Show Me The Money

Until I had moved to Louisiana I had never even heard of the money dance. But every single wedding I've been to in the state of Louisiana has had one. So in case you're like me from a few, you may be wondering just exactly, "what is a money dance?" In the simplest terms, it's basically a dance set aside for the bride and the groom to dance with their guests. Except the catch, and where the name comes in, is that in order to dance with the bride or groom, you're supposed to pay them.

via Mrs. Espresso
See the dollar bills under Mr. Espresso's suspenders?If bring up etiquette and weddings, the number one topic that's going to cause conflict is probably the money dance, and I can definitely see why. After all, your guests have already bought you gifts, they may have spent quite a bit of money to travel to come see you, and now you're going to force them to pay to dance with you. When I first heard of them, I was definitely against them and thought there was no way I'd ever do one at my wedding.

Except I've slowly started to change my mind. I think the idea that it gives you the chance to dance with someone that otherwise you may not have the opportunity to, is what did it for me. And since it's encouraged for people to cut in, you could dance with far more people in a given time than you would otherwise.

via Mrs. Lioness
Mrs. Lioness dancing with all her bridesmaids.I don't think anyone would be offended if it was called "A Dance with the Guests," but it's not. Although I can't imagine there would be a bride or groom out there who would refuse to dance with someone if they didn't bring money with them. A friendly term, which it's sometimes called, is the Honeymoon Dance, since the thought is the bride and groom are collecting spending money for their honeymoon. Except the boy & I aren't planning on taking a honeymoon immediately after the wedding, so that doesn't quite work. (And no I haven't blogged about this yet, but I promise I will.)

via Mrs. Ballet Flat
I can't imagine this guest was contributing his own money.At this point we are planning on doing a money dance, but only with a single song. To elaborate that, I've been to weddings where the money dance goes through 2 or 3 songs to make sure more people can join in. But if we're doing it, I think 1 song is more than enough.

As for what song, I think it'd be fun to use "That's What Friends Are For," which reminds me not just of Bar & Bat Mitzvahs I attended, but even more importantly The OC's Chrismukkah Bar Mitzvah Spectacular. I think it's a great fit since it's an easy song to dance to, plus in my opinion, the whole point of the money dance is to be able to dance with your friends that are there to celebrate with you.

Are you familiar with money dances? Would you ever consider having one (or did you have one) at your wedding?

You Don't Sit on the Baby

My first summer living in Louisiana I spent as a camp counselor. It was what I did throughout most of high school and college, and I wanted one my summer as a counselor before I ended grad school. I had a great summer, and at the end one of the parent's asked if I'd been willing to babysit. "Of course!" After all, who doesn't like a few extra dollars.

A few weeks after the summer ended they called to see if I could watch the kids. They lived not that far from my apartment at the time so I had no trouble finding the place. The night went really smoothly. I made frozen pizza. The kids watched one of the Air Bud movies on TV. They even went to sleep pretty easily.

The trouble only started when the parents got home. I was giving them a report of the night, and they asked how much I charged. Well, that far more complicated than it seemed. I hadn't actually babysat since high school. Back in high school I used to charge $10 an hour (which was even on the low side compared to some of my friends). But when I was in high school I was 16 or 17 when I was baby-sitting, and at the time I was 22. So based on the fact I was older I would guess I should charge slightly more, and one would think in general babysitting rates have gone up over the past 6 years or so.

However, when I babysat in high school I was in California. But, now I was in Louisiana. And things cost more in California than they do in Louisiana. Minimum wage is less in California than it is in Louisiana. So I should be charging less than I used to in California.

I figured that since I should be charging more on one opinion and less on the other opinion, if I kept my same rate I'd be safe. I really did try to avoid saying anything, "I'm fine with whatever you normally pay your baby-sitters," but that wasn't working. So I finally sucked it up and said, "I charge $10 an hour."

I pretty much completely overestimated the going rate for a babysitter in Louisiana. Turns out they normally paid $7 an hour for a babysitter. I told them $7 would be fine, but they insisted. Then there was the fact they didn't have enough cash to pay me for $10 an hour. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it) they were able to find their checkbook and wrote me a check for $10 an hour. And let's just say they never actually called me again to babysit. I'm guess they went back to a babysitter that was at least a little cheaper than me.

So I'm curious, did you babysit when you were growing up? Do you remember what the going rate for then? Or maybe you currently have kids? If that's the case what do you normally pay your babysitters? Maybe we can come to some sort of nationwide (or maybe even worldwide) average!

~Shoshanah

Bank to Bank

The first bank account I ever had was a joint account at Wells Fargo. I was in high school in Southern California. I was excited to have an account there because, well haven't you seen The Music Man?

"Papa! Papa! The Wells Fargo Wagon is coming! The Wells Fargo is coming!"

Plus look at their logo. There's an actual wagon and horses on it. Like a stagecoach from the wild west. What's not to love?

I went off to college in Maryland. Where they have no Wells Fargos. I think I lasted a year before I started a student account with Bank of America. I figured, it's Bank of America, if I move somewhere else it will still be in America and I'll be fine. It is after all in both California and Maryland. My favorite part of BoA? Their Save the Change plan, which rounds up every purchase and puts the difference in your savings account. For example, if you spend $3.75 at the store, BoA will automatically transfer $0.25 into your savings account. It makes putting money into your savings account really easy.

