Ray's Place: High Cost of Living, The New Manliness, Salad Dressing Hack

Dear Ray, I'm making more money than I ever have before in my life--but I'm still always broke! Can you offer some advice for a man who is working his tail off and still cannot maintain his greenbacks? Many thanks, Frothy 

Frothy, 

Yeah, I seen it. Got the stack comin’ in every month, but you’re livin’ above your means, and that’s a real sour pill to swallow. I taught a seminar once on how to live thrifty, and while it didn’t go over too well—people yelled that it was “infuriating hypocrisy” and “a total masturbaTED Talk”—I did learn a thing or two while I was googlin’, and I’ll share them now. 

While I don’t know the particulars of your financial situation, here are the most common leaks in the balloon: 

• Staying in to eat. The average cost of a casual sandwich lunch out is about $23 these days. If you buy groceries to make the same lunch at home, it’ll cost you about $63.50, which is higher.   

• Unnecessary Target trips. Sure, you could always have a third size of silicone spatula, but how often are you even doing high-end chocolate work? Sometimes it’s important to recognize that you’re just goin’ out to buy something in order to have any sort of emotional experience at all.

• Subscription Hygiene. I just checked, and I have 73 active subscriptions. I even have a monthly subscription to an app that lets me use my iPhone as a paperweight?! A little quick math shows that I’m spendin’ nearly a grand a month on stuff I don’t even know about, or can’t exist. 

• Fine beds. I filled all my guest rooms with top-of-the-line Hemick & Kern mattresses and Thittavapa Monsoon sheets washed in Kurkdjian Aqua Universalis, but almost nobody ever sleeps on ‘em. If you’ve been a little too free and easy with the fine beds lately, it might be time to rein it in.

—Rayllelujah—

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Ray - How much is an acceptable amount to lie while golfing? Or I guess playing any somewhat competitive game with friends. Sincerely, John

John, 

The new movement in golf is radical honesty, so dudes these days are actually competing to turn in higher numbers. It proves how strong they are, to admit how bad they yard-saled on the links that day. 

A little background: everybody who plays golf knows we suck at it, and that we usually take about three more strokes per hole than we’re supposed to (when we don’t just give up entirely and kick it in the water). So, when a guy turns in a 126 instead of a 72 (par), that’s showin’ he’s an old-school honorable fella, like Socrates. 

It’s a brave new time to be a man. That hokey old macho style — with the mustache and the punch in the face — is in the Dumpster, and not givin’ a damn that you suck is the new John Wayne.

—Rayment of Ermine—

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Ray, please, I just need one good versatile salad dressing recipe. Can you help a brother out. —Bungus

Yeah Bungus, I got you in the pinch. You know those extra tubs of Ranch you always throw in the glove box after hittin’ Popeyes? 

‘,’,’,Fond On Cookies, Fond On Cream, He’s Ray,’,’,’

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Confidential to Gary_V in Minneapolis: Hey, glad you’re back! Hope the fishing trip went well. Missed you last week. Anyhow, I’ve found that teflon tape really isn’t necessary with the pressure rings. And, I plumped for the $600 Milwaukee cordless PEX expansion tool set, but you can get the manual expander for like $120, and it’s fine unless you’re a f/t pro.