Kiyosaki is an interesting combination of inspirational leader, and full-of-it pompous businessman. Reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I sometimes felt he was on to an interesting concept (E,S,B,I) which opens your eyes to an idea. And then only a few pages later feel like he's trying to fool over the reader, like this Rich Dad who he refuses to identify and could not possibly exist.
But a book that more spiritual - balancing ambition with nourishing your soul - should be interesting. I wouldn't mind getting a copy.
With LNT, they started with 20% off and took MONTHS to get down to 80% off. So I wouldn't get too excited right away. Then again, if you are looking for a specific, popular item they will probably all be gone by the time they are up to the deep discounts. Xin, I'm surprised they already had 60% off at that store -- I wonder if that was done before they hired this liquidator or just a one-store decision.
Great post!! I just wanted to knock another vote up for sparkpeople. It's an incredible site and has just about anything anybody would need for working out or losing weight.
Thanks for the good review, Erin! I've been browsing over there for a while, and I love the idea of having everything in one place. The videos look good, although I have no way of watching them in my living room where I work out. Great resource!
Sparkpeople.com has the calorie counter, the exercise tracker, free workout videos, free low-fat recipes and a whole lot more. Free to join and it has an interface that's minorly competitive (you earn points for doing various things around the site) which is very motivating to me. I'd check it out if you're interested in this stuff.
So that would include the new start up season of Battle Star Galactica? Although that one will probably be online. There are a few shows we haven't been able to find online and so have to wait until Netflix offers them by season. Dexter comes to mind.
We were talking over his lunch break that we might get this box as a sort of Valentine house gift to ourselves.
I think like drinking alcoholic beverages, it's going to come down to the individual: some people genuinely are "light sippers" who drink to relax, whereas others have addictive tendencies and become unproductive drunks. :(
My wife's played World of Warcraft quite a bit. I've never gotten into it, but we're both looking forward to Stargate Worlds (we are watching SG-1 with much interest).
There are of course free MMOs and such which don't have any subscription fees, or they charge micropayments for upgraded equipment and other benefits.
I was attracted to the lure of virtual world Second Life in late 2004, which was $10 (one-time) for a Basic account. Now they're free, and along the way I ended up getting so addicted I worked for Linden Lab, the company behind it. Still a gladdict (glad + addict = healthy addiction). :-)
I don't think I've shopped at Circuit City more than once or twice. I can't remember which electronic store it was, but one of them charged a restocking fee for returns, I'm thinking it was CC which turned me off from shopping them. I will be staying far away as we don't have the money for any new electronics, and they aren't a need anyway. I hope those with gift cards get some great deals!
This kind of discussion (article) arose because someone trying to cut costs looked at easily identifiable costs (such as a fixed monthly amount on a credit card) but not at all the entertainment costs that do/would arise without it (some which may be cash and harder to track).
Cutting out a $20 monthly service doesn't help if it leads to expenses that are more than that.
This is a good lesson that if you're going to cut anything you have to carefully consider what expenses may arise from it...it may not be worthwhile after all.
We use our wireless connection from our home router to work off of. It's a bit more slow, though (lower video quality.) If you want to take advantage of the higer video qualities and the HD movies, you'd probably want to use a CAT5 ethernet cable directly into the box.
Netflix requires you to subscribe to the $8.99 plan or above to get unlimited instant viewing. The $4.99 plan only gives you 2 hours. We like getting two new movies out at a time, which comes out to about 2-3 newer movies a week, in addition to the movies in the instant viewing plan.
The Amazon Unbox program will require additional fees for viewing most movies (it would be a lot like pay-per-view.) What I like about this, however, is that they offer free movies and discounted 99cent promotions throughout the month, so if we really want to see something right away, we don't have to wait for it to arrive in the mail or drive to the video store or library. We can also order premium cable shows from channels like Sci-fi and such with an ala carte method (per show.) I can't wait for it to be availble on the box!
Thanks, Linsey! My husband's downstairs for lunch break right now and is eating this up as an idea. Does it need to be close to the ethernet connection? That might be a pain for us. And are the other movie places you recommended free or for fee like Netflix?
I'm sure it's totally worth it if you say so, because it's pretty obvious you guys make your financial decisions very similar to the way we do. We are even wondering if those other options come without fee, if it might be worth it to bump down to one Netflix disc out at a time rather than two.
Deal-seekers be warned: certain liquidators are notorious for increasing the prices on items and then marking them as 50% or whatever off. What seems like a great deal might actually turn out to be about the normal price at another store. Don't buy something just because it is a deal, and if you do buy, make sure you know the price at other stores before going to make sure you aren't getting ripped off.
