I have a new pressure cooker that is unused (a Christmas present from my parents who bought it at some grand, once-a-year cookware sale). I remember all the rocking and shaking associated with them from my childhood and am intimidated by it. The recipe book that came with it is European and the ingredients specified are not widely available. If you have a simple recipe to share (a nice chicken stew perhaps or but green beans will do) with step by step instructions, I would most appreciate it.
As a former retail worker, if you do try this, PLEASE don't try it when there's a line behind you and the sales associates are scurrying around. There's a line between asking politely and demanding/taking up time by playing "hesitant" just to get a discount.
Also, many stores have a 7- or 14-day limit on their price adjustment policy. (Where you can bring in your receipt and the item to get a price adjustment if it goes on sale later on.)
Thank you so much for posting this. I surprise my co-workers every day by listening to audiobooks as opposed to music while working. I love audiobooks, and I used to rent them online from Simply Audiobooks. I am not too fond of them. They would split up any book bigger than 4 discs into different mailings. When I say split up, I mean split up. I'd get the first half of a book, then another book, then another book, and then maybe the second half of the first book. If I got the second halves at all. To this day I don't think I've finished the audiobook version of 'Dark Tort' The library is a FANTASTIC place to get audiobooks; they will also order some books or ship them from other libraries. I have read many classics this way, Lolita, Cat's Cradle, (which I just finished at work today) Slaughterhouse Five, (finished it last week, it's been a Kurt Vonnegut month) and others. I agree wholeheartedly and I am a big advocate of audiobooks. It's not just for trips either, if you have a boring, monotonous job like I do, (see: Clerical) it helps to pass the time listening to these.
I also read paper books on my own time, but I want to read everything, and there's simply not enough years in a lifetime. =(
To save on costs you can check audio books out at the library. I've listened to over 50 audio books on my commute for free, and using the inter-library loan system, there are hundreds more I look forward to listening to.
One of my closest friends swears by these. I haven't been able to incorporate it thus far, but may try this winter. Cool tip on the subscription companies, too. I didn't even know things like that existed . . .
Andrea, I agree the plastic is bad for the environment, but the water tastes like crap here (San Diego). The water is no better probably in Aquafina, but it is Reverse Osmosis, which takes out all lead, mercury, etc. We did a water tester on tap water vs bottled and the water we were drinking "filtered" (not RO) had a count of minerals (bad minerals) of 255, where Aquafina had a count of 4. For environmentally concious people buying bottled water...I would suggest a Reverse Osmosis system for your home, no plastic and tastes exactly the same as Aquafina.
I've always been intimidated by the explosion stories myself. Although I admit, I've secretly wanted to try one for years, despite that fact, for many of the reasons you listed above.
You can use white distilled vinegar to strip all hair product buildup off your hair. Doesn't smell great while you do it, but wash after and it leaves your hair feeling clean and soft.
All of those are great tips! I am with most of you in getting regular headaches of all kinds as well as having sinus issues. Here are some more tricks that help me as well.
1. Meditation-Trust me, its your friend. I have gotten so good at relaxing and tuning out to calm my mind and de-stress, I can actually carry on and no one knows what I am up to. Of course I try to keep what I am doing under the deep mind use radar as it knocks me out of the calmed mind state.
2. For sinus issues and headaches, I have found a Neti pot works wonders as well for daily cleansing. Do not use this if you are plugged up or have a sinus infection as it can make life worse.
I got one for Christmas last year, and it can save you a few bills if you cook beans often. Most kinds of dry beans take less than half an hour to cook instead of a couple hours, so you can buy them in bulk instead of pre-cooked in cans.
I've also done a lot of canning this summer, and a pressure cooker/canner is necessary if you want to do any vegetables. Mine's a bit small and will only do pints, but so far I've got me some canned corn, beans, beets, and carrots.
I read 5-10 books a week, and have done for the last 40 years or so. Print books. I don't own a TV, which may have something to do with it LOL, and I read every spare minute.
Don't forget to always check with your local zoo (the ones that aren't free), museums and movie theaters. Many, at one time during the year, offer a discounted or "free day", you just have to call and ask (or check their website). Some venues, including some amusement parks, are free to military members....some restaurants even give out free meals to veterans on Veteran's Day. Thanks for the tips!
