Kris called me down to the kitchen this morning to listen to This American Life. While she baked a molasses cake and canned applesauce, I sat at the table and took notes on the show, which featured four stories about people trying to get something for nothing.
Hands on a hard body
The first story was about a “free” truck. Each year, a car dealership in Longview, Texas gives away a vehicle in a one-of-a-kind contest. Twenty-four people stand around a pickup truck, touching it with at least one hand. They continue to touch the truck for a very long time. For days. The last person left touching the truck gets to drive it home. Sounds easy, huh? It’s not.
“What happens is you go slowly insane,” says contestant Benny Perkins, a past winner. “When you deprive your brain of rest, you start going slowly crazy.” He talks about hallucinations, about exhilaration, about the strain placed on [...]

It’s a holiday weekend in the United States. Many people are enjoying the last taste of summer before the school year begins. Things will be quiet around here until Tuesday as I take some time off to work around the house and relax with my family.
Meanwhile, here are some of the best stories from Get Rich Slowly in August:

August 4th: Dangerous norms: When a treat becomes a routine matter (a guest post from Trent at The Simple Dollar)
August 7th: Why I fought to save three bucks (and why you should too) (a guest post from Donna Freedman that sparked a lot of discussion)
August 12th: Cleaning house: When little messes become big problems
August 13th: Are high gas prices changing the way we drive?
August 14th: Earn quick cash by participating in medical research and marketing studies
August 20th: 8 tips for saving money on hobbies and pastimes
August 23rd: Marvelous magazine ads from 1904
August 25th: The psychology of happiness: [...]

During 2008, my wife and I are tracking how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for August.
The berry harvest continued this month at Rosings Park, our happy half acre south of Portland. Blackberry time is my favorite time of the year. And though August is often too hot for me, I’m willing to suffer the heat because I know it means the start of canning season. Sure enough, Kris has been putting up salsa and applesauce and all sorts of pickles and jams. Yum.
Also, much to Kris’ delight, we finally harvested tomatoes this week, an entire month behind schedule.

The dark side of gardening
Here’s one of the sad secrets of gardening: mid-summer can be frustrating. If you don’t stay on top of things, the garden can get away from you. Here’s an actual quote from Kris mid-month. We were on the couch watching Olympic diving when I transcribed the following [...]

I met with my accountant today to review the Get Rich Slowly business finances. Things are going well, but there are lots of little details that I need to work on. I’m a writer, not a bookkeeper, so some of this stuff is like Greek to me. I’m fortunate to have an accountant I trust. (”I trust him more than I trust myself,” I told somebody yesterday.) I feel like he’s looking out for my best interests.
Though I may not be good with QuickBooks, I know good personal finance stories when I see them. Here are some I’ve enjoyed recently:
In our recent discussion about how to win the lottery, commenter Starving Artist pointed to an old episode of the NPR program This American Life. In “Nice Work If You Can Get It“, we hear several stories of sudden fame, quick riches, and the downside of the dream job. The show covers NASA astronauts, the “PC [...]

Most of the questions I receive are from readers in their twenties and thirties. Many of them are just starting out in life. But money issues nag everyone. Donald wrote the other day with the sort of question most of us have not yet faced. He’s getting near retirement, but doesn’t have much saved. He just inherited a bunch of money, and he wants advice about what he should do with it.

I am 55 and my wife is 57. We have been married 30 years. I make about $55,000 a year. My job is high stress but secure. We are not spendthrifts really, but to date we have not done a good job of saving for retirement. 
We recently got an inheritance of $175,000. An earlier inheritance was wisely invested in a down payment when the housing market was very low, and now are in a home worth about $275,000 on which we owe $120,000.  We have about [...]

Disclaimer: After some strong feedback from GRS readers (and from my wife), I’ve made the rare move of heavily editing this article after publication. My hope is that the re-write makes it clear that I am not advocating all of these ideas. Yes, payday loans are on the list, but they’re at the bottom of the list. They’re the worst possible option for scaring up cash.
The September issue of Money features an article by Stephen Gandel and Donna Rosato in which they explore the best and worst ways to raise cash quickly. The authors looked at seventeen methods for finding money, and then ranked them from best to worst:
We talked to loan officers, financial planners, tax experts, even dealers in antiques to size up 17 ways you might scare up some greenbacks now. We took into account the short-term costs of each move (such as interest, taxes and penalty fees), the long-term effect on your [...]