It amazes me that people are still willing to blame a mere video game for things like lateness, poor eating choices, even divorce. I've been an avid WoW player for nearly four years now. My husband also plays, and we enjoy playing WoW together just as much as we enjoy games like Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit or Risk. We continue to cook dinner together and spend time with friends outside the game (in fact, we have weekly get-togethers on Tuesdays and Fridays, and spend Saturdays with my husband's family). It really does save money, though, to have a way to hang out with friends and each other without going to a fancy restaurant or driving twenty or thirty minutes. We canceled our cable television and don't spend nearly as much money on going out every night. My husband works 60+ hours a week at his job while I work about 30-40, and sometimes it's very nice to come home and just spend a night in. He'll chop vegetables, I'll make a nice pasta, and we set our bowls in front of the keyboard and eat while we play. There's no excuse for being "addicted" to a computer game.
I will admit that there are raiding guilds out there who demand that you play a certain amount of time each week to be in their guild and that you accompany them on lengthy dungeon delving expeditions. IF you have time in your weekly schedule, IF you enjoy that sort of thing, and IF you can be responsible about it, then by all means, you have my blessings. But it's up to the person, not the game, how seriously you take your little cartoon character. So, none of my characters (I have seven on different servers) has the absolute best gear. So what? You don't need to have the very best in order to play the game, or even to do well. My husband plays a lot of PvP, and has killed many players who out-gear him. I tend to focus on questing and world exploration and have no problems as long as I'm in level appropriate gear. I've never gone on a high level raid.
Finally, I'd also like to point out that my mother and father both play. My mom didn't play at first, but as she watched my dad play (he's been playing WoW for five years, and he played UO for ... forever before that) she started to get interested in what was going on. She enjoys it and plays alongside my dad now in their PvP guild. But for a long time it put strain on their relationship but they worked their problems out and never considered divorce because it wasn't the game that was the problem, it was that she felt that dad wasn't paying enough attention to her. Once she was able to voice what was really the matter, they worked things out because they're a loving couple who have been together for nearly 40 years. My dad cut back on his game time to spend more time with mom, and, eventually, she decided she might like to try playing. It's also a lot of fun to spend time with my parents in the game world since we live several states away from each other.
So, please, don't blame World of Warcraft for causing problems in people's lives. As someone above mentioned, 11 million people aren't struggling with addiction. If you can't psychologically handle playing the game and continue to act responsibly, then perhaps you should cancel your subscription, and maybe even seek some therapy. It's not the game's fault; it's yours.
The box is totally worth it! We got it before the announcement that they would be adding the Amazon Unbox movies and TV shows to the players capabilities. As it stands now, we use it in place of cable. Granted, you won't get all the new shows on it, but many of the shows we watch now are on there the very next week. There are lots of kids movies and TV shows (Disney channel stuff) and educational shows (lots from the Discovery channel and PBS). We use it for homeschool lessons and for afternoon entertainment. They are adding new instant viewing movies all the time, too. Anything that shows on Starz pretty much ends up on the box. It's really cool, and we have no cable bills! (We have slower internet connection and the buffering capability is excellent.)
If you see every new movie the week it comes out, you may be disappointed. But if you are like us, a bit homebound and thrifty, you'll appreciate the variety of indie and foreign films, along with releases from 2007 and 2008. (Plus classics.) We also like watching older TV shows like Family Ties, Leave it to Beaver, and MacGyver. LOL
I understand the difficulty of dealing with objectivity vs a personal anecdote (like an ex), but honestly people, WoW has something like 11 million subscribers.
Do you honestly think that WoW is destroying ELEVEN MILLION people's lives? That's just stupid and illogical.
Saying that Warcraft is evil is like saying that credit cards or alcohol are evil - both are the source of many a family's ruin, but when you get down to it you have no one to blame but the person who lets himself (or herself) get addicted.
My 16 year old son made an interesting point - it costs the post office a ton of money to print those one cent stamps to add to the "no longer valid because the rates just went up" stamps. They may even LOSE money on the deal initially because of the printing costs.
Ultimately,
when the post office saves money, perhaps we all do -
Anyone know if you can get them in a ROLL?
Be sure to also check the "free" section of your local Craigslist. And sign up for your local Freecycle group to check for freebies or post your "wanted" items. http://www.freecycle.org/
I see equipment on craigslist and freecycle all the time. People get bored with it or want their living space back. If your really dedicated there is always plenty of equipment at garage sales in the spring.