Have you considered trying PodioBooks.com The ebooks are free and are mostly read by the authors. They accept donations to help support the site and the authors get at least 75% of the donations. Some of these are also up and coming authors and may have their own feeds but this site aggregates them together. Good for those with tight budgets or looking for something different. I have discovered some great works through this site and have subscribed to the authors feeds directly.
I'm a big fan of ChristianAudio.com and Audible.com. I've got more than fifty audio books stored on an extra harddrive at the house that I'll load on to my iPod. I just finished The Youngest Hero, a baseball novel.
Here's how I see it if your mortgage payment is $2000 per month. If you make monthly payments of $2000, then you will pay $24,000 per year on your mortgage (12 x 2000). If you make payments every 2 weeks, then you will pay $26,000 per year (52/2 x 1000). So you are making the equivalent of an extra payment each year.
Now, it seems that paying earlier in the month should have an advantage. Theoretically, if you pay early (even a partial payment), the principal should be reduced at a faster rate, causing you to pay less interest, so that more of your payment is applied to the principal and you would pay down the entire balance faster. I think that this strategy would work if you have a credit line (and payments were applied to the balance immediately) but I am wondering if your payments on a mortgage would be applied just once a month and the principal balance lowered once a month. You'd have to check your mortgage contract to see how and when the payments are applied. So....I think the real advantage is that you are paying $2,000 extra every year ($26,000 vs $24,000).
I can run the numbers if you'd like -- do you have a 15 year or 30 year loan, and is it a fixed rate loan? The interest rate would be helpful also -- if you had a $200,000, 15-year loan and had a payment of $2000 (principal and interest only) then the interest rate would be 8.75% (or close to that) and the acceleration allow you to pay off the loan in 156 months (or 13 years).
My husband is dyslexic so has trouble reading books. He loves audiobooks and started with them on his 45 min commute. Now in retirement he listens as he putters (he said it's work) around the house. Will have him check out this link. Now he uses the library and downloads thru a library link but it's getting to the point where he's running out of new titles. Thanks for the info!!
As someone who also started a new job recently, I say congratulations. And I also say Brava on the way you handled the transition. Going from one department to another can be a difficult thing to navigate, so it sounds like you did it the "right" way. I had the opposite transition from my last job, as I was laid off after a company-wide restructuring, so I had to go around and let everyone know that I was let go. That also has it's interesting pitfalls too.
Some audio books I listened to from the library actually had instructions at the beginning on how to send them back when you were done, etc. I hadn't considered such a subscription, but it might be worth it if I were driving a lot.
As it is, I'm blessed with a metro commute and so I'm able to read physical books. My dad always did audio, though. Made him much happier.
The above link is an excellent starting point into finding closed end funds on the AMEX - it even explores some more advanced concepts such as the concept of a fund trading at a discount/premium to it's NAV. I've seen instances where the market price trades at more than 10% of a discount to the funds NAV - which represents an extreme potential arbitrage opportunity.
That page also links to a list of 150 closed end funds complete with ticker symbols...
On a side note - for Canadians (like me) currency effects of ETF's bought on the AMEX or NYSE that have non-US exposure have no currency effect between CAD/USD even though the investments show up in USD's on client statements. The currency effect is strictly between the native currency and the currency of the markets in which the underlying securities lie. i.e. IF there was a hypothetical ETF that traded in US$ and invested in Australia only, as a Canadian I would take my Canadian dollars and buy US$ so I could buy shares of the ETF which immediately is converted to AUD$ by the intermediary. On the way out (redemption) it goes from AUD->USD->CAD (again all but instantaneously). So while there is instantaneous currency exposure to US for me on the way in and way out, DURING the investment it is only the effect of CAD/AUD that I'm exposed to. It took me a few minutes to figure out how that worked - but eventually the guys at Barclay's explained it.
Your article is a great intro to open vs closed end funds - something I felt was a little beyond the scope of my article, but very valuable information nonetheless. For our readers and yours, can you provide any examples of closed ended funds that trade on exchanges that are currently on your radar?
Also, great observation on currency risk. (Hmmm......I feel an article on asset allocation and investment risk coming on)!
