Thanks for the clarification - that should real "glucose" rather than "glucagon" - I wrote down exactly what my nurse told me and should have double-checked.
I hadn't heard that about putting Type 2s on insulin. I was on insulin for nearly 6 years and all it did was make me overweight.
This promo is not worth risking use of a Debit Card. identity theft is rampant and the last thing you want is to be using your debit card extensively. if the money is stolen, you wont have it for a long time.
and the worst part is the 5% matching after the first 3 months. so the $70 you are talking about would be matched by just $3.5 after the first 3 months. but the bank actually makes 1% interchange fee from the merchants for every $1 you spend. which means say you spend $4.99 . the bank makes 5Cents. but only matches 5% of 1 cent to you.
you should learn more about how banks work before endorsing products. there is no free meal. .. and this one is actually a free meal to BOA not us.
If rates go up, it may well make sense to cash in your I bonds. But then it may well make sense to turn right around and invest the money in fresh I bonds!
It's just one of the oddities of an investment that lets you lock in the return for 30 years, while retaining the option to cash the money in after just a year with a small penalty (or after 5 years with no penalty). While rates are rising, you can keep cashing the bonds in and then reinvesting for the higher rate. Once rates peak, hold the bonds you end up with for 30 years.
A friend of mine works at H&R Block. That's a great place for advice. Another place is local business colleges. Mine has a program called VITA where Accounting students volunteer their services to assist clients for free.
Making a list is a great idea. What I object to is the notion that sticking to it is a virtue.
If there's a great deal on something that's not on your list, that's a great reason to deviate from your list. If something that's not on your list looks especially fresh, that's a reason to deviate. If some favorite item that you can't always get is on the shelf, consider buying it now.
I'm sure most people already do that; they use lists as you do—as a tool, not a straightjacket. But for some reason "sticking to the list" has become a measure of housekeeping orthodoxy.
If businesses did hire more people, that would do the trick. But businesses have no particular reason to hire people—by and large, they're employing enough people to make all the stuff they can sell. (Even less so do businesses have any reason to invest in plant and equipment—they're not yet utilizing the plant and equipment they've already got.)
The key point of the paper that I linked to is that it makes a big difference how the returns to enterprise are divided up.
All the money that comes in to businesses ends up going to just a few places—basically, to the workers, to the owners, or to the managers. Many things affect that division (in particular, customs and tradition matter a lot), but in the end it comes down to power. From World War II until 1980, labor had a lot of power—and the result was a thriving economy. After 1980, power shifted from labor to capital—and the result has been stagnant living standards for 90% of the population and a vast accumulation of wealth in the hands of the top 10%.
The long term solution has little to do with handouts. It has to do with having power in the hands of the workers. Having alternative sources of income is one great way for workers to increase their power relative to the bosses.
Hi everyone, I think that site has some really useful information and it is good to see someone else that agrees that things for your little ones dont have to cost the earth to be suitable - a baby grow brought from somewhere likeASDA/Walmart is just as good as the top designer brands and more likely to last the test of a baby lol (this is my experience). Also if you shop around abit and dont impulse buy then generally you can get a really good deal - myself and my wife got a full sterliser set with bottles and bottle warmer for 75% off the original price by just looking around before buying,
re: get more money into the hands of the bottom 90%
I really think that they would need jobs or income sources that boost their income somehow. I am not a fan of handouts, but I am a fan of people improving their skills and finding new careers and income opportunities. So I don't see why more business investments would not help the bottom 90%. If more businesses hired more people and created well paying jobs, then the bottom 90% would benefit. I guess one issue is that businesses are working existing workers harder than ever and people are more productive in this environment because they feel "lucky" to have a job. I feel that the only solution to this is that the workers just shouldn't take crap from their employers and look for alternatives and side income if possible. Anyway, I just think that directly giving people handouts is not sustainable at all.
