire as some in the MSM are making out - IF we can enact some smart economic and energy policy and improve consumer/investor confidence in the next 6 months. Which will definitely not happen if Obama is elected. And may not happen if McCain is elected. Hm. Maybe we ARE screwed...! LOL)

If your 401K is matched, you might want to look closer into the available funds. There might be something you can get into that wouldn't lose money. Because if it's matched, even break-even is a 100% return on your investment.

Just a thought.

By the way, consumer confidence will never improve during an election year, unless the MSM like the incumbent. It's impossible. The economy runs on rumors and expectations, and the media thinks its job is to make everything scary, which of course eventuates in a worse economy.

E!!,

The best time to invest in the market is when its in the hole, unless you have lost total confidence and think it will never recover. The power of dividends (ie those you reinvest) are also at there most enticing when stocks are down because you can get more shares of stocks you own on the cheap.

As far as what I am doing. Shopping for a fuel efficient car, to replace the old gas guzzler, going 100% fluorescent lighting, drying clothes the old fashion way...weather permitting, and just thinking smarter about how I use electricity. Since it is very expensive where I am at, compared to other parts of the country.

That and I am financially supporting the development of solar, wind and hydro power up here, because diversifying our mix of energy sources is the only way we are going solve the local mess we are in (heavy dependence on oil for electricity generation).

I immediately invested in the first company to get the preliminary go-ahead to seek building the first nuclear reactor in 3+ decades.....in March '07......and I know a geologist that drilled core-samples for months for them on their site and it's looking good and they are #1 on the list of getting a permit to build. YAY NUCLEAR ENERGY!!!!....."nukyular energy" for you country hicks.

I have not changed my life one whit other than not buying a certain spaghetti sauce any more. Matter of fact, my electricity kWh is up this summer 'cause I run my A/C full-bore when I'm home (4th floor, right below the black roof....gets damned hot up there without it) and I was on injury-leave for a few weeks across 2 billing periods.

Just blew $700+ on a new fly rod for no reason other than it felt better than one of my other ones......I will be donating my used rod to a local non-profit that teaches troubled urban teens how to get the frig outta the city and fly fish.

...but I DO love people I work with that commute from 30+ miles away all by themselves in their V-8 trucks and SUVs and then bitch to me about their rising costs of their solo commute but do nothing about it.

I just thought of another thing I changed. Now I do not catch and release all my fish as I used to. Now, instead of buying fish at the docks right off the boats......I catch and keep a big striper every week that gives me 3 or 4 meals worth.

That's stiper...not stripper....striped bass for you landlocked folk. Stripah in the Boston area.

...and up until this year, I hadn't kept a fish since I was a kid. I just enjoy catching 'em on a self-made fly.

But bad ole Bush and Big Oil is making me keep a fish a week just to survive without eating dog food.

THE HORROR!!!!!

"As far as what I am doing. Shopping for a fuel efficient car, to replace the old gas guzzler,"

That's actually not as easy as it looks, is it?

A lot of people are getting rid of SUVs and trucks and vans (for way less than they should get for them, by the way), so the lots are full of "great" deals on them, but the efficient cars are hard to find, as are motorcycles and scooters.

I did see something odd the other day, though. I was at Rural King, and there were a few moped-type things in the middle of the sales floor, and there was a customer trying to buy one (they didn't have any prices on or near them that I could see). But the sales clerk didn't know a single thing about them, couldn't answer a question, and didn't seem to want to find out, either. It was almost as though the clerk didn't actually want to sell any of them.

Could there be a conspiracy of the big-farm stores to keep us addicted to foreign oil? Hmmm.......

Oh, and speaking of AC, my kids hate me because I won't turn on the AC because it triples my electric bill. I grew up without air conditioning until I was in high school, and we didn't die. We suffered, but we didn't die.

That's what popsicles, ice, and fans are for.

Rural King?

Never heard of it.

If it's not too much to ask, what state do you live in?

"Rural King?"

Yep. Rural King. Sort of a farm supply and hardware type store in the Midwest.

"Never heard of it."

I bought vegetable seeds there this spring for ten cents a packet.

"If it's not too much to ask, what state do you live in?"

