Ok, I will admit it, I have had some success as an actor. With that, I get alot of free crap. It’s not a secret. My housekeeper is exceptionally well-dressed, if you consider crew jackets and baseball hats being well-dressed….(who would NOT want a “groundhog day” sweatshirt?)…..

Nathen and I were given 3 days at Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. That’s awesome, it’s SO kid-friendly that it’s almost nauseating. The people were amazing, and we got a BEAUTIFUL room in the nice part (the COVE), and, best of all…JetBlue flies there from NY in about 2 hours, for which I could use miles…(I only have about 250,000 of them)……so what could be bad? 

Well, let me discuss “Paradise Island”….after seeing what things cost there, simple things, things that I wish I had known about and would have easily checked a bag for (JetBlue checks a bag for FREE by the way), then “paradise” quickly turned into the “Island of Dr. Moreau” to me…….now, I absolutely kid you not about any of this……NINETY DOLLARS for breakfast (thats for me and NATHEN, who eats like half a strawberry and a crumb and is full), NINETY FIVE DOLLARS for a $12 snorkel and mask, THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS for Nathen and I to pet the head of a dolphin for a total of 3 minutes…..and get this….are you sitting down….(hopefully you are, reading your computer while standing is highly hazardous)……FORTY EIGHT DOLLARS for a small bottle of sunscreen…….If I pay $48 for a $7 bottle of sunscreen, it had better grease me up PERMANENTLY, scrape all possible melanoma off of me, and throw in a plush beach towel as well……

Now I am smart, not cheap…so it is what it is….we are prisoners there on “paradise island” (one couple told me it cost $100 round trip to get a car to take them over the 3 mile bridge into town)…..so the final night, I put Nathen in the kids camp for 2 hours (at $25/hour by the way, there must have been over a hundred kids in there, nice tidy profit on that venture as well), and I went to GAMBLE. I LOVE to gamble, and I “gamble” to win money, but more on that sickness for another day (I could talk for hours about the reality of buying 20 lottery tickets…you know what happens when you buy one? Your chances go from ZERO, to ONE in a billion—-the second one, that’s right, your chances go to TWO in a billion, you do the math)…..So I go to the casino, and I can assure you, anyone who knows me knows this, when I go to a casino or a poker table or a racetrack, I am there for one thing, and one thing only, TO MAKE MONEY……so I win $950 and go get Nathen, here, I told you…..

So we go to checkout, it’s all VIP and celebritied-out and all that, and they give me my bill for the INCIDENTALS for man who isn’t eating because he is in the middle of his TV season, and an 8 year old, who isn’t eating because Dad asks him to eat, and neither of us has been drinking (well, Nathen had a couple of pops of Courvosier from the mini-bar, it’s one habit I can’t make him shake)….and our bill for 2 1/2 days (with COMPED ROOM) was $1350…….they asked me if I wanted to keep it on the card (remember, i use my card as if it is cash, credit is dumb dumb dumb), and I pull out THEIR money and pay my damn bill……Thank god I MADE the hotel take us into town for two nights to local restaurants, where we had GREAT adventures, GREAT food, and met GREAT people….after that first dinner ($140), which sucked, I had to get “off the island”……

What’s my lesson? Well, what was I thinking? Paradise Island is a development to keep the tourists there spending money, charging everything like mad and not noticing, enticing kids to do everything, keeping everyone away from the scary locals (SO not scary at all, friendliest people on the planet) and after all, it’s vacation, so who cares?? I CARE. The people who we met there could barely afford it, had saved for years to go there, and just by simply being informed (as I also should have been), could have packed some sunscreen, some snacks, thrown our snorkels in the bag, maybe even met a taxi driver at the airport who we could have called to come get us when we wanted……

So that was our trip. Do better. I know you can.

By the way, it has come to my attention from one of our most avid readers, that not only am I giving out some valuable advice here, but the time spent reading this actually SAVES you money, by taking up valuable time that you could be using doing online shopping on EBay, Craigslist and Amazon…..save that money and spend it instead on Elvis Costello’s upcoming “National Ransom”, one of the finest albums coming from someone who has had a slew of them…..and keep reading this space and sharing it——-we are just gettin started……

Just wait till I talk about valet parking tomorrow….just wait, it involves a girl, a blind-date, Michael Bolton, and the Beverly Hills Hotel….you won’t wanna miss it…….