I love what you stated here Carlos about not feeling guilty about spending your time doing what you want just because it doesn't sound productive. For I usually found myself guilty of this and I hate the feeling. Maybe I have just got used in living my everyday life as productive as I could that's why I am uncomfortable. But having read your article somewhat enlightened me. I hope to share this to others whom I thought may be just like me also. Thanks for the inspiration Carlos!
The note about giving positive feedback as well as negative is so important. Criticism (even when necessary and true) can feel so hurtful. I used to be part of a performance group, and after shows we would give each other "compliment sandwiches" -- a criticism tucked between two compliments. It was a great way to give honest feedback while also reminding people that they did some things very well.
You can still give your money to some other Org, but you can give life to someone through a simple donation of blood. Some day you too might need some blood to save your life.
No excuses.
My husband and I have in the past few years started a new tradition: Giving Week. During the first week in August, we choose a focus for each day (say, clean water or child hunger) and make a donation one or more corresponding charities. As our preschooler gets older, we will be able to volunteer together; I'm really looking forward to that.
Before, it seemed like we made donations almost at random in response to a solicitation or an impulse, without a designated budget or coherent plan. Now I feel better about giving more deliberately.
Later this week, though, since my bento blog will be a year old (!) I will make donations to food-related organizations in honor of my subscribers. :)
Your work or your life? In my opinion, you could always opt to have them both. It just takes good time management and proper delegation skills. Learn how to delegate your tasks if you feel that you are overly loaded already. Manage your time well so you have enough for your work and yourself. As for me, I find it useful to have someone to assist me if I feel my work starts to affect my life significantly already.
I particularly agreed with your point that "work" refers to the stuff that you do that's worth doing. For if you do, "work" won't really be considered as "work" that involves stressful long hours of forcing yourself into engaging into something for the sake of earning. I have this mantra that I would like to share: it says "Make your passion your profession" from the movie 3 idiots. It always helps in lessening your workload if you love what you are doing.
I donate to animal charities whenever possible. I round up or throw my change into the donation box at the checkout at Petco and Petsmart. I donate bags of dog food and old towels to the Humane Society (where I adopted my wonderful dog). I also click on the donate button at www.theanimalrescuesite.com every day and answer the daily trivia questions at www.freekibble.com. Both are great FREE ways to give! Every year my husband, our dog, and I do the Humane Society Walk for Animals as well. Last year we collected over $700 in pledges and hope to top that this year!
Thanks for a great, sensible article about the variety of benefits associated with breastfeeding! Occasionally, a mother and her child need extra assistance to be successful at breastfeeding. Most hospitals will have a breastfeeding specialist available to help. After being discharged, discuss any issues with your pediatrician and ask for a referral if needed. Don't give up! The benefits to your child are really worth it!
In my experience, it's simply not true that "many people" are perfectly content just getting by.
Just getting by is fine with me, if it means that I can be a full-time writer instead of having to work at a regular job, but I find myself to be very much an exception. Of the couple hundred former coworkers whose jobs were all lost when the site where we'd worked was closed, I'm the only one who chose this path. (One other person took early retirement.)
Are you figuring that one-half of one percent is "many people"? (I suppose it is, if you multiply that fraction across the whole population.) Or do you think that a lot more people than would choose squalor over comfort, if it meant they could be idle?
I also cannot give to all the worthy causes, so I try to pick the most important causes (for me: reducing/fixing environmental destruction and reducing extreme poverty, torture, abuse, and pain).
Then I try to pick methods that are solutions rather than band-aids and that work well (though these can be very hard to measure). So I'd rather help people who know what they're doing to take care of fragile land than to educate the public. I'd rather use microloans to help people become self-sufficient than to donate food.
I donate through justgive.org--they let you do it anonymously so that the organizations do not waste a lot of money bothering me with loads of printed material. They do charge a fee for being the middleman, but it's probably much less than what the organizations would pay for all that junk mail (not to mention all the other organizations I'd end up on mailing lists for), and it's much, much less than the percentage my employer takes.
