Lori Alexander 46: She Sure Is Highly Edumacated

[Krissy]

16 minutes ago, Chocolatedefrauded said:

Friends have asked to borrow my husband’s new chainsaw. He wanted to use it since it is so new therefore he went over to their house & did the cutting himself. They thanked him for his work with a home cooked lobster dinner. It was a win-win. He got to practice using it, ate a great dinner & made sure his new equipment did not get damaged. They got a chainsaw & free labor. Kind of a country trade.

Those friends have housesit for us and helped us in other ways so my husband would have helped them out even without a nice dinner. But you can’t keep borrowing equipment without reciprocating somehow.

Our neighbor is an animal fanatic, especially puppies so she just jumps at the opportunity to dog sit for us. I usually quietly give her a gift card in exchange even though I know she does it for free for everyone else because it’s something she enjoys. But even with that I feel bad asking so I alternate between her and a kennel. 

I would totally do a lobster dinner for someone chainsawing the tree growing up the side of our house. 

All of this is different than what I think Lori is recommending though. It’s not suppose to be a take take take relationship with the people you live by.

[AlwaysDiscerning]

@KoalaTotally agree on the cobbler. 

Here is an article on point. 

https://www.quickenloans.com/blog/cost-repairing-shoes-buying

Average cost for repairing soles? $30-$80! HA, yup more frugal to buy new. And like you said, where do you even find a cobbler? Especially if you are living in a mobile home in the middle of nowhere. 

Speaking of which,  the image for her post today should have been a picture of a mobile home, not some cutesy vintage kitchen. 

 

[delphinium65]

17 minutes ago, Chocolatedefrauded said:

But you can’t keep borrowing equipment without reciprocating somehow.

Exactly.  With Lori it would almost certainly be one-sided, and she seems to expect her acolytes to do the same.  I remember reading the Tightwad Gazette years ago, specifically a discussion of tightwad ethics.  She covered putting expenses on others, like phoning one's mother in law when you know she's not home and leaving a message on her answering machine, so she has to pay for the long-distance phone call.  The author said that expecting someone else to pay for what you use is simply wrong.  I don't agree with everything in the TG, not by a long shot, but on this one I think she's right.  

[SongRed7]

1 hour ago, Koala said:

Now that I think about it, we don't have a single family member that lives in an area that allows chickens, and this is Alabama ffs. 

I don't know why but you made me LOL @Koala with that statement.   We are all going to hell in a chicken basket when you can even own a few cluckers in Alabama!! You made my day!!   

[AlwaysDiscerning]

This is a comment on IG. Again this sends the message that those who don't buy organic or can't AFFORD organic, don't have their husband's best interest in mind!! Infuriating. 

 

[Sobeknofret]

4 minutes ago, AlwaysDiscerning said:

This is a comment on IG. Again this sends the message that those who don't buy organic or can't AFFORD organic, don't have their husband's best interest in mind!! Infuriating. 

 

Although I do buy organic when I can afford it, especially dairy and meat, my husband wouldn't know organic if it walked up and bit him on the butt. He's got bigger things to worry about than if that apple he ate is organic or not. 

[SuperNova]

5 minutes ago, AlwaysDiscerning said:

Speaking of which,  the image for her post today should have been a picture of a mobile home, not some cutesy vintage kitchen. 

I know Lori says she lived in a mobile home. In southern CA. Where the weather is nice. They are not cost effective anywhere! Unless its a brand new manufactured home, the insulation is shit. There's no attic to speak of so the sun's beating down on you all day. The AC in a mobile doesn't usually have duct work. There's guiding channels, super inefficient and wasteful. Because there's minimal insulation the AC will run all day without catching up. Same thing in the winter, the heat will run day and night. The mobile itself is a terrible investment. Period. It will never increase in value and because they're made more cheaply than a traditional foundation home, they often need repair. Speaking of repairs, mobiles need special treatment. Door sizes aren't usually standard, pipe sizes can be odd, the list goes on. Specialty parts (read as more expensive) have to be ordered. If you're in a mobile park, you pay space rent as well as a mortgage. And since your mobile will never increase in value and you don't own the land, you're upside-down in payments in no time! Yup, mobile homes are a great money saver. 

[Frog99]

3 minutes ago, AlwaysDiscerning said:

This is a comment on IG. Again this sends the message that those who don't buy organic or can't AFFORD organic, don't have their husband's best interest in mind!! Infuriating. 