WG

My partners Jay and Shaun and I made a reality TV pilot called “Cheap Thrills”. The idea we had, much along the same vein of this page, is that people should be able to go out and affordably experience things and live fuller lives. Basically, if you watch alot of TV, and you aren’t finacially able, you could end up feeling like some sort of loser if you aren’t in NY or LA or Vegas or Miami every weekend, and that makes me sad. People have budgets and jobs and families and bills, and we all don’t live like Paris Hilton or The Situation (ok, I do sometimes). There are TONS of things to do, without spending a fortune, right in your own backyard, wherever that may be.

“Cheap Thrills” was about finding the fun and exciting festivals, conventions, competitions and gatherings that are happening all over the place, all the time. I went with Jay and his wife Wendy to the Minnesota State Fair, which was one of the funnest weekends I ever had. I have been going to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival for 30 years now, it’s now up to like a whopping $40 for a day of seeing upwards of 60 bands available A DAY. And if those kind of things sound too ‘trailer park’ for you, there are sonnet festivals, chamber music festivals, science fiction theory events, etc etc….(but for me, I will stick to a tractor pull or a cow-pie chucking festival anyday)…….

I took Nathen to a drive-in last week too…..my god that was fun…..it cost a DOLLAR for him. And we are in our second year of heading to a national park over Christmas break for a couple of days. I want to do one every year for at least the next 5 (or until he can’t stand the sight of me, whichever comes first). Last year was the Grand Canyon (it should be a national law that everyone has to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon once every 5 years). This year will be Yosemite. These are great trips that neither of us will ever forget, and no, they hardly cost anything. We go camping quite a bit too…(“I don’t go camping” = SHUT UP, try it for a night, it’s wonderful). And we also like to just grab our fishing poles and “drop a line”, as Nathen says. In winter, there’s nothing better than renting a cabin in snow for 2 nights, with friends. Kids go nuts for it, and parents can hang and drink all the wine they can hold, not a bad weekend at all……

We went on a cruise last year. Not really my thing, but for kids it’s great. And that is an industry that has been hurting BADLY, so the deals are crazy. Like 70% off. Like last minute. It’s a great thing if you are into it. For my money I would have been happier at a cool hotel in Negril (also not expensive), and I wouldn’t have been sleeping in a weird undersized rocking pod…….

There’s a lot of stuff to do——and I always feel—-DO IT….when all is said and done, you gonna sit at the old folks home and say, “I wish I did LESS”??

Please keep adding yourselves as followers, forwarding it, and commenting…..I thought this was going to be difficult, but it’s not. I hadn’t realized how fully imbedded these ideas were in the way I live. Chalk anther moment of clarity up to my dear friend Sarah Jessica——-she knew, and here we are…….

Talk tomorrow…..WG

Hotels are a unique land of wildly changing prices……we all have had to go to a family function somewhere, gotten the list of “deals” they have made, only to find a better price with your AAA card or online through a consolidator.

I use Hotwire alot for rooms. But you do have to be careful. When my parents were both sick and I was going to my hometown in NJ, they had a “4-star” hotel listed, so I was safe. When I purchased it, and then they tell me what hotel it is, I KNEW what it was going to be, there was ONE nice hotel in the whole city, so I was safe. When I did it in NYC, I wanted to be “downtown”, and ended up 30 feet from the ferry entrance below Wall Street, which at the time on a weekend was like a barren wasteland. Generally just be careful, but I have really had 90% great experiences and great deals.

The hotel business has been hit hard, way hard, and we all know an empty room is a disaster for them, so I like booking late. I don’t like confrontation, or to ask for a lower price, so I just wait, get on Expedia or Hotwire, and go for it. Does it really matter to me that I don’t get the Presidential Suite? To be honest, NO. I’ve stayed in them when I’m not paying and it’s NOT worth it. Location, comfort, cleanliness, all good things. And how they operate…the Kimpton Hotels are amazing, they help the planet, they have cool amenities, and are really really nice. 

