This board game is a little TOO real

The Economist is offering a board game called "Credit Crunch" in its holiday double edition. The winner is the "last solvent player" -- in other words, the one who eliminated the competition.

This is way nastier than Monopoly. As a press release explains it, Credit Crunch players are encouraged to "pick on the weakest, kick opponents when they are down and generally manifest all the characteristics that bring success in the financial world. Winner takes all!"

You start by entering the subprime mortgage market and if you play the game well -- that is, ruthlessly -- you finish as "Deemed Too Big To Fail." Here are a few of the rules (stop us if they sound familiar):

•    Players may conceal their assets from each other.
•    Players who cannot pay fines may borrow from other players at any rate -- "for instance, 100% interest within three turns."
•    Players who cannot borrow must either go into Chapter 11 or be taken over.
•    The takeover purchaser and subsidiary are technically a team, but the purchaser gets to call the shots (including using the subsidiary's assets to pay his fines).

"As though our readers have not suffered enough already in 2008, we are proud to offer them the chance to be crushed, humiliated, and impoverished all over again," game designer Kevin Kallaugher said in a press release.

We fondly recall Monopoly's famous game pieces: the dog, the top hat, the car, the iron and all the rest. Credit Crunch goes you one better: You can download game icons such as "bull market" and "stock market ticker," but it's suggested that a player instead use "diamond cufflinks, or any other mementos of your former wealth, to represent you on the board."

In these rough economic times, you can't argue with the cost: game board, risk cards and currency are all free for the downloading. You can also find the game board in the holiday issue.

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Invited to a party? That'll be $10, son

Ever notice how much it can cost to be a birthday party guest? David G. Mitchell of SavingAdvice.com sure did, when his kids were younger. They'd each get invited to one or two parties per month, even if they didn't really know the birthday boy or girl. (Apparently some teachers decree that if one kid in the class is invited, all must be invited.)

In a recent post, Mitchell noted that he and his wife "easily could have spent over a thousand dollars on birthday gifts for children who our own children never saw outside of school."

This rubbed him the wrong way, especially since some of the parties seemed to be "money grabs." At one party his older boy was one of more than three hundred invited guests, and his younger son went to a party with more than 100 guests. Special, huh?

Rather than forbid the children to accept every invitation, the parents tried a different tack: "We told them that if they wanted to go to a party, they would need to pay $10 towards the gift."

This had an immediate effect even though the two kids have very different views of money. The younger boy cut down on his party-going somewhat, but generally felt that "any opportunity to have fun with his friends" was usually worth $10 of his allowance.

The older son went only to the parties of people he really liked, or "if he knew that the party would be 'worth the cost of the gift.'" The young man also tried the time-honored protest, "None of the other kids have to do this!" It didn't work.

On the bright side, the rule required that he learn to budget his available funds.

Some would call the Mitchells' tactic pretty hardcore. In fact, he writes that he has found "very few" other parents who say they make their kids chip in. But he says he's met a bunch who admire the Mitchells' determination to "enforce a regime of fiscal responsibility on our kids."

Personally, we'd call fiscal responsibility a pretty incredible gift in its own right.

How about you, readers: Do you think parents should pay for their kids to attend every party? Or as Mitchell put it, "Is it more important to ensure that your child attends all of the parties to which he or she is invited, or should children be taught that attending a party comes with a cost?"

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When luxuries become boring (but still high-priced)

Now that times are tight, personal finance blogger "Anotherjen" suggests that it's time to "break ourselves of our skewed ideas of what exactly separates the 'essential' from the 'extras.'"

People are unlikely to eliminate all their extras, she acknowledges on a BlogHer post called "Breaking the cycle of habitual splurges." But perhaps they should think about whether these "extras" are still special enough to keep.

"When the 'extras' become 'everyday,' do you still get the same pleasure out of them?" the blogger asks.

Once upon a time, Anotherjen's own habitual splurge was the infamous latte: "You know, the ones that cost some of us upwards of $1,000 each year." For a while she was drinking one or two a day. In time, though, they stopped feeling like treats. Sometimes she didn't even enjoy them.

Now she stops for coffee once a week, tops. Still kind of a waste, she admits, given how much cheaper it is to make coffee at home. But these days, a latte every now and then feels like a true indulgence.

"So let's make sure are 'treats' are just that: treats," she says. "You eliminate the guilt of knowing you're flushing your money down the drain and, when you do splurge, the splurge will feel that much more decadent."