 

I just saw that and honestly, I don’t think the cashier was offended by the statement. It’s more likely that the poster can’t read social cues or was expecting her comment to be received in that way and so that’s how she interpreted the cashier response. I think some of them go about their daily business in an attempt to create controversy and conflict where there is none. I cannot for the life of me think of anyone that would have issue with that- and I work in higher ed in a school of social work that employs feminist, socially active women. 

[EowynW]

one of the reasons today's post made me so mad is that my parents did all that. I know how to do it. It ain't easy. It sounds SIMPLE in today's world but it's harder than it ever has been now. 25 years ago when my parents moved their old mobile home to their te  acres of land, it was doable with a bit of help from my mom's parents. Today, just "buying an old mobile home and moving it" isn't nearly that simple. Especially with Trump's screwing up the industry that my husband works in. 

None of this is simple anymore. 

[Sobeknofret]

6 minutes ago, EowynW said:

one of the reasons today's post made me so mad is that my parents did all that. I know how to do it. It ain't easy. It sounds SIMPLE in today's world but it's harder than it ever has been now. 25 years ago when my parents moved their old mobile home to their te  acres of land, it was doable with a bit of help from my mom's parents. Today, just "buying an old mobile home and moving it" isn't nearly that simple. Especially with Trump's screwing up the industry that my husband works in. 

None of this is simple anymore. 

We considered doing the buying land and and mobile home thing years ago, and it was so expensive we abandoned the idea quickly. There was just no way we could afford to do it and still be able to eat.

[EowynW]

12 minutes ago, Sobeknofret said:

We considered doing the buying land and and mobile home thing years ago, and it was so expensive we abandoned the idea quickly. There was just no way we could afford to do it and still be able to eat.

We could afford the mortgage payments, they'd be cheaper than rent, but everything else on top of a down payment is just impossible. 

[polecat]

1 hour ago, Chocolatedefrauded said:

Friends have asked to borrow my husband’s new chainsaw. He wanted to use it since it is so new therefore he went over to their house & did the cutting himself. They thanked him for his work with a home cooked lobster dinner. It was a win-win. He got to practice using it, ate a great dinner & made sure his new equipment did not get damaged. They got a chainsaw & free labor. Kind of a country trade.

Those friends have housesit for us and helped us in other ways so my husband would have helped them out even without a nice dinner. But you can’t keep borrowing equipment without reciprocating somehow.

1

bbm -- Well, no, but that's what Lori and her imaginary friend "Nunya" are recommending. I don't know anyone who would object to loaning something to a neighbor or, as your DH did, going over and helping out themselves once in a while or even regularly, depending on the circumstances (say, an elderly or disabled person who lives alone and really needs help). But these people are expecting to never have to buy their own stuff but just keep borrowing on endlessly, over and over again, forever and ever, amen.

Imagine a neighborhood in which EVERYONE did this. From whom would they sponge?!

[Loveday]

1 hour ago, Koala said:

Lori's dumb is really showing with the whole "I would just try to own some chickens" bit (even the way she phrases that annoys me).  I live in a neighborhood with no HOA, and chickens are banned.  Same for my in-laws.  They live out in the country on a decent piece of land (also no HOA), and chickens are banned in their area as well.

Now that I think about it, we don't have a single family member that lives in an area that allows chickens, and this is Alabama ffs. 

As for the air conditioner, I am currently experiencing the joy of hot flashes.  Those old bats couldn't pry my central air conditioning out of my icy hands.  I've got the whole house at a tolerable 68 right now, and the ceiling fan running full blast.  Anything less, and I am 100% certain I would melt.  

That chicken comment  cracked me up. 

And we are AC sisters. 68 degrees, a fan on the floor next to my chair, kitchen ceiling fan running, and a big fan running in the living room. And I'm the only one home right now.   I'm mostly past the hot flash stage now, thankfully, but menopause did something permanent to my internal temperature gauge, so anything over 70 degrees just makes me sweaty and miserable. I'll economize somewhere else to pay for the AC, but if Lori thinks I, or anyone else in the sauna that is southeastern Virginia in the summertime, should do without it, she can kiss my nice, cool ass. 

[kpmom]

1 hour ago, SuperNova said:

I know Lori says she lived in a mobile home. In southern CA. Where the weather is nice.

And IIRC, the mobile home was given to them by one set of parents, it was only for a couple of years when they were newly married, and Lori has said she hated it and had only bad memories of it.  Ken, otoh, didn't mind it and had good memories of it.

I swear, this woman is so full of shit.

[PennySycamore]

@EowynW,  you mentioned knitting stuff to sell on Etsy a page or two back and as you know, good yarn ain't cheap!  Even acceptable, inexpensive yarn still costs something.  You gotta figure in your overhead.   