In big cities, I often use Craigslist. I’ve had some amazing dates (dammit, wrong web site again, my apologies, haha). There is a category for vacation rentals, and short-term rentals. Especially with Nathen, I prefer an apartment. Always less expensive, kitchen, washer dryer etc. I do just have to be careful, as I only will rent an actual “short-term” RENTAL….NOT a “sublet”. The difference is between a nicely furnished apartment, instead of staying in someone’s ACTUAL apartment with dusty pictures of their dead relatives all over the place. I’ve done it for vacations too, and I love it. Houses are great for groups, just make sure you check in carefully, the pictures are accurate and voice every concern up-front.

For the holidays this year, Nathen and I are going on to lastminute.com———its unsold packages, no more than 2 weeks out….it’s amazing….flights, hotels, RESORTS, its great….and THAT’S where we will be going, whatever they got……I like the adventure of it……..if you are the type of person who has to plan a year in advance, which I totally understand, then do that too, but do it a YEAR in advance, that gives you some time to look at maybe an alternative hotel, or a crazy sale or price drop…..I stayed in Costa Rica at the most expensive resort in the country for $90/night, it is now $850/night, just because I read about a 2 day-sale they were having…….did I mention that it’s a good thing to always be reading? Yes I have, about 50 times now…..

I remember being taken to Monte Carlo and telling my Mom that I was going to be staying at the Hotel de Paris…..she was so excited for me and told me it was one of the swankiest, most famous hotels in the world. Well if a dusty room with furniture that looked like it had been thrown out of my grandmother’s apartment is swanky, then no thanks.

Bed and Breakfasts. No thanks. Veerboten (name the film reference). It’s just not my thing, even with my fondness for ceramic cats and needlepoint.

At any rate, what I’m trying to say is to take the extra half hour to book a great hotel at a great price. It’s all available on the computer now, so it couldn’t be easier. Hotwire even lets you buy a room for one night in Vegas on the weekend, good luck doing that through the hotel, and all you have to do is spend a couple minutes finding that out. I hate to see people who really can’t afford it overspending on rooms that a)they hardly are in, or b)are only staying there because they THINK it’s cool to stay there….let me be straight up with you, the cooler place is the one that YOU found that hardly anyone else knows about…..keep that in mind, and not only will you save some cash, but you will be the coolest kid in class…….

Keep forwarding, the comments I am getting are amazing, and the ideas people have mean that they are conscious, paying attention to whats around them, reading……that’s all it takes and it’s heartening to see…..

More on travel tomorrow……WG

I guess I was not clear about actors shooting in other cities than their own…ALL actors receive a ONE-TIME “relocation” allowance to technically ‘move’ to the shooting city, if they are ‘regulars’ (in every episode) and not guests…..that is, and has always been the case, no matter where a show shoots and no matter what the economic climate it is, it has nothing to do with shooting in NYC, or the current state of the economy——-it is universal…….WG

I travel all the time. Most actors do. The dirty little secret that I will tell you now is this, we are most of the time paying for ourselves. When one does a show in say, NY, and I live in Los Angeles, we are technically “relocated” to NY, with a one-time fee a the beginning of the series. On my current show, “White Collar”, we ALL live in Los Angeles, and most of us….Matt, Tim, Sharif, myself, and now Tiffany (what up Harper!), all live in LA. That makes for a lot of commuting, on our, and especially my, VERY frugal nickel.

The sight of us all running to our computers the moment our shooting schedule gets changed is hilarious. Usually we check JetBlue and Virgin America, the two with generally the lowest costs, and one-way purchases available. I believe all of us have now gotten the JetBlue credit card, so I pretty much use that for everything to get miles (by the way, credit cards should be thought of as “DEBIT” cards, to be paid in full ASAP, if we have learned anything over the last 5 years it’s that ‘credit’ is a fool’s game, but that’s a topic for another day….)…..Airline loyalty cards are great, use them, stick with them, be aware of them…..”but I have to leave a day earlier”, “but the points expire”, “but I forget”…..ummmm, shut up, shut up, and shut up. OK, partially kidding—-but they DO have value and as someone who spends a ridiculous amount of time on an airplane, I swear they are worth it.