As a quick primer for those who may not know, currency fluctuations occur when you invest in a foreign fund, and your currency changes in relation to that of the fund holdings you are invested in. For example, if you buy a foreign fund for $10/share, those ten dollars will be used to purchase shares in a Japanese investment, for example. But, if the Yen goes down in value against the US dollar, the value of your fund will go down since if you sold it that day you wouldn't get as much back in US dollars, even if the company itself doesn't change in value. On the flip side, if the Yen does gangbusters (or the US dollar declines), your investment will have gone up in value since you'll get more US dollars back when converted.
As with many people I imagine, this article rings true to many. Who do you tell? How much notice do you give? Who can you trust to tell early?
A bartender friend of mine tried to do the right thing and hand in his notice one month early as he's moving away. But now, he is being given all the crappy shifts at work, and all his hard work over his time at this job isn't being recognized. All the favours he did previously are forgotten. It has become so unbearable, I suspect he won't even last the month and will be forced to just quit and walk out.
One would argue that the service industry is too transient to give more than the minimum amount of notice, but he was trying to do the right thing, and give his boss a chance to hire and train his replacement in a market where it's hard to find good bartenders.
And by being honest, he is getting the short end of the stick.
I myself also recall telling a "trustworthy" individual of an imminent departure I was making from a corporate job many years ago, and by the time I officially handed in my notice, the whole office knew and it wasn't a pretty picture.
Hello,
I just wanted to give a professionals point of view. When you have a dent in whatever panel, whatever size the metal will be stretched to some degree. Another poster hit on this and was correct in many points. If the stretched part ( crown, ripple, these are covered below ) is not taken care of first, it's like a fist holding on to the edge of the dent and it wont release the metal. Imagine a rug on a hardwood floor, if it is slid or pushed a little it will have ripples in it like waves. If you don't pull the rug a little to release the first ripple then the others won't release ( make sense )? If a dent is by a bodyline it will not repair with the ideas we are reading on here. If there is to much depth to the dent it will not repair with these method or methods.
Another poster said they were able to remove part of a dent in their suv on a hot day. THIS will happen in some instances depending on depth and location. The part that didnt come out is more then likely positioned over a support ( impact ) brace and won't release any further if it over a brace. The most important thing to remember here is metal has memory and it could be a day or a year etc. the dent will pop back in due to the metal Having memory, and the memory was never addressed.
I own a Paintless Dent Repair Company and someone also said that paintless dent repair companies use dry ice when repairing hail damage. WRONG< WRONG< WRONG... The process of paintless dent repair is using rods ( metal ) from the backside of the dent, thus we have to gain access to that part of whatever panel the dent is, i.e. taking a tailight out to gain access to your rear quarter panel. Next we need to address the crown or ripple so the dent will release, we use plastic knock downs ( look like a large golf tee ) and we knock down the crown so the metal is level around the circumferance of the dent. Sometimes we have to knock down so much ( taking a dent the size of a golfball to a baseball ) to release the metal. Kind of like taking a wine glass and knocking down or spreading the damage out to resemble a martini glass. You try to push up on the bottom of a wine glass it won't release and it will wrinkle up and never repair. Theres nowhere for the metal to release , move or bounce. If you imagine a martini glass its wider and more plyable and thus will move more generously. ( make sense ) Final step we take the lowest part of the dent up to the next lowest part of the dent and so on. In this process, we are teaching the metal new memory to where the dent won't re-surface.
I guess, I'm all about trying new things and such, but you can make it worse then better and its always more expansive to have to repair something that has been tried before in the wrong way.
Paintless dent repair is a very good alternative repair process then what you are accustomed to from a body shop.. Most dents and or hail damage can be repaired in one day, smaller single dent jobs can be done in hours or less, and for way less then a body shop repair.
Those pesky door dings from other doors or shopping carts etc. can usually be repaired for as little as 50 to 75 bucks and on your lunch time or whenever.
Good luck everyone, but help yourselves out and investigate Paintless dent repair companies in your area. It's also known as PDR.... Since I typed all this I guess I'll include our website, look at the before and after pictures for reference. www.autoworkspdr.com
I have a new pressure cooker that is unused (a Christmas present from my parents who bought it at some grand, once-a-year cookware sale). I remember all the rocking and shaking associated with them from my childhood and am intimidated by it. The recipe book that came with it is European and the ingredients specified are not widely available. If you have a simple recipe to share (a nice chicken stew perhaps or but green beans will do) with step by step instructions, I would most appreciate it.
