Kris and I love our neighborhood. People are friendly and helpful, yet mostly mind their own business. It's a perfect combination. One of our favorite neighbors is the old guy next door. Let's call him John.

John is a 71-year-old retired shop teacher who lives in a modest ranch house on half an acre, the same house he's had for over forty years. He has an old barn filled with salvaged lumber, outdated appliances, and who knows what else. When he's around, he drives a junkie 25-year-old station wagon. But most of the time, he's not around.

He spends his winters in New Zealand helping friends on a dairy farm. His summers are spent fishing in Alaska. For a couple of months each year, he's home, puttering in the yard. Year-round, he rents his house to boarders. He leads a very active retirement.

The practical side of me loves wedding registries, and the values-driven side of me has grown to loathe them as brides and grooms seem ever bossier. Registries are nothing new, of course. We registered for gifts in 1973, and as a result received two lovely sets of china and ten place-settings of silver. Beyond that, it was open season: we received all sorts of gifts we had not designated. Most we used, a few we actively hated, and many we came to appreciate and even love over time. (Regifting hadn't been “invented” back then.). From the point of view of the brides and grooms, wedding registries have many upsides. But let's look at it from the perspective of the gift-giver.

Pros and Cons

The pros of a gift registry are:

• Efficiency. You can order the gift and you're done. The store ships it and you don't have to wrap it, schlep it, or even buy a card.
• The couple picks what they want, and you know your gift is to their taste, which is especially helpful if you hate shopping or don't know the couple well enough to key in to their life style. Easy. Done.

From my point of view, the negative list is more extensive:

I've been working at home for a month now. I like it. The first week was a little scary, but the past few weeks have been immensely productive. I've caught up on e-mail. I've conducted and given some interviews. And I've planned some posts for the future.

Most of my day is spent at my desk writing. The first few days were awful. My wrists hurt. I couldn't find the right chair height to match my keyboard and desk. Eventually I discovered a solution: move the keyboard from the keyboard tray to the desk and raise my seat so that I can use the entire desk surface to support my arms. But this created another problem. Apparently my legs are a little short. When I raised my seat to its maximum height — which is where it needs to be — my toes dangled a couple inches above the floor. I felt like a little boy.

Because an ergonomic office is vital for what I'm doing, I went to the nearby office supply store to buy a footrest. "Sure, we have those," the helpful salesman said. "Well, we have one model, anyhow," he added.

I Hate Ants.

At our old house, Kris and I were constantly at war with the little devils. Every time we suffered another invasion, every time they managed to find the pantry, every time they discovered the cat food, every time they ruined my chocolate chip cookies, I would berate them with colorful euphemisms.

Eventually, it got so bad that we had to bring in an exterminator. It seemed crazy to hire an exterminator to deal with little sugar ants, but nothing else we tried would work. So we plopped down $100 every three months to keep the ants under control. (It may not have been $100 for each visit — Kris thinks it could have been $300.) It didn't really help. After the exterminator visited, the ant problem would subside for a couple weeks, but then we'd be right back at war with them again.

Sad but true: the ants were one of the reasons I wanted to move out of that house. Continue reading...

This article was written by Karl Katzke.

Eating well is one of the small pleasures that I decided not to forego when I dug myself out of credit card debt. I'm a busy bachelor with an active social life and an absorbing job; I like food with a lot of flavor to it; and I live in a rural area without a lot of shopping or coupon options. These three things don't usually go hand-in-hand with eating well or cheaply.

To meet my financial goals, I had to keep my food budget under $100 per month — that's $25 a week to feed one or two people (since I often cook for dates and friends). It's been a challenge. Luckily, in Texas and many other states, there is no sales tax on unprepared foods. Using a few simple strategies I managed to meet my goal and then some. I didn't eat rice and beans for the entire month (unlike Morgan Spurlock), I don't waste time digging through supermarket circulars, and I don't spend hours in the kitchen every night. This is definitely the lazy man's approach to groceries on a budget.

