However, this doesn’t mean that I can’t still be frugal with my wrapping. I buy after Christmas. I maybe spent $3 on wrapping supplies this year that will, in all honesty, last another 3 years minimum. At least one of those rolls of paper is not holiday themed and would be pretty for any other gift occasion in the meantime.

And I do find it mildly offensive that your post implies that if I find colorful wrapping more aesthetically pleasing, my gift must be less thoughtful. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one and assume you didn’t mean any offense and were just defending your choice.

As for other readers… we do actually use a budget with a set dollar amount. We don’t count the cost of wrapping paper, but would you if it only cost an average of $1/year?

Ahem. Did anybody read the paragraph below the box where you type in your comment? “Constructive comments of all kinds are welcome. Negativity is not. If you’re going to criticize the statements of others, supply supporting information that backs up your statement or your comment *will* be deleted. Comments that don’t contribute to the growth and thoughtfulness of other readers will be deleted.”

I take that to mean that I’ve been warned – by the person whose blog this is, and who therefore has the right to do so. So I’ll take it to heart and I hope everyone else will, too.

That said, I have to agree with some of the others here Trent, that your posts are deteriorating both in content and attitude. Lately it seems as if you’re struggling to come up with subject matter; the trend seems to be that the posts are becoming more shallow (like this one). I, too, like the older posts where you delve into the specific how-tos of living the frugal life.

And I believe that you don’t intend to sound as condescending as you sometimes do these days. Do you read your posts aloud to make sure the tone is accurate? I do that with mine. It seems to work well.

Well, enough said. Happy holidays, everyone!

Think you for sharing. It put’s these discussions in context.

Johanna, I don’t always agree with your comments, although on the subject of gift wrapping, I’m with you and your thoughts on Trent’s take.

However, I do not think you are crabby and I do not think you are sitting around waiting to pounce on Trent.

Folks, you can like a lot of what trent writes, or not. A comment is just a comment. It holds a much “weight” as you give it or any article, no matter who has written it.

personally, I like seeing a blog with comments that don’t agree with or challenge those of a writer.

I think some of the other commenters who don’t like what some folks have to say are far more thinkskinned than Trent. Hey, if he can live with it, why should the rest of you care?

I don’t have time to ascribe motives to people. I read what they say and it goes in/out.

FYI: Trent is NOT a journalist. He’s a blogger. So it’s ridiculous to keep wanting him to adhere to those standards. And anyone, including good writers, makes typos, grammatical errors and even factual errors, unless they’ve hired someone to root those things out.

Of course, I don’t take anyone’s word for anything but their opinion. It’s up to me to research something further, where needed, to determine what “is” or “isn’t”

I think what’s at heart here is concern that Trent might not be aware of his own biases. Which is quite common, for anyone.

Cause you know what? We all have them and we all come with our own “prejudices.”

Me? I can’t stomach people who attack others because they disagree with them.

And why should somebody stop reading a blog just because they don’t always agree with the writer?

THAT is what’s wrong with a lot of the world. We expect people to just either agree or go away. The world is a far better place when we learn to open up to what other people think and have a polite way to engage in constructive inquiry.

You may not like Johanna’s comments, but why do you have to be nasty and judge her? Trent doesn’t need you to defend himself and he doesn’t need to defend himself.

I don’t exactly come here for financial advice since Trent is still a young man and has not seen his investments and plans out for the longer tail of things, like 15-20 years into professional life, marriage, etc. But I do come along for cool stuff like laundry detergent recipes which I never intend to use, and other bits of cool info I wouldn’t have known myself.

Please, Trent, write some more posts about highly detailed and cool stuff you really put elbow grease into refining the process/recipe instead of these defensive posts. You’re way better than having to defend yourself even if you write some contradicting things. I’d hate to see you develop a vomit-inducing writing voice where you come off as someone smarter than the reader and come off like your method is always better, even if you said one method was bad but it is good now that you’ve done it. If I wanted to feel bad and stupid, I’d watch the Suze Orman show to listen to her yell at callers and guests. Go back to your roots, Trent, your old stuff was awesome!

