Great post. I've been trying to find some good commentary on edible plants. I love smoothies and drinks. I'll try everything in them, including edible plants.
I may attempt a thick, green type drink with purlsane, now that I have your "go ahead."
Using Goodsearch instead of google can add up for your charity, and they've just added "Goodshop" as well. Goodsearch gives 1 cent per search (roughly), and Goodshop means certain online stores donate a percentage of sales. And it doesn't cost you anything!
There's a lack of understanding in this article and some of the replies which could prove dangerous to gullible readers.
" According to one Mastercard vice president a person with a "taste for credit who's willing to make minimum monthly payments—forever" is a "preferred customer".
Or shouldn't that be "sucker"?"
"1/3rd of Americans claim they pay off their credit card bills in full every month. Inside the credit card industry, these customers are known as "30-day wonders or "deadbeats"
In the case a fraudulent use, there is a large difference between debit and credit cards, at least in the US.
If your credit card number gets nipped, then the thief is spending the bank's money. The card holder can simply refuse to pay that charge. The liability lies with the bank.
When a thief uses your debit card, then it is your money that disappears. You must petition the bank to restore it. That is much more difficult than denying the charges.
Plus, the law works differently for the two situations. Banks can limit their responsibility on debit cards. Plus, (according to a manager at a large bank customer service center) if you admit to ever telling someone, anyone, your ATM pin, then the bank is released from all liability, and they will refuse to pay restitution.
At one time my wife and I were working for the same company. Our compensation was set up with direct deposit. One time HR goofed and deposited our paychecks 3 times. We noticed that our balance was far too high and alerted our bank of the error. (It was the weekend and the HR dept was shut down. We did not know that it affected all employees.)
The bank reversed the two erroneous deposits and our balance was normal... until Monday when HR took all of its money back; unaware that we had already given it back. Suddenly our account that should have been $2,000 in the black was $3,000 in the red.
It was three weeks before we could sort the whole thing out and identify who had our cash between our bank, our employer and their bank. It was 6 months before we straitened out all of the late fees, overdraft fees and bounced checks fees all over town. It was years before our credit rating recovered.
During that time when our balance was negative, we were forced to live off our credit card. We have not looked back since. Now everything goes on the plastic and we pay that off at the end of the month.
I have a problem with this. It's good to give "third-world" kids a shot at education, don't get me wrong. But what good is that going to do them if they don't have a shot at life?
Malaria (a disease that is partially preventable and completely treatable) along with AIDS and TB kills ten thousand Africans every day. What good is a laptop going to do a dead child? A two-dollar mosquito net could save a life.
Worse still, even if the laptop gets the children through primary school, many children in the global South are unable to attend secondary school because of school fees and uniform costs.
That said, if you're going to buy a laptop of this sort anyway I don't see any harm in someone else benefiting from it. I just wouldn't do the "donate two" thing.
Also, if you're looking for a *really* barebones type laptop for use in extreme environments, several companies sell models that are essentially electronic, non-printing typewriters that can sync with a computer or printer via USB or infrared. I found one of these invaluable while living in India. Great battery life too--700 (yes, seven hundred) hours on three AAs.
We purchase our eggs from the neighboring Amish for $1 per dozen. When our Muscovy ducks are laying, we gather their eggs. They are as tasty as chicken eggs, but not strong like some duck eggs. Overall free range (true free range that is) are the definitely the best. They are higher in nutritional value and just plain taste better. Hens on a natural free range diet makes for happy hens. And happy hens produce healthful, tasty eggs...the way nature intended. :)
When I can't get eggs direct from a farmer I tend to buy Amish eggs at the local co-op grocery. They're labeled free-range but I think because they're from the Amish free-range actually ends up meaning something. They aren't quite as good as FRESH unwashed eggs straight from the coop but they are so much better than many other eggs I've tried. Along with what you mentioned, the yolks are also firmer and more colorful.
Also, I have considered getting a few chickens and an omlet ... as in this: http://www.omlet.us
It kind of reminds me of an old imac house for chickens. :)
I think I'll have to get some trees and a fence so that my nosy neighbors don't complain though (even if it's legal they can complain.) As long as there's no rooster I shouldn't have any problem as long as they can't SEE that I have a chicken or two.
