Grant McCracken, an anthropologist and an insightful commentator on modernity, offered an intriguing quote recently about Martha Stewart:
"She's the mistress of the semiotic codes dear to the upwardly aspirational middle class… Martha's semiotics were powerful. Fresh flowers. Fresh linens. Fresh colors. And an embargo on all things unsophisticated and déclassé."
To anyone who lived through the 1990s, this quote captures Martha Stewart's brand perfectly.
Except that things change. Eras and generations change. And Martha's brand, at least in that form, simply doesn't click with the Millennial generation. Millennials don't even want to buy homes, much less fill them with fresh linens and flowers. They don't bake. Or read magazines.
But the companies out there selling to us need to keep brands like these alive, alive for as long as they can. This is done by "repositioning," "staying relevant" and "pivoting," all of which are annoying marketing terms that, to me at least, merely serve to underscore the rampant cynicism infesting the world of branding and consumer products.
As an example: Do you remember Emeril? Remember him and his show, his celebrity cookbooks and celebrity-branded cookware? Do you remember "Bam!"? Martha Stewart's company bought this brand too, back in 2008, in a failed effort to stay relevant. Once upon a time Bam! was cool. It sold a lot of overpriced cookware. Now nobody remembers.
So how does "Martha Stewart" as a brand stay relevant, now that civilization has thankfully moved on from mansions, fresh linens and other pretensions of a lost era? How does Martha sell--and more importantly, what does she sell--to a generation that doesn't even cook?
Back to the cynical parlance of modern media: Martha will "pivot." She'll attach her trusted name to a food delivery service.[1] She will "reposition" her brand by getting on the marijuana bandwagon, doing a bunch of campy skits with Snoop Dogg to sell you trendy cannabis products. All of which will make her "relevant" to today's consumers.
In other words, she'll do anything to sell to you.
Does it make you feel like a sucker, having stuff like this fed to you? Do you enjoy being sold one branded aspirational lifestyle in one era--only later still to see it replaced by another new, "more relevant" branded aspirational lifestyle in a later era?
The whole thing feels like an extended elaborate joke, played on three generations of consumers.
Timeline of Martha Stewart, her brand, and her companies:
1999: Martha Stewart IPOs her company, market value reaches $1.8b
2003-4: Stewart indicted, convicted and jailed for lying under oath and obstruction of justice in connection with a suspicious sale of shares of Imclone stock, one day before Imclone collapsed in value (due to failing to receive FDA approval for the drug Erbitux).
2005: Martha's comeback: Stewart is released from prison, and over the next few years, her company announces deals to sell Martha Stewart-branded merchandise at Kmart, Macy's and JCPenney, all of which devolve into lawsuits. Later she announces deals to sell merchandise through Petsmart, Michaels and Home Depot.
2011: After serving a five year ban from public markets as part of her conviction settlement with Federal regulators, Martha Stewart rejoins her namesake company's board of directors.
2015: After years of declining ad sales, declining branding revenue and declining circulation of her various publications, Martha Stewart Omnimedia is sold to Sequential Brands [ticker: SQBG] for $350m.
2019: Sequential Brands, collapsing under a mountain of debt, firesales Martha Stewart's brand, as well as the Emeril Legasse brand, for a mere $175 million, [2] less than half what they paid for it just four years earlier, and less than one-tenth of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's peak valuation. Sequential Brands now trades at penny-stock levels, at approximately 50c a share.
2019: Martha Stewart announces a deal with Canopy Growth Company, a Canada-based cannabis company, to market a line of cannabis supplements and other pot-infused wellness products for pets.
Footnotes:
[1] It's hard not to notice the rich irony of Martha Stewart's meal delivery service brand using the slogan "recipes from America's most trusted home cook." As if calling your meal delivery service "home cooking" actually makes it so.
[2] Get ready: now yet another company will likely be ramming a pivoted and repositioned Martha and Emeril in our faces all over again.
READ NEXT: Aspirational Marketing and the Unintended Irony of Pabst Beer
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Displacement
When you buy something, you aren't just buying that something. Buying a TV isn't just buying a TV.
It's buying a device that may suck up as much as two months' worth of time per year from your life (yes, on average, people watch that much TV). Further, watching TV actually makes us less happy.