“Business” class……it’s in the name——if you are flying somewhere and it’s PAID FOR by a BUSINESS (other than your own), that’s who it’s for. Economy Plus, or Extra Legroom are great, in my case usually bought AT THE AIRPORT if possible (but be careful, if the flight looks very full, go ahead and spring for it earlier)……

The other thing for me to talk about today is car rental. I will talk about hotels, vacations, resorts, adventures, later……For car rentals, I use Hotwire, a consolidator that doesn’t tell you who the car is from until you purchase it. By the way, WHO CARES….I type in the city, the prices come up, all “in the terminal”, they are like half or MORE off the other prices, I book it, and away you go——does it really matter to me if it is Hertz, Avis, Dollar, or Bob’s Cars? When my mother was ill in NJ and I was commuting alot, I sometimes got cars for like $12 a day at Newark Airport, and during that emotional time I didn’t even CARE what it cost…….also, the obvious things that everyone knows, have a credit card that covers insurance so you can waive that, and don’t pre-pay for gas, but those are obvious ones for even the most casual traveller…….(another great tip, pack a portable GPS, I’ve been using mine for close to 10 years and its awesome to have, instead of the 10-15$ per day the companies charge)….

And now a sidebar…….people reading this written by an actor they may know of might wonder, “isn’t he wealthy, I mean what the hell does he care about saving money?” Actors are PERFECT to know about these things. We struggle for years, in my case LITERALLY living on Ramen Noodles in an apartment with SIX ROOMMATES…and we all are moments away from struggling again. Actors always know the cool local hipster CHEAP restaurants, the closest Vintage stores, and where the free concert in the park is. Do you honestly think that’s because we are so ultra-cool? Well in my case, absolutely, haha, but the reality is, it came from need to survive when there was absolutely NO income coming in……so keep reading, keep forwarding, and keep commenting, I swear you will get SOMETHING out of this, whether you notice it or not……(I happen to know alot of you are, thanks to your awesome comments…..)

See ya tomorrow, 

WG

Just to catch up on some stuff before I start talking about travel starting on Monday:

Went to a hipster restaurant last night in downtown LA from a Top Chef winner, and in an amazing twist of fate, all wine was 50% off…..lets just say they lost money on the deal……

Nathen wrapped up all of his change in wrappers and made me deposit it into his bank account yesterday….besides the counting, dexterity, blah blah blah and all that parenting crap….he is SAVING….he finds coins and puts them in his bottle, and “steals” coins from my desk (is it really stealing when he TELLS me he is stealing them?) and then he wraps them up for the bank….he learned about TD Bank in NY, who have coin counters but do NOT charge a fee, sadly we don’t have those here, we just have Coinstar which charge 6% I believe, OR give gift cards with no fee, so they aren’t bad, but he truly digs watching his bank account grow——over $930 so far, and I am proud of him….he earns his money, $5 a week, by taking in the papers, taking in the trash cans, making his bed (well, he would have to do that anyway), and watering the potted plants out back…..

Now, I have some great appliances in my house…happily purchased at the Sears Outlet, that Jay and Wendy Baxter turned me on to. My stove was like $3700 and had a small ding in the back, so it was there for $1300…it’s crazy…..I also have a great fridge with a great water-filtration system, so as my pal pointed out to me, what the HELL am I doing with bottled water delivery every 3 weeks? I will tell you what, I thought it was a big huge nightmare to cancel it. I know how something that actually took me 4 seconds to do seemed like a big issue, “wheres the bill, do i need an account number, what the hell is the phone number of the water service anyway”….I looked up the number, gave them my address, they are picking up the cooler next week, I save $25 a month, and I am drinking the same filtered water out of my fridge which i just purchased a new filter for……done done done…….

When “sex and the city” started way back in 1998, the ratings situation was not as complex as it is now. Tivo lifts, cable ratings etc, were all not as slick as they are now. What they did know was that 5 million people or so signed up for HBO when we premiered, and then about 5 million would cancel when the season was over. I understand people are having some hard times financially, and this one is a no-brainer. Find the service you need and can afford and have THAT, call the cable or satellite company and get what YOU want…..if anyone is over 40, wrapping your mind around that we now as a matter of ‘normalcy’ pay over $100/month to watch TELEVISION is absolutely insane——(believe me, I am thankful for it, I guess it is how I get paid)—-but I get paid enough, and there is no need for others to suffer just because they haven’t noticed that their TV bills are completely as out of control as everything else in our lives is——(FYI, I didn’t HAVE HBO until the 3rd season of “sex”, and that wasn’t smart, I actually WAS cheap, I should have been watching my friggin show).

