This first writing project deals with the circumstances, people and events in our past which have led to our present financial habits. I proposed this topic as the first of our group writing project as I had been planning to write something about our background and why we live the way we do.

We are one of those people who have a somewhat complicated history. In our first 25 years, we had lived in 3 different countries and called approximately 20 different places “home.” After several hours of attempting to put it all in prose, we have finally given up and decided to put our family financial history and relevant events in timeline format (and with authentic pictures), for your sake and ours.

A note before we begin: The time periods used to head each section are names of actual time periods from history; however, they are not all in correct historical order, but rather arranged to fit eras of our lives.

Pre-History

• 1978 July - Oakland, CA
  Mother, an art student from Taiwan, marries a young engineer and flight instructor from Japan whom she feels sorry for because he is poor and alone.

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To celebrate our new Money Tree blog theme (if you’re reading this post in a reader, come and check it out!), I thought I would post a facetious poem that Madoline wrote a while back. The quote in our new header comes from the first line of this poem titled ‘Tis Not a Crime to Pinch a Penny.

‘Tis Not a Crime to Pinch a Penny by Madoline Hatter ‘Tis not a crime to pinch a penny A single cent’s as good as any Of the hundred that’s a dollar A hundred being only taller A cent to none is surely better For you are that much less a debtor.

For anyone who is curious, the images in our new theme were also designed by Madoline. The Money Tree graphics in varying stages of leaf and bloom, are available on a variety of merchandise such as mugs, cards, t-shirts and more in Our Fourpence Worth Store.

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As most of you must know, the California wildfires have been getting worse with each passing year. According to Peter Sanders of the Wall Street Journal, fire season has barely begun, but in the past 3 weeks, the fires have consumed 631,000 acres of and $112 million in State funds. In the past 12 months, the State of California has spent an estimated $950 million in firefighting costs, a 41% increase from the previous year.

With a current budget deficit of $17.2 billion, the urgent issue of who should pick up the firefighting bill has arisen. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed an insurance surcharge on all California home and property owners to help raise funds for firefighting.

But for those of us who have not chosen to build and live in the areas where these frequent seasonal fires occur, we can’t help but feel a little resentful of this proposal. The existence of homes in those areas drive firefighting costs up due to the necessity for differing procedures and additional resources. Not only does it cost more to have to use fire engines, airplanes and helicopters to defend these structures, but they take resources away from other remote fires that would otherwise be more quickly and easily contained.

According to Timothy Duane, professor of environmental planning and policy at UC Berkeley:

“When you are forced to move resources in defense of structures, it means you’re often taking resources away from other areas of the fire, or entirely separate fires, which means those fires are harder to contain with less resources. You have to deal with life, and property and natural resources, in that order, and when you’re dealing with the first two, it increases the extent of the fire and the time period before you can put the fire out.”

Yes, we do feel sorry for those who have lost their homes or whose homes are in danger, but they willingly purchased and/or built homes in areas that they knew were susceptible to seasonal fires. When we purchased our California home, we did so after researching the various environmental factors and comparing risks of natural disasters with other areas. With this sort of information readily available, as well as the fact that the wildfires are widely covered in the news each year, it’s hard to claim ignorance to the risk when they purchased or built their homes.

I know I should be more charitable and sympathetic, but frankly, with the daily inflation of food and gas prices, the heat wave increasing our electric bill, and decline in business putting a strain on our already modest lifestyle, I am not in the mood to pay a surcharge on my home insurance in order to make up for the poor home purchase decisions of others.

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We would like to thank Karen Datko of MSN Money Central’s Smart Spending for the mention on our recent post: Economical Pet and Child Safe Ways to Repel and Kill Ants, Spiders and Other Insects.

If this is your first time here, please have a look around and consider subscribing to our RSS feed, which can be delivered in various forms of web based readers as well as email.

Our Fourpence Worth is all about frugal living and making smart choices in personal finance. We write about things we have learned and are learning as we strive for financial freedom and we offer tips for saving money in various aspects of life: personal, home improvement and decoration, family, money management, pet care, frugal recipes and more, as well as our opinions on current affairs related to our subject.

To give you an idea of the kind of topics we write about, here are a few of our posts that have done quite well in the blogosphere:

• My Favorite Money and Time Saving Websites
• Simple Solutions to Staying Out of Debt
• Resisting the Urge to Splurge
• Monopoly Game Expansions for Learning Money Management and Investment Principles
• Frugal Travel Begins Before the Trip: Vacation Preparation Checklist
• Guide to Safe and Smart Traveling with Pets
• Fast & Frugal Recipe: Yakisoba (Japanese Chow Mein)

Check out the “Most Popular Posts” section on the sidebar to the right (below “Categories”) for more popular posts. To learn more about us and this blog, please visit About this Blog and More About Us.

Thanks for stopping by!

Penelope and Madoline

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We would like to thank the following Blog Carnivals for featuring our posts.

(This list will be updated to include future inclusions for the month of July 2008.)

Descending chronologically by inclusion date

• July 10, 2008
  Finance Fiesta: No Debt Plan Edition
  Article: Monopoly Game Expansion #4: Personal Credit Card Account
• July 7, 2008
  Festival of Frugality: Bare Necessities Edition
  Article: Economical Pet and Child Safe Ways to Repel and Kill Ants, Spiders and Other Insects
• July 2, 2008
  Money Hacks Carnival #19: The Independence Edition (Editor’s Pick - double thanks!)
  Article: Monopoly Game Expansion #3: Certificate of Deposit

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Happy 5th of July, everyone! I hope you had a nice 4th. We just relaxed at home and ate yummy food (pizza with garlic, olives & feta cheese and Taiwanese style fried chicken, the recipe of which I plan to post here some time soon) and watched the Lost Episodes of the Lucy Show on DVD with our cousin who has never seen the show before. (Mr. Mooney is my favorite.)

It’s been a somewhat hectic and busy month what with 100+ degree weather just about everyday since the beginning of June, car trouble and my messed up sleep schedule. I know my posting has been rather irregular, and I apologize to my regular readers. Our cousins’ 3-month visit is winding to an end - she’ll be leaving on Tuesday July 7th - so we’ll be trying to spend as much time together as possible in the next few days. After that I hope to be able to get back to posting a little more regularly.

That said, the past month has gone quite well for Our Fourpence Worth. Our Money Management Monopoly Game Expansion series has met with pretty good reception in the financial blogosphere, 2 of them having been chosen as Editor’s Picks in recent blog carnivals and quite a few mentions at other blogs. This also means we’ve had to do a lot of test-playing of our expansions, which hasn’t exactly been torturous labor.

I’m also really excited to be slated to host the Festival of Frugality on August 19, 2008 and the Money Hacks Carnival on August 20, 2008. We’ve also received the honor of being included in the Personal Finance category at alltop.com.

OK, now on to our round-up for this month.

PF Bloggers

First of all, I would like to announce that the PF Bloggers network is starting a monthly group writing project wherein each member of our network will be writing about a pre-selected topic on the 15th of each month. Our first topic will be our personal/family financial history and basically what influenced or inspired us to live frugally and/or aspire to financial freedom.

• No Debt Plan gives us 2 reasons we should care about his toothpaste savings.
• Master Your Card posted some amusing things children said about credit cards.
• Future Millionaire shares her reasons for tipping generously.
• Wide Open Wallet tells us why she likes high gas prices.
• Pinching Copper contemplates whether a Costco or Sam’s Club membership is worth the money.

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