Indiana--where we stupidly let Evan Bayh survive to be vetted as a vice presidential candidate, when all we had to do was notice that someone (Dr. Marvin Scott) was running against him in 2004. Oops. That's what happens when an incumbent pretends to be unopposed.

Sorry about that.

Not too much to ask. I pretty much have it memorized by now. :-)

"I bought vegetable seeds there this spring for ten cents a packet."

That's awesome!

Once I get a house, (at this point, I guess I should say if) I want to have a big garden. Growing your own vegetables is challanging but worth it in the end.

In terms of being economical, well it doesn't get much better than producing your own food.

I thought I was making a shrewd move, living in the city of Chicago, only 3 miles from downtown, where the jobs are, but where did I end up working? Out in the frickin' 'burbs. $50 a week in gas, thank goodness my little Honda is still running strong (and is paid for,) but the commute (especially going home) is 1 1/2-2 hours some days...so much for shrewd. Kerry, you made a comment on the other thread about the fluctuations in the cost of food, imagine this, we moved from Phoenix to Chicago and instantly the cost of food was 40% more, and then over the last year, the cost of food has went haywire, so the grocery bills I have now were just unimaginable to me a couple years ago. We do clip coupons, which helps a little, but not much...I try to keep my bitching to a minimum though, because my wife and I are very fortunate to have decent jobs and a way of life that, if not extravagant, is better than a lot of people get to enjoy. Even after a 9 month period where I wasn't working due to heart surgery recently. Sarge, Emeril sauce might be good, but nothing in a jar beats home-made sauce!! BAM!! SSE, I wish I could grow my own veggies, but brown thumbs run in the family.

Yikes, and if you're in Chicago I think your taxes go up about every other month, don't they?

Home-made sauce is the best, and home-made pizza is even better (plus you can put whatever you want on it. It always seemed unfair to me that you get charged for both pepperoni and onions as one ingredient, when they are wildly different in value.)

My 13-year old son has learned to make a lot of food for himself because he is such a picky eater that the rest of us wouldn't ever have anything different if we catered to him. His best thing is spaghetti. I was very pleased the other day when we were at Golden Corral after church and he didn't eat the spaghetti, and when I asked him why he said, "Mine is better."

My goal next month is to finish the school supply shopping without spending more than two dollars on any one item. It can be done, but I have to shop the ads and keep an eye out and go several places before I'm done. One week notebooks were on sale for five cents, the next one the office supply store had folders for a dime and binders for a quarter. I do a lot of shopping online before I leave the house. It's almost a game now--"Okay, kids--where's the best milk deal this week?"

And this year, because at least one of my kids is very good with money, I'm going to give them the money for lunch and let them buy the ingredients to make lunch if they want, and keep whatever they have leftover. My 11-year old is already watching the ads and scoping out Sam's to figure out what the best set of lunch food would be for the money.

TRF, just wondering (and you don't have to answer), were you on disability, and if so what do you think of that system?

Kerry,

No disability. The company I worked for got wind that I was going to be needing to take some time off for my ailment and "eliminated my position" Would have had a strong case for a lawsuit, actually, but thats not how I roll. We survived on savings and cost cutting (bitterness) and the fact that my wife is a saint. That was why, after being pretty active here, you didnt see me around for a while. My recovery was a long one. I did (reluctantly, for the first time in my 40 years) collect unemployment during the time that I was actively seeking work (post recovery)...It took about 2 months, and if you ask me, the system is fairly generous, all things considered, although without my wife's income, I probably would have been screwed. (Again, I will point out that she is a saint) So I have no experience with the disability system, and I hope that I never have to (All indications are that my heart ailments are fixed, thank goodness)

TRF,

Good to know everything seems copacetic. I hope you have insurance already, because it's tough to get after that kind of event, unless you have group through a job.

I asked because I already have familiarity with the food stamp, medicaid, and unemployment programs, but I've had very little experience with disability (my dad was on it, but at that time I didn't know much about any of this--and the way we handled the finances reflected that, unfortunately. He and I together made a fair number of mistakes just because we didn't know how the system worked. For example, he had to pay back $10,000 to the disability insurance--two months before he died--because both it and Social Security had been paying him. Since he didn't ask for either one to--the checks just came--that was a nasty surprise that I could have anticipated if I'd known how the system worked.)