That’s all I got for the weekend…..off to tennis with the boy and then of course the 50% sale at Party City tomorrow for Halloween crap (not too scary, Nathen is prone to the nightmare)

Please keep passing it around, you all have been awesome in spreading this for us….and stay tuned on Monday for some travel stuff and adventure stuff……

I’m a big fan of knowing things. Not in a “I know something and it’s wildly important to me that you DON’T” kind of way. There is nothing worse than the person, common here in Los Angeles, who ate a meal yesterday, WITHOUT YOU, that was ten times better than the the one they are sharing with you. Or the deal they got that you DIDN’T get, or the movie they saw that is now closed forever and the print was burned in a bonfire that now you can never see.

One way to avoid these unfortunate mishaps is to of course avoid those kind of insecure people. The other way is to not walk around as a dumbass. There are discounts and free crap all around us. If you are lucky enough to live in NY, TimeOut NY online has lists of TONS of free stuff to do every day, the site saved me on many a day with young Nathen. He probably talks about the warm summer night we sat on the pier, eating FREE popcorn, watching “The Wizard of Oz” for FREE, with him in my lap, more than just about anything else we do in NY. Not ONE of my NY friends knew about it, and all I had done, because I’m such a freakin genius, is READ about it. There are deals that can be emailed to you every day, there are entertainment events, discount coupons, INFORMATION about stuff every day online and in the paper.

If people are struggling with work, there are resources galore on the internet, and if they don’t have computers, libraries do. Here in LA, or anywhere for that matter cause its the internet, people are teaching wonderful things to people who want to be actors, or navigate the treacherous ‘business’ of acting. Marci Liroff’s site http://youractormba.com is wicked smart to pass along to your pals who are trying to figure out how to make a living. And tons of it is free. I imagine there are resources just like that for many industries. We used a service to help us clean out my mother’s apartment after her death which was AMAZING. And guess what, it’s a franchise that does not have one in Los Angeles. I’ve told people who I knew were looking for something. Pass things on to your friends, it’s a good thing, but please avoid the “I’m so friggin smart and that’s why I am smugly letting you know that I know about this” behavior, it’s nauseating. It’s not about being pushy, other people have their own realities and decisions to make, it’s just about SHARING INFORMATION…..HELPING EACH OTHER OUT. John Stewarts’ Reality March on Washington, later this month, has the right idea. 

We have a deal in my house. When Nathen wants to know about something, I tell him what I know, then we go to the computer. There is nothing better in the world than him singing “Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy” at full voice in the morning. So he wants to know about John Denver——he doesn’t need to know that sunshine on his shoulders AND Bourbon made John Denver happy, but he did want to know about a clear-voiced singer with environmental concerns who one time long ago made a very very very bad TV movie with his Dad, so we FIND THE INFORMATION. I guarantee he will tell 2 kids at school today, and hopefully not in a snotty “I know something you don’t” kind of way.

And please, if you are in a coffee shop or a park, and you are done with the paper, please ask the person next to you if they would like to read it. They should. The NY Times costs 2 friggin dollars now, which is a crime in and of itself. 

Who told us we can sit and watch reality TV all day, that we all ‘deserve’ a bigscreen TV and week in Vegas? Who told us that we should stop learning about what we do for a living and that everything should just ‘come’ to us, without any effort or time spent being interested in what we set out to do in the first place? Whoever told us that was wrong. We owe it to our children, our families, and—-to ourselves, to be informed, available and open for information…….

Tomorrow I start a bit on travel, a subject near and dear to my heart….obviously we are probably past the point where anyone just calls up a hotel and says “gimme a room”, or calls Hertz and says “whatta ya got?”, but I will go through some strategies that have served me well, and after all, I am the mental patient who is writing this, so as always, just one man’s opinion……

Please keep forwarding this site, bookmarking it, subscribing to it, etc….and thanks for the comments, they are warmly received…….

