The two flush toilets are great. My next one will be one of those. No need for a full bore flush to take care of a little tinkle. Save the heavy artillery type flush for the really big sewer system blockers.
Another thing, when replacing a toilet look in Home Depot and you will find that not all toilets are created equal. They are now rated according to their ability to get rid of things like a bucket of golf balls. Ever seen white, dimpled poo? Get one rated a 10 and your problems will vanish.
I will run for President in 2012 on the promise to equip every toilet with a bidet. There are things that really need some kind of bailout.
This is a good article, not only for traveling but for life in general.
Throughout our lives, my brother always made more money than I did and spent it like Phil did. I was the one who always bought things on sale and only if I really needed it versus just wanting it. Now, in our golden, years, he doesn't have a penny to get out of town on while I have put close to 100,000 miles on my travel odometer over the past few years - all paid for with bucks I saved by eating a #1 burger at McDonald's instead of a steak with a couple of rounds of drinks at Bennigan's over the years. My mom always said waste not want not. My brother wasn't listening.
Considering worn-down stripes, system errors, merchant bank downtimes, fraud alerts, payment delays (why, yes, I do work for a bank!), and other miscellaneous quirks, it's amazing credit transactions ever process successfully. I carry an "in case of emergency" card with a small limit to tide me over until I can call the bank.
Wow, what a wonderful give and take of ideas. You all have made me think about my gift giving at Christmas. And I've also been thinking back to my childhood when gifts were lean. I sure can remember being disappointed when I didn't get the newest, "in" thing because money was scarce in my family.
By the way, I had no idea that toddlers used iPods! I must be so out of touch!
We budget very carefully so that we can take a week-long vacation every year. When we go away, we don't spend big on hotels because all we do is sleep there, so we don't need the amenities like a pool or spa. We keep cereal and milk in the mini-fridges that most hotels now have, and that covers breakfast. We eat a late lunch/early dinner and that usually is enough to fill us up, and we always try to eat where the locals eat instead of chain restaurants that we have at home. We bring our own snacks with us and bottles for water. I also check the internet for deals and specials and try to find out as much info about a place as I can to get the most for my money. It CAN be done. I don't begrudge anyone a trip to Hawaii. Depending on where you live and when you go, there are always deals on airfare, hotels and attractions, if you budget carefully and do your homework. We went to Maui for our 25th anniversary and found that there was a lot of free or low cost things to do, and inexpensive local cafes to eat in.
As far as souvenirs go, my daughter buys a tee shirt to be used in a quilt I will eventually make for her and a I buy a Christmas ornament for our tree to remind us of the special memories.
No DVD's in our car, either. The kids are still small, so they enjoy looking out the window (gasp) and talking to one another. I have a son who is almost two, and his favorite activity is to say "Neigh" to every animal we see on the the drive. Since we live in Nebraska, this is quite often. Cow, sheep, or mule -- it doesn't matter. He's happy, and I'm happy.
What about CDARS, CDs that spread amongst among banks that can be up to 30 million dollars per person. I think that would be the smarter thing to do then getting 0%
@AJ: That might be a way to do it, if you wish. Do a cost comparison, and see where that takes you. I was implying that you should hold all your insurance as a personal policy or policies, but if it is cost-prohibitive and the fine print on a mortgage life insurance policy looks decent, doing it the way you say above could work. There is never a cookie cutter solution; age, medical history, general health, and cash flow all need to be taken into consideration. Good luck in your research.
It's all about the credit policy which was prevailing at that time, easy credit in the financial market lead to high production (construction) in real state industry where is the supply become much higher than the real demand,it's also because the construction takes time to provide units into the market where more suppliers were not aware of the real demand ,once all the under construction projects completed. these projects was out of the supply demand equation. people bought on the plan for the purpose of trade rather than to use these units, and because of the high liquidity and earning expectations ,they bought more than they can afford ,now what will happen? once these projects completed and ready to be filled, who's gonna rent with this frantic prices,so owners need to lower the rent price in order to let people think of more space to live then filling out their units . and once the return on investments get lower ,definitely units price must go down,left lenders with loses,and lower the market confidence.thing lead to thing,and financial crises present
"I've worked food service and retail both, and I believe everyone should have to experience life as an employee of those operations. Neither one was all that bad, and they gave me money quickly, but what I learned was that I didn't want to spend my life doing either one. Working those jobs convinced me to go to college, so I guess they were some of the most valuable experiences I ever had. And one of the most pleasant memories in my life was a night during the Christmas holidays when a man left a very generous tip unexpectedly and I NEEDED it so much. I hadn't even done anything special for him; he just gave it to me, and I'll always be grateful. Now I have a Master's degree and a much higher paying job, but I've never felt as good about a raise as I did about that tip."