In other words, "buying a TV" is really displacing about 15-20% of your time, and likely displacing an equivalent amount of your happiness.
If you knew that gleaming new TV you were about to buy would actually provide anti-time, anti-enjoyment and anti-happiness, would that change anything?
Let's say you buy one of those meal prep/meal delivery services like Blue Apron or HelloFresh. The benefits (as they are presented to you) are clear and concrete: you'll save time, you won't have to cook, your life will be easier. This is why these services are sold to you.
But what might this service displace?
It will displace the practice of a basic life skill that, over time, could become increasingly easy for you through use (or increasingly difficult through disuse). It will also displace the act of building efficient grocery shopping skills, yet another basic life skill that gets gradually easier and easier over time. It displaces healthy social activities centered around the practice of cooking. And this is to say nothing about the displacement of all the other things you could do with the money you've spent.
You can certainly drive yourself crazy overthinking this, but it doesn't change the fact that all of our purchases (really, all of our acts and all of our decisions) displace something else that we could otherwise do.
And in the heat of the buying moment it's nearly impossible to focus on what a purchase will displace. But because it tends to put the brakes on spending actions, I think this could be a useful frugality tool to have handy when making any purchase. And it goes without saying that the companies selling these items or these services to you do not want you to think this way at all. They want you focused on the comfy, easy-to-visualize realm of obvious benefits. They don't want you in the uncomfortable, abstract realm of displaced activities and displaced happiness.
With all this in mind, I've created a mini-checklist of pre-purchase questions you can ask yourself to help you focus on what that purchase will displace:
1) Am I being humble about the results of this purchase? What incorrect assumptions might I be making about how I'll use (or mis-use) this product or service?
2) Unintended consequences will undoubtedly result from this purchase. Have I considered them? What might they be?
3) Should I hold off on this purchase to think through questions 1 and 2 a bit more?
Readers, what would you add?
See the intelligent and useful book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton for related ideas on this topic
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
It's buying a device that may suck up as much as two months' worth of time per year from your life (yes, on average, people watch that much TV). Further, watching TV actually makes us less happy.
In other words, "buying a TV" is really displacing about 15-20% of your time, and likely displacing an equivalent amount of your happiness.
If you knew that gleaming new TV you were about to buy would actually provide anti-time, anti-enjoyment and anti-happiness, would that change anything?
Let's say you buy one of those meal prep/meal delivery services like Blue Apron or HelloFresh. The benefits (as they are presented to you) are clear and concrete: you'll save time, you won't have to cook, your life will be easier. This is why these services are sold to you.
But what might this service displace?
It will displace the practice of a basic life skill that, over time, could become increasingly easy for you through use (or increasingly difficult through disuse). It will also displace the act of building efficient grocery shopping skills, yet another basic life skill that gets gradually easier and easier over time. It displaces healthy social activities centered around the practice of cooking. And this is to say nothing about the displacement of all the other things you could do with the money you've spent.
You can certainly drive yourself crazy overthinking this, but it doesn't change the fact that all of our purchases (really, all of our acts and all of our decisions) displace something else that we could otherwise do.
And in the heat of the buying moment it's nearly impossible to focus on what a purchase will displace. But because it tends to put the brakes on spending actions, I think this could be a useful frugality tool to have handy when making any purchase. And it goes without saying that the companies selling these items or these services to you do not want you to think this way at all. They want you focused on the comfy, easy-to-visualize realm of obvious benefits. They don't want you in the uncomfortable, abstract realm of displaced activities and displaced happiness.
With all this in mind, I've created a mini-checklist of pre-purchase questions you can ask yourself to help you focus on what that purchase will displace:
1) Am I being humble about the results of this purchase? What incorrect assumptions might I be making about how I'll use (or mis-use) this product or service?
2) Unintended consequences will undoubtedly result from this purchase. Have I considered them? What might they be?
3) Should I hold off on this purchase to think through questions 1 and 2 a bit more?
Readers, what would you add?
See the intelligent and useful book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton for related ideas on this topic
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Planting the Tree Today
I'm back. Thanks, readers, for indulging me while I took a little time off from writing.
****************************************
I've been thinking about this quote a lot recently:
The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.
The next best time to plant a tree is now.
