Simple living is what it's all about

When people come visit me, one of the things they comment on is how much they like the lifestyle and habits they pick up while they're here. Sometimes it takes a trip away from home to give you the courage to do something drastic with your life, like lose weight, or clean up your financial messes so that you can travel abroad more often. For me, moving to Trieste meant new beginnings as far as family (I met Sweetie, moved to Trieste and married him all in 8 months, 8 years ago) and finances. I was happy to downsize my everything, get out of debt (got rid of my car, paid off car loan and credit card with money I got for it, and paid off school loans as fast as I could once I moved here-- it took me about four years), and buy an apartment that we could afford (we have 8 years to go on a 15-year mortgage, and that's debt too, but different).

At some point Sweetie and I (also a Simple kind of guy) made frugal living a kind of game. It started out as Hey, let's see how low we can keep the thermostat in winter (I'm from Wisconsin, so Triestine winters seem like Florida to me). Answer: 15 degrees C, after which we let the furnace kick on. Then we said Hey, let's ONLY keep the lights on that we're using. All others OFF! Then, Hey, let's see how long we can go without eating out, and then Hey, let's see how many Family Fun for Free things we can do from now on, and finally,  Hey, let's see if we can live on just one salary (even when we had two decent ones).

And that was good timing, because about a year after we started, I lost my job, and, shortly after, so did my husband.

Well, that frugality gave immediate, and long-lasting results which made it possible for me to start my own little free-lance business (translating, teaching, language consulting) and allowed Sweetie to play full-time Dad for the first six months of Eva's life. Don't get me wrong, though. Living simply isn't for everyone, and we received enough criticism from friends who thought we were ridiculous for trying it that we eventually kept the project to ourselves. Our circle of friends changed somewhat, too, in that we started to hang around more with outdoorsy types and like-minded people as a result of our lifestyle change.

Now that we're both working again (as of exactly one week), we are keeping up the same lifestyle. We meet friends for hikes rather than dinner, and we still play our save money games. Now we have added washable diapers to the mix. As far as temperatures go, with the baby we put our limit at 18C. What awful parents we are, I thought, when I went to a friend's house with baby the same age and saw the thermostat was at 25C, but felt better when I had to take off Eva's sweater because she was dripping baby sweat.

Baby Parking a success, but we hate calling it that

I decided that I will just call the Baby Parking I chose by its correct name "Pika Poka" or Miss Samantha's. Pika Poka means Ladybug in Slovene, which is one of the reasons I chose it, because Miss Samantha, the owner, is from the Slovene minority and will speak it to your little ladybug if you ask her. And of course I did because I'm one of those kinds of moms, happy to force extra languages on the little one until she is old enough to completely rebell and speak only in pig-latin.

We put her there two days and it was great. There were only like 3 other kids and they were old enough to learn from, but not so old that it was weird. I'm so happy for the baby. All those cool toys (way cooler than at home) and other kids to play with. Good stuff.

More soon.

Baby Parking

This week I have to find a place to put the baby while Daddy goes back to work after a crisis-induced hiatus. If you want to put your kids in daycare, there a few choices. The cheapest and best-regarded is the public route. These are the daycare centers that are run by the city. To get into one you need to apply for a place in January. You rank them one to five and there is a week where you can go and visit them, check out the distance, cleanliness (something I don't worry much about, but others around here seem to find importantissimo), activities, etc. and make your choice. Hubby visited them (all about the same) and we ranked according to distance. One of them is less than a five-minute walk from my house, for example. Ever since I ranked that one as number one, I have passed several times with the dog and happened to see lunch ladies in hair nets, teachers (or "educators" as they call them here) and various staff members outside sneaking smokes (better than in the bathroom I suppose, unlike the HOSPITAL, which is REEK-A-LICIOUS in the WC!). They don't appear to be doing it at the same time, which I guess is the important thing. Those little taters need supervision, after all.

The public daycare centers provide free lunch, free diapers (most are not particularly interested in dealing with washables, which would mean putting the dirty one in a plastic bag that you provide and then snapping on another one that you provide, but whatever) and the price is based on how much you make.

You get word in May if you get in to a public daycare center for the next fall (September or October). If you don't, then you can either leave them with the baby's grandparents (lots of people do this here and grandparents often feel it is their "right" to have your kids full-time while you're at work) or leave them at any number of private daycare centers (cost about twice as much as public ones, don't provide lunch or diapers).

