Want to learn how to stretch a dollar? It's simple, says Times' editor Damon Darlin, so long as you're prepared to learn how to cook, ignore any/all raises, curb that morning latte habit and get married—for tax purposes, of course.

[Ed: Interestingly, Darlin neglects to group TimesSelect membership fees in with those other so-called "extraneous" expenses.]

And, as Darlin is quick to remind us, this is not his first foray into doling out penny-pinching advice. In fact, he previously wrote a similar cost-cutting column for the Times, which was then forwarded by thousands of overprotective mothers (using some kind of newfangled technology called "the internets") and subsequently rejected by their sons and daughters, some of whom were even pissed enough to write Darlin a not-so-formal email.

Or, as Darlin puts it:

Last year at this time, as college graduates walked out into the world, I wrote a column giving advice on how they could save money.

In droves, parents sent the column to their children. And some of those children wrote to me to vent. What I suggested was impractical, many said. How would you like to try to live on $40,000 a year in Washington or San Francisco, several asked.

And while our first instinct is to mock Darlin mercilessly for allowing himself to dwell on the drunken ramblings of disgruntled Darthmouth alums, we can't help but notice the "unlivable" wage said masses are rallying against, namely: $40,000.

Granted, the wage is not nearly enough to retire on, but certainly not nearly so dire as Darlin's critics would have us believe. In fact, as Darlin already knows, $40,000 well exceeds the starting salary for anyone entering the fields of journalism of publishing shortly following graduation, leading us to believe that whoever emailed Darlin (a) has waaay too much free time on their hands, (b) did not major in English or something equally non-lucrative and (c) is not endeavoring to become the next Maureen Dowd or, for that matter, Judith Regan.

And while we have no objection to the latter count (one Judith is more than enough!) we are a bit surprised by it. Also somewhat surprising? That Darlin, who is—by all accounts—a journalist, failed to point out this discrepancy in his ill-advised rebuttal column. After all, we have plenty of friends currently employed at glamorous magazines, working at not-so-glamorous editorial assistant jobs, living in dirty, rodent-infested outer-borough shacks and subsisting on a steady diet of ramen noodles who would kill (or at least commit second-degree manslaughter) for an annual salary of $40,000.

But asking recent Ivy League grads to give up their daily latte fix? Now, that's just cruel and unusual.