I went to college first, THEN I worked in retail (for minimum wage no less). Because I did those two things in the "wrong" order, working retail was for me a profoundly depressing experience.
What a sexist b*tch you are. Men should learn how to control themselves and not what women wear, don't you think? Not all men sexually assault women so how is it a woman's fault?
"The Africa reference was to point out how wasteful we are with water in this country"
It would seem to me this is only true if one assumes people in Africa choose to use that little water and are not confined by a lack of water. Is that really so? If you wish to prove the US is wasteful in water useage, you should compare it to a similar society with similar access to water.
Furthermore, I agree that flushing less saves money, but I am at a loss why "the planet can’t afford the courtesy flush any more". Okay, so cleaning the water is a cost to the environment. But is is really that much? Numbers, anyone?
>> "I honestly don't care if it's judgmental of me to wonder if people who are asking for charity should get whatever it is they ask for. Also, I'm pretty sure that I'm permitted to feel put off by such requests (and yes, permitted to post a rant to that effect on a web site)."
And yet, Andrea, you've continuously tried to talk other people out of judging you, and also continuously tried to justify your actions and statements. (Remember, you're the one who engaged me directly -- by saying that I seemed to "not understand" the outrage going on here, when I briefly stated in respond to Donna's comment that I didn't find the anti-iPod camp very charitable.)
So, I'm sure you can understand why it's a wee bit hard to swallow that "you honestly don't care". You're permitted to feel and rant however you like... and I'm permitted to disagree with that rant and those feelings.
>> "And yes, Tracy, I've read each of your comments but simply don't have the free time to respond to such a detailed analysis of the original post, dozens of other comments, and opinions about the acceptability of Margaret sounding off on this topic."
And yet again, clearly you do have plenty of free time to continue participating in the discussion. You're just choosing to make time only for the argument that you personally want to engage in.
(Which is fine, it's how the internet works every single day. It just makes your position ring disingenuous.)
>> "It's an ideal (unconditional giving) that is really quite beautiful. I'm just not there yet."
To me, this is the most important thing that's been said so far. Admitting that any particular position in this discussion is about one's own personal values -- rather than trying to ascribe it to Society's Preferred Moral Standard -- is the self-aware response.
It isn't always fun to say, "Yeah, here's how I feel, and I don't claim to be perfect, and I do think Thing X is wrong or selfish or greedy, and that's just one person's opinion", but it's the intellectually honest one.
Ya lost me right after Hawaii. I'm sure that people that can afford to go to Hawaii want to be frugal, but for those of us that can't even turn our heaters on....
Oh, I know, sour grapes.... But I could live for quite awhile on the cost of a trip to Hawaii.
The data is gathered from people who had become experts, and looked at what they did to get that way. As far as I know, there's no data from people randomly chosen to spend 10,000 hours trying to develop expertise, looking at what fraction succeeded.
That's almost beside the point, though. As in the joke at the top of the post, you're going to spend the next 20 years doing something anyway. You might as well spend part of the time applying yourself seriously to learn a skill that interests you.
There are many things that I dabbled in for a while, attained some level of skill, and then hit a wall. Sometimes that was due to a lack of natural ability. Sometimes, especially early on, it was a lack of understanding of how to take the next step toward expert performance. Most often, though, I think it was simply an unwillingness to apply myself to the necessary deliberate practice: It was fun to play chess; it was dull to force checkmate with two bishops. It was fun to play the guitar; it was dull to figure out shifting from E to B7 (and then from Em to B7).
Because of that, I think I gave up too early on some activities--I could have more expertise than I do, if I'd understood deliberate practice earlier and been a little more willing to apply myself. That may not be true for other people.
I'm sure it was inconvenient for you, but I'd rather have my CC companies error on the side of caution.
Using a stolen credit card at places like Walmart, Kmart, Target, etc... is pretty common. Recently one of my friends had their wallet stolen and within hours they had two $300+ Walmart charges on their account.
I'm happy when businesses check to make sure that I am who I am, and I'm actually the one purchasing stuff with my cards. I can only think of twice that this happened, and I was happy both times.
Just for the record - one time was when I bought tickets for an out of state concert, and another was when I ordered a bunch of music equiptment online.
The two flush toilets are great. My next one will be one of those. No need for a full bore flush to take care of a little tinkle. Save the heavy artillery type flush for the really big sewer system blockers.
Another thing, when replacing a toilet look in Home Depot and you will find that not all toilets are created equal. They are now rated according to their ability to get rid of things like a bucket of golf balls. Ever seen white, dimpled poo? Get one rated a 10 and your problems will vanish.
I will run for President in 2012 on the promise to equip every toilet with a bidet. There are things that really need some kind of bailout.
This is a good article, not only for traveling but for life in general.