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Gettin' hitched at the courthouse

Personal finance blogger "Jennifer" at Becoming the Marshmallow could have spent thousands of dollars -- or tens of thousands -- to marry her sweetheart, Tim. But neither of them were all that interested in a conventional nuptials and reception.

Instead, they went to the Pinellas County (Fla.) Courthouse and got married. And they have the "commemorative paper framed portrait with the county logo" to prove it.

The wedding "was all that we could hope for," she wrote in a post called "My wedding cost $303.50." That cost included a nice dinner and a night in a hotel.

This isn't a choice for everyone, and even Jennifer acknowledges that "it was a little strange having a wedding without friends or family present." However, she felt more comfortable with just the two of them because she's a "rather private person."

At least three of her coworkers also had courthouse weddings; another is considering it. One of those coworkers and his now-wife were both working as aerial photographers, so they got married in their flight suits. After that, they grabbed a bite at the McDonald's drive-through and headed back to work.

Here's hoping their romance was a supersized one. But seriously: We think you should do what feels right for your situation. Jennifer and Tim are just as married as anybody else -- and they didn't exhaust themselves, or their budget, getting to that happy state.

"It's a route I highly recommend. No stressful planning, high costs or complications," Jennifer says.

"The wedding day is supposed to celebrate the love of two people. I think we did just that."

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A gift war -- and I fired the first shot

I may have ignited a gift war. All I wanted to do was give some homemade jam, freshly baked Christmas cookies and an Anchorage Daily News moose calendar to the former owners of the apartment building that I manage.

I've been giving them these treats for several years and wanted to continue, especially because after selling the place in October they sent me a nice note and $300 worth of gift cards.

Jam, cookies and pictures of ungulates seemed like the least I could do.

When I gave the gift bag to the husband, he told me they enjoyed the annual sweets. "I think we've got one of these coming your way, too," he said, indicating the bag.

Oh dear.

I told him that wasn't necessary -- that I liked to share homemade treats and that I'd appreciated the chance to have worked for them. As I had written in the card that accompanied my gift, the job literally helped me survive when the chips were down.

Yet I also know how he feels: Anytime I'm given something, I want to give something back.

And that's how gift wars get started.

The gift that keeps on growing
These wars tend to escalate, according to an essay by personal-finance blogger "Frugal Zeitgeist." Someone surprises you with a present. The next year, you give that person something a little bit nicer, because you didn't get him anything before. After that, the recipient's next gift is probably upgraded, too.

"I hate gift wars. They're expensive. They're stressful. They create clutter," she writes.

The blogger has a few cease-fire tips:

•    Give of yourself. Offer dog walking, baby-sitting, Web design, fancy desserts -- whatever you do well.
•    Give within limits. Choose something consumable that the recipient might not buy for himself -- decent wine, chocolates, etc.
•    Give to others. Donate to that person's favorite charity.
•    Give, if you must. But suggest, gently, that gifts be "reasonable."
•    Give what's needed. Times are tough, so FZ is sending her parents a grocery store gift card. Or how about a gift that saves the recipient money?
•    Give up on giving. Of course, a no-gifts policy works only if everyone sticks with it. Another PF blogger, "Escape Brooklyn," writes that her family agreed not to exchange gifts -- but her sister sent a present anyway.

When fired upon, don't return fire
When I told a friend about this situation, she asked whether my former bosses gave presents in previous years. Yes -- gift cards with "Thanks for all you did for us this year" notes.

My friend pointed out that perhaps the $300 gift was a final thank-you in recognition to the end of our business relationship. Probably I shouldn't be giving them a Christmas gift, she suggested, unless I planned to continue at least a cordial friendship.

She has a point. When the owners said they hoped I would "keep in touch," they might have been just saying the kind of thing everyone says. Or they might have meant it. Earlier this month they sent me a Christmas card with a snapshot of their first grandchild.

They're busy, and I'm busy, but I'd like to keep in at least casual contact because they're nice people. Even so, I hope they don't send me anything more.

If they do? I'll write a thank-you note in which I'll explain that I don't want to start a gift war. Should they feel compelled to give, I'll send a list of my favorite charities and request a donation be made in my name.

However, I'll let them know that the cookies will keep coming. I like to make and share them because it brings back memories of baking with my mother. One year I skipped cookie-baking and it just didn't feel like Christmas.

However, I find it difficult to make just a few cookies. Thus if I don't give most of them away, I'll end up in the hospital, overdosed on butter and sugar and chocolate.

And at that point, someone might send me a get-well present and the whole cycle would begin anew.