Try These Money Saving Tips

Enough with the stimuli and the bank stress tests. What we all need, and I think I speak for everyone here, is a weeks' rest from business. Post some guards along Wall Street and close that sucker down for a week so we can have a few minutes to feel safe and think about other things.
The merciless DOW had it's worst week in a while, jobless claims have been revised sharply higher. Do I have to keep caring?
Yes. Yes I do. Because the stock prices affect what will happen with my husband's job (and, indirectly, mine). They've done layoffs and buyouts before. But we know something more is coming. We just don't know what or when.
It's out there, like the creepy mist "destroyer" in the Ten Commandments. We huddle in fear, wondering if the moving finger will write our name on the wall. Oh, hold on. That's a different Bible story.
We talk about how we'd survive pay cuts, furloughs, even "the worst." We could cancel our contribution to the 401K, or cut off the cable TV. I make mental lists of things around the house that might get us some money on EBay. But I'm tired of dreaming up more ways to disappoint our daughter and make life less fun. I'd just like to be...excused. Please?

None of the "money saving tips" ever seems to help, either. Skip the lattes? Learn to cook and eat at home? Launder your own shirts? Please! That's about as helpful as telling me to fire all our servants and put the polo ponies to plow.

So--purely in an effort to cheer myself up--I've come up with a list of my own money saving tips that have a little more, shall we say, muscle.

1. Recipe for a lard sandwich: Two slices bread. Sugar. Lard. Take the lard and spread it on the bread. Sprinkle on some sugar. Top with second slice and eat. (Var. for Sunday. Add some cracklings)
This is something my grandmother, who lived through the Great Depression, spoke of often. And wistfully. (The idea for the Sunday sandwich is mine.)

2.Ditch harvesting. If you've already scrapped the expensive bag salads and are wondering how to bring down the price of greens even further, learn to forage for purslane, dandelion and nettles, which make excellent eating.
3.Shoe repair. Forget the expensive duct tape. Newspapers fill in the holes nicely. And--here's a plus--they'll help keep the industry alive until it figures out how to make money.

4.Car too expensive to drive and insure? Take heart. In the summer months, you can easily convert the undriven car into a solar cooker. If you don't want to go to the work and expense of building a solar oven out of cardboard and insulation (as we've done) the car could be the second oven you're looking for. If it'll cook your pets in the summer's heat, it'll probably cook that quiche.

5.Ever been frustrated that you have to throw out dryer lint? Surely it could be put to good use. At our house, we mix it with paraffin for fire starters. But this doesn't seem very imaginative. Could the lint be re spun into yarn a la Knitting with Dog Hair? There's a MacArthur grant waiting for someone to claim.

6.Use your exercise time to look for tools. No--not that kind. I mean the countless wrenches, sockets and screw drivers that bounce out of trucks every day. If you ride a bike often, you've seen them and perhaps even built up a little collection. Maybe you can sell them on EBay.

7.Weave rugs out of old bread bags. No I'm not kidding. My grandmother used to do this all the time. You ended up with a colorful braided rug to wipe your muddy farm shoes on, and then when it was destroyed, you didn't feel guilty about throwing it out. I can't figure out how it's done, though. Wait! Couldn't we also use the plastic bags newspapers come in?

Ok. There. I feel a little better. There are still ways I can cut my budget.
But just for good measure, I'm not listening to or reading any financial news until next week.