There's that classic I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel decide to bottle Lucy's salad dressing to make money. Ricky points out to them that they didn't factor in how much it would cost to make and ship.  They were actually losing money in the enterprise.

[Hisey]

1 hour ago, EowynW said:

one of the reasons today's post made me so mad is that my parents did all that. I know how to do it. It ain't easy. It sounds SIMPLE in today's world but it's harder than it ever has been now. 25 years ago when my parents moved their old mobile home to their te  acres of land, it was doable with a bit of help from my mom's parents. Today, just "buying an old mobile home and moving it" isn't nearly that simple. Especially with Trump's screwing up the industry that my husband works in. 

None of this is simple anymore. 

My husband's work colleague keeps a few dozen chickens. Once, he gave my husband 3 dozen eggs. My husband was very grateful and offered to pay him. His friend laughed and said that if he were going to charge my husband the true cost of the eggs, he'd have to charge hime $20/dozen. Later on, we got chickens ourselves and saw the truth of that statement.

[feministxtian]

51 minutes ago, Loveday said:

I'll economize somewhere else to pay for the AC, but if Lori thinks I, or anyone else in the sauna that is southeastern Virginia in the summertime, should do without it, she can kiss my nice, cool ass.

I grew up in SE Va. My parents didn't put central air in their house until right about the time my daughter was born. But, yeah, 99 degrees and 99% humidity SUCKS ASS. I actually think it's worse than dealing with 110 degrees here in the desert. 

Either way, either place, my ass ain't turning down the AC until October. I WILL be comfortable. Lori'd never survive in the desert in July/August...when it's so hot the devil goes back to hell to cool off! 

[Loveday]

3 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

I grew up in SE Va. My parents didn't put central air in their house until right about the time my daughter was born. But, yeah, 99 degrees and 99% humidity SUCKS ASS. I actually think it's worse than dealing with 110 degrees here in the desert. 

Either way, either place, my ass ain't turning down the AC until October. I WILL be comfortable. Lori'd never survive in the desert in July/August...when it's so hot the devil goes back to hell to cool off! 

We didn't get AC when I was growing up until I was in high school, and at that it was just a window unit in the living room and a small one in my parents' room. Unfortunately, the cool air never quite made it to my bedroom. And then I moved into an apartment with no AC (rent was super cheap, all I could afford). Let me tell ya, I so looked forward to going to work every day in the summertime! LOL

 

[ViolaSebastian]

The other critical piece that Lori and her buddy are missing is that all of that stuff takes a lot of time. So in addition to cooking three meals from scratch; taking care of, let's be generous, three to four very young children/babies; homeschooling the older kids; making a packed lunch for the head of the household; doing laundry and hanging it outside to dry; cleaning the house (used by a metric buttload of people); rubbing husband's feet and being joyfully available; running a small business out of your home; doing crafts to the aforementioned small business to sell and a bunch of other things Lori says I need to do but I have forgotten, I also have to keep a large garden, can/prepare the vegetables from that garden, go over to the neighbor's to ask to borrow their weed whacker AGAIN, and keep a bunch of farm animals. All while pregnant, because of course I'm going to be pregnant. Oh, and with no air conditioning in the summer.

Sign me right up for that! Not. JFC, pioneer women did less in a day.

[AlwaysDiscerning]

Lori comments again about how they lived in a trailer the first few years of married life and were very comfortable! Um yeah...the first few years maybe....add in 4 kids under 5, not so very comfty!! 

[Hisey]

1 hour ago, EowynW said:

We could afford the mortgage payments, they'd be cheaper than rent, but everything else on top of a down payment is just impossible. 

Honestly, if I were to do things over again, I'd rent for a long time. For us, it has been cheaper than home ownership. There are so many extras in home ownership.

OTOH, if I had to have a house, I would not pay cash even if I could spare the money. Fundies may lack the ability realize this, but giving up a big chunk of cash means you lose the chance to invest that cash. You also have less money for emergencies. When we bought our last house, we specifically chose to put down as little cash as possible, even if it meant paying more interest in the end. This method is not for every situation or everyone, but a mortgage is not the sort of thing that definitely good or bad. Fundies need to think outside the box a little.

[polecat]

33 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

I grew up in SE Va. My parents didn't put central air in their house until right about the time my daughter was born. But, yeah, 99 degrees and 99% humidity SUCKS ASS. I actually think it's worse than dealing with 110 degrees here in the desert. 

Either way, either place, my ass ain't turning down the AC until October. I WILL be comfortable. Lori'd never survive in the desert in July/August...when it's so hot the devil goes back to hell to cool off! 

