Money Matters

"Money Matters" is the name of a regular column in SHM. I like the fact that "matters" can be read as a noun or a verb. That's the kind of thing editors find strangely exciting, which is why you won't usually find us at the best parties.

Anyway: the "Money Matters" column is one I'm especially interested in farming out. The article should be a minimum of 500 words -- don't worry about a maximum unless and until your word count starts nudging the five digits. It should be about, well, money matters -- either ways of saving money or making it.

Both the saving and the making should be tips and ideas that apply to families. They don't have to be about homeschooling per se. Many if not most homeschooling families are getting by on one income, so we are naturally interested in either spending less when possible, or making some while still being able to be at home with our families.

In the current issue, I wrote about a great site called Work At Home Mom Revolution:
 
http://workathomemomrevolution.blogspot.com
 
I subscribe to it, and every day in my mailbox I get either a hot tip on a work at home opportunity, a little article about saving money, or sometimes just a funny cartoon or nice recipe. The woman who writes it isn't a homeschooler, but it's still a site of strong interest to homeschoolers.

In another issue of SHM, I wrote a "Money Matters" column about cooking with our kids, especially from unprocessed ingredients that are low on the food chain, and included a couple of recipes for inexpensive but healthy and tasty meals.

This gives you some idea of the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Something to keep in mind, especially if you can't afford to subscribe to SHM, is that if I buy an article from you, you get a free copy of whatever issue your article appears in. Since I can't pay much, some writers take four-issue subscriptions in lieu of pay. I'm happy to offer a subscription for a usable article regardless of where you live, so if you're not in the U.S., writing a piece for SHM would be an especially economical way of wangling a subscription. Spread the word!

The reason that "Money Matters" is on my mind is I'm working on the column for the upcoming issue. I'm thinking of writing about another site I like, The Simple Dollar:
 
http://www.thesimpledollar.com
 
Every December, the guy who writes it posts about a charity he likes, and tells exactly why he likes it, so that if people are considering making charitable donations, they'll know of one more good place to support. This year it's a group called Jump for Joel:
 
http://www.jumpforjoel.org
 
It sounds like a terrific organization.

I like supporting worthwhile charities, especially during the holiday season. Last year at about this time, SHM (yes, it's all about us) had a "Money Matters" column about charities that are not only doing great work, but can make you feel good about giving even just a little money, if that's all you can afford, because their overhead is low and donations go right to work, as it were:
 
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/002/money_matters.html
 
So I'm not going all Scroogey on you.

But here's what I disagreed with in The Simple Dollar: the writer mentioned that he'd be giving several donations to his favorite charity in other people's names, as gifts.

I always felt a little guilty about how much I hate that practice until Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, a.k.a. The Writer I Want To Be If I Ever Grow Up, wrote about exactly this issue in her wonderful book Miss Manners Rescues Civilization. After a brief essay on the subject of the fact that "it is bad enough to brag about one's philanthropies without doing it at the expense of others," Martin prints a letter she received from a woman who is a single mother. Money is incredibly tight for her, but she managed to scrape together enough to buy a coffeemaker for her sister at Christmas. Said sister sent the "gift" of the fact that she'd made a donation to the Humane Society in the mother and son's names. The mother was, to put it gently, not exactly touched by the gesture.
Miss Manners was on her side:
 
"Your sister is one of many people nowadays who try to claim double virtue for their philanthropy. It is generous of her to support an organization in which she believes. It would also be generous of her to give a Christmas present to her sister and nephew....If she makes only the one gesture, Miss Manners does not recognize her apparent belief that she has performed two acts of generosity."
 
Which was exactly what had been bugging me: the "two-fer" side of it.

I would applaud anyone who kept holiday gifts simple, inexpensive, and meaningful -- homemade is always lovely, since it shows that you offered up both thought and precious time to the person you care about -- and donated the money saved to a worthwhile charity. But people who take this route don't get to brag about it -- and yes, when you "give" the fact that you donated to a charity, that's what you're doing.

When I feel strongly about things, I don't always realize how warmly I'm speaking. And of course written words come across even more intensely than spoken ones.

So when I reread the comment I posted to The Simple Dollar in reply to the Jump for Joel column, I realized that I shouldn't be surprised that it's still under moderation and is, apparently, not jolly likely to be posted. Either the guy who runs the site is worried it'll be offensive, or he's offended himself.

I still like the guy and the work he does, and as I said, I've been a hothead too often in print to be surprised that, whoops, I did it again. Here's what I wrote, if you're interested:
 
I’m very grateful that you blogged about this charity, and have been enjoying reading your postings for several weeks, ever since someone on a homeschooling loop recommended them to me.
 
However, I strongly disagree with making donations to charities and then presenting that fact to friends to explain why they won’t be receiving a gift on a holiday.
 
Giving to a charity has nothing to do with the fact that it's traditional to give gifts to loved ones at certain times of the year. If a friend has mentioned a particular charity repeatedly and said wistfully that she wished she could make a sizable donation to them, doing so in her name would be a genuine gift, because it's something she wants. But that's what a gift is: thinking about someone you care about and figuring out what they'd like to receive. If your friends don't like getting gifts, that's a whole separate issue. “Giving” someone the fact that you donated to a charity is a non sequitur and smacks of self-righteousness to boot. “Oh, thanks. Um…I got you these socks with the little reindeer noses on them, 'cause we saw them once and you said how cute they were. I think I'll go home and feel like a jerk now.”
 
Give to good charities, and encourage other people to do so. Just don't try pulling a two-fer with it.
 
I'm now going to go clean my bathroom, edit my magazine, and renew my subscription to the publicly supported radio station I enjoy, all of which are good and necessary things to do and none of which get me off the hook for going to my mother-in-law's for Christmas.
 
End quote. Too strong, I agree.

But on the other hand, The Simple Dollar printed this comment on an earlier article without any apparent hesitation:
 
"I will always disagree with homeschooling because I feel that it insultes [sic] your children from the real world and causes them to have poor social skills. I have seen it in many kids and I would never do it myself. Plus I have faith in our government system that the teachers who are paid to teach our children will do a good job.

But I respect that it is your choice and good luck to you."
 
The Simple Dollar article to which it refers was about a woman who was expecting her first child and planning to homeschool. She had written in asking for advice about how to transition, financially and otherwise, from being a working-outside-the-home woman to being a homeschooling homemaker:
 
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/11/13/walking-away-to-be-a-stay-at-home-parent/
 
Like I said, I like the guy and I like his blog -- but I don't always agree with his editing choices.

I'm still going to buy his book, though -- 365 Ways To Live Cheap -- and write about him for "Money Matters." And I'm still hoping that maybe that'll be the last "Money Matters" column I have to write for SHM.

Hint, hint.