A site I would recommend for an independent view on the world is www.medialens.org. In its own words "Media Lens is a UK-based media-watch project, which offers authoritative criticism of mainstream media bias and censorship, as well as providing in-depth analysis, quotes, media contact details and other resources".
There are five genes that contribute to Insulin Resistance and Diabetes, according to Diabetes Forecast magazine. This article came out 2007. There is more at work than just diet and exerise in some people. But, most doctors do see marked improvement in those that lose excess weight,and exercise. And for those that catch their problem in time, some of them can use diet and exercise to reverse the problems and condition of high blood sugar/diabetes.
Thanks for sharing. IMO, every person is political whether they claim it or not. This site is very dooms-day-ish and has an agenda, trust me. If every one of those articles were true then we'd all be dead by now. It's late, I probably shouldn't post about politics. Anyway, I'll check it out.
I had a high random blood sugar after eating. I had gained 35 lbs. after my Dad died, and there was family litigation. Anyway, I never needed medication. I immediately went on the South Beach diet, and lost the 35 lbs. So, it has helped me. My fasting BG was 86,and my blood pressur is normal, and my hemoglobin A1c is normal at 5.6. I would like to comment that just because someone is 30, and overweight, and not diabetic, does not mean she will not be diabetic at 40, or 45, when insulin resistance is more likely. i cannot explain why your thinner, young relative is diabetic. Maybe she drinks soft drinks constantly,or eats a very very high carb diet, that her body does not process. If she started to watch her carbs and exercise, she would probably have improvement. Losing weight and watching bad carbs was all I needed. I live my life by the Glycemic Load and Glycemic Index, and it has helped immensely.
I probably didn't clarify this, but, it's the decades before the GD that are evidence that intervention works. The country experienced periods of depression during the 19th and early 20th century. This link has some information... http://www.thehistorybox.com/ny_city/panics/panics_article1a.htm
Basically, capitalism was still starting out, and unregulated money, markets, and industry just did what they wanted. The effect was depressions. As capitalism grew, so did the scope of the depression (as more people were working for wages), and regulations followed.
The GD is so iconic because it was the last depression. Since then, we've had recessions.
Oh yeah, another thing - to Minimum Wage - if you have a degree, there are a few jobs you can get that others cannot. You can teach - and in some cities this pays quite well, and has great benefits. You can also edit. This doesn't pay so well, but it's well above minimum wage, and the job itself isn't that hard. The other stable jobs you can get are a paralegal or a bookkeeper. Neither are fun, but, so what? There's usually a career track and the money gets to be good. You can have any degree, pretty much, and find some job if you just hammer away at those four things. And, once you're in the job, you'll understand why :-)
I've almost never had a problem getting a job, even ones that I wasn't qualified for, thanks to the degree from a big-deal college. It opens doors. I've been hired to do many things for which I'm not just underqualified, but basically unqualified -- people just kind of trust that you can learn it quickly, because it's like college work: editing, organizing, planning, etc. Of course, my performance at work is fine to great, and I do have some leadership skills, but, ultimately, I'm not really career driven, or even good at making money. If I only had a HS diploma, I'd be working at a record store, or maybe cooking at a diner, or doing something with computers, as I do now, but at a locale not nearly as interesting and pleasant as my current environment.
Access to a good work environment really matters, because, even though I'm near the bottom of the ladder, I'm constantly checked out to see if they want to pull me up the ladder, or onto another ladder. Why? The degree. My degree (and generally good track record) can become part of their "team" and help boost the team. That's where the prestige of a fancy school helps, and makes it worth some of the extra money - that is, if you qualify for scholarships, go to a public ivy, or have rich parents. So, without much effort above and beyond working hard, doors open for me.
So, I'm looking at getting another one of those degrees. Maybe another BA, if it's cheap enough. It seems to help to have two of them.
Some people make fun of me for being soft and lazy, but, hey, it's great living and I wish everyone could have the cushy low-income, highly-intellectual life. I'm all for working hard, but, frankly, people doing a lot of these service jobs are getting abused by their bosses and the system. They're ruining their bodies and minds so a bunch of jagoffs can have a fancy coffee or cheap lunch.
Please don't buy an electric blanket; true story: a good friend was under her electric blanket, she had it turned on a few minutes. The phone rang. She got out of bed and went to answer the phone in the next room. The electric blanket had caught on fire while she was on the phone!!!