As a former retail worker, if you do try this, PLEASE don't try it when there's a line behind you and the sales associates are scurrying around. There's a line between asking politely and demanding/taking up time by playing "hesitant" just to get a discount.
Also, many stores have a 7- or 14-day limit on their price adjustment policy. (Where you can bring in your receipt and the item to get a price adjustment if it goes on sale later on.)
Thank you so much for posting this. I surprise my co-workers every day by listening to audiobooks as opposed to music while working. I love audiobooks, and I used to rent them online from Simply Audiobooks. I am not too fond of them. They would split up any book bigger than 4 discs into different mailings. When I say split up, I mean split up. I'd get the first half of a book, then another book, then another book, and then maybe the second half of the first book. If I got the second halves at all. To this day I don't think I've finished the audiobook version of 'Dark Tort' The library is a FANTASTIC place to get audiobooks; they will also order some books or ship them from other libraries. I have read many classics this way, Lolita, Cat's Cradle, (which I just finished at work today) Slaughterhouse Five, (finished it last week, it's been a Kurt Vonnegut month) and others. I agree wholeheartedly and I am a big advocate of audiobooks. It's not just for trips either, if you have a boring, monotonous job like I do, (see: Clerical) it helps to pass the time listening to these.
I also read paper books on my own time, but I want to read everything, and there's simply not enough years in a lifetime. =(
To save on costs you can check audio books out at the library. I've listened to over 50 audio books on my commute for free, and using the inter-library loan system, there are hundreds more I look forward to listening to.
One of my closest friends swears by these. I haven't been able to incorporate it thus far, but may try this winter. Cool tip on the subscription companies, too. I didn't even know things like that existed . . .
Andrea, I agree the plastic is bad for the environment, but the water tastes like crap here (San Diego). The water is no better probably in Aquafina, but it is Reverse Osmosis, which takes out all lead, mercury, etc. We did a water tester on tap water vs bottled and the water we were drinking "filtered" (not RO) had a count of minerals (bad minerals) of 255, where Aquafina had a count of 4. For environmentally concious people buying bottled water...I would suggest a Reverse Osmosis system for your home, no plastic and tastes exactly the same as Aquafina.
I've always been intimidated by the explosion stories myself. Although I admit, I've secretly wanted to try one for years, despite that fact, for many of the reasons you listed above.
Glad to hear someone is having success with one.
You can use white distilled vinegar to strip all hair product buildup off your hair. Doesn't smell great while you do it, but wash after and it leaves your hair feeling clean and soft.
All of those are great tips! I am with most of you in getting regular headaches of all kinds as well as having sinus issues. Here are some more tricks that help me as well.
1. Meditation-Trust me, its your friend. I have gotten so good at relaxing and tuning out to calm my mind and de-stress, I can actually carry on and no one knows what I am up to. Of course I try to keep what I am doing under the deep mind use radar as it knocks me out of the calmed mind state.
2. For sinus issues and headaches, I have found a Neti pot works wonders as well for daily cleansing. Do not use this if you are plugged up or have a sinus infection as it can make life worse.
Hope this helped!!!
...though I hope the article also helped someone out ;0)
I got one for Christmas last year, and it can save you a few bills if you cook beans often. Most kinds of dry beans take less than half an hour to cook instead of a couple hours, so you can buy them in bulk instead of pre-cooked in cans.
I've also done a lot of canning this summer, and a pressure cooker/canner is necessary if you want to do any vegetables. Mine's a bit small and will only do pints, but so far I've got me some canned corn, beans, beets, and carrots.
I read 5-10 books a week, and have done for the last 40 years or so. Print books. I don't own a TV, which may have something to do with it LOL, and I read every spare minute.
Don't forget to always check with your local zoo (the ones that aren't free), museums and movie theaters. Many, at one time during the year, offer a discounted or "free day", you just have to call and ask (or check their website). Some venues, including some amusement parks, are free to military members....some restaurants even give out free meals to veterans on Veteran's Day. Thanks for the tips!
