Now, this household is not comprised of the sort of people who would bravely announce these frugal changes as something kinda heroic. And I totally get it that a cautious person would do sensible things like getting their highlights done four times a year instead of eight times a year, or cutting back dinners out to a couple a month instead of once or twice a week.

The thing that really bugs me is when people announce such economic restraint as being somehow noble, or at least really clever, especially when their other purchases and expenditures remain profligate.

So what do I want? I guess just a collective acknowledgment that we’re all in this together. And also, that not spending $60 a week means something different depending on the person.

I believe it is. I just wrote NPR’s Morning edition earlier this week. Because they’ve been doing at least two stories a week about the poor, sad, rich people, and almost none about middle or lower class struggles. It’s been all “Woe is me! I’ll have to sell the vacay home in Spain.”

And you called it, Veronica.

Is this really a trend out in the media?

It’s kind of like the excuse to not do equal pay for equal work reviews because the economy is crap. Apparently ponying up with the pay owed to women is the equivalent of chucking into a furnace or shoving it out the back of a helicopter in the middle of Iraq to pay off a dubious contact. Given how frequently women shoulder more caregiver responsibility than men do and how that translates into less capacity for savings, you probably get a little bit more economic bang for your buck with women’s pay than you do men’s.