Beacon's Closet. Photo by Tokyo Hanna.

Each week (or thereabouts), our Dear Penny column investigates the answers to reader questions about saving money in Brooklyn. This week, Cody McBurnett asks how to get the most from her closet giveaways, and fellow Brokelyn reader Tina Robinson is our guest expert. Take it away, Tina…

The best way to maximize this situation is to divide and conquer. Start by separating your no-longer-wanted clothes into three categories: designer goods and/or one-of-a-kind vintage, trendy items with labels people have heard of, and finally, everything else.

We have Slope writer/performer Christen Clifford writing comics about home birthing. Erykah Badu twittered from her Brooklyn home-birth early this year. Brooklyn midwives are reviewed like restaurants on Yelp. Advocates say having a baby in your living room is better for everyone involved (except perhaps the carpet cleaners) for a whole bunch of reasons. Aside from the most obvious advantage of home birth—you get to watch your own TV instead of the dinky hospital kind—can it save you a few bucks?

I called several midwife/home-birth centers in Brooklyn and got the same answer time and again: that it’s impossible to say on average how much a home birth costs, because each one is different. And while simple logic might suggest that home birth would of course be cheaper—anyone who’s stayed in a hospital overnight knows how absurd the costs can be—the fact is, whether home birth is truly cost effective depends on one’s insurance.

New York states that requires insurers to cover midwifery services including home births, but it sometimes takes months of wrangling by the midwife and prospective parents to actually see that money.

Says one Brooklyn father, “We’re having a homebirth in a few weeks. Insurance will reimburse a little for ‘out of network provider’ — they say $1,570, our midwife’s money person says the hospital might pay as much as $4,000 and there’s no way to know ahead of time. The midwife is billing $9,000, but she will accept $7500.  Basically, we’re going to be screwed on out-of-pocket costs and probably be in debt to the midwife for several years, even if she knocks the cost down somewhat.”

In his case, home birth is turning out to be the more expensive alternative.

He writes, “The real story here is that the insurance company would, without the slightest hesitation, write $20,000 in checks if we chose to have a hospital birth in a city where over one in three ends up in a C-section, yet they stick us with all the costs of a cheap home birth because they have no in-network providers of home births. So the perverse incentive—full-press financial pressure—is for us to go to the hospital and rack up the hugest debt possible, in which case the insurance company will pay without batting an eye.”

Of course, home birth can also be the cheaper alternative. Says another Brooklyn home-birth mom, “My insurance paid the agreed upon amount of $6,800 to my midwife for [my son’s] birth. It is a hassle, but they will pay it in the end from my experience.” Says Laura, also from Brooklyn (if you had to ask), “With my firstborn—we planned a home birth, but ended up in the hospital because of non-emergency conditions—I was fighting my insurance company right up until my 7th month.”

So the actual costs of home birth are probably cheaper, but you may get less back from insurance. But if you’re badass enough to push a kid out with no epidural, why should an insurance company scare you?

Each week, Dear Penny investigates the answers to reader questions about saving money in Brooklyn. Send your stumpers to DearPenny@Brokelyn.com.

Yes, it can be cheaper to brew your own beer—if you make enough of it. Let’s break down some numbers. According to the guys at Park Slope’s venerable Bierkraft, there are in fact no places in Brooklyn that sell brew equipment. They recommend ordering a kit online at northernbrewer.com; a basic starter kit will set you back $75. You will also need to buy one of their ingredients kits, which range between $20-$40. Finally, you’ll need a brew kettle—any pot 2.5 gallons or greater ($40 at northernbrewer), and 48 to 52 pry-off 12-ounce beer bottles (about $30).

So let’s put the initial investment at $175. That averages about $3.30 per bottle for the first batch. For a subsequent batch—you’ll need to purchase new ingredients kit and bottle caps—the total average (of all the beer made, including the first batch) will be about $2.10. For a third batch, it’ll be about $1.75 a bottle. And so on. I’m roughly estimating, though; the price will fluctuate according to the ingredients you purchase.