Anyway, I'm always interested to know whether real-world things work the way they are supposed to, according to the training and education given about them. I learned the basics of disability in my insurance training, but I always wonder how these things actually work out.

And, yeah. I'm pretty sure you would have a pretty good case if you could prove they let you go in anticipation of paying health costs. I've known a lot of people done over by their employers--everything from sexual harassment to age discrimination. And for some reason, it's always the nice people who get cheated and do nothing about it--and the real creeps and liars who get rich over imagined slights. Sigh.

By the way, another thing we stopped doing was going to movies very often. In the summer, we can go to the drive-in and see two for $18 for all five of us and bring our own food. That's a good deal, so we do that. Otherwise, we gave up going out in favor of Netflix, which is cheaper than any of our local deals and allows us to have a ginormous number of movies every month.

There are also free kids' movies every week, and a lot of other free things around town. But I've learned to be wary of "free" festivals around the region; very often, free is just to look at things. Actually doing anything or eating anything turns out to be really pricey.

And SSE, don't be so impressed with the garden. As it turns out, I am not very good at that sort of thing, mostly because it involves a discerning eye that can spot the difference between a weed and a plant that I don't actually have. Last year, I planted a full garden, and ended up with about 3 dozen tomatos and a zucchini. This year, I have mostly grown weeds, because the weather turned cold early in the season and messed everything up, and I didn't know whether I should dig everything up or just wait and see.

So I have ended up buying vegetables this year.

I do have two very productive cherry trees. I wish I knew someone to sell the fruit to--last I looked, cherries were expensive to buy.

Oh, and we dropped our regular phone company for Vonage a while back. $30 a month, like clockwork. No restrictions, no long distance charges. Love it.

Has anyone heard about this gas bank idea?

http://www.wisebread.com/the-bank-of-gasoline-0

I wonder how well that actually works.

I'm excited to see this fun thread!

I grew up poor (some of you know I grew up in Robbins IL...if you google it, you'll see what I'm talking about) so not much has changed with my life style.

I have started researching making my own soap. I'm going to try it this weekend. Not that it's any more expensive than it was 12 months ago, It's just that my daughter has very sensitive skin and I've been ording handmade all natural soap from a wonderful lady in OH...I love her soap but I think I can do it too. Plus, I need a hobby.

I have started growing my own tomatos...I love fresh tomatos and the recent contamination scare was what I needed to help me get off my duff and just do it.

I have not traded in my SUV...It's paid for...it runs well...and I only work 3 miles from home and I can work from home whenever I want to. For the first time in my adult life my church, home and work are all within 3 miles of each other. $60 in gas will last me two weeks!

My husband and I are blessed to have decent paying jobs but we are trying to be wise with our money. I've amped up my savings and I cook and eat EVERYTHING that is in the fridg before I shop again. Yes, we eat a lot of mis-matched meals but it works.

I only buy food that is on sale. But that's really not anything new.

The biggest thing I've given up is Coach bags. I love Coach Purses. I have decided that I can only purchase 2 during 2008. I've already bought 1 and I'm saving my second purchase for when I go to the outlet mall.

I don't know if the economy has really changed anything about what I do or where I go. I think I'm trying to make better choices with my money.

TRF...I just don't like making tomato sauces much...gotta stew them babies all day to make a really good one and if I'm putting in THAT kinda energy I'm smokin' some pork.....but every once in a while I have a hankerin' for a tomato sauce, so I buy one.

I DO make a bolognese to die for...but that only takes 3 hours.

However, I'm growing a bunch of roma plum tomaters on my roof this year in addition to my cherry tomaters and some heirlooms.....so maybe I'll give it a try.

What a kick in the ass....move to the city and then get a job out of the city...that just blows. Good thing I'm in biotech and live in Cambridge, MA ....home of a bajillion biotech companies (even though I work 8 miles away on the other side of Boston).

Just out of curiosity, how many of us have an actual, written monthly budget, and how does it work for you? We have started doing that, and starting up it's kind of a mess, but I think it will work better later on. The tough part for me is remembering everything in advance that I know is coming.

And I was also wondering if any of you money-savers out there have a list of things that you need to do to a house year-by-year and how much those things can be expected to cost.

