I'm someone who struggled to find her passion for a few years (I think I just figured it out last year at the age of 22). I did have Major Depressive Disorder in high school and ended up taking time off after high school since I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. I had always been good with computers; a lot of my teenage hobbies focused around building websites, creating graphics, etc, but I knew I didn't want to be a webmaster. Nonetheless, my computer abilities helped land me in a few nice jobs that moved me forward in the world while I took some generic classes at the local community college.
Finally, after a couple of years at my current job, I visited a coworker in his office to discuss changes to a program he'd been developing for my department. Looking over his shoulder at his screen, I felt a surge of jealousy over the work he was doing -- I wanted to pull up a chair and start coding software. I had taken C++ in high school and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I don't know why it never occurred to me to become a software developer. Sitting in that guy's office, I just knew. It clicks with my personality - it's mathematical (I was a big math nerd ever since elementary school), logical, problem-solving, computer-heavy, a culmination of all the things I enjoy. Better yet, you can sit in a quiet office by yourself and code away (I'm not a big fan of more social jobs). So I changed majors from my generic Business Management to Computer Science - Software Design, and I'm really excited about what the future holds.
My favorite on-line price comparison tool is PriceBlink. It's a browser extension that shows me if I've found the lowest price or where to find it while I'm shopping in a bar at the top of my browser. It also included coupons right there on the bar which is handy. Has definitely saved me money!
All of these sites are great places to find coupons. After you finish clipping you may want to organize them in cute coupon organizer by Mulch. They offer whimiscal holders for coupons on Etsy. I love it! www.mulch.etsy.com
Some of these sites are actually selling legitimate iTunes Gift Cards, but the code is scratched off and delivery via email. The point in buying a gift card for more than its face value is because it is not as easy for international persons (i.e. not living in the US) as it is for Americans to walk into a US retail store and get one (duh!). It sometimes actually works out cheaper when taking exchange rates into consideration than the local iTunes store and not to mention the much wider variety of relevant content on the US iTunes Store. I have consistently been buying from this website and have never ever had a problem: http://www.itunesgiftcardstore.com
They send an email with the iTunes gift card code and instructions to set up a US iTunes Store account. Check it out.
Please, another article written by somebody who thinks banks are non-profits. Do you ask other retail stores to give you free things, because why, you're owed it?? It's a bank, they provide you with convenience, they provide you with security, they provide you with the ability to manage your money away from your matress. Six ways to safeguard bullying?
1. Make everything electronic, another convenience which you should pay for not have free because you're "you"
2. One account? If you know anything about shopping online or "being electronic" as you just said, more than one account protects you from having every penny drained because you put your information on an unsafe website
3. Keep money in checking? Or maybe you could just have your bank link your savings as overdraft protection to avoid both fees and to earn a little more. Truth be told, even 15 dollars in interest is more than zero in your checking.
4. Monthly maintenance fees - you pay every month for your magazine subscriptions, gym memberships, and movies, but somehow being charged a monthly fee to protect your money in a bank rather than under your matress is unfair? the last thing i'd cancel is the bank account , but according to your logic they don't "provide" you anything.
5. Schedule your withdrawals - If your life is as busy as everyone elses, you'd know that's impossible with children, work, and school. How about you just use a national bank that has 3,600 ATM's from coast to coast that doesnt charge you rather than waiting for your banks to refund you the fees
6. Online savings accounts? Takes two business days to get your cash from an online savings account that offer the same low rates or request you tie up your money. Emergencies don't get put on hold for two days.
I ALSO GOT ONE OF THEIR CARDS THROUGH THE MAIL TODAY WHICH I ALSO DIDNOT APPLY FOR.I CHECKED INTO A PREPAID DEBIT CARD BECAUSE I AM HAVING TROUBLE WITH MY BANK .THE BEST THING TO DO IS CUT THE CARD UP THROW IT AWAY BECAUSE IT WILL COST YOU MORE IN THE LONG RUN TO HAVE IT. BUT THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION.
There are some really affordable CSAs. growingpower.org in the Midwest is one of the cheapest but is available year round and can go week by week. Cheap doesn't mean low quality.