Great to hear from readers who keep chickens! One of the reasons I want to get a house (even though apartment living is cheaper), is that I'd like to keep a couple of hens for eggs. (That's illegal in Champaign, but not in Urbana.)
It's hard to justify keeping chickens for eggs entirely on frugality grounds (although less hard now than a year and a half ago), but better eggs at a reasonable cost sounds great to me. Knowing that the chickens are being treated with kindness is worth something too.
You're not required to report gold coins carried out of the country? Wow. Good thing drug overlords aren't using those yet (or at least I don't think they are) or they'd buy up all the gold coins and gold would quickly become too expensive for me to accumulate.
I have a small flock of hens in my suburban backyard. Hens are also great for eating kitchen scraps of all kinds -- no need to compost. The only trouble is they outlive their laying capacity; after a few years they don't produce eggs. So you might want to have a plan for that time--do you consider them long-term pets that produce food for a few years, or are they egg-layers who then become chicken pot pie?
I have a different way of looking at money. Money is your life force. Why? Well, think about it. There are only so many years that you can work and make money. When you have a full-time job, you're giving up a third or more of your life in exchange for money. So when you spend money, that's part of your life that you're spending. Make it count.
My relatives back in the old country had chickens and ducks in the yard. When I visited them, I saw that their fridge was full of eggs. I thought their fresh duck eggs especially were pretty good.
My daughter and I just used the butter flavor Crisco (0 trans fat) to replace the butter in chocolate chip cookies last weekend. It worked great, no one complained, and the cookies tasted no different from the traditional recipe.
I buy my organic eggs from a friend that has chickens, I love them. When I was a child my parents had many chickens, as we lived in farm country. After living in the city for many years, I began to miss eating real fresh eggs in the mornings. Cool posting!
I agree with most of these points and use credit cards in the same way, paying off the balances each month and using cash back cards. However I have to agree with some of the critical commenters here, that credit cards are dangerous things in the hands of people who are undisciplined or unaware.
I think of credit cards like a loaded gun: if you understand how they work and take the proper precautions, they are a useful tool for sport or protection. But if you're careless and uninformed, you can easily hurt or even destroy yourself!
I think it's also worth noting that for a dollar more ($400), you can simply donate two laptops. You don't get the free hot-spot access, but for those of us who want to donate but don't have any use for one of those laptops for ourselves, the entire amount is tax-deductible.
Debtors Anonymous is a wonderful, empowering, life changing group. I can't recommend them enough. In DA we don't use credit cards. And we track our numbers.
Sounds like your friend was trying to justify their own stupidity of having kids and spending more than they make by trying to convince you to do the same.
We're brought up in a world that tells everyone to: "spend spend spend. It's ok, you have a credit card. You can pay the monthly minimums, you don't really have to have money to act like you do have money."
This is not smart and it ends up being an emotional issue for many people because of the stress it causes. Most people don't want to be told that with their income and the cost of kids that they really should have bought that $150,000 house instead of the $250,000 house. Or that they shouldn't have bought that HUGE tv just because they were offered a sears card that allowed them to make monthly payments on it (barely putting a dent in the actual cost I might add.) People want to be rich so they live like they're rich even when they aren't. They play keep up with the Jones'.
I remember growing up and my mother was always saying "NEVER EVER tell anyone what you make." It was some sort of taboo.
Now that I'm self employed it's not really a number most of my friends can associate with anyway because they don't understand the difference between billable hours and the number of hours I spend on my business. Net vs Gross doesn't make much sense either because there are business expenses for items I would buy even if I worked for someone else (I love what I do and that's why I do it too so it also doesn't compare to someone who slaves away at a job to make lots of money but hates their life.)
My parent's are all secretive about their money. Too much so because if something were to happen to them tomorrow we (their kids) would have to deal with the nightmare of trying to figure out what their financial situation was as well as deal with running the business with almost 50 employees they would leave behind. We've tried to discuss it with them but we're "just kids" in their minds even though none of us live at home anymore.
As for talking with friends about money - there are a few who get it. They want to live debt free lives and be smart with their money. Most however I don't bother talking to about money - it would just fall on deaf ears.