EAHD, we used to have a Ford Explorer, but I traded it for a van when I realized that 1) no matter what they claimed, MY Explorer was only getting about NINE miles to the gallon and 2) it wasn't really bigger on the inside than a regular car, and my three kids are big. (Of course, now they cram into the back of the Yaris, but they're also a little calmer now.) It was fun to drive, but I never really liked it all that much. And be careful not to hit anything--those things are horrifically expensive to fix.

Coach? Wow. My husband thinks I'm a spendthrift because I buy purses at Target and Walmart more than twice a year or so. (Men just don't get it--"How many do you need?" Just one--the right one. Which is never the right one once you start using it.)

Just out of curiosity, how many of us have an actual, written monthly budget, and how does it work for you?

While I don't have a written monthly budget to work off of, I DO track all my expenses in an XL spreadsheet in great detail....every penny made and spent is always accounted for.

I also trend my regular expenses month-month and year-year to see if there's any places where I can make improvements.

I also keep extensive fishing diaries so that maybe one day I'll write a book about the local Boston fisheries to pass on the info to others and put some coin in my pocket.

Sarge, The simmer time for tomato sauces can be cumbersome. I will say, however, the wait is worth it...We recently bought a new gas stove with a super simmer burner that is supposed to be even better than a slow cooker. I was skeptical until I simmered a tomato & meat sauce on it for 24 hours. It was to die for. The stuff freezes really well too, so I never have to buy sauce in a jar. Emiril does make a great garlic, lemon and rosemary marinade that I like to use sometimes, but for what it costs, I can made a reasonable facsimile on my own. Something tells me you probably have some kick ass fish recipes, Sarge. Or do you just grill 'em and slap some lemon juice on?

As for budgets, we are pretty bad about making/keeping them. We do use Microsoft Money to track our expenditures but we don't really use it to see where our money goes. I'm kind of scared to look!! (I spent HOW MUCH on beer last month??!! NO WAY!!)

EAHD, my wife is a recovering Coach purse addict, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that the withdrawal symptoms are nasty, but you CAN quit. (Although I did buy her a new one when I recovered from my heart thingy and got my new job - bye bye first paycheck!!)

Speaking of paychecks, I better get back to work.

Depends on what I catch, and I don't really eat fish I don't catch much...but it's all good this time of year.

Bluefish....smoke it with home-made fish-rub and a lemon-wine spray.

Striped bass....make sashimi and seaweed wraps the night I catch it...always...nothing like fresh sashimi from a still-quivering fish. Next night I'll take striper steaks to the grill with a blackening seasoning.....or a garlic lemon wine parsley marinade. Couple nights later I'll take a fat filet and bake it Thai-style with a sweet chili Thai-basil and lemongrass sauce.......or even a mussaman curry sauce.

I've even been known to go old-school New England with a striper...put the whole fish in a sea salt cacoon and the escaping steam makes a salt-shell that steams the fish....crack the shell open and eat. BUT, that takes a LOT of sea salt.

Flounder.....can't really screw up that fish, but I love to parchment-pouch cook 'em with a carrot-mustard-parsley puree.

Haddock.....baked with lemon butter all the way.

Cod......DEEP FRY.

Been doing all the cooking since I was 8 living with a single mother that worked odd hospital hours....8 and alone in the house.....nowadays that'd be a DSS neglect case.

Damn, now I'm hungry

I'm full of a Sarge's famous cheesecake I made last night for a co-worker's birthday today....sugar coma for a hypoglycemic like me.

Sarge, do you update your spreadsheet everyday? I guess I'm being lazy but it seems like a lot of work to keep track of every penny. I know I need to but I can't even keep track of my receipts.

Kerry, the next time your husband gives you a hard time about you buying a purse, take him to the coach website and let him see what you are not spending... I think it would be easier for me if they'd stop sending me those 25% coupons. I seem to think I "have to have it" when it's 25% off. The crazy thing is when I told myself I could only buy 2 in 2008 I felt sad...like I had to walk away from a relationship with my best friend. I'm pitiful...I know.

TRF, I know you wife was too happy to see that coach bag. A few year ago my husband bought me a bootleg coach as a gift...I was too mad. I hate bootlegs!