A CSA is like grocery shopping on autopilot. I don't have to go to the grocery store every few days for fresh veggies. I pick up my veggies once a week and they stay fresh for at least that long (sometimes even two) because they were picked the day I got them.
I dehydrate, pickle, or preserve whatever I can't use during the week.
While mine doesn't save me much money (it's more or less a wash), it does encourage me to eat more healthily than I might otherwise. It's much easier to try new veggies when the choice is made for you.
My CSA actually allows you to specifiy what vegetables you don't enjoy and they won't put any in. Of course, that means you have to know what you don't like. But I've found I like more things than I thought I would...it really is fun to figure out what something is (celeriac? fennel?) and how to cook it.
Great article, Thursday! We do our own gardening, and there are no CSA's where we live, but it would be a wonderful resource to have. This year, with the birth of my son, we just didn't keep up our garden from the weeds, and we ended up with NOTHING to can. Just to be able to process some items for the winter would make it worth it for us. (And I would love to have all that organic stuff on hand to freeze as homemade baby food.)
I have a netspend card and I LOVE it. It is FREE to check your balance online, as with most credit cards (and all my other cards charge a fee for using their phone services). It actually IS attached to a bank account, one that you can use with paypal, direct deposit and other bill pay services. The only fee I pay is $9.95 a month, plus $3 when I load my card at an ace location. Since all of my transactions are direct deposit onto the card, or completed via paypal, my only real charge is $9.95 a month. There is no REAL credit card company that can boast that low of a fee schedule. It seems you only valid complaint here is that they sent you the card without you soliciting it. Other than that I have to disagree with your line of attack. I have had my card for several years and am a completely satisfied customer.
I just finished a summer of our local farm's "medium" share (about $17/week prepaid and supposedly enough for two people each week). I wasn't all that impressed - the veggies I usually wanted seemed to go to the full-share people and we mediums got the leftovers. Some weeks were pretty sparse - I managed to eat the share's contents all by myself with no problem. Our farm's setup had no swap out, so I actually ended up sneaking carrots into the organic section of a local grocery store because I had the things coming out my ears. Never again. I also don't spend anywhere near $17/week on produce for my husband and myself (and we eat a lot of salads and veggies), so that was kind of painful, too. I love the local support angle, but I think next year, I'll just go to the local farmers' market and buy what I actually want instead.
ON CLOUDINESS
I tried freezing and coffee filters and the brita. It looked slightly better...maybe. I refroze it and ran it thru the brita again. Maybe clearer. Maybe not.
I think, while the taste is fine, I will cook it slower the next time, in my reflux tower.
The last time it came streaming out. Almost like a cow pissing on a flat rock!
Would you suggest the premium membership or the basic one? We looked @ COSTCO but decided to not purchase a membership. Once we have a family that may change ...
That sounds like a very cool website. I don't use any points schemes right now as I like to keep things simple but I do know some people who would benefit from such a site.
We recycle a lot of artwork (the girls 4 and 6 doodle a lot - so we have a lot of half-used paper) and we cut the clutter out by making paper chains for the tree...
See, and I always thought Purim was much closer in spirit to Halloween: get dressed up, go door-to-door getting small tokens (in this case, pennies), make lots of noise and chaos... right up the alley with the way Halloween is celebrated nowadays.
THIRD PARTY companies, however, do allow you to click a checkbox when you are filling out forms and submitting w/o reading what you "ACCEPT".
A lot of the "Click here to get a free iPhone" banners will take you to pages where you have to enter name, address, etc. those sites require you to fulfill a number of offers to get your free "gadget". One of these "offers" that people agree to without paying attention is the NetSpend card.
It's NOT spam or unsolicited if you clicked "accept" while not paying attention on some website a few months prior to receiving the card.
Another great piece by Mikey Rox! Love this article.. made me chuckle and nod in agreement. Have a great holiday!
I'm someone who struggled to find her passion for a few years (I think I just figured it out last year at the age of 22). I did have Major Depressive Disorder in high school and ended up taking time off after high school since I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. I had always been good with computers; a lot of my teenage hobbies focused around building websites, creating graphics, etc, but I knew I didn't want to be a webmaster. Nonetheless, my computer abilities helped land me in a few nice jobs that moved me forward in the world while I took some generic classes at the local community college.