Unfortunately, I've been agonizing lately over why I didn't start doing certain things earlier in life. I wish, for example, that I had begun compound lifting much, much earlier in my life. My body (at its current age) just doesn't respond all that well to heavy workouts. It takes me days to recover, and after a good workout of deadlifts, squats, pullups and bench presses, I am wiped. Wiped out for the rest of the day. I wish I were fitter and more robust than I am, despite all the effort I put into my fitness.
Sure, there are solutions here. I can do lighter, milder, maintenance-type workouts. I usually feel good after workouts of that level of intensity. But then I'll just be in maintenance mode. That's fine, but in maintenance mode I won't be getting stronger, I won't be growing.
This is one of those examples where I think to myself, "shit, if I had just planted this compound lifting 'tree' twenty years ago, I'd have a real tree now. I'd be much more adapted to lifting at a level that I'd be satisfied with." But I can't go back to twenty years ago and plant that compound lifting tree. I can only plant it today. (Well, technically, I planted it a few years ago, but still.)
I can come up with lots of other examples, sadly: I wish I had taken up drawing or painting earlier in life. I wish I had learned to surf earlier. I wish I had taken up language learning wayyyy earlier--like back when I was still a teenager.
And then, I recall a conversation with a friend of mine who's then-partner told her, "It's too late for me to get started on retirement. I'm too old now to bother to save money." He was just thirty-seven at the time.
Now, let's take a moment and notice the circular logic and self-defeatism of giving up on doing something simply because it's possible you could have started earlier. This should resonate with anyone embracing YMOYL, early retirement or any of the frugality strategies discussed thoughout Casual Kitchen. If your first thought is "it's too late for me" then nothing can ever be worth doing. Tough to go through life like that.
And so here, readers, is where I confess my hypocrisy to you. The complaint about not starting to save money earlier and my complaint about not starting lifting earlier are identical! They are the same.
Of course it's always easier to see flaws and hypocrisies in others than in ourselves, isn't it?
So there's my problem and my challenge--and yours too, if you struggle with the "it's too late" issue anywhere in your life: Get over yourself and plant the tree. Now.
READ NEXT: Good Games
AND: YMOYL: The Full Companion Guide Archive
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
****************************************
I've been thinking about this quote a lot recently:
The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.
The next best time to plant a tree is now.
Unfortunately, I've been agonizing lately over why I didn't start doing certain things earlier in life. I wish, for example, that I had begun compound lifting much, much earlier in my life. My body (at its current age) just doesn't respond all that well to heavy workouts. It takes me days to recover, and after a good workout of deadlifts, squats, pullups and bench presses, I am wiped. Wiped out for the rest of the day. I wish I were fitter and more robust than I am, despite all the effort I put into my fitness.
Sure, there are solutions here. I can do lighter, milder, maintenance-type workouts. I usually feel good after workouts of that level of intensity. But then I'll just be in maintenance mode. That's fine, but in maintenance mode I won't be getting stronger, I won't be growing.
This is one of those examples where I think to myself, "shit, if I had just planted this compound lifting 'tree' twenty years ago, I'd have a real tree now. I'd be much more adapted to lifting at a level that I'd be satisfied with." But I can't go back to twenty years ago and plant that compound lifting tree. I can only plant it today. (Well, technically, I planted it a few years ago, but still.)
I can come up with lots of other examples, sadly: I wish I had taken up drawing or painting earlier in life. I wish I had learned to surf earlier. I wish I had taken up language learning wayyyy earlier--like back when I was still a teenager.
And then, I recall a conversation with a friend of mine who's then-partner told her, "It's too late for me to get started on retirement. I'm too old now to bother to save money." He was just thirty-seven at the time.
Now, let's take a moment and notice the circular logic and self-defeatism of giving up on doing something simply because it's possible you could have started earlier. This should resonate with anyone embracing YMOYL, early retirement or any of the frugality strategies discussed thoughout Casual Kitchen. If your first thought is "it's too late for me" then nothing can ever be worth doing. Tough to go through life like that.
And so here, readers, is where I confess my hypocrisy to you. The complaint about not starting to save money earlier and my complaint about not starting lifting earlier are identical! They are the same.
Of course it's always easier to see flaws and hypocrisies in others than in ourselves, isn't it?