Cobble-Hill resident Fritz Fernow has been home-brewing in his kitchen for three years now; he often buys ingredients from the brewers in Red Hook’s Six Point Brewery (Six Point is also on Twitter and Facebook). Six Point doesn’t officially sell hops, through—it’s more of a casual, brewers helping brewers exchange. Once you get to know people, Fernow says, it’s easy to find ingredients “below market price.” Fernow recommends the Brooklyn-based Malted Barley Appreciation Society for getting to know other brewers. They host monthly meetings, with guest speakers, at brewpubs around Brooklyn.

There are also tons of home-brewing blogs out there, including Fourth Avenue Brew, new this year, and Seanywonton’s Brewing Blog, written by Sean White, president of New York City’s Homebrewers Guild. (He lives and brews in Brooklyn.) The Gowanus Brewery,  written by a Carroll Gardens-based brewer, is also worth a look: it’s no longer active, but has good information about growing your own hops—another way to save money.

If the initial investment still seems daunting, look around: I found a “NEW! IN BOX! Never been used!” Mr. Beer Premium Home Microbrewery Kit for $25, which included ingredients, on craigslist (all good things come through craigslist). Location of seller = South Slope.

Another money-saving tip from Fernow: don’t buy new bottles. He finds them at parties, soaks the bottles to scrape off their labels, cleans them, then sanitizes them.

As a quick aside, brewing is not only cool—it’s Brooklyn-cool. A few years ago, the Brooklyn Historical Society ran a history-of-Brooklyn-brewing exhibit called “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”  According to the Society, just before Prohibition, Brooklyn had in fact become one of the nation’s main brewing centers, along with Milwaukee and St. Louis; nearly half of brewery founders had come to the U.S. in the mid-1800s from the Bavarian region of Germany. Breweries were located in mostly heavily German neighborhoods: Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Greenpoint.

Also according to the Society, it was apparently common back then to see children carrying pails of beer (called “growlers”) from local taverns to houses and tenements. So for anyone who ever heard “honey get your mother a beer” as a kid—such a request is actually part of Brooklyn tradition.

If I were planning a trip this summer, I’d hightail it to Mexico. Specifically, Oaxaca. And I’m not just saying that because I grew up next to Mexico, or because I spent an excellent two weeks in Oaxaca a few summers ago. The dollar is doing well in Mexico. Post swine-flu flights will get you down to Mexico for less than $300, and you don’t have to worry about dying while you’re down there because the State Department has lifted its travel warning.

And things down there are cheap. I did a language program through Becari School in Oaxaca—$160 a week, plus ten pesos a day (about a buck) room and board, living with an incredibly cool Mexican family. I had my own room, free breakfast every day, and for the rest of the meals I ate mango and garnachas—delicious small corn tortillas fried with shredded meat, cheese, and awesome pickled cabbage—from street vendors, paying next to nothing. (I suppose you’re not supposed to eat street food, and maybe I have a stomach of iron, but I never got sick. And there are enough street vendors on tourist-y strips to suggest street food is not so hazardous).

If you’re looking for a trip to replace, say, Paris, try Mexico City. You want art? Mexico City has world-class museums and galleries. Hotel Habita—an elegant boutique hotel in Mexico City’s chic, moneyed Polanco district— is offering guests who inquire through email discounts of 33 percent or more. You want drink? Try “pulque,” a 2,000-year-old Aztec drink, made from fermented agave juice, popular among city hipsters (one liter is about $3). You want fashion? They have a fine men’s boutique down there that sells bulletproof suits—ok, maybe that isn’t a selling point (and never mind, the prices there are not Brokelyn-appropriate.) The point is, Mexico City is interesting. Like Paris, only cheaper, and with street cred.

Each week, Brokelyn.com’s in-house etiquette expert, Dear Penny, tackles your recession-related stumpers. Send her questions at DearPenny@Brokelyn.com.

I’ve got three ideas for you. The first:  CB I Hate Perfume in Williamsburg sells small sampler sizes of elegant custom-made fragrance. And their scents are inspired. Take “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday,” named for the Jacques Tati film: “The salty breath of the breeze of the Mediterranean, driftwood, rocks covered with seaweed and the smell of old leather suitcases.”

