December 27, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Okay. I wasn’t sure what to blog about today or whether to blog at all. I enjoy the process of writing and it helps to order my brain. I edited a few of my past blogpost. Thanks for having patience with my grammatical errors. I reread old posts often and correct things as I go along. I was going to write a treatise about why one shouldn’t pay for financial advice, as I’ve never paid for financial advice. I would usually ask the person trying to give me financial advice, “What is your savings rate? What is your networth? If it’s better than mine, than maybe I’ll consider it.” Well, to be honest – I never said those EXACT words but I did say the essence of them. But I figured that blogpost was not kind and might alienate people, and honestly if people want to give other people money to give them advice about money – it’s actually not any of my business. It’s actually a carbon-free transaction assuming neither party starts flying everywhere around the world with their new found savings. But that was probably the reason they were in financial distress in the first place right? Hyperconsumption of prepackaged experiences. Hyperconsumption of things. Hyperconsumption of plastic experiences. Don’t even get me started on the wastefulness of the entire plastic surgery and beauty industry which is personified by the Kardashians.

So I’m minding my own business on my blog, which is what I probably ought to do. I did ensure that my own children are financially responsible yesterday. Our son stayed at home with his grandparents doing some sort of gaming thing. And we as married parents and daughter and puppy went to Balboa Park and we just went for a walk. We are finding these socially distanced walks masked as a family very beneficial. We drive somewhere close enough that usually we are using all electricity on my CMAX Energy Plug-in Hybrid. It is helping socialize our crazy puppy who seems less crazy now that we are taking her out in the world. Our daughter was able to chatter as we aimlessly tried to avoid other families. We all got exercise. And we drank out of our reusable water bottles and ate home-made trail mix again out of my silicone stasher bags. We are loving the stasher bags! During our walk yesterday our daughter quizzed me, “what is the best way to save money when you go out?” I looked at her in surprise! She was starting to sound like mini-Dr. Plastic Picker? “Bring your own trail mix?” I answered. “No” She replied. “Bring your own water.” And that is how the seeds of financial literacy are planted.

So this morning rather than finishing my half written post about “Be A True Belieber” because I found a Justin Bieber watch yesterday (this is true, check out my Instagram feed), I started home-made pita bread because our daughter loved rolling out the home-made torillas last time. She finds it tiring to make everything from scratch, and she liked the process of rolling and kneading and cooking it. So I started the pita bread this morning and when she is about to wake up, I’ll see if she wants to finish it. Here is the recipe from Food Network https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/homemade-flat-bread-recipe2-2013334 but with my modifications to make it healthier.

Home-Made Partial Wheat Pita Bread

Ingredients

1 package active yeast

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (I subbed in 3/4 whole wheat flour and 1 cup of all purpose flour)

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (I used dried thyme almost a powder and sprinkled in dried oregono leaves)

3/4 cup water (might need more)

1 teaspoon oil

Instructions

1. In the bowl combine the yeast, sugar, flour, salt and thyme. Pulse to combine. Add the water in a steady stream until the dough begins to form a ball, turn it on to a board and knead with the heel of your hand until the dough is smooth and elastic.
2. Coat a bowl with oil. Place dough in bowl, and cover with a damp cloth. Put in a warm spot to rise until double in size, about 1 hour.
3. When the dough has doubled in size, punch the dough, scrape it onto the counter and knead it lightly into a smooth ball. Cut into 20 pieces and with a rolling pin roll out to form very flat 5 to 6-inch circles.
4. Preheat a stove top grill pan over medium high. Do not oil. Place bread on hot grill and cook without touching it until you see bubbles on the surface, about 1 to 2 minutes. Turn and continue to cook 1 to 2 minutes more or until bread has puffed up. Serve immediately.

I’m not sure if this is a money saver because it used a packet of yeast which is not cheap, and pita bread you can buy at the store for usually less than $2. But it was really good and fun, and sometimes that’s the point of cooking right? I like making tortillas and pita bread that we eat right away to save on the plastic bag.

And that is this morning’s post. Minding my own business on my blog and not judging if you pay someone $600 to give you financial counseling or life coaching. Really you could just read my blog post on Financial Independence to Save the Earth and figure it out. MDs are really smart and they should know that you don’t ask MDs for money advice. You ask accountants and a fee based financial advisor. $600 to someone who does not hold any license in financial advice is ludicrous. It’s kind of a scam. I’m sorry it is. That person actually has no fidiciary responsibility for you. You can get a lifecoach certficate online for $2000. Trust me, I checked. It’s just like this woman who once did my eyebrows (when I used to do that which I totally regret) and she had on her beauty salon card ND (Naturalpathic Doctor). Yes she was trying to give medical advice with her ND. I’ll just leave it at that. Home-made pita bread with some wheat flour. I promise you it’s easy and it’s a fun project that really won’t cost you much, you’ll maybe save a $1. But more importantly if you make home-made pita bread rather than having an affair, getting a divorce, giving your money to someone who tells you to quit your job that you’ve trained over a decade to do, or take up an expensive silly hobby like addictive international travel, piloting airplanes than I guarantee this free blog post will MAKE YOU MONEY. But seriously, I don’t try to give cooking advice because I’m learning how to cook. I’m trying to give cooking inspiration. But if you know me in real life and I’m your actual Assistant Boss at work and you want financial advice, just text me in real life and we can chat as friends and I’ll be your spiritual financial advisor for $0. Those MDs who have been near me can attest that I’m a good barometer for financial decisions. What a scam. $600. Even if you get the financial advice for free, the reason they are giving it out for free is they want to get into our department and organization and start taking $600 from everyone that you sell this miraculous story of how they fixed your life.

But will they really? I doubt it. The source of financial freedom is actually finding inner peace and happiness, and finding meaning in this wonderful profession that we’ve been blessed to be part of. But I’ll go back to minding my own business. I need to finish some board questions that are due in a week. I’ll include the picture of the finished flat bread that the tween girl decides to wake up. First though, off to find some interesting bits and pieces for my trash art!