So there's my problem and my challenge--and yours too, if you struggle with the "it's too late" issue anywhere in your life: Get over yourself and plant the tree. Now.
READ NEXT: Good Games
AND: YMOYL: The Full Companion Guide Archive
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
[Links] A Recession-Proof Guide to Saving Money on Food
Readers, I'm still doing some traveling, so please enjoy this post from Casual Kitchen's archives--one of the most popular posts from the early years of this blog.
*********************
Here at Casual Kitchen I spend a lot of time writing and thinking about ways to save money on food, and today I thought it would be a great time to run a retrospective of some of our best and most read articles on the subject.
Feel free to peruse the links below for posts on how to cook more efficiently at home, ideas on how to eat well on very little money, and other articles on how to save money in the kitchen.
Recipe Ideas:
All CK Recipes Filed Under "Laughably Cheap"
Money-saving Tips and Ideas:
Ten Tips to Save Money on Spices and Seasonings
A Simple Way to Beat Rising Food Prices
Mastering Kitchen Setup Costs
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap
How to Get More Mileage Out of Your Cookbooks
Longer Essays on Food Costs:
Stacked Costs and Second-Order Foods: A New Way to Think About Rising Food Costs
Why Spices Are a Complete Rip-Off and What You Can Do About It
Tips on Saving Money while Eating Healthy:
What's the Most Heavily Used Tool in Our Kitchen? Our Rice Cooker.
How to Make Your Own Inexpensive Sports Drink
How to Create Your Own Original Pasta Salad Recipes Using the Pasta Salad Permutator
Two Useful Cooking Lessons From Another Cheap and Easy Side Dish
Fresh Herbs Part 2: Solutions to the Waste Problem
Cooking Strategies and Tactics:
How to Team Up in the Kitchen
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking
More Applications of the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking
Seven Ways to Get Faster at Cooking
Ten Strategies to Stop Mindless Eating
Doing Your Favorite Thing: How to Spend Exactly the Right Amount of Money For an Important Celebration
********************
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
*********************
Here at Casual Kitchen I spend a lot of time writing and thinking about ways to save money on food, and today I thought it would be a great time to run a retrospective of some of our best and most read articles on the subject.
Feel free to peruse the links below for posts on how to cook more efficiently at home, ideas on how to eat well on very little money, and other articles on how to save money in the kitchen.
Recipe Ideas:
All CK Recipes Filed Under "Laughably Cheap"
Money-saving Tips and Ideas:
Ten Tips to Save Money on Spices and Seasonings
A Simple Way to Beat Rising Food Prices
Mastering Kitchen Setup Costs
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap
How to Get More Mileage Out of Your Cookbooks
Longer Essays on Food Costs:
Stacked Costs and Second-Order Foods: A New Way to Think About Rising Food Costs
Why Spices Are a Complete Rip-Off and What You Can Do About It
Tips on Saving Money while Eating Healthy:
What's the Most Heavily Used Tool in Our Kitchen? Our Rice Cooker.
How to Make Your Own Inexpensive Sports Drink
How to Create Your Own Original Pasta Salad Recipes Using the Pasta Salad Permutator
Two Useful Cooking Lessons From Another Cheap and Easy Side Dish
Fresh Herbs Part 2: Solutions to the Waste Problem
Cooking Strategies and Tactics:
How to Team Up in the Kitchen
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking
More Applications of the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking
Seven Ways to Get Faster at Cooking
Ten Strategies to Stop Mindless Eating
Doing Your Favorite Thing: How to Spend Exactly the Right Amount of Money For an Important Celebration
********************
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Ask Yourself These 21 Questions Annually
Readers, for the next few weeks I'll be doing some travelling, so please enjoy this post from Casual Kitchen's archives.
*********************
Readers, I wanted to share a list of questions from How To Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie Zelinski.
This unusual and indiosyncratic book comes from the same family of foundational works as Early Retirement Extreme, Your Money Or Your Life and Mr. Money Mustache’s blog. And as any Casual Kitchen reader knows, these books and sites have massively influenced my thinking. Zelinski’s book is yet another work that pushes readers to think wildly differently about the world we live in, and like these other books, it offers thoughtful, open-minded readers an opportunity to "play chess instead of checkers" in the game of life.