Throughout our lives, my brother always made more money than I did and spent it like Phil did. I was the one who always bought things on sale and only if I really needed it versus just wanting it. Now, in our golden, years, he doesn't have a penny to get out of town on while I have put close to 100,000 miles on my travel odometer over the past few years - all paid for with bucks I saved by eating a #1 burger at McDonald's instead of a steak with a couple of rounds of drinks at Bennigan's over the years. My mom always said waste not want not. My brother wasn't listening.
This is so helpful.
Complaining, but in a way that can have a positive result, by dealing with people who WANT to have a positive result.
Thank you!
Considering worn-down stripes, system errors, merchant bank downtimes, fraud alerts, payment delays (why, yes, I do work for a bank!), and other miscellaneous quirks, it's amazing credit transactions ever process successfully. I carry an "in case of emergency" card with a small limit to tide me over until I can call the bank.
Wow, what a wonderful give and take of ideas. You all have made me think about my gift giving at Christmas. And I've also been thinking back to my childhood when gifts were lean. I sure can remember being disappointed when I didn't get the newest, "in" thing because money was scarce in my family.
By the way, I had no idea that toddlers used iPods! I must be so out of touch!
We budget very carefully so that we can take a week-long vacation every year. When we go away, we don't spend big on hotels because all we do is sleep there, so we don't need the amenities like a pool or spa. We keep cereal and milk in the mini-fridges that most hotels now have, and that covers breakfast. We eat a late lunch/early dinner and that usually is enough to fill us up, and we always try to eat where the locals eat instead of chain restaurants that we have at home. We bring our own snacks with us and bottles for water. I also check the internet for deals and specials and try to find out as much info about a place as I can to get the most for my money. It CAN be done. I don't begrudge anyone a trip to Hawaii. Depending on where you live and when you go, there are always deals on airfare, hotels and attractions, if you budget carefully and do your homework. We went to Maui for our 25th anniversary and found that there was a lot of free or low cost things to do, and inexpensive local cafes to eat in.
As far as souvenirs go, my daughter buys a tee shirt to be used in a quilt I will eventually make for her and a I buy a Christmas ornament for our tree to remind us of the special memories.
No DVD's in our car, either. The kids are still small, so they enjoy looking out the window (gasp) and talking to one another. I have a son who is almost two, and his favorite activity is to say "Neigh" to every animal we see on the the drive. Since we live in Nebraska, this is quite often. Cow, sheep, or mule -- it doesn't matter. He's happy, and I'm happy.
Linsey Knerl
Wow, this is very helpful, I can study these to perform my interviews from now on.
AA batteries won't work because they are only 1.5 volts, the A23 is 12V.
This is funny, too bad a lot of the links are broken
My Quest to Build an Empire
What about CDARS, CDs that spread amongst among banks that can be up to 30 million dollars per person. I think that would be the smarter thing to do then getting 0%
@AJ: That might be a way to do it, if you wish. Do a cost comparison, and see where that takes you. I was implying that you should hold all your insurance as a personal policy or policies, but if it is cost-prohibitive and the fine print on a mortgage life insurance policy looks decent, doing it the way you say above could work. There is never a cookie cutter solution; age, medical history, general health, and cash flow all need to be taken into consideration. Good luck in your research.
It's all about the credit policy which was prevailing at that time, easy credit in the financial market lead to high production (construction) in real state industry where is the supply become much higher than the real demand,it's also because the construction takes time to provide units into the market where more suppliers were not aware of the real demand ,once all the under construction projects completed. these projects was out of the supply demand equation. people bought on the plan for the purpose of trade rather than to use these units, and because of the high liquidity and earning expectations ,they bought more than they can afford ,now what will happen? once these projects completed and ready to be filled, who's gonna rent with this frantic prices,so owners need to lower the rent price in order to let people think of more space to live then filling out their units . and once the return on investments get lower ,definitely units price must go down,left lenders with loses,and lower the market confidence.thing lead to thing,and financial crises present
Molly said:
"I've worked food service and retail both, and I believe everyone should have to experience life as an employee of those operations. Neither one was all that bad, and they gave me money quickly, but what I learned was that I didn't want to spend my life doing either one. Working those jobs convinced me to go to college, so I guess they were some of the most valuable experiences I ever had. And one of the most pleasant memories in my life was a night during the Christmas holidays when a man left a very generous tip unexpectedly and I NEEDED it so much. I hadn't even done anything special for him; he just gave it to me, and I'll always be grateful. Now I have a Master's degree and a much higher paying job, but I've never felt as good about a raise as I did about that tip."
I went to college first, THEN I worked in retail (for minimum wage no less). Because I did those two things in the "wrong" order, working retail was for me a profoundly depressing experience.
Re: Physical work is good for the soul.
Doing it for minimum wage gets old fast and becomes bad for the soul.
There is no room in my budget for vacation.
