This weekend, I watched an episode of Oprah from last week with Suze Orman.  It is no secret, I generally like watching the crazy that is Suze.  Her advice tends to support my own conservative financial nature.  But on this episode of Oprah Suze kind of jumped the shark.

On this show Suze actually recommended that everyone live on only 50% of their take home income.  The logic seemed to be if you get laid off, you will have to live on even less, so we may as well all get used to living as close to the bone as possible.

WTF?  Now, I am not going to argue that the economy isn’t bad.  It is.  I know that a lot of people are getting laid off.  I know it is scary.

BUT!!!!!

MOST people are NOT getting laid off.  In fact, more than 90% of people are still working.  If ALL of us cut back our spending by 5o%, then a shitload of people WILL get laid off.  All those retail workers, restaurant workers, people who depend on taxes from purchases to pay their salaries, and on and on and on.  If everyone who watches Oprah slams closed their wallets, the economy is going to go from bad to worse!

To be clear, I am not advocating that we should be going into debt to keep the economy afloat (I will leave those proposals to the government!).  But for those of us who have secure employment and steady income and are not at risk for layoffs or salary cutbacks, shouldn’t we just keep moving along at a steady and responsible financial pace?  We should keep socking away some savings (with the goal of 8 months take home in the bank) and not run up any debt, but if life doesn’t go on as normal for us, how can we ever expect things to get better?

And for the record, I find Oprah’s fake concern about the economy to be patronizing and annoying. (Oprah the queen of excess who even planted a rose garden specifically so she could have roses that coordinated with the rooms in her house!) Does Oprah really think she is making us feel better by not having a real Favorite Things show this year?  We all know Oprah’s favorite things are not cheap.  Is OPRAH going to live on 50% of her income?  I bet she isn’t.

Food Challenge: Day 15 (the day things started getting weird)

Breakfast: Mr. A let the girls choose their own breakfasts and they selected rice, dill pickles and chinese pickled vegetable.  I stuck to coffee, because pickles for breakfast sounded gross to me.

Lunch: L had Malaysian ramen noodles.  I ate the rest of her ramen and had beets with sour cream.  Note to self: Beets and ramen not a great combination.

Snacks: Dry cereal.  Apple.

Dinner: Red curry beef & veggies (carrots & potatoes) with rice.

Food Challenge: Day 16

Breakfast: The girls had cream of wheat.  I had coffee.

Lunch: I took the girls out for Ethiopian for lunch.  I am really afraid the only Ethiopian restaurant in town is going to go out of business due to the economy and a long term construction project that has made parking there a nightmare.  I used two weeks lunch out budget (but that is OK because I only had starbucks last week.)

Snacks: I made blondies.  We seem to  still have plenty of flour and crisco, so cookies are an easy snack to have on hand.

Dinner: We were at my aunts house and she ordered pizza.  Mr. A stayed home and had cereal.

Food Challenge: Day 17

Breakfast: The girls had oatmeal.  I had coffee.

Lunch: Mr. A and the girls had macaroni w/ red sauce & frozen mixed veggies.  I made myself tuna helper.

Snacks: L ate croutons.

Dinner:  We cheated.  After spending all day doing hard yardwork, neither Mr. A nor myself felt like trying to scrounge dinner out of the odds and ends in the cupboards.  We went out for tacos.

Food Challenge: Day 18

Breakfast: The girls had cereal I think.  I had coffee.

Lunch: Tater tots and hotdogs.

Dinner: Mr. A made chicken & bean burritos for us.

Snacks: I made oatmeal cookies for tomorrow too.