WG

On “sex and the city”, my character was well-known for his fashion. That was completely due to Pat Field, the genius costume designer——she had more to do with the creation of that character than Candace Bushnell, Daren Starr, Michael Patrick King, or this little bald man who inhabited him since 1997. And yes, he did wear suits that cost up to $20,000. And no, I didn’t keep them, to be perfectly honest, I usually kept the designer, that is, I would get something from the suitmaker that “willie” would wear, not “stanford”. To tell one story to make a point however, Pat Field would LITERALLY carry around a $3 pair of vintage-store cufflinks for YEARS, waiting for the right ridiculously expensive suit for Stanford to be wearing to match them with—-and no, I am not making that up. 

“Willie” wears thrift shop clothing. Yes, we are all characters, we decide early on, are we going to be jeans guys, dandy guys, “I give up” sweatpants guys, “I spent way too much money on this dumbass label that I saw someone ELSE wear on TV” guys…..whatever. I do have a ton of clothes from working on various things, but if anyone is deranged enough to have been paying attention, the suit I wear the most on red-carpets and premieres and other nonsense-fests is very well-cut, slim, grey, with an amazing blue lining. It is from——wait for it——-BANANA REPUBLIC and was on the sale rack (why anyone would shop on any OTHER rack is beyond me) and cost $120. That is absolutely true. The character of “Willie”, who is known for dressing extremely well, only wears thrift shop choices (the best are all in Vancouver by the way, THRIFT CITY might as well be a temple), GAP sale rack, Banana Republic sale rack, used Levi’s, and anything that is on sale from UNIQLO, the Japanese department store on Broadway in Soho—-(I just got 4 pairs of slim cut jeans from there, $15 each, that I have literally been asked “Where did you get those pants, they’re awesome!”) The gentle way they cup the globes of my….oh crap, wrong website…..My favorite T-shirt at present is from a thrift store and is from a 1984 road race, but the best part is the stencil drawing of the 1983 winner, complete with his Andy Gibb haircut and Magnum PI moustache….

I love shoes, particularly whatever is on sale at john Fluevog, and any sneaker (preferably canvas) that’s on sale. When I want a splurge, Ron Herman here in LA has their yearly sale, wait till the 3rd week and its 70 percent off……but again, those sale racks at Banana and Gap have some awfully sweet suits and trousers etc, I am usually shocked by them……and never overlook the obvious deals at the glorious Target for the best made v-neck t-shirts and socks in the land by Hanes….my neighbor even takes stuff she doesn’t wear and goes to a ‘trading collective’ right here in Studio City California, she brings in a bag of stuff, they price it, and she has that much credit to spend on stuff at the store….how awesome is that?

Nathen wears ONLY whats on the sale rack at Kids Gap, and the oddly fantastic Children’s Place, which will not be a shock to anyone with kids. His favorite shoes (wearing them today), are fleece lined hush puppies that I got there on the sale rack for——ready——TWO DOLLARS, I shit you not…….I don’t run around looking, I happen to be driving by, I see the sale sign up and pop in, big friggin deal…simple simple simple…..He also rocks some awesome thrift store stuff, and SJ often compliments me on how well he dresses (luckily for me, he is into it too)….I must say that SJ’s kid dresses amazingly well too, so we have similar thoughts on that stuff…cotton is king…..for dress clothes, I am shocked to see that the Target brand suits Nathen well, but it has to pass the snotty Dad test…….

Now—-GLASSES…..I wear them. Always have, should have had the lasik surgery years ago, but now if I have it, I’ll be needing reading glasses anyway so what’s the point. I wear them in every film project, I wear them in life. I like a frame that makes a statement, with a light tint, that’s just me. I have tons of pairs (although I have been good lately at giving the ones I absolutely will never wear again away to the Lions Club and Goodwill for distribution to people who need them, do I really need 50 pairs?) I have had sponsorship deals with most of the very high-end places here in LA, but mostly, no shock here, I buy frames from Vintage and Thrift stores for like $5 and put my lenses in…there’s a place on Mott Street in NY (Optical 88), that’s been doing my lenses for years for like $60, which is HALF what every other place has charged me….and now here I will do something I am trying not to do on this site, and plug an amazing company that I heard about from my dear friend and business partner Jay Baxter….it’s an online eyewear company called WARBY PARKER——they are all vintage inspired designs, REALLY great looking, like REALLY REALLY great looking, you pick your frames (beautiful ones), get them your doctors prescription, they verify it with the doctor, make it, ship it to you, AND—-READY?——GIVE ANOTHER PAIR TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS THEM——thats right…..and get this———it all costs only NINETY FIVE DOLLARS………PLEASE give them your business, they are amazing……..WARBY PARKER, online only……

