The headlines for various projects and challenges to eat on a small food budget always slurp me in with their titillation, the gauntlet-throwing, and immediately I ask myself: could I do it? The answer always disappoints, because I'm either doing it already or find the challenge so impossible it's meaningless. Eating on $1 a day per person?

The term "frugalista" may be trademarked, but frugality is so hip the practice deserves a new, rights-free term. Let's call ourselves the "frugalite," as in, "frugal" and "elite." Or call it "thrift store chic."

We may be doing this because of the recession, but baby? Frugal is the new awesome.

The frugal run the gamut from the truly extreme (counting toilet paper squares, re-using plastic wrap, making your own laundry detergent) to the practical environmentalist (biking instead of driving, fixing old appliances and furniture instead of buying, re-using glass jars and plastic bags) to the hipster broke artsy (making hats out of holey sweaters and wedding gowns out of plastic newspaper bags).

Wherever you fall on the spectrum, however, it's clear that frugality has had a resurgence of the sort not seen since the Great Depression.

I was helping my second-grader with his homework; he was reluctant to read a the little copy-printed book on bartering, saying, with full eye-rolls, that he'd already read it.

So we read it together, and worked through the questions at the end. Suddenly his eyes lit up. "You and dad barter!" he said.

Exactly. Here in Portland, Ore., I am such a regular user of the barter economy that the book's historical viewpoint (first came bartering, and finally came malls) seems passé.

The grocery co-op where we are member-owners holds an annual holiday barter swap, instead of a bazaar, and we look forward to the seed and start swap in the spring. On Portland's craigslist barter page, hundreds of offerings appear every day, and if it weren't for the constant request to trade something for an iPhone, you'd think it was 1972.

"VHS copies of your favourite horror movies that you replaced on DVD this year for Tokyo Long Scarlet Radishes," reads one ad, also suggesting the trade of an old window for a 10-pound Fielderkraut cabbage.

Saul Friedman has written a column for the Long Island, N.Y. daily newspaper, Newsday, since 1996. But recently, his weekly column on aging, "Gray Matters," became restricted behind a paid subscriber wall. As a result ,Friedman, who is the winner of journalism's prestigious Nieman Fellowship and who roused enough rabble to land on a list of Nixon political opponents, quit in protest.

Friedman's reaction may well be justified. Only subscribers to Newsday, which is sold in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and in New York City, can now read his full column online. In fact, Friedman, who lives near Washington, D.C. and isn't in the Newsday circulation area, can't even read his own columns online now. Customers of Cablevision, the company that owns Newsday, can also access Newsday online free of charge, but the rest of the world outside New York City's five buroughs and Long Island, has to pay $5 a week for the privilege.

Sweet, saucy, and from the slums, Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail both went from wretched poverty to international fame after starring in the 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director, Slumdog Millionaire.

But they just won't go to school, even though the movie's producer and director got the young stars placed in a Mumbai school and paid their tuition until they turn 18... and even though they've set up a trust that's dependent on the children attending school for the next seven or eight years.

Ali, 10, and Ismail, 11, have average attendance of about one in three days, and though Slumdog producer Christian Colson and director Danny Boyle have urged their parents to accept their offer of apartments outside of the slums, only Ismail's mother has taken the moviemakers up on their offer.

Thursday, October 29, is a date many of you would have circled on your calendar... if you still circled things on paper calendars. It's the day SAT scores for the test taken October 12 are available online.

Homebuyers did not have to truly be first-timers in order to qualify for the "first time homebuyer" tax credit, expiring Nov. 30; they only had to meet the limitation of not having owned a primary residence for the past three years, with income limits of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for married taxpayers.

According to the Treasury Department, however, 4-year-olds (and other individuals incapable of legally signing a purchase agreement) don't count.

In an Internal Audit Report meant to assess the 2008 filings in anticipation of a surge in claims for the 2009 tax season, as many as 90,000 claims were determined to be potentially ineligible, and 528 of those were to homebuyers under 18.

The federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers is $8,000.

My 4-year-old son believes that "good for you" foods are anything that is "good" and "for him." Sweet cereal? Fruit roll-ups? Candy? Yes, yes, YES! I've so far been unable to convince him that "good for you" doesn't just mean "yummy."

Over the past several months, a consortium of food manufacturers have been as stubborn as my preschooler, using wildly inapt guidelines to determine that products such as frozen ice pops and Froot Loops are "Smart Choices." To determine which products qualify the group -- which includes Kraft Foods, Kellogg, and General Mills -- considers calories per serving and fat content, among other thing. And, given that criteria, sure enough candy CAN be a smart choice. Every little boy and girl would agree.

Health insurance companies, it appears, are uncannily skilled at creating cute, sweet poster children... for the other side of the health reform debate. Just two weeks ago, Colorado insurer, Rocky Mountain Health Plans denied health coverage of four-month-old Alex Lange because, by growth chart standards, Alex is obese.

Now, according to a report by The Denver Channel, a local affiliate of ABC News, little two-year old Aislin Bates of Erie, Colo. is getting a similar dose of rejection. This time, however, it is because she's underweight and, this time, it's a much bigger insurer: UnitedHealthcare.

This is the first in a series of columns on how to help your family live greener -- and cheaper in the bargain. Check back each week for a new topic.

Is it possible to live more lightly on the Earth after starting a family? Yes it is. Is it easy to go greener with kids? Well... let's just call it inconvenient.

Living greener, trying to leave a smaller footprint, comes into ever-sharper focus when you start your family. How many children will you have? What will they wear, play with, sleep on, eat? What will you teach them? How will you ensure that, when we further our species, we're not also hastening the destruction of our ecosystem?

Big questions, and worthy of making an effort. That's why I came up with a 12-step plan to live greener and cheaper ... along with my family of three small boys and an occasionally-reluctant husband.

Let's take a look at the first step. It's a biggie. And with kids, it also takes some determined effort: Reduce your trash.