What a sexist b*tch you are. Men should learn how to control themselves and not what women wear, don't you think? Not all men sexually assault women so how is it a woman's fault?
"The Africa reference was to point out how wasteful we are with water in this country"
It would seem to me this is only true if one assumes people in Africa choose to use that little water and are not confined by a lack of water. Is that really so? If you wish to prove the US is wasteful in water useage, you should compare it to a similar society with similar access to water.
Furthermore, I agree that flushing less saves money, but I am at a loss why "the planet can’t afford the courtesy flush any more". Okay, so cleaning the water is a cost to the environment. But is is really that much? Numbers, anyone?
We always self-cater when on holiday. It saves loads of money and also it gives you more flexibility about eating.
We never spent money on attractions. Sight seeing the countryside is just as good as spending at a theme park
What does "vacation" mean to me? A night at home while hubby takes the kids somewhere so I can have an hour or two to listen to my ears ring.
20 minutes every morning to sip my coffee and read before the deluge of craziness hits.
A 10 minute walk in the very rare Tennessee snow - alone - listening to the crunch underfoot.
I'll take my vacations where I can find them, but I sure won't be finding them in Hawaii, for heaven's sake!
>> "I honestly don't care if it's judgmental of me to wonder if people who are asking for charity should get whatever it is they ask for. Also, I'm pretty sure that I'm permitted to feel put off by such requests (and yes, permitted to post a rant to that effect on a web site)."
And yet, Andrea, you've continuously tried to talk other people out of judging you, and also continuously tried to justify your actions and statements. (Remember, you're the one who engaged me directly -- by saying that I seemed to "not understand" the outrage going on here, when I briefly stated in respond to Donna's comment that I didn't find the anti-iPod camp very charitable.)
So, I'm sure you can understand why it's a wee bit hard to swallow that "you honestly don't care". You're permitted to feel and rant however you like... and I'm permitted to disagree with that rant and those feelings.
>> "And yes, Tracy, I've read each of your comments but simply don't have the free time to respond to such a detailed analysis of the original post, dozens of other comments, and opinions about the acceptability of Margaret sounding off on this topic."
And yet again, clearly you do have plenty of free time to continue participating in the discussion. You're just choosing to make time only for the argument that you personally want to engage in.
(Which is fine, it's how the internet works every single day. It just makes your position ring disingenuous.)
>> "It's an ideal (unconditional giving) that is really quite beautiful. I'm just not there yet."
To me, this is the most important thing that's been said so far. Admitting that any particular position in this discussion is about one's own personal values -- rather than trying to ascribe it to Society's Preferred Moral Standard -- is the self-aware response.
It isn't always fun to say, "Yeah, here's how I feel, and I don't claim to be perfect, and I do think Thing X is wrong or selfish or greedy, and that's just one person's opinion", but it's the intellectually honest one.
You can buy Delta sand ( moon sand) in 6lb buckets (which is a ton of sand since it is so light) for 40ish dollars here......
http://www.pyramidspcatalog.com/deltasand_6_lb_drum-p-157599.html
Ya lost me right after Hawaii. I'm sure that people that can afford to go to Hawaii want to be frugal, but for those of us that can't even turn our heaters on....
Oh, I know, sour grapes.... But I could live for quite awhile on the cost of a trip to Hawaii.
The data is gathered from people who had become experts, and looked at what they did to get that way. As far as I know, there's no data from people randomly chosen to spend 10,000 hours trying to develop expertise, looking at what fraction succeeded.
That's almost beside the point, though. As in the joke at the top of the post, you're going to spend the next 20 years doing something anyway. You might as well spend part of the time applying yourself seriously to learn a skill that interests you.
There are many things that I dabbled in for a while, attained some level of skill, and then hit a wall. Sometimes that was due to a lack of natural ability. Sometimes, especially early on, it was a lack of understanding of how to take the next step toward expert performance. Most often, though, I think it was simply an unwillingness to apply myself to the necessary deliberate practice: It was fun to play chess; it was dull to force checkmate with two bishops. It was fun to play the guitar; it was dull to figure out shifting from E to B7 (and then from Em to B7).
Because of that, I think I gave up too early on some activities--I could have more expertise than I do, if I'd understood deliberate practice earlier and been a little more willing to apply myself. That may not be true for other people.
I'm sure it was inconvenient for you, but I'd rather have my CC companies error on the side of caution.
Using a stolen credit card at places like Walmart, Kmart, Target, etc... is pretty common. Recently one of my friends had their wallet stolen and within hours they had two $300+ Walmart charges on their account.
I'm happy when businesses check to make sure that I am who I am, and I'm actually the one purchasing stuff with my cards. I can only think of twice that this happened, and I was happy both times.
Just for the record - one time was when I bought tickets for an out of state concert, and another was when I ordered a bunch of music equiptment online.