If you only need a few hours here or there for coverage, there are also "Baby Parking" centers. Yep, they say it in English, as in "Porto il mio figlio oggi in Baby Parking." These are what we are checking on for this week. They cost something like 7 euros an hour and you can drop off and pick up when you want.

I will let you know how my research goes.

Should I breathe new life into this blog?

I think this blog seems to have a life of its own. No thanks to me, of course...

But I feel like I can say some new things (when I can't, that's when I put my blogs on hybernate). I have a little Triestina baby now which gives me lots of fodder for writing about life in Trieste, but also a lot less time to do it.
Hmmmph.

If you have a baby in Trieste, though, you should know that you can get up to 110 euros back for money you spend at the pharmacy on your baby. There are two official pharmacies (piazza oberdan and another one in Viale xx September). All you have to do is keep your receipts and then fill out a form and turn those babies in and you will get that money back. Hey, it's not gonna feed your B.O.J. (Bundle of Joy) forever, but 100 euros is 100 euros. :) We bought formula and I think it got us through two months. Not bad!

Also there's something called Bonus bébé where you can get money just for having a baby (it's about time someone considered having a baby WORK!), and another thing where you can get discounts on your basic bills at home because you have a baby. I guess these are what they call social AMORTIZZATORI (Shocks, like on a bicycle. Soften up the road under you, or something like that).

I am not going to complain. Free money is free money and there is no stigma involved. If you DON'T take advantage of these things, people sort of feel sorry for you.

More more more soon!

Seven reasons Trieste is awesome if you want to live on the cheap

I've noticed that in Trieste right now everyone seems to be having a difficult time economically. There is just not that much money floating around. What continues to surprise me, however, is how good people are here about it. Let me explain. When I lived in the States, there was NO WAY I could survive if my pay were two months late (and I made a hell of a lot more money than I make now). Here, it happens to me (I'm freelance so that's to be expected) and my husband (who is a regular employee of a company) all the time, and we're not the only ones. It's almost normal. You work your normal hours and payday comes and goes, but the money never makes it to your account. Often there is no explanation or any kind of conversation about it. You just don't get paid. When the money comes in, whenever that is, you probably will. No use in complaining about it (this is not to say that a fair amount of complaining doesn't get done, because it does), you just have to suck it up and wait, just like your company is doing. End of story.

Since Italy has lots of small companies (a company the size of say, Illycaffè, by the way, even though it's an international brand and a pretty big outfit, is considered a medium-sized company and most people here work for companies which are teeny by comparison, and family owned) there just isn't that safety net of money for employers to rely on when things get tough. Getting rid of people is much more difficult than not paying them and waiting for the sun to come out, so that's what happens. Employees who don't get paid hang on with the same optimism of brighter days ahead-- that, and they're terrified of not finding another job, or worse, of getting another job but having no benefits and/or a lousy contract. 

I was already on my way to a simple life before I came here, but living in Italy makes it much easier. Since I spend  a fair amount of time complaining in my blogs, I figure it's high time I praise Italy and my triestino friends for what somehow allows me to live with a sense of security even though I don't have that much money. Here we go. 

1. Healthcare. The inner peace you get from knowing you have it and that it can't get taken away from you goes without saying. It's also very easy to get here. If you're married to an Italian you qualify for it automatically. If you're a foreigner living here with a proper visa, you can also pay into the healthcare fund every year and get coverage (and if I remember correctly it costs less than what it would cost to pay for insurance from abroad, but this must be verified). In the States, the only time I didn't live in constant paranoia about healthcare was when I was covered under my parents' policy and that's because I was too young to know what could have happened if one of them lost their jobs and would have had to pay for, say, a broken arm, out of pocket. Throughout my adult life I was constantly worried about getting laid off or fired from a job and losing that coverage. I no longer carry that burden (Fire me all you want, suckers!!). That being said, I shutter to think about how much it would cost to have a baby without insurance in the States (a thought that never occurred to me before, but now that I'm seven months along, it somehow comes to mind). 

2. Fresh food is cheap. Very delicious, locally grown food (I don't know about packaged food here, because I stay away from it unless you count the roll of pizza dough I use to make homemade pizza a couple times a month) doesn't cost much. It almost always tastes good. After about 150,000 peaches consumed this summer, today I had my first kind of funky one, but that might just mean the season's coming to an end. No fear, I have a two-euro giant watermelon waiting for me on the bottom shelf of the fridge to compensate. If you don't mind cooking stuff up yourself (and if you do, just eat stuff raw for heavens' sakes!), you can really live on a small grocery bill. 

