savage money / By Jennifer Savage

No Check, Please

Have you forgotten? Date night is more fun without money.

(June 25, 2009)  Fox News in the background. Light jazz in the fore. Rivulets of speech wash over the click click click of keyboards, are then swept aside by the announcement. “You are approaching a very sensitive metal detector,” the voice warns. I am in the Sacramento airport sporting a laptop, an accoutrement of my new job, listening to Jack Gallagher explain the finer points of security checkpoints.

This latest career move promises challenge, controversy and a salary that will keep the bills paid somewhat more reliably than my seven-and-a-half year stint as a journalist. But the gap between last paycheck at the old gig and first paycheck at the new calls for restraint, responsibility and careful planning.

Ugh. That sounds so boring.

Admittedly, this tendency to rebel against even my own authority signifies a lack of maturity on my part — and therein lies my downfall. Perhaps you, too, can only follow the straight-and-narrow so far before the desire to gorge on life’s juicy ripeness sends you dancing off the path and into the trees. Which is all so fine, to be a free-spirit, reveling in pleasure, no boring banking business damping down your joy. High-yield savings account? Credit score? Who cares? Why say “no” to indulgences when life should be one great big fat, “Yes!”

Except at some point, one grows tired of the short-term gratification forever pre-empting long-term satisfaction. Money, food, booze — without some discipline, you’ll end up broke, fat and perpetually hungover. (Well, some of you are probably quite sensible, but not all of us are born with the restraint gene intact, it seems.) So how to continue cultivating moments of delight while stepping up to smarter money management?

After all, just because California’s unemployment has hit an all-time high, our environmental crises continue to worsen and we face the elimination of all state services that matter most is no reason to turn dour and sour. Now, more than ever, we need to find fun where we can. This is no, “Go shopping or the terrorists have won!” philosophy; more a nod to the classic Latin motto “Illegitimi non carborundum” — don’t let the bastards get you down. If you need to, look at it like this: you’re an amazing, beautiful, good-hearted person who deserves to be financially secure, so don’t sabotage yourself. Keep having fun, but do it for less. I asked around for some good cheap date ideas. What can two people do for $10 or less that doesn’t suck?

First up: Arcata Theatre Lounge’s Sunday matinee movies. Four dollars each before 6 p.m. Buy some of that 50-cent popcorn at the snack bar, then snuggle up in the swankiest spot in Humboldt and marvel at the majesty of old movies. This Sunday it’s “My Man Godfrey,” with William Powell and Carole Lombard, touted as “the definitive screwball comedy.”

Also in Arcata, the sweet new Arcata Scoop. If they serve ice cream in heaven, it might be almost as good as this. The strawberry, the Earl Grey, the chocolate-covered grasshopper?! Spend $5 on a couple kid-sized cones or upgrade to the regular single-scoop for under $4 each, then stroll on down to the Marsh. When’s the last time you visited the Marsh? If you can’t remember, you’re overdue. The Marsh is particularly fabulous because depending on the weather and tide, the experience changes dramatically — but always manages to calm and inspire. (Except when your car gets broken into. That’s why you should walk from Arcata proper.)

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