Unfortunately, the things I think are most important are not the things I am good at dealing with. I do not want to hang around abused, starving people. So I donate time at things I'm good at and enjoy such as tutoring and teaching first aid classes.
In addition I do give a small amount back to places that help or have helped me such as public TV/radio, my neighborhood association, the local wildflower center, and providers of freeware (and I'm thinking of adding my alma maters). And I'm starting to also give a small amount to less important causes that are of interest to me (such as improving bicycling in my town).
I started using Philanthroper, which allows me to give just $1/day to whatever charities I feel are worthy. This spreads out the pain (one big donation may make me think twice) and keeps me thinking about causes (one big donation may make me think I've done my part, who cares). So I like it.
We set aside 10% of our pretax income for charitable giving. My husband gives with every paycheck while I make larger gifts throughout the year to causes important to me.
I emphasize organizations that do great work but don't have lots of resources for fundraising campaigns. I sometimes give to major disaster relief but often I'll direct my giving to organizations that may be neglected during the attention to a big event.
I've worked for nonprofits my entire adult life so I know first hand how much good work is being done on a shoestring.
Most people skip these basic steps. They may buy bargains but they don't save the difference. I think most people have know clue about how much they spend.
You're 100% right about gifts being tax-free, up to $13,000 from each person. I think the IRS could argue that anything received through work is another form of compensation. Consult a tax professional!
I don't donate money as I don't have a lot of it at any point but I do help people with PC problems. I also give my old clothes and various smaller items that I do not need to different charities that can use them or sell them. I am not going to donate to the crisis in Japan but would love to go over there and help, I just don't have the money for either. So for now I will have to just pray for everyone over there.
Thanks for the clarification - that should real "glucose" rather than "glucagon" - I wrote down exactly what my nurse told me and should have double-checked.
I hadn't heard that about putting Type 2s on insulin. I was on insulin for nearly 6 years and all it did was make me overweight.
This promo is not worth risking use of a Debit Card. identity theft is rampant and the last thing you want is to be using your debit card extensively. if the money is stolen, you wont have it for a long time.
and the worst part is the 5% matching after the first 3 months. so the $70 you are talking about would be matched by just $3.5 after the first 3 months. but the bank actually makes 1% interchange fee from the merchants for every $1 you spend. which means say you spend $4.99 . the bank makes 5Cents. but only matches 5% of 1 cent to you.
you should learn more about how banks work before endorsing products. there is no free meal. .. and this one is actually a free meal to BOA not us.
If rates go up, it may well make sense to cash in your I bonds. But then it may well make sense to turn right around and invest the money in fresh I bonds!
It's just one of the oddities of an investment that lets you lock in the return for 30 years, while retaining the option to cash the money in after just a year with a small penalty (or after 5 years with no penalty). While rates are rising, you can keep cashing the bonds in and then reinvesting for the higher rate. Once rates peak, hold the bonds you end up with for 30 years.
A friend of mine works at H&R Block. That's a great place for advice. Another place is local business colleges. Mine has a program called VITA where Accounting students volunteer their services to assist clients for free.
Making a list is a great idea. What I object to is the notion that sticking to it is a virtue.
If there's a great deal on something that's not on your list, that's a great reason to deviate from your list. If something that's not on your list looks especially fresh, that's a reason to deviate. If some favorite item that you can't always get is on the shelf, consider buying it now.
I'm sure most people already do that; they use lists as you do—as a tool, not a straightjacket. But for some reason "sticking to the list" has become a measure of housekeeping orthodoxy.
If businesses did hire more people, that would do the trick. But businesses have no particular reason to hire people—by and large, they're employing enough people to make all the stuff they can sell. (Even less so do businesses have any reason to invest in plant and equipment—they're not yet utilizing the plant and equipment they've already got.)