In the Get Rich Slowly forums, DannyBoy has a question that I think many people face: "What can I do if my girlfriend isn't serious about money?" He writes:

I'm the sort of person who essentially looks into every area of his life to save, start investing, and be smart about money as much as possible. Do you think that somebody like myself, who cares so much about where his money goes, can be happy with a girlfriend who doesn't? Everything else between us is cool, fun, etc, But I don't want the money issue to turn me off her.

We're both young: I'm 19 and she's 23. She says she doesn't want to save for retirement because we could all die in a second, therefore it's a waste of time and money to save if the worst should come around. I don't really agree with this. I mean, chances are most of us will make it to retirement. (Unfortunately, some won't.) How do you think I should handle the situation?

Lately, I've been making rumblings about getting in shape again. I want to get fit slowly. The trick is figuring out how to do it. It took a lot of reading and a lot of trial and error to take control of my finances, but I've finally achieved a healthy attitude toward money. Now I hope to do the same with physical fitness. But where to start?

One approach would be to just throw money at the problem. I've been looking at fitness clubs, for example; they offer great exercise equipment and motivational classes all in one facility. But they cost more than a frugal fellow like me wants to pay. (Yes, I've looked into the YMCA and local community centers — there's nothing nearby.)

I've also been fighting the urge to purchase a new bicycle. The Redline 925 makes me drool, but do I really want to spend $800 on bike? What's wrong with the bike I already own?

Preparing for a baby doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Magazines and TV ads will tell you that you need to spend a fortune in preparation for your little darling's arrival, but it's simply not true. When my husband and I were expecting our first child, my husband was working at a small radio station and had a pretty small salary. I was a teaching assistant at our local special education preschool, and my paycheck was also pretty small. Here are some of the things I've learned about preparing for a baby when you don't have a lot of money.

Borrow things. Women love to share maternity and baby items. Don't buy a lot of things before you publicly announce that you're expecting, because once you make the big announcement, you're sure to get offers of gently used maternity clothes, baby clothes, and baby equipment....as well as lots of baby advice. I think it's a rite of passage for women to pass down their maternity clothes to other pregnant women. Take advantage of it.

Buy used. There are many stores that consign strictly baby and children's items. Consignment stores are great for stocking up on baby clothes and baby equipment. Since the owners are usually very strict about what they will accept for sale, the items you'll find in a consignment store are generally in excellent condition.

I don't like Valentine's Day — it fosters the notion that romance is something for special occasions. Worse, it's yet another commercial holiday filled with cards, chocolates, flowers, and gifts. I reject the idea that romance is only for special occasions, and I reject the idea that buying stuff somehow demonstrates affection.

I believe it's important for couples to find ways to express their love year-round. If you do choose to celebrate Valentine's Day, don't feel obligated to give a dozen roses and a card — there are plenty of low-cost ways to say "I love you". Here are just a few:

Love Letters

Instead of a card, write your partner a love letter. A mass-produced card isn't nearly as romantic as a hand-written note. I don't remember any of the cards that Kris has given me for Valentine's Day, but I do recall with fondness all the notes and letters I've received. It's a treat to sort through a pile of old papers and to stumble upon a note she wrote to me years ago.

We received a Costco coupon book in the mail today. Costco — a membership warehouse store — has very low prices and generally does not take coupons. A few times a year, though, they send out flyers with special discounts.

Kris flipped through the book first, clipping coupons for kleenex, cat litter, and ziploc bags. When she was finished, I picked it up to look for things she'd missed.

• On the first page, I nearly tore out a coupon for $6 off a ten-pack of toothbrushes.
• On the next page, I was drawn to a coupon for four pounds of jelly beans.
• Later in the book, I was tempted by a stainless steel slow cooker. ("We already have a slow cooker!" Kris muttered in exasperation when she edited this entry.)

"I've got to stop looking at this," I said, tossing the coupon book aside.