Finally, after a couple of years at my current job, I visited a coworker in his office to discuss changes to a program he'd been developing for my department. Looking over his shoulder at his screen, I felt a surge of jealousy over the work he was doing -- I wanted to pull up a chair and start coding software. I had taken C++ in high school and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I don't know why it never occurred to me to become a software developer. Sitting in that guy's office, I just knew. It clicks with my personality - it's mathematical (I was a big math nerd ever since elementary school), logical, problem-solving, computer-heavy, a culmination of all the things I enjoy. Better yet, you can sit in a quiet office by yourself and code away (I'm not a big fan of more social jobs). So I changed majors from my generic Business Management to Computer Science - Software Design, and I'm really excited about what the future holds.
My favorite on-line price comparison tool is PriceBlink. It's a browser extension that shows me if I've found the lowest price or where to find it while I'm shopping in a bar at the top of my browser. It also included coupons right there on the bar which is handy. Has definitely saved me money!
Just wondering what's the best alternative for sun screens protection lotion.
All of these sites are great places to find coupons. After you finish clipping you may want to organize them in cute coupon organizer by Mulch. They offer whimiscal holders for coupons on Etsy. I love it!
www.mulch.etsy.com
I also recieved a card and shredded it immediately.
I do keep getting e-mails from them that I do not see how I can "unsubscribe"to.
Some of these sites are actually selling legitimate iTunes Gift Cards, but the code is scratched off and delivery via email. The point in buying a gift card for more than its face value is because it is not as easy for international persons (i.e. not living in the US) as it is for Americans to walk into a US retail store and get one (duh!). It sometimes actually works out cheaper when taking exchange rates into consideration than the local iTunes store and not to mention the much wider variety of relevant content on the US iTunes Store. I have consistently been buying from this website and have never ever had a problem: http://www.itunesgiftcardstore.com
They send an email with the iTunes gift card code and instructions to set up a US iTunes Store account. Check it out.
http://www.itunesgiftcardstore.com
Please, another article written by somebody who thinks banks are non-profits. Do you ask other retail stores to give you free things, because why, you're owed it?? It's a bank, they provide you with convenience, they provide you with security, they provide you with the ability to manage your money away from your matress. Six ways to safeguard bullying?
1. Make everything electronic, another convenience which you should pay for not have free because you're "you"
2. One account? If you know anything about shopping online or "being electronic" as you just said, more than one account protects you from having every penny drained because you put your information on an unsafe website
3. Keep money in checking? Or maybe you could just have your bank link your savings as overdraft protection to avoid both fees and to earn a little more. Truth be told, even 15 dollars in interest is more than zero in your checking.
4. Monthly maintenance fees - you pay every month for your magazine subscriptions, gym memberships, and movies, but somehow being charged a monthly fee to protect your money in a bank rather than under your matress is unfair? the last thing i'd cancel is the bank account , but according to your logic they don't "provide" you anything.
5. Schedule your withdrawals - If your life is as busy as everyone elses, you'd know that's impossible with children, work, and school. How about you just use a national bank that has 3,600 ATM's from coast to coast that doesnt charge you rather than waiting for your banks to refund you the fees
6. Online savings accounts? Takes two business days to get your cash from an online savings account that offer the same low rates or request you tie up your money. Emergencies don't get put on hold for two days.
I ALSO GOT ONE OF THEIR CARDS THROUGH THE MAIL TODAY WHICH I ALSO DIDNOT APPLY FOR.I CHECKED INTO A PREPAID DEBIT CARD BECAUSE I AM HAVING TROUBLE WITH MY BANK .THE BEST THING TO DO IS CUT THE CARD UP THROW IT AWAY BECAUSE IT WILL COST YOU MORE IN THE LONG RUN TO HAVE IT. BUT THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION.
There are some really affordable CSAs. growingpower.org in the Midwest is one of the cheapest but is available year round and can go week by week. Cheap doesn't mean low quality.
Oh my goodness, that hummus sounds amazing.