Occasionally an easy way to talk money is actually to recommend books or authors to people. My favorites are Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki. I don't agree with absolutely everything either one of them says but they both have some of the best financial advise I have ever seen. If the person I recommend them to goes off and reads them and likes them (and remembers your recommendation) you may end up having additional money conversations with that person.
Giving the books is a tricky thing though because if the person doesn't want to read it they will just take it as an insult (kind of like when my grandmother gave me a book by some conservative female author warning all women about cohabitating with men outside of marriage because "they only want one thing"... I am the one who doesn't want to get married.)
If someone is complaining about debt though I definitely recommend they read Dave Ramsey (I don't do pity parties well so if they're complaining I will probably be making suggestions on how to fix the problem.)
I know I'm not personally perfect with money. My boyfriend pointed out the other day that I will have a burst of working and billing clients and then spend it all on bills and have no money for awhile, have some "off" days and then have another burst of working and making money. Always keeping afloat but never making it to exactly where I want to be.
That I do need to work on...
I will leave with this though. I really wish schools would get a little involved in financial education (parents should be more involved too but sometimes they don't know what they are doing either.) Even just something where a class does a project to find out how much it would cost to live in the real world. How much an apartment would be, electric, gas, water, a car, gas for the car, insurance. Helping them understand things like what a deductible is (I will admit I didn't understand what a deductible was until someone hit my car and ran and I didn't have their insurance covering my repair costs.) How to balance a checkbook (or in today's world just keeping tabs on their bank balance since more and more of us use debit cards as if they were credit cards instead of actual checks.)
Great post. I've been trying to find some good commentary on edible plants. I love smoothies and drinks. I'll try everything in them, including edible plants.
I may attempt a thick, green type drink with purlsane, now that I have your "go ahead."
Jim
Juice Recipes
I love my camelback, but I think it's a health dept. reg. that water has to be made available.
P.S. - Goodsearch website is www.goodsearch.com
Using Goodsearch instead of google can add up for your charity, and they've just added "Goodshop" as well. Goodsearch gives 1 cent per search (roughly), and Goodshop means certain online stores donate a percentage of sales. And it doesn't cost you anything!
There's a lack of understanding in this article and some of the replies which could prove dangerous to gullible readers.
" According to one Mastercard vice president a person with a "taste for credit who's willing to make minimum monthly payments—forever" is a "preferred customer".
Or shouldn't that be "sucker"?"
"1/3rd of Americans claim they pay off their credit card bills in full every month. Inside the credit card industry, these customers are known as "30-day wonders or "deadbeats"
Dave Gilson September/October 2007 Issue © 2007 The Foundation for National Progress
MORAL:
Be a "30-day Wonder" or "Deadbeat"
not a "Sucker" or "Preferred customer".
In the case a fraudulent use, there is a large difference between debit and credit cards, at least in the US.
If your credit card number gets nipped, then the thief is spending the bank's money. The card holder can simply refuse to pay that charge. The liability lies with the bank.
When a thief uses your debit card, then it is your money that disappears. You must petition the bank to restore it. That is much more difficult than denying the charges.
Plus, the law works differently for the two situations. Banks can limit their responsibility on debit cards. Plus, (according to a manager at a large bank customer service center) if you admit to ever telling someone, anyone, your ATM pin, then the bank is released from all liability, and they will refuse to pay restitution.
Over draft protection.
At one time my wife and I were working for the same company. Our compensation was set up with direct deposit. One time HR goofed and deposited our paychecks 3 times. We noticed that our balance was far too high and alerted our bank of the error. (It was the weekend and the HR dept was shut down. We did not know that it affected all employees.)
The bank reversed the two erroneous deposits and our balance was normal... until Monday when HR took all of its money back; unaware that we had already given it back. Suddenly our account that should have been $2,000 in the black was $3,000 in the red.
It was three weeks before we could sort the whole thing out and identify who had our cash between our bank, our employer and their bank. It was 6 months before we straitened out all of the late fees, overdraft fees and bounced checks fees all over town. It was years before our credit rating recovered.
During that time when our balance was negative, we were forced to live off our credit card. We have not looked back since. Now everything goes on the plastic and we pay that off at the end of the month.
I'm with you on that one. They have an entirely different flavor. Yum!
I have a problem with this. It's good to give "third-world" kids a shot at education, don't get me wrong. But what good is that going to do them if they don't have a shot at life?
