Frugal

My word for today is frugal. This is an adjective and we use it to describe a person who conserves money, someone who doesn't waste money. The noun is frugality. As always, here are a few examples:
Although my boss is frugal, he'll spend money on training for our team.
"You should be more frugal! Then you wouldn't always be trying to borrow money!"
Yvonne's frugality was legendary; she only bought the things she really needed and nothing extra.
It's important to note that frugal is neutral, and can be positive depending on the context.

Rethinking education and school

Presentation Zen has an interesting post with videos on this subject. If you're an educator or a parent, I recommend it!

Money: win, earn, make, spend and waste

These are the typical verbs used with money:
Win money: to receive money by playing a game, gambling, or participating in a lottery.
Earn money: to receive money by working for it.
Make money: people or companies receive money for their work, services, or products. When we say a company makes money, we usually mean that the company is profitable.
Spend money: to use money to buy something.
Waste money: to spend money in a way that doesn't bring value.

Here are some examples:
Bob won $2,000 in the lottery!
I think I could make more money if I improved my skills.
Our company made more money last year than the year before.
We spent a lot of money going out last wekeend; maybe we should stay home tonight.
These shoes are really uncomfortable! I wish I hadn't wasted my money on them.

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Swim upstream

To swim upstream is to go against the general direction, and so to find resistance to your ideas or actions. This expression comes from rivers and fish: salmon swim against the current (upstream) in order to reproduce. It seems like it would difficult for fish to swim like this, but they do it! So we use this expression to talk about going against the general way, belief, or trend. Here are a few examples:

Although I tried to convince my colleagues that washing their hands would help prevent colds and flu, I realized that I was swimming upstream.

After many years of swimming upstream in the company, Joe finally decided to start his onw business.

I think if you're willing to swim upstream for a while, you can convince people eventually.