That’s it for today, not an explosive post, but save money on clothes when you can, it’s not hard——as Pat Field says, “fashion should be democratic”, meaning fashion is for everyone….inexpensive does not mean badly dressed….whatever odd iconography I have as a fashionable person actually costs like nothing. An amazingly cool pair of vintage pants for $5 makes me feel better than a dumbass cookie-cutter pair gotten at a major department store…..that could be just me, but I doubt it. I have a friend who is a major movie star, when we were younger we almost never went to a baseball game without stopping off at a thrift store on the way and picking up some awesome shirts to wear….when you make it part of your “fabric”, pardon the pun, it just becomes second (hand) nature……

See ya tomorrow….and thanks for your comments and questions, and please keep passing this around……thx,

WG

First off, let me just point out that eggs are 0.99/dozen at 99 cent store this week…..yes, they are the same eggs delivered to all the other stores, though not organic, cage-free, grass-fed, or hand polished……

Waste is horrible. We waste everything. Air, water, food, MONEY, love, friendship, health….you name it, we can waste it. Have we developed a country of B-movie coke dealers who light cigars with $100 bills because we “can”? Well…..kind of……

Our parents or grandparents grew up through a massive economic depression, my father (who made and blew through a ton of money in his life, loved to eat some sad corn kernels in lukewarm watered-down milk till the day he died, it felt like home.) They then went off to war. They also had wash-day, block parties, sewing circles, barn-raisings, cub scouts, community spirit, parades, naivety (sometimes not such a bad thing) and helped each other as much as they were able to. Some lived through even worse things than the Depression, and made a loaf of bread or a potato last for a week……Tom Brokaw called them “the greatest generation”…….and I doubt that he was wrong.

Sarah Jessica have spoken quite a bit about this. Just because I have money (which I do), does not make me feel good about wasting things. If Nathen wants some chocolate milk, I pour him a little glass. He invariably takes one tiny sip and he’s done. Well you can be quite sure that he will be looking at that same glass of milk the next meal and the one after that until it is gone. We don’t waste here. He gets a toy, he gives one away that he doesn’t use anymore. That’s the rule. He can talk about it in therapy later. Which I can afford, he will be able to afford, and his children will be able to afford. 

If you are hurting financially, look at your trash. Look at what you are wasting. It will tell you more than I could begin to describe. Look at what you left on your plate at a restaurant because you ordered too much. Take it home, or wrap it up and give it to someone on the street, there are plenty.

And if you are a rapper with your first and probably last single that’s just “dropped” (that’s right, I know my audience), don’t blow your money on Hennessey…Hennessey sucks. Buy a better cognac. If you want to go to Las Vegas and be “treated like a VIP” when you are NOT a VIP, then take a look at that. Who the hell wants to be treated like a “high roller” when you have to go home and not be able to pay your (probably) overly expensive mortgage. You wanna feel like a king? Take your kid to a 99 cent store and give him a $10 bill to spend. Talk about a kid in a candy shop, it’s awesome.

What Sarah Jessica and I speak about is that waste is what got us here in the first place, useless waste. We know Sarah can pay her bills, and we know that I can pay my bills. If you are fortunate enough to be able to pay all of your bills then do this——every time you want to waste money, waste HALF of it instead, you earned it, go blow some ( I spend 10% of every job on something for ME, that’s what my agent gets, I feel like I should get the same)…….but after that, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, I am BEGGING you, take the money you were going to waste and put it in an envelope to AMFAR, Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, or The Alliance for Children’s Rights here in Los Angeles….and see how THAT makes you feel……”Superman never made any money, saving the world from Solomon Grundy”——yes, I just quoted the Crash Test Dummies…….

And if you are reading this, please do me a favor….tell 5 people about it. I am an advocate for people living sensibly and avoiding what we have all seen happen to so many as of late. WE, collectively, have been OUT OF CONTROL…..let’s just see if we can do better. I think we can….

Please sign up to follow this site, and have your pals do it as well…..talk to you tomorrow on “The Clothes Make The Man?”