Tell me Courtney, how many gay or black friends does your husband have? How many have been to your house to socialize? It’s easy to say you’re not racist or homophobic, as long as you don’t have to be around ‘those types.’

How long ago did you go to high school? Do you really believe that homosexuals were only mocked in rural schools? That type of thing went on all over the country, regardless of whether the area was rural, suburban or urban.

Just because you thought a certain way when you were growing up does not mean that tens of millions of rural white males think that way. Seems that you are the one inclined to assume that everyone is like you.

I live in a very small rural community. While the majority of the population here is white and heterosexual, there are also plenty of openly gay people, Hispanics and blacks living here. All are accepted as a part of the community.

Both men and women do this. But only the men are assuming that the driver is *like themselves*.

I can think of three examples on this blog of the default assumption of male-ness:

On March 8, 2008, Trent said, to no one in particular, “Tell your wife that if you guys together can bank $10,000 this year, you’ll spend $4,000 of it and take the family to Disneyworld (or some other prize).” Then, in the comments thread, he implied that I was unintelligent for not accepting his entitlement to refer to all his readers as if they were just like him.

On April 7, 2008, in reader mailbag #5, a woman named Allie asked a question about preparing for the child she was expecting. Midway through his answer, Trent seemed to forget that he wasn’t talking to a man, when he said, “For the first six months, your child will eat either milk or formula, period. Is your wife planning on breastfeeding? If no, then you’ll need some bottles…”

On July 22, 2009, Trent talks about Dave Ramsey’s theory that “ladies” have “security glands” that make us want to have bigger emergency funds and such. Dave could just as well have formulated the theory in terms of men having “risk-taking glands,” but he didn’t. Apparently, what men do is normal, and what women do is weird and different.

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania in a semi-rural setting. There were cornfields adjacent to my school and dairy farms within a mile of my house. In my high school graduating class of about 170 students, there were exactly two who were not white. And homophobic? Yes, we were. There was a teacher in the English department who was gay, and he was mocked relentlessly by the students and even by some of the other teachers. One of my classmates would speak with pride about how his father killed a man for hitting on him. (Whether his story was true, I do not know, but the point is that he felt so strongly that killing gay people was a good thing that he assumed the rest of us would feel the same.)

I don’t remember there being a lot of racism, at least not to the same degree, but as someone else wisely pointed out in another comment thread, if the few black and Asian families in town did experience racism, there’s no particular reason why they would share that experience with me. And besides, we had the luxury of not having to decide whether we felt threatened by people of other races, because there were so few of them around that we could pretty much ignore them. That is, we could and did view the world as if everyone in it was white like us.

Which gets back to what I originally said. Which was not that white, married men in rural America hate people who aren’t like them, but that they’re inclined to assume that everyone *is* like them.

Henry, how much time and energy have you spent whining about Trent? Trent’s blog is free and you’re reading it of your own free will. If you don’t like it, why not just stop reading instead of incessantly complaining about it? Why not start your own blog to help those lower-income people that you think Trent is neglecting?

You say that “white married men from rural areas are known for racism and homophobia.” Now, do you personally know any white married men from rural areas, or is this belief of yours just something you were spoonfed by others?

The reason I ask is because I am surrounded by white rural males all day long. My husband is one and so are my sons. I have several employees who are white married rural males, and many friends and family members. And you know what? They are not more racist or homophobic than any other group I’ve ever known – and I have lived in several cities and traveled all over the world and known all kinds of people. As NYCreader would say, I’m “worldly” :)

I’m speaking from personal experience, Henry – can you and NYCreader and Johanna say the same?

Is Trent ‘worldly?’ In this context, I take that question to mean: Does Trent’s statements, practices and beliefs reflect a certain, narrow segment of the population, or do they encompass many different social classes, races, regional groups, household types, etc?