Have you considered trying PodioBooks.com The ebooks are free and are mostly read by the authors. They accept donations to help support the site and the authors get at least 75% of the donations. Some of these are also up and coming authors and may have their own feeds but this site aggregates them together. Good for those with tight budgets or looking for something different. I have discovered some great works through this site and have subscribed to the authors feeds directly.
I'm a big fan of ChristianAudio.com and Audible.com. I've got more than fifty audio books stored on an extra harddrive at the house that I'll load on to my iPod. I just finished The Youngest Hero, a baseball novel.
Here's how I see it if your mortgage payment is $2000 per month. If you make monthly payments of $2000, then you will pay $24,000 per year on your mortgage (12 x 2000). If you make payments every 2 weeks, then you will pay $26,000 per year (52/2 x 1000). So you are making the equivalent of an extra payment each year.
Now, it seems that paying earlier in the month should have an advantage. Theoretically, if you pay early (even a partial payment), the principal should be reduced at a faster rate, causing you to pay less interest, so that more of your payment is applied to the principal and you would pay down the entire balance faster. I think that this strategy would work if you have a credit line (and payments were applied to the balance immediately) but I am wondering if your payments on a mortgage would be applied just once a month and the principal balance lowered once a month. You'd have to check your mortgage contract to see how and when the payments are applied. So....I think the real advantage is that you are paying $2,000 extra every year ($26,000 vs $24,000).
I can run the numbers if you'd like -- do you have a 15 year or 30 year loan, and is it a fixed rate loan? The interest rate would be helpful also -- if you had a $200,000, 15-year loan and had a payment of $2000 (principal and interest only) then the interest rate would be 8.75% (or close to that) and the acceleration allow you to pay off the loan in 156 months (or 13 years).
My husband is dyslexic so has trouble reading books. He loves audiobooks and started with them on his 45 min commute. Now in retirement he listens as he putters (he said it's work) around the house. Will have him check out this link. Now he uses the library and downloads thru a library link but it's getting to the point where he's running out of new titles. Thanks for the info!!
As someone who also started a new job recently, I say congratulations. And I also say Brava on the way you handled the transition. Going from one department to another can be a difficult thing to navigate, so it sounds like you did it the "right" way. I had the opposite transition from my last job, as I was laid off after a company-wide restructuring, so I had to go around and let everyone know that I was let go. That also has it's interesting pitfalls too.
Congrats, and enjoy the new job!
Some audio books I listened to from the library actually had instructions at the beginning on how to send them back when you were done, etc. I hadn't considered such a subscription, but it might be worth it if I were driving a lot.
As it is, I'm blessed with a metro commute and so I'm able to read physical books. My dad always did audio, though. Made him much happier.
Not on the topic of the article - but I was just in San Francisco for labor day and totally saw this guy at Fisherman's Wharf!
Same guy + same sign = time to get a job!
http://www.amex.com/?href=/closedEnd/ClosedMain.htm
The above link is an excellent starting point into finding closed end funds on the AMEX - it even explores some more advanced concepts such as the concept of a fund trading at a discount/premium to it's NAV. I've seen instances where the market price trades at more than 10% of a discount to the funds NAV - which represents an extreme potential arbitrage opportunity.
That page also links to a list of 150 closed end funds complete with ticker symbols...
On a side note - for Canadians (like me) currency effects of ETF's bought on the AMEX or NYSE that have non-US exposure have no currency effect between CAD/USD even though the investments show up in USD's on client statements. The currency effect is strictly between the native currency and the currency of the markets in which the underlying securities lie. i.e. IF there was a hypothetical ETF that traded in US$ and invested in Australia only, as a Canadian I would take my Canadian dollars and buy US$ so I could buy shares of the ETF which immediately is converted to AUD$ by the intermediary. On the way out (redemption) it goes from AUD->USD->CAD (again all but instantaneously). So while there is instantaneous currency exposure to US for me on the way in and way out, DURING the investment it is only the effect of CAD/AUD that I'm exposed to. It took me a few minutes to figure out how that worked - but eventually the guys at Barclay's explained it.
Absolutely wonderful book!!! Tobias really does make it simple.
Great comment, and thanks for your input.
Your article is a great intro to open vs closed end funds - something I felt was a little beyond the scope of my article, but very valuable information nonetheless. For our readers and yours, can you provide any examples of closed ended funds that trade on exchanges that are currently on your radar?
