When a well-connected party-goer mentions that she’s wearing a 10-year-old dress to a charity gala, it’s easy to dismiss everything else that comes out of her mouth as “oops, I did it again.”
And in fairness …

My God, this is like watching an old lover stricken with cirrhosis and emphysema hobble around with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Your heart aches for him. You want to …

Need help reining in your grocery bill? Unable to stop that yummy-looking package of pastries from jumping into the cart?
I have a consultant who can whip you into shape: Big Guy.
I’ll warn you, though, he’s …

Mostly, I deal with the economy crumbling around us by ignoring it.
Not ignoring it in a “oh, I’ll just pretend unemployment isn’t approaching 10 percent in my state and Dad’s just on a really long …

There’s a two-story house with a big back yard on a cul de sac about a block from where we live that’s just a picket-fence shy of perfect .
We have close friends on the street, …

Thank God it passed.
And thank Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, the only Republicans in the U.S. Congress with enough integrity to quit playing philosophical chicken, actually work on the bill and then vote …

Trying to define what is and isn’t economic stimulus is beginning to look like that classic judicial struggle to nail down pornography: “I know it when I see it.”
The problem is, too many are seeing …

You know the economy’s getting tight when the bounce houses and pizzas disappear from the preschool parties.
You know we’re in a recession when the crowd that usually rushes to the kid party mills – you …

It’s been four days and not a single senator has had the guts to join Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill as co-sponsor of her Cap Executive Officer Pay Act of 2009.
“We have a bunch of idiots …

Turns out Big Guy is an astute observer of trends. He just can’t figure out yet why they’re happening.
“Mommy, there’s not much in the paper garbage,” he said today, pointing to our 13-gallon can for …

By all accounts, the LeBlanc family was doing a lot of things right.
Their mortgage payment is $440 a month on a five-bedroom home in Lafayette, La., a figure the likes of which I haven’t seen …

Seeing every other house on your street sold at a foreclosure auction? That’s so 2008.
This year, you’re hopelessly unhip if you don’t know someone who’s been furloughed. Bonus points if you’ve been furloughed yourself.
The state …

Dear Washington,
This is going to sound strange coming from someone five months into unemployment, whose entire professional career has been in an industry on the verge of imploding and who’s looking for work in a …

Gary Johnson and Rebecca Witt are making it, but barely, on his $8-an-hour job while she uses grants to pay for college in between raising three children.
But because they aren’t married, the state of Michigan …

Note to self: Do a 180 on entire parenting philosophy or the guys will never be fired at Finish Line. Or Best Buy, Circuit City or Blockbuster.
I’m too set in my curmudgeonly ways, so it’s …

I took a gamble and won, which is odd for me. I’m usually so unlucky I haven’t come out ahead on so much as a lottery ticket in close to a decade.
We decided in November …

I’ve heard of parking by the hour, cell calls by the minute and …  never mind on that last. I don’t want the site to lose its G rating.
But a proposal I saw this weekend …

It’s been a bad week to be a worker — if you still even have a job.

In Chicago, workers staged a sit-in after their plant closed and they were told they wouldn’t receive even as …

Folks in the Bush Administration aren’t the only ones the recession is catching by surprise.
Exhibit One: A preteen who declared last week that she’s getting a Blackberry for Christmas.
OK, so $100 isn’t so bad if …

Dear Misters Waggonner, Nardelli and Mulally,
Is it all right if I call you Rick, Robert and Alan? Because I feel so much closer to now that you’re driving from Detroit to D.C. to beg Congress …

WARNING: Play-Doh has become an increasingly controversial toy in recent years. Three current or former sisters-in-law have banned it from their homes. So please consult parents before giving this gift. If they’ve done …

I started the Simple Gifts concept last year, on another blog under another name for another reason.
Last year, it was inspired by a fellow blogger on a site I moderated and her post venting …

Did you hear the one about the woman in New York who saved $3.34 per head of cauliflower but spent $28 on artichokes?
I’m not laughing at her. Really, I’m not. I’m laughing with her, because …

Dear Mervyns,
Oh, how I loved you in my single days.
I’ll admit: I was more of a blitzkrieg buyer that a bargain hunter back then, rolling through the store to restock on professional but stylish …

A flier in Big Guy’s backpack when he came home from school this afternoon asks, “Does your child have health insurance?”
It includes basic information about California’s Health Families program, which insures children whose parents …

We’ve soothed Wall Street’s jangly nerves in recent weeks, and The New York Times says banks are letting loose of some of the bailout cash.
Next up: A “crisis” in consumer confidence that could send …

“I used to complain about having no shoes until I met a man with no feet” was my parents’ favorite “quit your whining” cliche when I was a kid.
I learned the truth of it last …

Didn’t there used to be another holiday between Halloween and Christmas? I have vague memories of something involving turkey and Pilgrims and family dinners when I was a kid.
No signs of that in my local …