The key point of the paper that I linked to is that it makes a big difference how the returns to enterprise are divided up.
All the money that comes in to businesses ends up going to just a few places—basically, to the workers, to the owners, or to the managers. Many things affect that division (in particular, customs and tradition matter a lot), but in the end it comes down to power. From World War II until 1980, labor had a lot of power—and the result was a thriving economy. After 1980, power shifted from labor to capital—and the result has been stagnant living standards for 90% of the population and a vast accumulation of wealth in the hands of the top 10%.
The long term solution has little to do with handouts. It has to do with having power in the hands of the workers. Having alternative sources of income is one great way for workers to increase their power relative to the bosses.
Hi everyone, I think that site has some really useful information and it is good to see someone else that agrees that things for your little ones dont have to cost the earth to be suitable - a baby grow brought from somewhere likeASDA/Walmart is just as good as the top designer brands and more likely to last the test of a baby lol (this is my experience). Also if you shop around abit and dont impulse buy then generally you can get a really good deal - myself and my wife got a full sterliser set with bottles and bottle warmer for 75% off the original price by just looking around before buying,
I've donated money to the red cross to help out Japan. What I really like donating to is the "Child's Play" fund for Christmas time.
re: get more money into the hands of the bottom 90%
I really think that they would need jobs or income sources that boost their income somehow. I am not a fan of handouts, but I am a fan of people improving their skills and finding new careers and income opportunities. So I don't see why more business investments would not help the bottom 90%. If more businesses hired more people and created well paying jobs, then the bottom 90% would benefit. I guess one issue is that businesses are working existing workers harder than ever and people are more productive in this environment because they feel "lucky" to have a job. I feel that the only solution to this is that the workers just shouldn't take crap from their employers and look for alternatives and side income if possible. Anyway, I just think that directly giving people handouts is not sustainable at all.
I love what you stated here Carlos about not feeling guilty about spending your time doing what you want just because it doesn't sound productive. For I usually found myself guilty of this and I hate the feeling. Maybe I have just got used in living my everyday life as productive as I could that's why I am uncomfortable. But having read your article somewhat enlightened me. I hope to share this to others whom I thought may be just like me also. Thanks for the inspiration Carlos!
The note about giving positive feedback as well as negative is so important. Criticism (even when necessary and true) can feel so hurtful. I used to be part of a performance group, and after shows we would give each other "compliment sandwiches" -- a criticism tucked between two compliments. It was a great way to give honest feedback while also reminding people that they did some things very well.
Giving Blood doesn't cost anything and it WILL save a life some where in the world.
No excuses.
http://www.redcross.org/donate/give/
https://www.bloodhero.com/
You can still give your money to some other Org, but you can give life to someone through a simple donation of blood. Some day you too might need some blood to save your life.
No excuses.
My husband and I have in the past few years started a new tradition: Giving Week. During the first week in August, we choose a focus for each day (say, clean water or child hunger) and make a donation one or more corresponding charities. As our preschooler gets older, we will be able to volunteer together; I'm really looking forward to that.
Before, it seemed like we made donations almost at random in response to a solicitation or an impulse, without a designated budget or coherent plan. Now I feel better about giving more deliberately.
Later this week, though, since my bento blog will be a year old (!) I will make donations to food-related organizations in honor of my subscribers. :)
Your work or your life? In my opinion, you could always opt to have them both. It just takes good time management and proper delegation skills. Learn how to delegate your tasks if you feel that you are overly loaded already. Manage your time well so you have enough for your work and yourself. As for me, I find it useful to have someone to assist me if I feel my work starts to affect my life significantly already.
Excellent post Philip!
I particularly agreed with your point that "work" refers to the stuff that you do that's worth doing. For if you do, "work" won't really be considered as "work" that involves stressful long hours of forcing yourself into engaging into something for the sake of earning. I have this mantra that I would like to share: it says "Make your passion your profession" from the movie 3 idiots. It always helps in lessening your workload if you love what you are doing.