Yoga is another great workout that doesn't require any gear and you can do it at home.
Being a strong believer in kismet, I find myself looking for signs and meaning in all daily acts often to a fault. Consequently it's no surprise to me ( or my wife ;) that i apply this same principle to blogs and searches esp. on the financial and spiritual end. This seems like another such result. Reading books on the 2 subjects of finance and spirituality has become a daily habit and having completed my Paulo Coehlo series and now the Tracy Kidder book ( plus all the buddhist/hindu books my sister recommends) I'm completely intrigued by this one. Marrying the two concepts of materialism and spirituality is so difficult. After a spiritual experience on a trip to india in 2001, i remained consumed by guilt upon returning to the US and it's strong sense of consumer-driven culture. I love being an american yet my heart pulls me in that direction as well. This seems like a fascinating book to check out and see what guideposts it can lead me on my journey as it has impacted so many others. thanks for sharing.
If you are addicted to an MMO and all you do is play the game and go to work (or school) you'll definitely save money. The game takes the place of all the other things you used to do for entertainment. There was a time when all I did was sit and play Everquest 2 all day every day. I spent money on food, rent, internet, and the game subscription. That was pretty much it. You won't be accomplishing things in real life, but you will definitely be saving lots of money.
I forgot to say, I really love that recipe calculator at about.com, too!! I don't really count calories because it just makes me messed up in my head, but like you mentioned, I like to enter my made from scratch meals, like casseroles, etc., to get an idea.
Wow, some of these are things I never would have thought to try. Like asking realtors about left behind equipment. That could possibly be a small business in itself. I know about buying equipment later on in the year since everyone bought stuff for their New Year's resolutions and end up getting rid of the equipment because it wasn't being used. I'm still very pleased with my Total Gym. It kind of works with natural resistance since your body weight works with the incline feature. It doesn't take up a lot of space and it really does help my body to be more flexible and strong. Now if I could just get my husband to stop putting things onto it as it takes an extra 10 minutes just to unload it when I finally persuade myself to use it!
Kiyosaki is an interesting combination of inspirational leader, and full-of-it pompous businessman. Reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I sometimes felt he was on to an interesting concept (E,S,B,I) which opens your eyes to an idea. And then only a few pages later feel like he's trying to fool over the reader, like this Rich Dad who he refuses to identify and could not possibly exist.
But a book that more spiritual - balancing ambition with nourishing your soul - should be interesting. I wouldn't mind getting a copy.
weston a price foundation is half right, and half very wrong, inobjective, hope = self-deceit
With LNT, they started with 20% off and took MONTHS to get down to 80% off. So I wouldn't get too excited right away. Then again, if you are looking for a specific, popular item they will probably all be gone by the time they are up to the deep discounts. Xin, I'm surprised they already had 60% off at that store -- I wonder if that was done before they hired this liquidator or just a one-store decision.
Great post!! I just wanted to knock another vote up for sparkpeople. It's an incredible site and has just about anything anybody would need for working out or losing weight.
Thanks for the good review, Erin! I've been browsing over there for a while, and I love the idea of having everything in one place. The videos look good, although I have no way of watching them in my living room where I work out. Great resource!
Linsey Knerl
Sparkpeople.com has the calorie counter, the exercise tracker, free workout videos, free low-fat recipes and a whole lot more. Free to join and it has an interface that's minorly competitive (you earn points for doing various things around the site) which is very motivating to me. I'd check it out if you're interested in this stuff.
So that would include the new start up season of Battle Star Galactica? Although that one will probably be online. There are a few shows we haven't been able to find online and so have to wait until Netflix offers them by season. Dexter comes to mind.
We were talking over his lunch break that we might get this box as a sort of Valentine house gift to ourselves.
I think like drinking alcoholic beverages, it's going to come down to the individual: some people genuinely are "light sippers" who drink to relax, whereas others have addictive tendencies and become unproductive drunks. :(
My wife's played World of Warcraft quite a bit. I've never gotten into it, but we're both looking forward to Stargate Worlds (we are watching SG-1 with much interest).
There are of course free MMOs and such which don't have any subscription fees, or they charge micropayments for upgraded equipment and other benefits.
I was attracted to the lure of virtual world Second Life in late 2004, which was $10 (one-time) for a Basic account. Now they're free, and along the way I ended up getting so addicted I worked for Linden Lab, the company behind it. Still a gladdict (glad + addict = healthy addiction). :-)
I didn't know about this, Philip. It's appreciated.
