May 14, 2009
I sometimes joke that I am going to make a fortune by publishing a financial newsletter. And the gimmick is this: Whatever I do, do the opposite, and you’re bound to make money. Silow-Carroll’s buying a house? Sell, sell! He’s putting his money into socially responsible mutual funds? It’s time to gobble up shares of tobacco and firearms — and opium, while you’re at it.
Of course, even my newsletter couldn’t have helped you in the past year, when everyone did the opposite of everyone else and still we all lost money. But I’m proud to be what an economist might call a lagging economic indicator. I may have no savings, but I have my contrarian streak.
And so, for the past few decades, while Americans were on a record consumer binge, I lived like a cheapskate. No, I didn’t save the last slivers of soap and then mash them into a recycled cake. I didn’t buy my clothes in consignment shops. But let’s say this: When I see all these articles about “The New Frugality,” I rarely find a suggestion I hadn’t taken to heart 20 years ago. Retire your credit card debt? I never had any. I’m what the credit industry calls a “freeloader” — I actually pay my bills at the end of the month. Skip the name brands at the supermarket and go with the generics? I’m already there, if you’ll overlook the breakfast cereals. (Children will accept vacations close to home, but they draw the line at things called “Marshmallow Mateys” and “Colonel Crisp.”)
So while our neighbors settled down in their “media rooms” before giant flat-screen televisions, we smugly gathered on the floor near our 25-year-old color television (which you know isn’t state-of-the-art because it actually says “color television” on the front). Oh, we had couches, but with a 24-inch screen, you want to skootch a little closer lest you miss anything, like facial expressions and the characters’ gender.
And I say smugly, because my wife and I just knew that while our neighbors may have driven late-model SUVs, taken vacations in Tuscany, and rested their beers on the roof of the Mets dugout, they were living lives of quiet desperation. Beneath their tans and their smiles, gathered around their aircraft carrier-sized dining room tables, they were miserable, weren’t they. Weren’t they?!
And if they weren’t miserable, they were headed for a fall. Just wait ’til those balloon mortgages came due, and the warranty ran out on the television, and their fancy hedge funds took a nose dive. Our quiet, conservatively invested nest egg would see us through the inevitable downturn. Then we’d be sitting pretty, snatching up their used plasma screens on Craigslist for a song, enjoying 30 Rock while eating Cap’n Crunch and sitting on our couches — yes, our couches.
But then the reckoning came, and — nothing. Our neighbors were miserable, sure, but so were we. Where was the great correction? Where was the payoff for years of thrift? It was like a grade school arithmetic problem gone awry: “If the Silow-Carrolls buy a three-bedroom house with a modest mortgage and the Yoknaplotzes buy a seven-bedroom McMansion under risky lending terms, who will be more comfortable come an economic freefall? Answer: Neither, but at least the Yoknaplotzes can draw on memories of the good times. The Silow-Carrolls must sip on the bitter gall of their miserliness.”
And suddenly, we’re all Silow-Carrolls. Time magazine runs a cover story on how “America Becomes Thrift Nation,” and the downsizing in the face of recession. “Sales of canning and freezing supplies rose 15 percent during the first three months of the year compared with the same period last year. Cough- and cold-remedy sales are down 9 percent because you can make your own chicken soup; vitamin sales are up, maybe because you hope you won’t need to.”
But don’t worry, there’s an upside: “A college-admissions officer, watching families reassess their means and ends, suggests that maybe the insane competitiveness will recede. The yoga instructor says living more simply relaxes us, as if the entire country needs to slow its breathing…. The discount shoppers view their task as a scavenger hunt and take a certain pride in finding the bargain, cutting the deal.”
Yeah, yeah. I did the thrift thing. And you know what it got me? Nosebleeds from sitting in the cheap seats, radiation poisoning from hunkering too close to the Motorola, headaches from whacking my head on the doorframe of our tiny Corolla.
So watch my next move, America. We played by the rules, invested wisely, stayed out of debt, took a “certain pride” in finding a bargain. And where’d it get us after 20 years? Somewhere between 1986 and 1987.
But no more. The Silow-Carrolls are living large. Is that the delivery guy with our Limited Edition Sharp AQUOS large-screen LCD TV? Wheel it right in, and put it next to the massage chair. And yes, this is an Armani jacket, thanks for noticing.
And how am I paying for it? Don’t worry. I’ve bought a bunch of bargain stocks in a few big city newspapers. So things are definitely looking up.
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