I donate to animal charities whenever possible. I round up or throw my change into the donation box at the checkout at Petco and Petsmart. I donate bags of dog food and old towels to the Humane Society (where I adopted my wonderful dog). I also click on the donate button at www.theanimalrescuesite.com every day and answer the daily trivia questions at www.freekibble.com. Both are great FREE ways to give! Every year my husband, our dog, and I do the Humane Society Walk for Animals as well. Last year we collected over $700 in pledges and hope to top that this year!
Thanks for a great, sensible article about the variety of benefits associated with breastfeeding! Occasionally, a mother and her child need extra assistance to be successful at breastfeeding. Most hospitals will have a breastfeeding specialist available to help. After being discharged, discuss any issues with your pediatrician and ask for a referral if needed. Don't give up! The benefits to your child are really worth it!
In my experience, it's simply not true that "many people" are perfectly content just getting by.
Just getting by is fine with me, if it means that I can be a full-time writer instead of having to work at a regular job, but I find myself to be very much an exception. Of the couple hundred former coworkers whose jobs were all lost when the site where we'd worked was closed, I'm the only one who chose this path. (One other person took early retirement.)
Are you figuring that one-half of one percent is "many people"? (I suppose it is, if you multiply that fraction across the whole population.) Or do you think that a lot more people than would choose squalor over comfort, if it meant they could be idle?
I also cannot give to all the worthy causes, so I try to pick the most important causes (for me: reducing/fixing environmental destruction and reducing extreme poverty, torture, abuse, and pain).
Then I try to pick methods that are solutions rather than band-aids and that work well (though these can be very hard to measure). So I'd rather help people who know what they're doing to take care of fragile land than to educate the public. I'd rather use microloans to help people become self-sufficient than to donate food.
I donate through justgive.org--they let you do it anonymously so that the organizations do not waste a lot of money bothering me with loads of printed material. They do charge a fee for being the middleman, but it's probably much less than what the organizations would pay for all that junk mail (not to mention all the other organizations I'd end up on mailing lists for), and it's much, much less than the percentage my employer takes.
Unfortunately, the things I think are most important are not the things I am good at dealing with. I do not want to hang around abused, starving people. So I donate time at things I'm good at and enjoy such as tutoring and teaching first aid classes.
In addition I do give a small amount back to places that help or have helped me such as public TV/radio, my neighborhood association, the local wildflower center, and providers of freeware (and I'm thinking of adding my alma maters). And I'm starting to also give a small amount to less important causes that are of interest to me (such as improving bicycling in my town).
I started using Philanthroper, which allows me to give just $1/day to whatever charities I feel are worthy. This spreads out the pain (one big donation may make me think twice) and keeps me thinking about causes (one big donation may make me think I've done my part, who cares). So I like it.
We set aside 10% of our pretax income for charitable giving. My husband gives with every paycheck while I make larger gifts throughout the year to causes important to me.
I emphasize organizations that do great work but don't have lots of resources for fundraising campaigns. I sometimes give to major disaster relief but often I'll direct my giving to organizations that may be neglected during the attention to a big event.
I've worked for nonprofits my entire adult life so I know first hand how much good work is being done on a shoestring.
Anyone else notice, its the actual security truck that got broken into. Pretty bad neighborhood, huh?
Most people skip these basic steps. They may buy bargains but they don't save the difference. I think most people have know clue about how much they spend.
http://www.moneysavingenthusiast.com
You're 100% right about gifts being tax-free, up to $13,000 from each person. I think the IRS could argue that anything received through work is another form of compensation. Consult a tax professional!
I don't donate money as I don't have a lot of it at any point but I do help people with PC problems. I also give my old clothes and various smaller items that I do not need to different charities that can use them or sell them. I am not going to donate to the crisis in Japan but would love to go over there and help, I just don't have the money for either. So for now I will have to just pray for everyone over there.