Also, great observation on currency risk. (Hmmm......I feel an article on asset allocation and investment risk coming on)!
As a quick primer for those who may not know, currency fluctuations occur when you invest in a foreign fund, and your currency changes in relation to that of the fund holdings you are invested in. For example, if you buy a foreign fund for $10/share, those ten dollars will be used to purchase shares in a Japanese investment, for example. But, if the Yen goes down in value against the US dollar, the value of your fund will go down since if you sold it that day you wouldn't get as much back in US dollars, even if the company itself doesn't change in value. On the flip side, if the Yen does gangbusters (or the US dollar declines), your investment will have gone up in value since you'll get more US dollars back when converted.
As with many people I imagine, this article rings true to many. Who do you tell? How much notice do you give? Who can you trust to tell early?
A bartender friend of mine tried to do the right thing and hand in his notice one month early as he's moving away. But now, he is being given all the crappy shifts at work, and all his hard work over his time at this job isn't being recognized. All the favours he did previously are forgotten. It has become so unbearable, I suspect he won't even last the month and will be forced to just quit and walk out.
One would argue that the service industry is too transient to give more than the minimum amount of notice, but he was trying to do the right thing, and give his boss a chance to hire and train his replacement in a market where it's hard to find good bartenders.
And by being honest, he is getting the short end of the stick.
I myself also recall telling a "trustworthy" individual of an imminent departure I was making from a corporate job many years ago, and by the time I officially handed in my notice, the whole office knew and it wasn't a pretty picture.
Hello,
I just wanted to give a professionals point of view. When you have a dent in whatever panel, whatever size the metal will be stretched to some degree. Another poster hit on this and was correct in many points. If the stretched part ( crown, ripple, these are covered below ) is not taken care of first, it's like a fist holding on to the edge of the dent and it wont release the metal. Imagine a rug on a hardwood floor, if it is slid or pushed a little it will have ripples in it like waves. If you don't pull the rug a little to release the first ripple then the others won't release ( make sense )? If a dent is by a bodyline it will not repair with the ideas we are reading on here. If there is to much depth to the dent it will not repair with these method or methods.
Another poster said they were able to remove part of a dent in their suv on a hot day. THIS will happen in some instances depending on depth and location. The part that didnt come out is more then likely positioned over a support ( impact ) brace and won't release any further if it over a brace. The most important thing to remember here is metal has memory and it could be a day or a year etc. the dent will pop back in due to the metal Having memory, and the memory was never addressed.
I own a Paintless Dent Repair Company and someone also said that paintless dent repair companies use dry ice when repairing hail damage. WRONG< WRONG< WRONG... The process of paintless dent repair is using rods ( metal ) from the backside of the dent, thus we have to gain access to that part of whatever panel the dent is, i.e. taking a tailight out to gain access to your rear quarter panel. Next we need to address the crown or ripple so the dent will release, we use plastic knock downs ( look like a large golf tee ) and we knock down the crown so the metal is level around the circumferance of the dent. Sometimes we have to knock down so much ( taking a dent the size of a golfball to a baseball ) to release the metal. Kind of like taking a wine glass and knocking down or spreading the damage out to resemble a martini glass. You try to push up on the bottom of a wine glass it won't release and it will wrinkle up and never repair. Theres nowhere for the metal to release , move or bounce. If you imagine a martini glass its wider and more plyable and thus will move more generously. ( make sense ) Final step we take the lowest part of the dent up to the next lowest part of the dent and so on. In this process, we are teaching the metal new memory to where the dent won't re-surface.
I guess, I'm all about trying new things and such, but you can make it worse then better and its always more expansive to have to repair something that has been tried before in the wrong way.
Paintless dent repair is a very good alternative repair process then what you are accustomed to from a body shop.. Most dents and or hail damage can be repaired in one day, smaller single dent jobs can be done in hours or less, and for way less then a body shop repair.
Those pesky door dings from other doors or shopping carts etc. can usually be repaired for as little as 50 to 75 bucks and on your lunch time or whenever.
Good luck everyone, but help yourselves out and investigate Paintless dent repair companies in your area. It's also known as PDR.... Since I typed all this I guess I'll include our website, look at the before and after pictures for reference.
www.autoworkspdr.com