Fast forward a few years, and I went to grad school in Louisiana. There are no Bank of Americas in Louisiana, at least none within 100 miles of Baton Rouge. After living here over two years I figured it was time to open an account here. Mainly so I would actually be able to deposit checks into my account. The goal would be to find a bank that is actually in both California and Louisiana. Turns out, there are none! Seriously. I decided to go with Chase, which is fairly big here. In hopes that if I ever move to a new state they will have either Bank of America or Chase there. We'll see...

~Shoshanah

Sims 3?

I had a plan all ready for Saturday. I was going to wake up, spend some time internet-ing. Then meet the Boy on his lunch break. We could go to Chick-fil-a (which I've been craving for like the past month and haven't had). After lunch I would go to Target and see an eye dr there to get a new contacts prescription. I would pick up groceries at Target, but Target's in Louisiana have grocery stores inside.

But most importantly on Saturday, I would buy the Sims 3!

So I decided to go to the Sims 3 web page today. I figured with out coming out tomorrow they would have new videos or screenshots or something. What do I find instead

THIS

Posted on February 3, it's a press release saying the Sims 3 release date is June 2. But that doesn't make sense! Was I crazy? Did I really screw up the release date that much. I mean I told the boy to buy it for me for Valentine's day!

After a little research I found out that I wasn't at least crazy. It was supposed to be tomorrow. But February 3, less than 3 weeks before the release date, they pushed it back 4 months. They claim it was so the could create more marketing. B.S. Remember how I said the economy hasn't affected me. Well I guess now it has.

I actually stopped playing the Sims 2 about a month ago to create suspense for the new game. When best buy was liquidating I didn't buying expansion packs at 40% off because I wasn't playing it anymore. So now do I start playing again? Do I wait an extra 4 months before playing Sims again? Either way the whole situation sucks a lot.

~Shoshanah

Image originally uploaded by Müllmann on Flickr

A Coke?

So I went to the vending machines at my apartment complex to buy a coke. (OMG I am turning into a Louisianan! I didn't buy a Coke. I bought a Dr. Pepper and am now just referring to sodas as Cokes in general)

Moving past my own personal crisis. I put my dollar into the machine, and immediately heard coins fall. At that time though a light lit up on the machine saying use correct change. So I figured that was weird. That it took my dollar and gave me coins? I took the change out, but there was only $0.60 there! It didn't even give me my whole dollar back!

I had brought a second dollar bill just in case, but didn't really want to waste it. So I figured I would see if it would take the coins. Maybe it gave me the exact change to use? $0.60 sounds reasonable for a soda (ha! I did it right there) doesn't it. But alas, it kept spitting my coins back out!

I figured I would press the Dr. Pepper button in desperation. And a Dr. Pepper popped out! Which means I only paid $0.40 for a can! That seems ridiculously little. My thought is maybe someone else forget there change? So sodas are in fact $0.70? Who knows, I am going to cross my fingers and hope that they are $0.40!

But Top Chef is on, so I must go. And I SO recognize the plantation the did the quick fire at! But honestly can't figure out which one it is! Maybe when the Boy gets home he will be able to tell!

~Shoshanah
Image from Flickr user Daniel Morris

The Economy...

So, Rebecca at GGC started a new blog called Portraits of an Economy about different people dealing with the economy. It's kind of depressing reading it, thinking about what everyone else is going through. But I feel awful saying this, I really don't feel like this whole downturn has affected me very much, if at all.

First off I don't own a house. I don't really have a car loan. I don't have kids, overall I don't have a lot of debt. (Except of course for student loans, but that's good debt, right?) The biggest change for me feel like it is that gas prices are dropping and I have to pay less for gas, which is a good thing.

I do get that a lot of it has to do this the fact that many people don't feel secure with their job. Maybe I'm being naive, but I completely do. I do realize I don't work a great industry overall right now. One of our competitors recently went bankrupt, and we are attempting to take over some of their business. So it could happen. But every week at our company-wide meeting our president's always say we are doing well, and that we met our goals. I mean we're still hiring people. Our company is currently building a new building because we've really out grown ours. You know things are crazy when people call and say they are going to be late coming back from their lunch break because there is no parking left. So yes, I do feel secure at my job.

I do get that there are a lot of other people out there who don't. I also get how difficult it can be to find a job. I went one quite a lot of interviews, and sent out even more resumes. The only reason I am where I am now is because I started working as a temp. So I do get it.

But it's hard to know who exactly is affected. I talked to my parents a few weeks ago. And we were talking about how different people had been doing. I told them pretty much what I said above. And while my mom didn't say things were bad, there was definitely a weird tone of her voice.

So who knows what will happen. Hopefully it will all get fixed soon. I can't quite see that know its the whole world that's feeling this. Which when you think about it sounds really weird. How is all this money disappearing? It has to go somewhere right? So where is it? I mean it's almost like money is just this imaginary thing, and when you really think about it, it is! Ok... we're now getting a little too existential for my tastes.

~Shoshanah

The picture is my scratch-off winning from about a year ago. Beacuse wouldn't we all love to win some money right about now