No central air here, either. It can get pretty rough here when the temps top 100, but we can't put in CA because we have radiant heat (so no ductwork). Since we have a ranch, we have an industrial unit on each end of the house, which works surprisingly well. But still, super hot days can get warmer than I'd like inside. (Probably need to switch to ductless ac eventually, but that takes $$$. Actually, more like $$$$$$$$$$).

[EowynW]

56 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

@EowynW,  you mentioned knitting stuff to sell on Etsy a page or two back and as you know, good yarn ain't cheap!  Even acceptable, inexpensive yarn still costs something.  You gotta figure in your overhead.   

There's that classic I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel decide to bottle Lucy's salad dressing to make money. Ricky points out to them that they didn't factor in how much it would cost to make and ship.  They were actually losing money in the enterprise.

No it isn't. I wistfully eye the indie dyed stuff all the time. Sigh... right now though I'd settle for a set of knit picks interchangeable needles all of my needles are just old and clunky hand me downs. 

I was gifted some beautiful yarn that I've been working with right now. I am trying to finish my pair of socks but I keep wanting to start another shawl. It's hard to wear even fingering shawls too much in my state here in the summer, but there's something so comforting about the process of knitting and blocking them. Pretty soon I'm going to have shawls draped all over the living room at the rate things are going lol. 

[Sarah92]

Even in the Midwest where I'm at it can get hella hot and humid. It's actually been a bit cooler this week for which I'm grateful. But it would be killer (literally) without AC. My family lived in a double wide for a while and it always made us a bit nervous when tornado weather hit. so a mobile in the middle of nowhere with no basement? And potentially in a tornado area? No thank you. Heck even in northern Midwest that means winters where you're potentially stuck in the middle of a field with no way to get help if something goes wrong. Lori might come to Door County in the summer but can she survive a Door County, Wisconsin winter? In a mobile home, with one phone and a beat up junker of a car?

[Lgirlrocks]

6 hours ago, AuntKrazy said:

The AC thing also bothers me.  People have a variety of health needs and sometimes temperature control is critical to health and well-being.  It's supposed to be above 100 degrees here nearly all week.  We have to keep the AC on 78 during the day and 75 at night for me to be able to sleep since I had to have my thyroid removed.  I just can't physically acclimate like I did before.

My mom used to buy a gallon of whole milk at the same price as 2% and then add water to make it into 2 to 3 gallons depending on when we would be able to afford groceries again, and that is what we would use.

Not everyone has land to grow things.  Not everyone can save $100 a month - where it would take 10+ years to afford to buy a cheap parcel of land at current prices, and in 10 years it's going to be more expensive.  Growing vegetables in one's own yard in industrial areas has it's fair share of problems too - it may be one of the reasons for the tumors which prompted my thyroid surgery.  

There are ways to economize, and sharing helpful hints is great; however, expecting people to uniformly do each and every one in order to "be a keeper at home" and "homeschool" (without having any sort of college education!) - is designed to perpetuate a cycle of poverty.  I know a lot of couples who work 3 jobs between them and have an at home business on the side on weekends just in order to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.  They are also the people who brought me food when I had surgery, who delighted in taking turns cutting my parents lawn (in secret) when my dad was in the hospital for several months - my mother even had mums placed by her porch that fall (something she normally did herself), by the neighbors.  

We cannot withdraw from the community and expect our needs to be 1. known by others and 2. met by strangers/a church where everyone is in the same boat, but scattered miles away from one another.  There is a reason most of the world's population gathers in cities - and it has to do with the need to share resources.  Women should not be relegated to confinement a mobile home parked in the middle of no where, cut off from the rest of the world, with no running water, electricity, internet, or phone service to connect with the rest of the world.  My problem with Lori here is that she expects people to isolate themselves and still be taken care of by others with no connection nor awareness of their needs.  One has to be engaged in a community in order for the community to be aware and help.

 

I agree. When you have a support system life is better. When I was 10 or 11 my mom had a miscarriage that almost killed her. That night she was in the hospital our neighbor stayed the night at our house so my dad could be with my mom. The next night we stayed at a friends house. Without their help my mom would have been alone in a hospital bed. People from church took turns watching us kids so my mom could rest while my dad worked. We could have stayed home with her but it would have been too much. 

I don’t understand her hatred for an equal partnership. I like working and helping to make decisions in my relationship. I like that my money doesn’t just go to pay my expenses but it helps my hubby and I out. I like knowing that if something he’s doing is bothering me that I can talk to him. There is no power struggle for us. We talk things out and come to a decision together. And even though I work more than he does most weeks I still do most of the stuff around the house because I enjoy doing it.