today's tip: don't spend $67,000 on cappuccino machines

Especially for a school district that doesn't even know how to use them.

It may sound like common sense, but, as the nightly news the past few weeks have reminded us, things are different in Chicago. This time it's the public schools, which shelled out $67,000 for 30 cappuccino machines for schools. Luckily one person has been fired so far, but this response is awesome:

"We also look at it as a waste of money because the schools didn't even know they were getting the equipment, schools didn't know how to use the machines and weren't prepared to implement them into the curriculum," Sullivan said.

The curriculum?! God knows if the kids learned how to be baristas they'd graduate at least one useful skill. The rest is bunk. But we know they had no intention of teaching the kids jackshit about espresso.

On a related note, I want to give a shout-out to my tea lady, Darlene. I drink a lot of tea every day of the loose, chai variety, and these fancy tea places like Teavana want to charge me $16 for 8oz of a Masala. I buy it by the pound and store it in a big glass kitchen container, so $32 a pop hurts too much.

Luckily I found Darlene's Tea Port on Ebay and I get a pound of her Indian Spiced Chai or Kama Sutra Chai for $19.99. Even with shipping its much less than Teavanna and she somehow always gets it to me within 2 days of my order (she's in Wichita).

When you get high quality loose tea you can use the leaves twice, so i get two nice strong cups out of each 2 tbs helping i put in my steeper.

Another tip to help you run your budget better than public school districts or any other government arm. *ChaChing*.

UPDATE: to put it into perspective, i calculated that each cup costs me about 25 cents if the pound of tea lasts me 2 months and i drink 2 cups basically every day. This is why I choked the other day when I saw "organic" tea on a cafe menu for $3.50, which most certainly would have been an inferior bagged tea.

Don't ape the Fed

My friends over at the Technology Liberation Front have an excellent list of local projects that mayors are putting on their wishlists (from the WSJ) under the serious-sounding "infrastructure" spending that Obama is promising.

You and I may think of nuclear energy plants and an updated energy grid when we hear "infrastructure" - things we desperately need for national security and resources for the future. Some of our nation's mayors apparently hear "fat federal checks for that new tennis center I've been wanting!"

So while Americans spend less and save more in response to economic changes, our government opens the spending spigot to full blast.

Our paternalist federal legislators should simply and firmly say "no" to these silly Santa letters asking for ponies. They probably won't. But we can take a personal lesson from it and consider alternatives to our own sugarplum fairy dreams - or our high-spending habits - and put the savings difference into our money market accounts:

1. Don't buy the new car- go to CarMax and get one that's 4 years old.

2. Brew it yourself - get up 20 minutes earlier and feed your addiction in a real mug for about $.30 (if you bought a pound of beans) instead of paying $3 for the same amount at the store served in landfill material. Those coffeehouse stops add up shockingly high.

3. Become a saavier shopper - spend your monthly clothing allowance at places like overstock.com and SmartBargains and save a boatload - or get twice as much for the same amount you'd spend in most stores.

4. Drink at home - stock up on beer from the grocery store and invite people over to enjoy your company in the comfort of your home. It's less loud and crowded and you'll spend as much on an entire six pack as you would have on your first beer at the bar.

Our own fiscal discipline can do more for an economic recovery than any silly public project.