Please just get extra quilts or extra blankets - non electric!
A couple good books that really opened my eyes to this possibility are by Derek Foster - Stop Workng and the Lazy Investor. He is Canadian and some of the advice is specific towards Canadians but the overall message applies to anyone. He retired at 34 by seeking purely income-generating investments and does a good job of dispelling the myth that you need X amount of dollars to retire.
If you can't find the books at the bookstore, you can order them from his website - www.stopworking.ca
I have no personal interest in his books other than finding them very informative.
We do pizza dough in our bread machine. It can do 2 pound batches and that makes about six good sized pizzas. Leftover pizza is pretty popular so it extends to other meals.
We found a store brand double sized cans of italian style crushed tomatoes. They are fairly cheap and work right out of the can as pizza sauce. They also make a good start to meat sauce.
When there were too many tomatoes last summer we started slow roasting them with a bit of olive oil and italian seasoning in the oven. We made extra and froze it but it didn't last long, they were pretty good.
Leftover taco meat also gets reused pretty fast. Nachos or in eggs.
Your tomato sauce sounds fantastic, I love the idea of adding pumpkin (which I love) and was hoping you could post the rest of the recipe? (like how many tomatoes/cans of tomato paste, etc.) Thanks!
It's true that "Join the rentier class" is not a complete investment strategy all by itself--but dig into Wise Bread's archives, and you can get most of the pieces of one.
I'm sharply attuned to the risks of inflation. (The modern inflationary peak in 1980-1981 came just at the point when I was setting up housekeeping for the first time in my life. I remember vividly what an inflation rate over 12% does to a household budget.) But the fact that there is inflation doesn't make investing for income invalid, it just means that you can't take the returns at face value--you have to do a little mental arithmetic first.
There are a lot of other income investments besides the two categories I mention (treasuries and dividend-paying stocks), but they're the only ones I feel comfortable recommending without a lot more information about how to research them. The others have their place, but any that pay a higher return are naturally going to carry higher risk.
As long as you have your emergency fund (for emergencies) and your maxed-out 401(k) (for retirement), you're in a position to take some risks. If you're comfortable with that risk, go for it. But, if you're not, then my whole point is that people can join the rentier class in a small way without needing to take the high risks that might (if the reward matches the risk) let them join the rentier class in a big way sooner.
I lived off cold pizza in college, but typically shy away from it now because delivery doesn't fit into my frugal lifestyle. This post has me curious to try some homemade pizza recipes so that I can again enjoy a pie without feeling guilty over the expense. I agree with the other comments, a follow up recipe would be wonderful - unless your keeping a family secret recipe a secret.
Day 1 - grill chicken breasts that have been coated in olive oil, chopped garlic, chopped rosemary and salt (out of How to Cook Everything by Bittman). serve with steamed/nuked potatoes and a steamed veggie.
Day 2 - hash! slice leftover potatoes, chop onions, add diced leftover chicken and make hash. serve with a different steamed veggie
Day 3 - pot pie! put leftover hash, leftover veggies in a deep dish pie pan on top of a refrigerator pie crust. make a roux and add chicken broth to make a sauce. pour over above, put on a top crust, cut a few vents and bake at 425 for approx. 30 min.
I have the same problem, which sort of got me into the process of making one thing at a time (and finding extra uses for it). My kitchen is almost large enough for two people to stand in at the same time, provided neither one really needs personal space. For Thanksgiving, I had to put a table in the hallway outside my kitchen door to have enough prep area.
I'm putting my recipes together and will post them the morning (have to transcribe some hard to read notes, sorry.)
Investing in treasuries is OK if you plan to hold on to that treasury bill until the end. Treasuries & Bonds can fluctuate in price quite a bit, something a lot of novices aren't aware of. For instance, if future treasuries pay a higher interest than the one you bought (something I think will happen), then your treasury is worth that much less. That is not a concern if you will hold the treasury until term - 5,10,30 years, whatever. You still receive the promised interest on it. But, if you had to sell the bond earlier to raise capital, you lose money.
Something to keep in mind, is the erosion of your money via inflation. It's not a secret the government skews the inflation figures for their benefit. The official inflation number should be much higher. Just take a trip to the grocery store or gas station to find that out. Bottom line, whatever interest you make on your money HAS to exceed the inflation number, otherwise you're going backwards.
