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很久不見的好友Lisa, Karen和Gina一起吃飯。三個人都說，現在手頭很緊，彼此交換勤儉持家的經驗。Gina說，她們家實行三十天規則，想買什么東西，先要等上三十天，如果三十天過后還覺得需要的話，才能買，Lisa 覺得這個辦法不錯。
L: What a great rule! My kids keep bugging me to buy a flat screen TV and I really think we can wait until next year when they will be cheaper. I'm going to institute the thirty-day rule and see if they still want it!
K: I find that if I write a very specific shopping list before I go to the mall and stick to it...I'm much less likely to buy unnecessary stuff. The trick is to force yourself to stick to the shopping list! No exceptions!
Lisa說，孩子一直吵著要買個平面電視，bug someone to do something，意思是纏著某人做某事。Karen又說，如果把需要買的東西列在單子上，write a shopping list, shopping list，意思是購物清單，就不會看見什么買什么，結果買了一大堆不需要的東西回來。
她還介紹經驗說，The trick is to force yourself to stick to the shopping list! 訣竅是必需嚴格遵照購物清單，stick to something，是嚴格遵守的意思。No exceptions，不能有例外。
G: Yep...Sticking to it is the hard part! In any case, this recession is teaching all of us to have better discipline and that's a good thing.
L: Yes, it sure it. We could all learn some self-control!
K: We sure could! The days of free spending are over. No more "putting it on the card."
Gina表示贊同，說sticking to the shopping list is the hard part. Hard part，指難度較大的部分，換句話說，Writing down the things you need to buy is the easy part. Sticking to the shopping list is the hard part. 把需要買的東西列在購物清單上很容易，能完全按照這個單子買東西就沒那么容易了。
Karen在上面那段話中還說，the days of free spending are over，花錢不假思索的日子結束了。 No more "putting it on the card." 這里所說的"put it on the card"意思是刷卡。
G: Hey! I've got a great idea! Let's have a three-day "staycation"...it's a vacation at home! You can bring the kids over to my place and we'll all have fun together.
L: That sounds like fun!
K: Super idea! Let's start our "staycation" this Saturday!
G: Great! See you then!
Gina突發奇想，建議大家一起來個三天的"staycation," staycation is spelled s-t-a-y-c-a-t-i-o-n, staycation, 是stay跟vacation連在一起組成的，是這兩年出現的新詞，指經濟不好，在家渡假。大家一致同意，覺得這個主意真不錯。