Oh, I installed a digital thermostat this past spring. It seems to be helping with my electric bill.

Digital thermostats kick ass...I conserved about 10% of my gas-heat usage there alone (in addition to tracking every penny, I also track my therms and kWh utility usage).....as do new windows and for those in COLD areas ....plastic on the inside of windows ...AND skylights. Overall, with new quality windows, the digi-thermostat...and plastic on all windows in the winter, I save about 30% (using 30% less therms) on my heating fuel usage.......of course warmer/colder winters also affect therms used.

No, I do not update my expendatures database every day.....I only spend $$$ on average 2 times a week (fill up tank, buy groceries for the week)...and I nearly NEVER use cash.....only if I absolutely have to...and that's about never. Think I've had the same $200 in my wallet for 3 months now and I've only broken one $20.

If you're serious about looking at your expendatures....track every penny for 3 months or longer and THEN go back and see what you spend on $1.88 coffee every workday morning.....going out to dinner 2X a week, etc...

Tonight, I'm blowing my July entertainment wad on the Sox-Yanks game.......$7.50 beer and all...Big Papi's back in the line-up.

Digital thermostats kick ass...I conserved about 10% of my gas-heat usage there alone (in addition to tracking every penny, I also track my therms and kWh utility usage).....as do new windows and for those in COLD areas ....plastic on the inside of windows ...AND skylights. Overall, with new quality windows, the digi-thermostat...and plastic on all windows in the winter, I save about 30% (using 30% less therms) on my heating fuel usage.......of course warmer/colder winters also affect therms used.

No, I do not update my expendatures database every day.....I only spend $$$ on average 2 times a week (fill up tank, buy groceries for the week)...and I nearly NEVER use cash.....only if I absolutely have to...and that's about never. Think I've had the same $200 in my wallet for 3 months now and I've only broken one $20.

If you're serious about looking at your expendatures....track every penny for 3 months or longer and THEN go back and see what you spend on $1.88 coffee every workday morning.....going out to dinner 2X a week, etc...

Tonight, I'm blowing my July entertainment wad on the Sox-Yanks game.......$7.50 beer and all...Big Papi's back in the line-up.

"Tonight, I'm blowing my July entertainment wad on the Sox-Yanks game.......$7.50 beer and all...Big Papi's back in the line-up."

It's going to be the game of the week!

Josh vs Joba should be interesting.

Enjoy it, I'll be watching from my sofa.

I'm blowing my July entertainment wad on the Neil Diamond concert tomorrow night.

Is it just me, or has the price of concerts and sporting events gotten completely out of control?

Wow, Niel Diamond. I would have thought everyone here too "cool" to like an oldie like him. (Don't look in my CD collection--honestly, Niel Diamond is just the tip of the iceberg. I don't have everything anymore, but back when there were records and tapes, I probably had every album in the top 20 about every two years from about 1977 (when I discovered the one-cent record/tape club) to 1989 (when I decided there was nothing left to listen to.)

Is it weird to have 11 and 13-year old boys that like Niel Diamond and the Talking Heads--and a 6-year old that turns everything into a rap song?

To get to the point, however, which is economizing--my husband's boss has suggested he work four ten-hour days rather than five eight-hour days. Anyone have any experience with that? Financially, it makes sense, but I don't know how hard it is to do that, when the commute is an hour each way on a ten-hour day.

Input? Advice? Warnings?

By the way, are we having fun yet? I've decided this thread will allow fun tangents, but not killjoy irrelevancies that depress everyone. Everybody okay with that?

And, TRF, stay tuned for my upcoming post on "Brother Hope and Change's Traveling Salvation Show."

How can anyone be too "cool" for Neil Diamond? He's a national treasure. Besides, my musical taste is all over the map (Meaning, its ALL bad ;))

Kerry, If your hubby can do the four x ten schedule, I would recommend it for a number of reasons. It saves gas (one less trip) gives him an extra day off, and also beneficial is that the 10 hour day is bound to take him out of one or both rush hour periods, making at least part of his commute a little smoother. I would love to have a schedule like that if I could get it. The 10 hour days might take some adjustment, but it shoudlnt be too bad once he gets used to it.