One more thing - you buy US bonds or treasuries, you buy them in US dollars. If you haven't noticed, the dollar has fallen more than 30% in the last 5 years and probably will fall much more. And that doesn't just affect you if you make trips abroad, but because most of our manufactured items and a lot of our raw material (oil) is purchased from foreign sources, your costs go up by how much the dollar drops.
There's no easy way to ensure you have anything left when you retire. In the old days, before government interference, people either saved (inflation wasn't much of a worry), built business or bought rental property that would provide cash flow, or relied on family to take care of them.
It's truly a new 'paradigm'. The average Joe/Jane has to develop a financial acumen that they have neither the time, motivation, or education to do.
"Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook" has some fine recipes for mass quantities of tomator sauces, including a marinara sauce, one with red wine and meat, a vegetarian one, etc., as well as a really nice thick pizza sauce that is very inexpensive. I have made many of these, especially the sauce, since I work, and these can cook all day and be ready for dinner when I get home.
Additionally, the authors also have nice recipes for pizza dough that can be made in a bread machine (or conventionally, by hand), to accompany your homemade sauce. This works out nicely, because my high-schooler gets home earlier some days, and can assemble the ingredients for the pizza dough and get that working, and the timing works out fine.
You could, I guess, get all your appliances going at once and have a grilled chicken pizza. We don't have enough outlets in our tiny kitchen, though :)
Your job may have been outsourced, and the student loans may have been a real bind. However, you're still better off NOW with any degree when it comes to applying for jobs today, than without a degree. I'm not talking about only within your chosen field, and I know that for example, technical writing doesn't pay what it did in 1999 due to outsourcing, but your degree earns you entrance into a higher-paying level of occupations. You may very well despise these possible job options, but it's better than being homeless/destitute. At least you have that choice. Without a degree, you're pretty much SOL.
I have also heard that it takes more gas to drive with your windows down than with the a/c....just a thought.
A site I would recommend for an independent view on the world is www.medialens.org. In its own words "Media Lens is a UK-based media-watch project, which offers authoritative criticism of mainstream media bias and censorship, as well as providing in-depth analysis, quotes, media contact details and other resources".
Don't you think?
I read it every day - some of it with a grain of salt, and some of it with an earnest ear. You gotta know when to filter!
There are five genes that contribute to Insulin Resistance and Diabetes, according to Diabetes Forecast magazine. This article came out 2007. There is more at work than just diet and exerise in some people. But, most doctors do see marked improvement in those that lose excess weight,and exercise. And for those that catch their problem in time, some of them can use diet and exercise to reverse the problems and condition of high blood sugar/diabetes.
Thanks for sharing. IMO, every person is political whether they claim it or not. This site is very dooms-day-ish and has an agenda, trust me. If every one of those articles were true then we'd all be dead by now. It's late, I probably shouldn't post about politics. Anyway, I'll check it out.
I had a high random blood sugar after eating. I had gained 35 lbs. after my Dad died, and there was family litigation. Anyway, I never needed medication. I immediately went on the South Beach diet, and lost the 35 lbs. So, it has helped me. My fasting BG was 86,and my blood pressur is normal, and my hemoglobin A1c is normal at 5.6. I would like to comment that just because someone is 30, and overweight, and not diabetic, does not mean she will not be diabetic at 40, or 45, when insulin resistance is more likely. i cannot explain why your thinner, young relative is diabetic. Maybe she drinks soft drinks constantly,or eats a very very high carb diet, that her body does not process. If she started to watch her carbs and exercise, she would probably have improvement. Losing weight and watching bad carbs was all I needed. I live my life by the Glycemic Load and Glycemic Index, and it has helped immensely.
this website isnt very helpful because it dosent show pictures and doesnt really tell you enough things to do
I probably didn't clarify this, but, it's the decades before the GD that are evidence that intervention works. The country experienced periods of depression during the 19th and early 20th century. This link has some information... http://www.thehistorybox.com/ny_city/panics/panics_article1a.htm
Basically, capitalism was still starting out, and unregulated money, markets, and industry just did what they wanted. The effect was depressions. As capitalism grew, so did the scope of the depression (as more people were working for wages), and regulations followed.
The GD is so iconic because it was the last depression. Since then, we've had recessions.