A CSA is like grocery shopping on autopilot. I don't have to go to the grocery store every few days for fresh veggies. I pick up my veggies once a week and they stay fresh for at least that long (sometimes even two) because they were picked the day I got them.
I dehydrate, pickle, or preserve whatever I can't use during the week.
While mine doesn't save me much money (it's more or less a wash), it does encourage me to eat more healthily than I might otherwise. It's much easier to try new veggies when the choice is made for you.
My CSA actually allows you to specifiy what vegetables you don't enjoy and they won't put any in. Of course, that means you have to know what you don't like. But I've found I like more things than I thought I would...it really is fun to figure out what something is (celeriac? fennel?) and how to cook it.
Great article, Thursday! We do our own gardening, and there are no CSA's where we live, but it would be a wonderful resource to have. This year, with the birth of my son, we just didn't keep up our garden from the weeds, and we ended up with NOTHING to can. Just to be able to process some items for the winter would make it worth it for us. (And I would love to have all that organic stuff on hand to freeze as homemade baby food.)
I have a netspend card and I LOVE it. It is FREE to check your balance online, as with most credit cards (and all my other cards charge a fee for using their phone services). It actually IS attached to a bank account, one that you can use with paypal, direct deposit and other bill pay services. The only fee I pay is $9.95 a month, plus $3 when I load my card at an ace location. Since all of my transactions are direct deposit onto the card, or completed via paypal, my only real charge is $9.95 a month. There is no REAL credit card company that can boast that low of a fee schedule. It seems you only valid complaint here is that they sent you the card without you soliciting it. Other than that I have to disagree with your line of attack. I have had my card for several years and am a completely satisfied customer.
la kayim means cheers
I just finished a summer of our local farm's "medium" share (about $17/week prepaid and supposedly enough for two people each week). I wasn't all that impressed - the veggies I usually wanted seemed to go to the full-share people and we mediums got the leftovers. Some weeks were pretty sparse - I managed to eat the share's contents all by myself with no problem. Our farm's setup had no swap out, so I actually ended up sneaking carrots into the organic section of a local grocery store because I had the things coming out my ears. Never again. I also don't spend anywhere near $17/week on produce for my husband and myself (and we eat a lot of salads and veggies), so that was kind of painful, too. I love the local support angle, but I think next year, I'll just go to the local farmers' market and buy what I actually want instead.
ON CLOUDINESS
I tried freezing and coffee filters and the brita. It looked slightly better...maybe. I refroze it and ran it thru the brita again. Maybe clearer. Maybe not.
I think, while the taste is fine, I will cook it slower the next time, in my reflux tower.
The last time it came streaming out. Almost like a cow pissing on a flat rock!
FYI, radish tops/greens make a really delicious substitution for basil in pesto....
Would you suggest the premium membership or the basic one? We looked @ COSTCO but decided to not purchase a membership. Once we have a family that may change ...
That sounds like a very cool website. I don't use any points schemes right now as I like to keep things simple but I do know some people who would benefit from such a site.
Don't forget popcorn string and paper rings!
We recycle a lot of artwork (the girls 4 and 6 doodle a lot - so we have a lot of half-used paper) and we cut the clutter out by making paper chains for the tree...
I talk about it here in the fun eco-xmas song,
"Let's Make Santa Claus Happy Tonight"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vW7hxdGSM
See, and I always thought Purim was much closer in spirit to Halloween: get dressed up, go door-to-door getting small tokens (in this case, pennies), make lots of noise and chaos... right up the alley with the way Halloween is celebrated nowadays.
Netspend doesn't normally send these out.
THIRD PARTY companies, however, do allow you to click a checkbox when you are filling out forms and submitting w/o reading what you "ACCEPT".
A lot of the "Click here to get a free iPhone" banners will take you to pages where you have to enter name, address, etc. those sites require you to fulfill a number of offers to get your free "gadget". One of these "offers" that people agree to without paying attention is the NetSpend card.
It's NOT spam or unsolicited if you clicked "accept" while not paying attention on some website a few months prior to receiving the card.
I think you forgot one of the best...a note, hand-written by the child, telling the teacher 'thank you.' Always appreciated.