Monday, June 08, 2015

I'M IN REDBOOK MAGAZINE (JUNE 2015)! BEING CHEAP!

When I was a tween (before that was a word) spending time at my aunt's house, I loved reading the women's magazines she had lying around (yes, I was a weird child).

Redbook was my favorite. Now, a scant 35 years after I picked up my first issue, I'm excited to announce that I'm featured in their June 2015 issue (the one with Sofia Vergara on the cover).

What's the subject? What else? How to live within your means (yes, even in NYC) - and feel happy about it.

In addition to writing the NY Frugal Family column for Examiner.com, I also just wrote a post for Kveller about how we fit 5 people into a 2 bedroom NYC apartment (prompting comments about how I was depriving my children with my selfish lifestyle).  Check it out below:

In New York City, where real estate space is at a perennial premium, my husband and I made the decision to give (our oldest son) the master bedroom while we took the smaller one. After all, he played on the floor much more often than we did. My theory was, if I gave him his own, larger room, his toys wouldn’t migrate out and take over our living area. (I was so, so wrong. Just like work expands to fill the amount of time designated for it, children’s crap also creeps out like kudzu, until it has thoroughly dominated the local eco-system.)

Plus, my husband and I knew something our oldest son didn’t: We planned to give him roommates.

After the first few months spent in a bassinet next to me, my second son moved in with his big brother. The twin bed was pressed against the wall, and a crib took center-stage. I folded up the preschooler-sized reading nook, and bought a dresser big enough to hold both their clothes. The area above the heater where once he’d lined up his Jay Jay the Jet Plane stuffed fleet was retrofitted to support a baby-changing table my father made from an old computer desk someone had thrown out, that he’d dragged home off the street, sterilized, and covered with a rectangle of foam. (Nothing goes to waste at our house, not even other people’s trash.)

Read the entire post at: http://www.kveller.com/how-my-family-of-5-fits-into-a-2-bedroom-apartment/


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