I don't think I've shopped at Circuit City more than once or twice. I can't remember which electronic store it was, but one of them charged a restocking fee for returns, I'm thinking it was CC which turned me off from shopping them. I will be staying far away as we don't have the money for any new electronics, and they aren't a need anyway. I hope those with gift cards get some great deals!
This kind of discussion (article) arose because someone trying to cut costs looked at easily identifiable costs (such as a fixed monthly amount on a credit card) but not at all the entertainment costs that do/would arise without it (some which may be cash and harder to track).
Cutting out a $20 monthly service doesn't help if it leads to expenses that are more than that.
This is a good lesson that if you're going to cut anything you have to carefully consider what expenses may arise from it...it may not be worthwhile after all.
We use our wireless connection from our home router to work off of. It's a bit more slow, though (lower video quality.) If you want to take advantage of the higer video qualities and the HD movies, you'd probably want to use a CAT5 ethernet cable directly into the box.
Netflix requires you to subscribe to the $8.99 plan or above to get unlimited instant viewing. The $4.99 plan only gives you 2 hours. We like getting two new movies out at a time, which comes out to about 2-3 newer movies a week, in addition to the movies in the instant viewing plan.
The Amazon Unbox program will require additional fees for viewing most movies (it would be a lot like pay-per-view.) What I like about this, however, is that they offer free movies and discounted 99cent promotions throughout the month, so if we really want to see something right away, we don't have to wait for it to arrive in the mail or drive to the video store or library. We can also order premium cable shows from channels like Sci-fi and such with an ala carte method (per show.) I can't wait for it to be availble on the box!
Linsey Knerl
Thanks, Linsey! My husband's downstairs for lunch break right now and is eating this up as an idea. Does it need to be close to the ethernet connection? That might be a pain for us. And are the other movie places you recommended free or for fee like Netflix?
I'm sure it's totally worth it if you say so, because it's pretty obvious you guys make your financial decisions very similar to the way we do. We are even wondering if those other options come without fee, if it might be worth it to bump down to one Netflix disc out at a time rather than two.
Deal-seekers be warned: certain liquidators are notorious for increasing the prices on items and then marking them as 50% or whatever off. What seems like a great deal might actually turn out to be about the normal price at another store. Don't buy something just because it is a deal, and if you do buy, make sure you know the price at other stores before going to make sure you aren't getting ripped off.
It amazes me that people are still willing to blame a mere video game for things like lateness, poor eating choices, even divorce. I've been an avid WoW player for nearly four years now. My husband also plays, and we enjoy playing WoW together just as much as we enjoy games like Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit or Risk. We continue to cook dinner together and spend time with friends outside the game (in fact, we have weekly get-togethers on Tuesdays and Fridays, and spend Saturdays with my husband's family). It really does save money, though, to have a way to hang out with friends and each other without going to a fancy restaurant or driving twenty or thirty minutes. We canceled our cable television and don't spend nearly as much money on going out every night. My husband works 60+ hours a week at his job while I work about 30-40, and sometimes it's very nice to come home and just spend a night in. He'll chop vegetables, I'll make a nice pasta, and we set our bowls in front of the keyboard and eat while we play. There's no excuse for being "addicted" to a computer game.
I will admit that there are raiding guilds out there who demand that you play a certain amount of time each week to be in their guild and that you accompany them on lengthy dungeon delving expeditions. IF you have time in your weekly schedule, IF you enjoy that sort of thing, and IF you can be responsible about it, then by all means, you have my blessings. But it's up to the person, not the game, how seriously you take your little cartoon character. So, none of my characters (I have seven on different servers) has the absolute best gear. So what? You don't need to have the very best in order to play the game, or even to do well. My husband plays a lot of PvP, and has killed many players who out-gear him. I tend to focus on questing and world exploration and have no problems as long as I'm in level appropriate gear. I've never gone on a high level raid.
Finally, I'd also like to point out that my mother and father both play. My mom didn't play at first, but as she watched my dad play (he's been playing WoW for five years, and he played UO for ... forever before that) she started to get interested in what was going on. She enjoys it and plays alongside my dad now in their PvP guild. But for a long time it put strain on their relationship but they worked their problems out and never considered divorce because it wasn't the game that was the problem, it was that she felt that dad wasn't paying enough attention to her. Once she was able to voice what was really the matter, they worked things out because they're a loving couple who have been together for nearly 40 years. My dad cut back on his game time to spend more time with mom, and, eventually, she decided she might like to try playing. It's also a lot of fun to spend time with my parents in the game world since we live several states away from each other.
