YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Word of the Day: Frugal
Ask any North American about their university days, and I bet you they’ll quickly begin to wax nostalgic about how frugal they had to be and how much Kraft Dinner (instant macaroni and cheese) they ate.
To be frugal means to make the best use of the resources you have at hand by not wasting or using too much of them.
Mac and cheese is the North American equivalent of tamago gohan or udon noodles for Japanese university students.
All university students, no matter where they are, have to exercise a high level of frugality.
For students, financial resources are extremely limited, and those who learn how to make the best use of those resources should be granted a separate degree in student frugal financial management.
Now, that’s just my opinion, but I think many others would agree.
It’s a constant struggle to balance the costs of tuition, rent, books, and beer while eating three or at least two meals a day.
Some may argue that a few beers a day are an acceptable substitute for food when you’re twenty-something years old.
Now that I’m older, wiser and slightly richer, I don’t think so.
Generally speaking, after university, there’s a time when young workers have money to burn.
Now that they have a job and some independence, they forget their lessons on frugality.
This is a time when many of us can travel and buy what we want, and rent is often not such a significant drain on financial resources.
I like to call it the days of freedom.
As we get older, though, we begin thinking about achieving some permanency in our lives.
For some, that means marriage and a family, while for most of us, it involves purchasing a home.
That’s when our frugal habits from our university days come flooding back to us.
Having kids means going back to cheaper brands of beer.
Monthly mortgage payments mean you can no longer eat out at restaurants five days a week.
Once again, Kraft Dinner is your friend.
This time, however, you can eat it in your kitchen and maybe afford a few wieners, too.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 65.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.