Kudos on the "fun" thread Kerry, and kudos to Some Fella for suggesting it (Sad that he is absent from the very thread he suggested...he must be away from his computer for a couple days or something)It's nice to find some things we can talk about without partisanship.

Of course you know, on the next thread we'll all be back to our snarky selves.

Kerry,

Neil Diamond was great.I think you would have appreciated the version of "Brother Love's Salvation Show" that he ended the concert with. Very well done. The man is older than dirt, but he can still bring the rock.

I'd KILL for a 10 hour day 4 day week. I'm up at 6 and at work by 7 anyway....leaving at 5 instead of 3:30-ish is no problem....and I'd get another whole day to fish.

TRF,

There is a lot of buzz in the Christian community with rumors that Neil Diamond has converted, largely due to the seemingly Christian lyrics of his new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace." Any hints from the live show?

Sarge,

Actually both our county offices and our county public school system are toying with going to a 4-day week, though I have not heard any more detail than that. I can see that being a problem for many, though. I can't imagine being a single mom barely getting ahead suddenly having a whole extra day when someone has to watch the kids.

It seems to me that a day off will only work well overall if it is the same day for everyone--the way Sunday used to be. If your day off is Monday, and your kids' school is off on Friday, and the county office you need to do business with is off on your day, then it becomes just a mess. Not to mention keeping track of who is closed a whole day and which day it is.

I can see it for individual situations, but for customer-service-based industries, I would think it would cause more problems than it would solve.

So I saw this ad for Arm and Hammer Essentails cleaner in the re-usable bottle. Any reviews?

Kerry,

I think its entirely possible, though he never name checks Jesus specifically, he sang a lot about God, and a lot of his stuff had a gospel flair. But then again, he has always sang about God and spirituality quite a bit. "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" for example, where he sings about "reaching out for the man upstairs, 'cause thats what hes there for" Seems to me that he has always been a deeply religious man, but I couldnt tell from his banter or lyrics what religion he is practicing. Looking at the lyrics to "Pretty Amazing Grace" , it certainly seems to be about going through that "born again" experience that you Christians do, so who knows?

TRF,

Well, it's an interesting question (or intriguing, at least), because Neil has always been a pretty devout Jew, and no one seems to have any concrete evidence that he's ever converted--but his lyrics sound Christian to an awful lot of Christians.

Ah, well, another mystery of the faith! (or some faith, anyway.)

"As for budgets, we are pretty bad about making/keeping them. We do use Microsoft Money to track our expenditures but we don't really use it to see where our money goes. I'm kind of scared to look!! (I spent HOW MUCH on beer last month??!! NO WAY!!)"

I'm doing this class, and we're supposed to do a written budget. Now, I've always sort of done this, but it's always been on scattered pieces of paper (i.e., "Pay electric bill before 7/15-URGENT!") and rather flexible. This is more of a rule-based kind of thing, and I'm not doing well getting used to it. I did use Microsoft Money once, but I screwed it up so bad, I kept having to add "ghost" money to straighten things out, so I finally gave up.

As to how much do you spend on beer, I remember before my husband went back to school and we were living like normal people with 2 kids, and I thought, "Wow. When I was in grad school, I made twice as much money as we do now, and had 3 fewer people to feed--where did it all go?" But I know the answer. I never cooked, I economized on nothing. All my money went to pizza and beer.

One summer my friend Loretta and I would get paid the same night, and we would go to our regular bar, and every time we bought anything, we paid with a twenty. At the end of the night, we had all these loose bills--it always seemed fun, but the next day when we would count up, it always seemed like a lot less money than we thought we should have. (That was also the summer I wasted my money by having a discount at the hardware store I worked at--not to be confused with the summerS I wasted my money by having a discount at the BOOK store I worked at.)

But, really. Thousands of dollars on pizza and beer (and I didn't even always pay. We could usually get someone to buy our drinks, so I don't know--oh. And cigarettes. But cigarettes were, like a dollar a pack at the time. I caught sight of a cigarette sign the other day and about had a heart attack. Thank God I quit, or I'd be feeding my kids dirt by now.)

Wish I had all that money back, too.

Live and learn. Too bad I lived faster than I learned for an awfully long time.