3 and 4. One car is totally doable and banks are meaner. I live in what is condescendingly referred to as "la periferia" as in not downtown or in the fashionable Carso. It's a working-class area with big and horrible-looking apartment buildings (I happen to live in one of them), the Stadium, lots of grocery stores, and a ton of busses which take you downtown and to the train station at the end of the line in 20 minutes or less. You find a lot of nice people here, young families and other folks living the simple life. I happen to love it. What attracted us to this area was the abundance of affordable housing which allowed us to buy a small apartment (with a parking spot in a big garage) on one salary (which is what we were living on at the time). Thanks to the fact that the bank required us to pay 20% down (no money, no mortgage, which is what I meant when I said they were meaner, but it's really just tough love and it was for our own good) and we were able to cover that by cleaning out our piggy banks and putting the money together, our monthly mortgage payment now is about the same as what I paid for rent my first year of university 18 years ago in Milwaukee (not, say Manhattan, and I lived in an apartment roughly the same size). As far as cars, we could probably get by without one, but when I worked in Basovizza in the Carso, it was handy to have one, as it meant 10 minutes instead of an hour-long bus ride (the periferia is not well connected to the Carso) and I often work out of town.

5. Bartering. I thank my lucky stars for portable skills. Having decent English language skills for translations and English lessons has helped me save money on lots of things, both for me and for the non-profit I run: legal services, accounting services, help with phone bills, all kinds of things. This is a culture where professionals help each other out through trading services. It rocks. I also learned Italian and worked on my Portuguese by trading half hour language lessons with friends I met here. Bartering gives you immediate value for your work and there are no taxes to pay (bartering, sadly, does not make taxes go away but it doesn't give you any additional ones, either, so it is still a win-win). My advice to young people starting out in the world: hone your portable skills.

6. There is free stuff to do everywhere: nature (Adriatic sea, Carso, Val Rosandra, public gardens, etc), look at historic stuff (downtown architecture and piazzas, Miramar gardens, free museums, etc), concerts and events (thank you, Comune and cultural associations), and two very kick-ass bike paths means there's plenty to do without breaking out the pocket book. 

7. Ice Cream is cheap if you know where to go. I go to Marco downtown (not far from Piazza Unita, accross the street from the Roman theater, you know, by the Questura). He's still at 1.00 a scoop and his stuff is about the tastiest in Trieste. 

Um. That's about all I can think of for now. But I think that's a pretty good start. 

I know I know

I promise I will get back to blogging again after the holidays. But can I just say one thing before I go on them tomorrow morning? Today I went to TWO (not one but TWO) malls looking for an open gd grocery store. Apparently even the stores at the MALLS have decided that it's not worth opening in August. But strangely you can enter the parking garage, and you can even enter the automatic doors of the mall and you can even walk around and look at the closed stores, you just can't enter any of them. WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT?? You CAN, however, let your kids ride on the coin operated ponies and stuff (great reason to get in your car and go to the mall, no??) but forget about the groceries, baby (an open grocery store on a Sunday in Trieste is about the ONLY justification I can find for entering one of those awful places as far as I'm concerned, and now I don't even have that!).

Ugh. Luckily sweetie did some investigative scooting and found an open grocery store not far from our house (Zazzerone I think it's called-- boycott all others!) and so we got the goods for our trip tomorrow and the rolls of Ringo cookies for my nieces and nephew that my mom is bringing home on the plane with her tomorrow morning (What's there not to love about being the Aunt with the COOKIES?!).

Anyway, I hope you're going on vacation too. Trieste is a lonely place during the first two weeks of August. After ferragosto (August 15), things will liven up again.

So will I.
Have fun!

FUNDRAISER ON FRIDAY! FOOD WINE AND MUSIC!!!

Friday evening is our first ever fundraiser for the Italian American Association in Trieste. Here's the info:

Jazz Concert featuring the Topilow Brothers

(one brother is a Founding Director of the Cleveland Pops, even has a RED CLARINET! The other is a doctor by day, jazz pianist by night). They are playing a free concert here before their REAL concert at the Conservatory later that evening.

Friday, May 28:  6-7:30p.m.
Associazione Italo Americana
Via Roma, 15 Trieste
Donation: 10 euro minimum (feel free to give more!)

Sponsors:
All wine provided by our FAVORITE wine producer in the area:
ZIDARICH and PRINCIPE is donating a big ole Triestino ham (YUM!)!

Please come. Please tell your friends! The Association really needs you.

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