Oh yeah, another thing - to Minimum Wage - if you have a degree, there are a few jobs you can get that others cannot. You can teach - and in some cities this pays quite well, and has great benefits. You can also edit. This doesn't pay so well, but it's well above minimum wage, and the job itself isn't that hard. The other stable jobs you can get are a paralegal or a bookkeeper. Neither are fun, but, so what? There's usually a career track and the money gets to be good. You can have any degree, pretty much, and find some job if you just hammer away at those four things. And, once you're in the job, you'll understand why :-)
I've almost never had a problem getting a job, even ones that I wasn't qualified for, thanks to the degree from a big-deal college. It opens doors. I've been hired to do many things for which I'm not just underqualified, but basically unqualified -- people just kind of trust that you can learn it quickly, because it's like college work: editing, organizing, planning, etc. Of course, my performance at work is fine to great, and I do have some leadership skills, but, ultimately, I'm not really career driven, or even good at making money. If I only had a HS diploma, I'd be working at a record store, or maybe cooking at a diner, or doing something with computers, as I do now, but at a locale not nearly as interesting and pleasant as my current environment.
Access to a good work environment really matters, because, even though I'm near the bottom of the ladder, I'm constantly checked out to see if they want to pull me up the ladder, or onto another ladder. Why? The degree. My degree (and generally good track record) can become part of their "team" and help boost the team. That's where the prestige of a fancy school helps, and makes it worth some of the extra money - that is, if you qualify for scholarships, go to a public ivy, or have rich parents. So, without much effort above and beyond working hard, doors open for me.
So, I'm looking at getting another one of those degrees. Maybe another BA, if it's cheap enough. It seems to help to have two of them.
Some people make fun of me for being soft and lazy, but, hey, it's great living and I wish everyone could have the cushy low-income, highly-intellectual life. I'm all for working hard, but, frankly, people doing a lot of these service jobs are getting abused by their bosses and the system. They're ruining their bodies and minds so a bunch of jagoffs can have a fancy coffee or cheap lunch.
what great advice. I have considered this for a while...I just might have to get my feet wet. thanks for the tips.
I've been meaning to get a freezer for some time. Your article gave me that extra nudge to order the compact that Amazon has on sale. ($138)
Thank you
Please don't buy an electric blanket; true story: a good friend was under her electric blanket, she had it turned on a few minutes. The phone rang. She got out of bed and went to answer the phone in the next room. The electric blanket had caught on fire while she was on the phone!!!
Please just get extra quilts or extra blankets - non electric!
A couple good books that really opened my eyes to this possibility are by Derek Foster - Stop Workng and the Lazy Investor. He is Canadian and some of the advice is specific towards Canadians but the overall message applies to anyone. He retired at 34 by seeking purely income-generating investments and does a good job of dispelling the myth that you need X amount of dollars to retire.
If you can't find the books at the bookstore, you can order them from his website - www.stopworking.ca
I have no personal interest in his books other than finding them very informative.
We do pizza dough in our bread machine. It can do 2 pound batches and that makes about six good sized pizzas. Leftover pizza is pretty popular so it extends to other meals.
We found a store brand double sized cans of italian style crushed tomatoes. They are fairly cheap and work right out of the can as pizza sauce. They also make a good start to meat sauce.
When there were too many tomatoes last summer we started slow roasting them with a bit of olive oil and italian seasoning in the oven. We made extra and froze it but it didn't last long, they were pretty good.
Leftover taco meat also gets reused pretty fast. Nachos or in eggs.
I read the same article here:
http://www.diabeatrol.com/articles/easy_ways_to_lower_your_blood_sugar_l...
Thought I'd let you know incase they stole it.
Your tomato sauce sounds fantastic, I love the idea of adding pumpkin (which I love) and was hoping you could post the rest of the recipe? (like how many tomatoes/cans of tomato paste, etc.) Thanks!
It's true that "Join the rentier class" is not a complete investment strategy all by itself--but dig into Wise Bread's archives, and you can get most of the pieces of one.
I'm sharply attuned to the risks of inflation. (The modern inflationary peak in 1980-1981 came just at the point when I was setting up housekeeping for the first time in my life. I remember vividly what an inflation rate over 12% does to a household budget.) But the fact that there is inflation doesn't make investing for income invalid, it just means that you can't take the returns at face value--you have to do a little mental arithmetic first.
