Mrs. Henry and me

“Please, Missus Henry,
Missus Henry, please!
I’m down on my knees
An’ I ain’t got a dime.”

-Bob Dylan

This is one of our top two favorite songs about Henrys here at Hankincents.

It shares the distinction, of course, with “Henry The Eighth, I Am” by Herman’s Hermits.

This particular Henryesque tune is a delightfully slurred plea to a Mrs. Henry, who seems to be the barkeep or a landlady, to come scrape a drunken soul off the floor.

It’s certainly not the best song on The Basement Tapes. But I can’t help loving it, especially because I’ve got my own benevolent Mrs. Henry innkeeper landlady bartender (mom) doin’ right by me, while I ain’t got a dime.

By Veronica Nett

I love this photo, taken by my friend Veronica during the great snow deluge a few weeks ago. My feet are on the right, in borrowed socks, because I wore ballet flats in the slush and I could no longer feel my toes.

The log in this fireplace represents an epic slog to 7-11 through the weather, which was interrupted by a snowball fight, a swig of whisky served up by Chris at the Red Carpet Lounge (The Carpet Rouge or “The Carpet” to the locals) and then a good stint at some stranger’s party after people yelled at us from their porch and invited us in out of the cold.

I’m in Pittsburgh until sometime next week galavanting around instead of blogging, so here’s my New Year’s wish a little early…

Be well and warm, contented and with friends.

]]> http://www.hankincents.com/2009/12/31/chestnuts-roasting/feed/ 1 http://www.hankincents.com/2009/08/26/fun-money/ http://www.hankincents.com/2009/08/26/fun-money/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:53:43 +0000 Hank http://www.hankincents.com/?p=439 Just because Wall Street and the likes of Bernie Madoff played us all for fools doesn’t mean you can’t treat he economy like a game, too.

Over at the Medill Money Mavens blog, my classmate Shahzad Chaudhary developed some quick and entertaining flash games related to a few of the public companies we cover.

With The Ratio Puzzle, you can try to match the financial statment with the public company. It’s a neat way to understand what a company’s financial numbers are actually saying about it.

To help you figure out which company is which, take a look at things like the Days Payable and Receivable columns, the Inventory and the R&D to Sales ratio. Think about what kinds of companies would take a long time to pay their bills or get paid, which companies could keep their stock sitting around for long periods of time and which companies would spend a lot of cash on research. Then select from the drop down menu to test your financial statement savvy.

Then try out the Mission Statement Game to guess which company aims to help you live better or inspire your spirit.

The Washington Business Journal kicks in the labor department stats of 6.6 percent for the metro area’s unemployment rate.

The only unanswered question is… what kind of jobs be these, eh?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelljsmith/ / CC BY 2.0

I keep a mental tally of items that I think cost too much. Often, they’re things I find tedious anyway and I resent them even more because I find them disproportionately expensive.

With most of them– like socks and safety razors– I buy regardless, after a little grumbling. But with haircuts, I’ve been known to strike out on my own, armed with a couple of glasses of Shiraz and a pair of kitchen shears. It doesn’t always ended up the way I want, but at least I’ve got $60 saved on a trip to the hairdresser to throw toward a pair of shoes to soothe my sadness over crooked bangs.

But since I’m trying to be a grown-up, I’ve decided the the DIY ‘do has got to become a do not. Last week I stopped by the Aveda Institute for a basic cut and style from one of their students and it went pretty well. It turns out that students of hair styling are a bit more competent than a student of journalism. At least at hair styling, anyway. With Aveda, I could book my appointment online and it only cost me about $14.

READ ON for some more hair tips, trimmed for your budget.

As I discovered, a beauty school cut and style can be just the way to get styled for cheaps. Do some checking around on Yelp and ask friends if they’ve gotten a good cut from a beauty school. I would err on the side of a more reputable program or you might as well just go the self-trim route. It might be best to skip a highly technical cut, but a basic trim will probably be easy enough for them to master. Plus, these stylists to be may be more in step with current styles than the lady who shamelessly administered poodle perms in the 1980s.

But, if you just need a trim some high-maintenance areas like bangs or the name of the neck, it might be easiest just do do it yourself. If you can’t muster the gumption, pass off the scissors to a friend. (Just make sure you don’t owe him or her any money.) Make sure your hair is damp, use a sharp pair of scissors and take your time.

You can also skip the pricey add-ons and save your hair the damage of chemical treatments. Coloring and perms are high maintenance and may mean you have to spend more on products to preserve and treat your look. By going au natural, you’ll spend less on colorsafe shampoo and on perpetual touch-ups. You’ll want to save your hair dye karma for when journalism makes you go prematurely gray, anyway.

As for hair products, the name brand, pricey stuff might not be all that much better than the drugstore brand. Compare the ingredients and read online product reviews so you get the right stuff for your hair. If you don’t like it, at least you’ll have spent $5 instead of $20 per bottle. If you’re considering throwing down on a more expensive brand, ask if you can get a trial size test it before hand.

And if you’re like me, you’ve probably accumulated a pretty big pile of products that aren’t right for your mane or that don’t suit you for one reason or another. Get your girlfriends together every so often for a hair and beauty swap meet, so you can trade out your useless goop for something you might like better. (Just keep out products that can spread bacteria, like eye makeup!)

Data from the federal Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study indicates that the average amount student borrow for Bachelor’s degrees has increased.

According to the study, the median loan debt was $19,999, up 5 percent from  $18,973 four years earlier, adjusted for inflation.

The study also doesn’t take into account credit car debt or loans for post-graduate degrees.

I didn’t have to take out much money for undergrad because I chose to go to an in-state school and pursued scholarship opportunities, but it’s food for thought, especially if the recession continues to affect loan sources.

Wisebread had a neat take on the buzz around the program with an article last week about why to hang on to your clunker. The article gives five reasons to hold off on a trip to the car salesman. It says, in summary:

Before you send your usable car to its grave through this program, you should definitely consider how much you are really saving after insurance costs and other various fees. If your current car still has plenty of life in it, then it is probably more economical to use it until it dies and save your money in assets that appreciate.

(Or, you could always dump your clunker for good and pick up a bike! After all, it’s the carbon-neutral and sexy thing to do.)

I was dishing about the summer temperatures with an Indian classmate not too long ago when he mentioned that he has always seen cranking up the air conditioning as kind of a status symbol. However, he perceived that in America, freedom from sweaty pits is right up there with life and liberty on the list of unaliable rights. He was surprised to hear that I grew up in a house without air conditioning and that I’m happily whiling away my summer in Chicago without it.

The New York Times has an article called The Unchilled Life about how some Americans are sacrificing their cool for their wallets. It made me roll my eyes a bit, especially when it tossed out phrases like “God-given right” and “maintaining a fairly high quality of life” regarding AC, like being exposed to the natural air is chronic illness. “I’m sorry ma’am, there is no cure for a lack of air conditioning, but we’re going to help you manage the symptoms.”

I guess my perception of air conditioning is like my perception of life in Los Angeles– It’s expensive and it makes you soft and wimpy. The newsroom AC usually sends me scrambling for a sweater and I’m pretty sure going from hot to cold all day makes me sick at least once a summer. For me, it’s worth it to trade the window unit for a sturdy tower fan and some light-weight t-shirt.

Are you with me, or not?