So, please, don't blame World of Warcraft for causing problems in people's lives. As someone above mentioned, 11 million people aren't struggling with addiction. If you can't psychologically handle playing the game and continue to act responsibly, then perhaps you should cancel your subscription, and maybe even seek some therapy. It's not the game's fault; it's yours.
The box is totally worth it! We got it before the announcement that they would be adding the Amazon Unbox movies and TV shows to the players capabilities. As it stands now, we use it in place of cable. Granted, you won't get all the new shows on it, but many of the shows we watch now are on there the very next week. There are lots of kids movies and TV shows (Disney channel stuff) and educational shows (lots from the Discovery channel and PBS). We use it for homeschool lessons and for afternoon entertainment. They are adding new instant viewing movies all the time, too. Anything that shows on Starz pretty much ends up on the box. It's really cool, and we have no cable bills! (We have slower internet connection and the buffering capability is excellent.)
If you see every new movie the week it comes out, you may be disappointed. But if you are like us, a bit homebound and thrifty, you'll appreciate the variety of indie and foreign films, along with releases from 2007 and 2008. (Plus classics.) We also like watching older TV shows like Family Ties, Leave it to Beaver, and MacGyver. LOL
Any questions on the box, just let me know!
Linsey Knerl
We've been wondering about that box to use with online Netflix. Sounds like it's been working for you?
I understand the difficulty of dealing with objectivity vs a personal anecdote (like an ex), but honestly people, WoW has something like 11 million subscribers.
Do you honestly think that WoW is destroying ELEVEN MILLION people's lives? That's just stupid and illogical.
The vast majority of people who play this game have jobs (some of them highly successful jobs - c.f. http://gigaom.com/2008/11/18/obamas-fcc-transition-team-co-chair-a-wow-p... ). The average player age is 30+ and many of them have marriages and mortgages and manage to get along just fine.
Saying that Warcraft is evil is like saying that credit cards or alcohol are evil - both are the source of many a family's ruin, but when you get down to it you have no one to blame but the person who lets himself (or herself) get addicted.
My 16 year old son made an interesting point - it costs the post office a ton of money to print those one cent stamps to add to the "no longer valid because the rates just went up" stamps. They may even LOSE money on the deal initially because of the printing costs.
Ultimately,
when the post office saves money, perhaps we all do -
Anyone know if you can get them in a ROLL?
Be sure to also check the "free" section of your local Craigslist. And sign up for your local Freecycle group to check for freebies or post your "wanted" items. http://www.freecycle.org/
I see equipment on craigslist and freecycle all the time. People get bored with it or want their living space back. If your really dedicated there is always plenty of equipment at garage sales in the spring.
Yoga is another great workout that doesn't require any gear and you can do it at home.
Being a strong believer in kismet, I find myself looking for signs and meaning in all daily acts often to a fault. Consequently it's no surprise to me ( or my wife ;) that i apply this same principle to blogs and searches esp. on the financial and spiritual end. This seems like another such result. Reading books on the 2 subjects of finance and spirituality has become a daily habit and having completed my Paulo Coehlo series and now the Tracy Kidder book ( plus all the buddhist/hindu books my sister recommends) I'm completely intrigued by this one. Marrying the two concepts of materialism and spirituality is so difficult. After a spiritual experience on a trip to india in 2001, i remained consumed by guilt upon returning to the US and it's strong sense of consumer-driven culture. I love being an american yet my heart pulls me in that direction as well. This seems like a fascinating book to check out and see what guideposts it can lead me on my journey as it has impacted so many others. thanks for sharing.
If you are addicted to an MMO and all you do is play the game and go to work (or school) you'll definitely save money. The game takes the place of all the other things you used to do for entertainment. There was a time when all I did was sit and play Everquest 2 all day every day. I spent money on food, rent, internet, and the game subscription. That was pretty much it. You won't be accomplishing things in real life, but you will definitely be saving lots of money.
I forgot to say, I really love that recipe calculator at about.com, too!! I don't really count calories because it just makes me messed up in my head, but like you mentioned, I like to enter my made from scratch meals, like casseroles, etc., to get an idea.
Wow, some of these are things I never would have thought to try. Like asking realtors about left behind equipment. That could possibly be a small business in itself. I know about buying equipment later on in the year since everyone bought stuff for their New Year's resolutions and end up getting rid of the equipment because it wasn't being used. I'm still very pleased with my Total Gym. It kind of works with natural resistance since your body weight works with the incline feature. It doesn't take up a lot of space and it really does help my body to be more flexible and strong. Now if I could just get my husband to stop putting things onto it as it takes an extra 10 minutes just to unload it when I finally persuade myself to use it!