Very nice. Sample bottles run about $14. 93 CB I Hate Perfume, 93 Wythe Ave., 718-384-6890
Number two: Bam Rose Cinema offers gift certificates in $20 increments, called “BAM Cash,” and they’re beautifully designed. BAM, 30 Lafayette Ave., 718-636-4100.
Finally, I love giving soundtracks as gifts; those still typically clock in less than $20. I called Halcyon Records in Dumbo for a few recommendations—he wouldn’t give me any.  The guy at Fifth Avenue Records and Tapes in Park Slope recommends the classics (“So many good ones!”) like Saturday Night Fever—still a classic, it’s got quality with camp appeal—or West Side Story. I recommend the soundtrack for Breathless, the French New Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The music is early-’60s uber-chic.

Make the Roman dish “Cacio y Pepe,” a classic in la cucina povera (often defined as “simple food using few ingredients”)—in other words, rustic Italian food. I once had a drummer from Rome staying with me (long story), and he made this a few times—said it was his grandmother’s recipe. In this case the ingredients are: the pasta of your choice (try Trader Joe’s spaghetti for 99 cents; New York Magazine’s tasters liked it) a few tablespoons of pecorino cheese and fresh ground pepper (even McCormick’s should work in a pinch.) Cook pasta, then drain, but save a little of the water. Mix in the cheese and a lot of pepper, drizzle a little of the pasta water in to make everything stick—and you’re done. The trick is to use the pasta water, not oil; it makes the dish summery and light. Garnish with a little something green (Mario Batali likes arugula) and serve with a side of decent tomatoes drizzled in a little olive oil.
My second suggestion isn’t for everyone, but if your friends are culinary adventurers, try something Eastern European-ish: beef tongue. I grew up on tongue; my mother made it all the time. It’s actually really good. It’s also cheap—$5.49/lb at W. Nassau Meat Market in Greenpoint (915 Manhattan Ave. at Greenpoint). Serve chilled, with peppered Polish vodka.

Dear Penny has spent years navigating the social waters of income disparity and doing odd jobs to support her comic-and-novel-writing habit. A former copywriter for Comedy Central, she teaches writing at Queensborough Community College. Send questions to DearPenny@Brokelyn.com.

I had an unemployed roommate once. Good god was it awkward. Never mind he was from San Francisco and took every opportunity to blame his joblessness on everything and everyone aside from himself (I should say here he was an “artist,” and refused to even look for a decent gig). As someone who’s had about ten million crummy day jobs, I had zero sympathy.  But your roommate is in a different situation: once gainfully employed, now not. Give the guy a break, wait and see what happens. If he doesn’t come to you, be proactive. I had a friend who used to finance the plane tickets for his trips around the world with big parties. He’d cobble some talented friends together—say, a band, or some actor friends—and provide a little entertainment, also some booze, some food, and charge an entrance fee. Rent parties are supposedly back, anyway.

You might wonder why I don’t just say throw him out. The reason is: it seems your roommate is generally responsible, so work with the guy. Whoever you get to replace him may well be facing a similar situation sooner or later; so why not work with the one you already know?

Dear Penny has spent years navigating the social waters of income disparity and doing odd jobs to support her comic-and-novel-writing habit. A former copywriter for Comedy Central, she teaches writing at Queensborough Community College. Send her questions at DearPenny@Brokelyn.com.

When I was little my mother went down to Tijuana a lot to buy cheap alcohol, tequila specifically, to give away as Xmas gifts. Occasionally, she would also buy medication from the over-the-counter pharmacies down there, then sneak it all back over the border in her purse. I think we can all learn something from my mother. To avoid facing the “rounds of drinks” problem to begin with, plan ahead—don’t buy drinks to begin with. Instead, sneak in a fifth of cheap vodka in your oversize purse, ask the bartender for a glass of ice water and go to the bathroom when you need to secretly refresh your drink. Pour in a powdered Emergen-C packet to give it a screwdrivery look, and to hopefully begin an end-run on any possible hangover. (Don’t overdo it on the C—one should be plenty). You can get wasted like this for cheap—at the liquor store around the block from my South Slope apartment, a fifth of Sobieski is only $12. Some other inexpensive brands are: Luksusowa, Wyborowa, Svedka or Ruskova.

Dear Penny has spent years navigating the social waters of income disparity and doing odd jobs to support her comic-and-novel-writing habit. A former copywriter for Comedy Central, she teaches writing at Queensborough Community College. Send her questions at DearPenny@Brokelyn.com.