Just about everyone I know is concerned about the current economic crisis and they're looking for ways to cut corners and save a little money. This is one area in which I have a lot of experience, having been raised in a household that depended solely on a teacher's income, and then raising two children of my own as a single mother on a tight budget. I've found ways to furnish my home, dress fashionably, and live lavishly, all for literally cents on the dollar. So in this article, I thought I might share some words of frugal advice for those of you who are feeling the crunch too.

First, let's get you into the right state of mind. Being thrifty doesn't equate to being cheap. Having a great sense of style is important and you don't have to give that up in order to live a frugal lifestyle. So repeat after me, “I don't have to pay the retail price for ANYTHING.” Believe that! Go ahead and say it a couple times until it sinks in because once you grasp the concept, you too can be liberated from the consumerist mindset that causes you to rush out and buy crap you don't really need. There are many, many ways to avoid paying full price for everything from furniture to groceries...

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Allow me to introduce my friend's band, Kyle's Dancing Method (previously No Recess)



My friend, Fre, singer for the band, is second one in from the left. He's teh hotness, no?

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/sya/4-24-09

I was asked to participate in the World Wide Arts' coffee house initiative by allowing my fractal, Death is an Angel, to be streamed along with a selection of other fantastic artwork (and groovy music) to thousands of coffee houses across America.

How could I refuse?


Check it.

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/sya/4-17-09

I smile at people, even if I don't know them, young, old, clean, dirty, toothless. It's just the way I am and it's a habit I didn't think I had to break myself of until recently. Four times this week, I smiled at someone while I was out and about in the city of Flint and they took that as some kind of queue to come up and ask me for money — once at 7-11, once while standing in line, again while walking to my car in the Meijer's parking lot, and again yesterday while waiting in a drive-through for my $2 order of food. But then again, anyone who has lived in Flint long enough knows that sometimes all it takes is making eye contact.

I refuse to live in a world in which we cannot look our fellow sisters and brothers directly in the eye.

We lived downtown when I was a teenager and there was a woman who came knocking on our door asking for money to feed her 6 children. My mother told her she didn't have any money to give her, but she could spare some food. She told her if she would come once a week to pick it up, there would be a bag on the steps for her. For a few weeks, my mother placed a bag of groceries on the porch steps but the lady never came around to collect it so she stopped leaving it for her. Later that summer, she came around again, asking for money for a sick relative who was in the hospital. She was either persistent or very forgetful because once we stopped leaving the food out, she resumed making the rounds regularly, each time it was a different tragic story. She should have been on Broadway. Such wasted talent.



Go on over and check out One Small Project, a site about leftover people, leftover spaces, and leftover materials. While you're there, don't miss the Flint Gallery from a few years back. The following is a clip of text from an article on the site titled, Compared to What:

“Sorry Bossman.”

I’m in an SUV in an abandoned lot at 3rd and Grand Traverse. Flint, Michigan. It’s concrete and asphalt, overgrown, untended (intended? unintended?) with a broken down telephone booth, liquor store, and gasoline station nearby.

Tim reaches in to shake hands with Mickel, passenger seat, and I flinch, involuntary, concerned about Mickel’s safety and digital camera. Tim jerks his hand out, involuntary. “Sorry Bossman,” as he steps back, “I’m a college student.” Then he asks about money for the bus, the telephone. I’d given fifty cents to a woman in the liquor store parking lot. Tim cut me off: “I don’t care what you did for her. I need money Bossman.”

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/sya/4-10-09