Bubbly on Your Budget: Live Luxuriously with What You Have
Originally written in the 1930s to women affected by the Depression and mostly in New York City, many of the ideas in this book are still applicable in our time and for other locales. In fact, many of the tips fit quite well with more modern prescriptions for how to think about money and lifestyle, and the suggestions to think hard about what really makes you happy in terms of expenditures, and to cut your housing costs rather than your “latte factor” type expenses sound quite a lot like the good ideas described in All the Money in the World.
Furthermore, the tone of the book is witty and breezy and delightful to read, even when dealing with touchy subjects. I think we should bring the adjective “hard-boiled” back into current parlance, don’t you?
One of the most helpful points in this book, in my opinion, is the determination that you should be upbeat even if you are economizing and try not to let anyone see you cutting corners and that you should never cut the enjoyment of life out of your budget. That is easier said than done but well worth it if you can manage it, speaking from personal experience.
I appreciated the book’s perhaps unconventional advice that a budget is not about living in austerity but about making sure that the money you have covers what you actually want, not things you don’t really care about. We’ve lived on budgets where the amount of income actually only covered necessities, and that was rough, but for the most part people have some wiggle room, especially when they think creatively and are willing to part with societal notions of must-haves (Laura Vanderkam expands well on that idea in her book).
The book also offers quite sound advice about how to build and maintain a fabulous wardrobe no matter what your budget. Really, everyone can use advice about how to buy classic foundation pieces and use accessories to advantage, and reminders not to continue thinking that what was becoming ten years ago still looks good are always helpful.
Another great section was on entertaining. I enjoy entertaining and always wish I could do more of it, but am generally put off by a perceived lack of discretionary income. However, the book gave so many helpful suggestions for how to throw fantastic parties on a shoe-string that I came away quite inspired. After all, as the author writes, “At the best parties, the chief ingredients are originality (which doesn’t mean whimsy or – heaven forbid – paper favors) and a lot of enthusiasm.”
I really enjoyed Bubbly on Your Budget
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Denise Schipani writes about how parenting has changed between her mother’s generation and her own and how she attempts to do hard things as a parent even when it makes other parents call her mean.
is the follow-up book to 
about the influences of food in her young life, even though I did not have the slightest desire to try any of the recipes appended to each chapter. Perhaps we will differ on that front, but I think no matter what your gastronomic taste, your literary taste would enjoy this book.
is the second volume of Reichl’s memoir and traces her transformation from a cook to a food critic. I found this book particularly interesting because Reichl completely changed her life direction in her early 30s, found a new (highly successful) career, and had a family.
, is the best. This book chronicles how the author was hired as the restaurant critic at the New York Times and her adventures in that job and in her hometown of New York with her husband and their small son. Each episode ends with a reprint of the actual review Reichl wrote of the restaurant where the events took place.
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at other points in the year because the story is so fun.
is a super fun and subtly educational read. Gooney Bird is the new girl in school, she dresses crazy, she says she came from China on a flying carpet, and she gets all the second graders really interested in how to write a story. Although the book is about Gooney Bird’s crazy adventures, it is also about how to tell a story and how to write one. In the book the stories Gooney Bird tells are in larger print, so Hannah and I took turns and she read the big print while I read the small print. I noticed on Amazon that there is a whole series of Gooney Bird books, so I got some for Hannah’s reading practice. It’s a fun book, and not girly even though Gooney Bird is depicted in a tutu on the front cover. Jack enjoyed it too.
was on the reading list for Ambleside Year 1 and since we have a copy we read it in the sequence listed on AO. The stories are fables about all sorts of things like how the elephant got his trunk and things like that. They aren’t meant to be true and are told in a sing song way that I think makes that clear to children. After reading this book I noticed that Hannah started inserting “Oh Best Beloved” references in her own stories (Kipling used that for reader notes sprinkled in the Just So Stories), which makes me laugh. One cautionary note: watch out for which version you have of this book. The one we own contains the original language, some of which is offensive by modern standards so I went through and edited with a sharpie in a few spots. I know, I know, book burning and censorship and how can I live with myself, but really, I’m the mom and I don’t want my kids to say certain words and since they repeat everything they hear or read I thought it best to be proactive. You might have a different philosophy on that but I just wanted to make you aware.
is one of the best books we’ve read together this year so far. The book is a mystery set in ancient Rome, involving and solved by a group of school boys. In addition to a riveting story and surprising ending, the book contains a wealth of detail and information about ancient Rome. We learned a lot about how children were educated, how the city was laid out, what people ate and wore, how their homes worked, and much more.
, by the same author who wrote Paddle To the Sea, was on the Ambleside Online Year 2 list, and we liked it although not as much as we liked Paddle. As with Paddle, Tree in the Trail is a story that teaches geography, this time of the Santa Fe Trail. The story follows the history of the trail for 200 years from before the Native Americans had horses through wagon trains. It’s an engaging story and a good way to add to history and geography knowledge without being too textbooky. I’d recommend it if you’re studying US geography this year, or if you think your kids might be interested in the American Southwest.
is an interesting picture book/chapter book hybrid fairy tale about three brothers and what befalls them when a mysterious visitor arrives. As with all good fairy tales there are plenty of life lessons to be learned, such as the importance of hard work versus laziness, the importance of being merciful and generous rather than hard-hearted and selfish, and so forth.
Hi, I'm Catherine Gillespie and A Spirited Mind is where I post about reading, writing, and parenting and the lessons I'm learning as a result. Thanks for stopping by!