There are a lot of other income investments besides the two categories I mention (treasuries and dividend-paying stocks), but they're the only ones I feel comfortable recommending without a lot more information about how to research them. The others have their place, but any that pay a higher return are naturally going to carry higher risk.
As long as you have your emergency fund (for emergencies) and your maxed-out 401(k) (for retirement), you're in a position to take some risks. If you're comfortable with that risk, go for it. But, if you're not, then my whole point is that people can join the rentier class in a small way without needing to take the high risks that might (if the reward matches the risk) let them join the rentier class in a big way sooner.
I lived off cold pizza in college, but typically shy away from it now because delivery doesn't fit into my frugal lifestyle. This post has me curious to try some homemade pizza recipes so that I can again enjoy a pie without feeling guilty over the expense. I agree with the other comments, a follow up recipe would be wonderful - unless your keeping a family secret recipe a secret.
Here's a 3 day menu we use once each month:
Day 1 - grill chicken breasts that have been coated in olive oil, chopped garlic, chopped rosemary and salt (out of How to Cook Everything by Bittman). serve with steamed/nuked potatoes and a steamed veggie.
Day 2 - hash! slice leftover potatoes, chop onions, add diced leftover chicken and make hash. serve with a different steamed veggie
Day 3 - pot pie! put leftover hash, leftover veggies in a deep dish pie pan on top of a refrigerator pie crust. make a roux and add chicken broth to make a sauce. pour over above, put on a top crust, cut a few vents and bake at 425 for approx. 30 min.
Works a treat!
I have the same problem, which sort of got me into the process of making one thing at a time (and finding extra uses for it). My kitchen is almost large enough for two people to stand in at the same time, provided neither one really needs personal space. For Thanksgiving, I had to put a table in the hallway outside my kitchen door to have enough prep area.
I'm putting my recipes together and will post them the morning (have to transcribe some hard to read notes, sorry.)
Investing in treasuries is OK if you plan to hold on to that treasury bill until the end. Treasuries & Bonds can fluctuate in price quite a bit, something a lot of novices aren't aware of. For instance, if future treasuries pay a higher interest than the one you bought (something I think will happen), then your treasury is worth that much less. That is not a concern if you will hold the treasury until term - 5,10,30 years, whatever. You still receive the promised interest on it. But, if you had to sell the bond earlier to raise capital, you lose money.
Something to keep in mind, is the erosion of your money via inflation. It's not a secret the government skews the inflation figures for their benefit. The official inflation number should be much higher. Just take a trip to the grocery store or gas station to find that out. Bottom line, whatever interest you make on your money HAS to exceed the inflation number, otherwise you're going backwards.
One more thing - you buy US bonds or treasuries, you buy them in US dollars. If you haven't noticed, the dollar has fallen more than 30% in the last 5 years and probably will fall much more. And that doesn't just affect you if you make trips abroad, but because most of our manufactured items and a lot of our raw material (oil) is purchased from foreign sources, your costs go up by how much the dollar drops.
There's no easy way to ensure you have anything left when you retire. In the old days, before government interference, people either saved (inflation wasn't much of a worry), built business or bought rental property that would provide cash flow, or relied on family to take care of them.
It's truly a new 'paradigm'. The average Joe/Jane has to develop a financial acumen that they have neither the time, motivation, or education to do.
"Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook" has some fine recipes for mass quantities of tomator sauces, including a marinara sauce, one with red wine and meat, a vegetarian one, etc., as well as a really nice thick pizza sauce that is very inexpensive. I have made many of these, especially the sauce, since I work, and these can cook all day and be ready for dinner when I get home.
Additionally, the authors also have nice recipes for pizza dough that can be made in a bread machine (or conventionally, by hand), to accompany your homemade sauce. This works out nicely, because my high-schooler gets home earlier some days, and can assemble the ingredients for the pizza dough and get that working, and the timing works out fine.
You could, I guess, get all your appliances going at once and have a grilled chicken pizza. We don't have enough outlets in our tiny kitchen, though :)
Your job may have been outsourced, and the student loans may have been a real bind. However, you're still better off NOW with any degree when it comes to applying for jobs today, than without a degree. I'm not talking about only within your chosen field, and I know that for example, technical writing doesn't pay what it did in 1999 due to outsourcing, but your degree earns you entrance into a higher-paying level of occupations. You may very well despise these possible job options, but it's better than being homeless/destitute. At least you have that choice. Without a degree, you're pretty much SOL.