It is my argument that ‘worldly’ is not a term that would jump to my mind when asked for a description of this blog. This blog would apply to people who have money. People who have children, own a car, are married, own their own home and also have or did have a handsome monthly payment on the home. Further and more specifically, people who work about three hours a day from home (Trent has stated he spends about three hours a day on this blog, half emailing and whatnot, the other half writing and editing). Trent may have had a ‘financial meltdown’ three years ago, but I’m sure he still had quite the stream of income coming into the home. He may have been squandering that money, but did he ever live through electric disconnects, a landlord pounding on the door for the rent, or have his car breakdown and leave him absolutely stranded because he couldn’t have it repaired or buy another? No, he still had lines of credit available to him and he kept his home, wasn’t without transportation and didn’t starve to death. Did Trent receive W.I.C., Food Stamps or Transitional Assistance For Needy Families? Was he hitting local food banks and church pantries for assistance? Don’t call it a meltdown until you’ve hit those points, and even then…

That situation is a far cry from a single parent working full time, being threatened with eviction, having a broke down vehicle and no transportation, utilities facing disconnection and having no one that will lend them money, no credit card to put charges on and not a dime in the bank, and payday two weeks away. And that person is not spending their limited cash on hats, shoes, books and eating out (like Trent was), they are juggling bills and buying groceries. Dealing with being told that they make $12 too much each month to receive food stamps. The fact that Trent had a cold reception for the book “Nickel and Dimed” and advised us to not buy it demonstrates how well he can sympathize with the lower class in this country. And the lower class is the group that could most use Trent’s help, he wasting his time trying to tell people why they should buy a Prius and expensive French cookware. Surely anyone with deep cash reserves would use their own judgement on how to manage them or find more credible advice elsewhere before relying on some blog.

The people who can most identify with this blog as of late are people who have money to begin with and a desire to retain even more money. What type of person makes up the majority of that group? Is it white, married men that live in rural areas? Are white, married men living in rural areas historically known for embracing other lifestyles and cultures? No. Not to say anything specifically about Trent’s beliefs on race or sexual orientation, as I have no personal knowledge of that, but white married men from rural areas are known for racism and homophobia. They are not known for being open-minded, not known to quickly embrace other cultures and ethnicities; and if not open-minded, then not ‘worldly.’ You cannot try a person and the group you have assigned him to together, they must be judged separately.

I’d rather read about how to make laundry detergent, find coupons, use coupons, methods for shopping at a warehouse store, and the like. Those are topics that I will risk only a few dollars on if I choose to take Trent’s advice. I don’t want to be told how to buy a car, where to invest my thousands, or how to do anything else that may wind up being a multi-thousand dollar mistake. I refuse to make huge wagers based on the advice of a blog that has “This site is for entertainment purposes only. Trent is not a financial advisor and no information found on this site should be construed as financial advice”
posted on every page.

“The universe doesn’t consist of a black American family headed by a homosexual female in the rural heartland of the US.”

Does that sound racist? sexist? homophobic? No, of course not – just as Henry’s original statement, it sounds emotionally neutral and entirely true. Since what it says has already been firmly established by most cosmologists, it does not contribute a great deal to the sum of human knowledge, but neither do most of Henry’s statements.

“…in my experience, Asian Jewish lesbians in rural America are far more likely than any other demographic to assume that everyone in the world is exactly like them.”

Does that sound racist? sexist? homophobic? No, of course not – it is simply a statement about the writer’s experience. As such, it is not a “theory”, nor does it exhibit “prejudice”, which implies a statement made without experiential or other evidence. As it stands it is not very helpful, since one cannot gauge how wide the author’s experience of Asian Jewish lesbians in rural America may be, but it is not in any way evidence of a closed mind.

For would-be bloggers, the following pairs of words are not synonyms:

“demographic” and “group”;
“utilize” and “use”;
“aesthetic” and “appearance”.

Let me refresh your memory with a couple quotes.

From NYCreader: “…the universe doesn’t consist of a white American family headed by a white male in the rural heartland of the US, and that maybe, just maybe, Trent needs to expand his horizons a bit.”

From Johanna: “…in my experience, white married men in rural America are far more likely than any other demographic to assume that everyone in the world is exactly like them.”

These two are not just talking about Trent. They are blatantly disparaging white, married, rural males. Replace those words with, oh, let’s say, “female”, “black”, “Asian”, “Jewish”, “homosexual”, and it would be considered racist, sexist, homophobic…

It’s ironic that as they are accusing Trent of being unworldly, they reveal their own prejudice and closed-mindedness.