WG

First, lemme just mention i went food shopping yesterday. I do the big shopping once a week, after the coupons and circulars come for my 2 favorite stores, R’s and V’s, (no lawsuits here please)…..guess what we eat—-that’s right, we eat what’s on sale…..I saved 53% at V’s yesterday, and 46% at R’s, so basically I got me and Nathen $80 worth of food for 40, and I don’t buy crap, unless you consider yogurt, turkey, asparagus, apples or tri-tip crap…..people say they are scared of coupons——don’t be—-use the ones that you use, don’t use the ones you don’t, pretty simple. I also have another thought on this……Nathen eats basically whatever we are having, in other words, I don’t have a kid who I have to say “he only eats chicken” about….we eat what’s on sale that week and that way dinners don’t get boring to ME either…I will talk on and on about this, as food shopping is a very obvious area where people spend money, so more for another time……

Now on to Lara, our completely wonderful nanny/housekeeper…..she is in her late 20’s, a yoga teacher, runs an organic garden, and is on public radio, crazy smart and intuitive….she keeps the house neat, cooks amazing and healthy meals, helps organize our lives, and most importantly, is a loving and wise caretaker for Nathen when I can’t….she came to me and asked me how to build wealth. She has $2500 to do something with. To me, that sounded like quite a bit, and off we went.

When I was about 21 (I know, I still look the same, lots of inexpensive plastic surgery, Thanks Costa Rica!!, perhaps a topic for another day), I invested in 2 mutual funds, with I think about $500 each. The ones I chose were through T. Rowe Price in Massachusetts, very highly rated “no-load” funds, which mean they don’t take a fee….but here is the key, I signed up for “asset builder”, where they automatically take $100/month out of my checking account for each fund. That either sounds like a lot or nothing, depending on your situation……all of my income and gains are automatically re-invested into more shares, and I swear to you, whenever i have needed $5000, it has always been there. I never think about it, it just sits, and grows, and grows, and grows…and when I have been in trouble in the past, the money was there. Simple, not groundbreaking, and truly NOTHING to freak out about. 

YESTERDAY, Lara purchased shares in 2 mutual funds for $1000 each, with $50/month going automatically out of her checking account into each, and she also checked the boxes for reinvested gains and income. I am crazy proud of her, and she is on her way to savings, painlessly. The whole process took about 7 minutes. Done.

I also gave her an assignment. Find 5 things you see around you that seem to be great (Nathen’s water-bottle was the example I used). Lets find out who makes it, is it a publicly traded company, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, does it sell for close to $5 a share. Does it have room to grow? Do they have a plan? Does the company have value? Well, Lara stepped right up to the plate with some great choices, and one was perfect. I am VERY proud that today Lara is buying 100 shares of GAIA stock, which is a yoga, lifestyle, and media services company….(I hope to god she did it already, as it is up 8 percent TODAY as I am writing this)….let’s hope the company goes back up to it’s highs of $30/share (I’d be happy with $10, but let’s see what happens)….here’s the thing, for a NEW investor, the company isn’t valueless, it can’t go much lower, even if it drops to NOTHING, she is out 600 bucks, but if it goes up, she can sell and move to a larger company with dividends, like GE or Johnson and Johnson…..When I was a little kid, literally 9 or so, I read IN THE PAPER (noticing a theme here about READING THE PAPER?) that Atlantic City was going to have casinos. There was a company called Resorts International…I BEGGED my Dad to buy me 100 shares at $3/share, my mother said it was dumb…..we sold the shares for $125/share……as an adult, I read about Viagra, my $60 shares in Pfizer doubled in 5 days (horny middle aged guys + wall street = stock exploding, pardon the pun)….it was so obvious it was silly. I did NOT buy Ford stock at 70 cents a share during the recession, and it also was so obvious that I am mad at myself every day, when it hit $12 again, I was pissed off for a week.

Speaking of investments, I am a partner in 2 restaurants in Los Angeles, Dominick’s and Little Dom’s. If anyone does NOT know about the Sunday Supper at Dominick’s, or the Monday Supper at Little Dom’s, then you should. $15 for appetizer, entree, and dessert——these are not roadhouse diners, these are high end, 3 star, destination restaurants, and if your going out budget has shrunk to non-existent, as it has for so many people in this area, this is the craziest, best deal in town…..enjoy…….