The following list of twenty-one questions is structured in a way to get you to think and reflect. Are you surrounding yourself with the right social and informational inputs? Are you spending your time properly, in a fulfilling way? Are you making truly active choices about these things? Or are you making passive choices while telling yourself they’re active?
I consider Zelinski’s list of questions to be an important contribution to the canon of early retirement/anti-consumerist literature. And while these questions come from a book about retirement, the questions below are really about living a mindful life of quality. In other words, anyone--at any stage of life--will benefit from thinking about them.
Questions to Ask Yourself Annually
1) Am I in control of my lifestyle?
2) Do I make the most of my money to give me the best quality of life?
3) What can I achieve in my retirement that would make me proud?
4) What can I do that is unique?
5) Do I have enough great friends in my life?
6) Do I devote sufficient time to see my close friends?
7) Do I watch too much TV?
8) Does my lifestyle complement my partner's?
9) Do I travel as much as I would like?
10) Do my time commitments allow me to make a contribution to making this world a better place?
11) Do my time commitments allow me to indulge in creative endeavors?
12) Am I developing spiritually as a human being?
13) Do I exercise enough, in my own enjoyable way?
14) Do I complain too much?
15) Am I as grateful as I should be for what I have in my life?
16) Am I continually learning something new?
17) Do I do something special for myself each and every day?
18) Do I take enough time to meditate and keep my mind in tiptop shape?
19) Am I living in the right country or in the right part of the country?
20) What will make me feel better?
21) Do I have everything I need to be happy, but don't realize it?
Readers, what do you think? Which questions do you find particularly helpful or provocative? And why?
READ NEXT: The Official Your Money Or Your Life Reading List
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!
*********************
Readers, I wanted to share a list of questions from How To Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie Zelinski.
This unusual and indiosyncratic book comes from the same family of foundational works as Early Retirement Extreme, Your Money Or Your Life and Mr. Money Mustache’s blog. And as any Casual Kitchen reader knows, these books and sites have massively influenced my thinking. Zelinski’s book is yet another work that pushes readers to think wildly differently about the world we live in, and like these other books, it offers thoughtful, open-minded readers an opportunity to "play chess instead of checkers" in the game of life.
The following list of twenty-one questions is structured in a way to get you to think and reflect. Are you surrounding yourself with the right social and informational inputs? Are you spending your time properly, in a fulfilling way? Are you making truly active choices about these things? Or are you making passive choices while telling yourself they’re active?
I consider Zelinski’s list of questions to be an important contribution to the canon of early retirement/anti-consumerist literature. And while these questions come from a book about retirement, the questions below are really about living a mindful life of quality. In other words, anyone--at any stage of life--will benefit from thinking about them.
Questions to Ask Yourself Annually
1) Am I in control of my lifestyle?
2) Do I make the most of my money to give me the best quality of life?
3) What can I achieve in my retirement that would make me proud?
4) What can I do that is unique?
5) Do I have enough great friends in my life?
6) Do I devote sufficient time to see my close friends?
7) Do I watch too much TV?
8) Does my lifestyle complement my partner's?
9) Do I travel as much as I would like?
10) Do my time commitments allow me to make a contribution to making this world a better place?
11) Do my time commitments allow me to indulge in creative endeavors?
12) Am I developing spiritually as a human being?
13) Do I exercise enough, in my own enjoyable way?
14) Do I complain too much?
15) Am I as grateful as I should be for what I have in my life?
16) Am I continually learning something new?
17) Do I do something special for myself each and every day?
18) Do I take enough time to meditate and keep my mind in tiptop shape?
19) Am I living in the right country or in the right part of the country?
20) What will make me feel better?
21) Do I have everything I need to be happy, but don't realize it?
Readers, what do you think? Which questions do you find particularly helpful or provocative? And why?
READ NEXT: The Official Your Money Or Your Life Reading List
You can help support the work I do here at Casual Kitchen by visiting Amazon via any link on this site. Amazon pays a small commission to me based on whatever purchase you make on that visit, and it's at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
And, if you are interested at all in cryptocurrencies, yet another way you can help support my work here is to use this link to open up your own cryptocurrency account at Coinbase. I will receive a small affiliate commission with each opened account. Once again, thank you for your support!