Malaria (a disease that is partially preventable and completely treatable) along with AIDS and TB kills ten thousand Africans every day. What good is a laptop going to do a dead child? A two-dollar mosquito net could save a life.
Worse still, even if the laptop gets the children through primary school, many children in the global South are unable to attend secondary school because of school fees and uniform costs.
That said, if you're going to buy a laptop of this sort anyway I don't see any harm in someone else benefiting from it. I just wouldn't do the "donate two" thing.
Also, if you're looking for a *really* barebones type laptop for use in extreme environments, several companies sell models that are essentially electronic, non-printing typewriters that can sync with a computer or printer via USB or infrared. I found one of these invaluable while living in India. Great battery life too--700 (yes, seven hundred) hours on three AAs.
We purchase our eggs from the neighboring Amish for $1 per dozen. When our Muscovy ducks are laying, we gather their eggs. They are as tasty as chicken eggs, but not strong like some duck eggs. Overall free range (true free range that is) are the definitely the best. They are higher in nutritional value and just plain taste better. Hens on a natural free range diet makes for happy hens. And happy hens produce healthful, tasty eggs...the way nature intended. :)
When I can't get eggs direct from a farmer I tend to buy Amish eggs at the local co-op grocery. They're labeled free-range but I think because they're from the Amish free-range actually ends up meaning something. They aren't quite as good as FRESH unwashed eggs straight from the coop but they are so much better than many other eggs I've tried. Along with what you mentioned, the yolks are also firmer and more colorful.
Also, I have considered getting a few chickens and an omlet ... as in this: http://www.omlet.us
It kind of reminds me of an old imac house for chickens. :)
I think I'll have to get some trees and a fence so that my nosy neighbors don't complain though (even if it's legal they can complain.) As long as there's no rooster I shouldn't have any problem as long as they can't SEE that I have a chicken or two.
Great to hear from readers who keep chickens! One of the reasons I want to get a house (even though apartment living is cheaper), is that I'd like to keep a couple of hens for eggs. (That's illegal in Champaign, but not in Urbana.)
It's hard to justify keeping chickens for eggs entirely on frugality grounds (although less hard now than a year and a half ago), but better eggs at a reasonable cost sounds great to me. Knowing that the chickens are being treated with kindness is worth something too.
You're not required to report gold coins carried out of the country? Wow. Good thing drug overlords aren't using those yet (or at least I don't think they are) or they'd buy up all the gold coins and gold would quickly become too expensive for me to accumulate.
I have a small flock of hens in my suburban backyard. Hens are also great for eating kitchen scraps of all kinds -- no need to compost. The only trouble is they outlive their laying capacity; after a few years they don't produce eggs. So you might want to have a plan for that time--do you consider them long-term pets that produce food for a few years, or are they egg-layers who then become chicken pot pie?
I'll be more apt to try that type of Crisco now. Thanks.
I have a different way of looking at money. Money is your life force. Why? Well, think about it. There are only so many years that you can work and make money. When you have a full-time job, you're giving up a third or more of your life in exchange for money. So when you spend money, that's part of your life that you're spending. Make it count.
My relatives back in the old country had chickens and ducks in the yard. When I visited them, I saw that their fridge was full of eggs. I thought their fresh duck eggs especially were pretty good.
Don't forget that donating your time is always an option worth considering. It's a way to help that doesn't take any money.
My daughter and I just used the butter flavor Crisco (0 trans fat) to replace the butter in chocolate chip cookies last weekend. It worked great, no one complained, and the cookies tasted no different from the traditional recipe.
I buy my organic eggs from a friend that has chickens, I love them. When I was a child my parents had many chickens, as we lived in farm country. After living in the city for many years, I began to miss eating real fresh eggs in the mornings. Cool posting!
I agree with most of these points and use credit cards in the same way, paying off the balances each month and using cash back cards. However I have to agree with some of the critical commenters here, that credit cards are dangerous things in the hands of people who are undisciplined or unaware.
I think of credit cards like a loaded gun: if you understand how they work and take the proper precautions, they are a useful tool for sport or protection. But if you're careless and uninformed, you can easily hurt or even destroy yourself!
I think it's also worth noting that for a dollar more ($400), you can simply donate two laptops. You don't get the free hot-spot access, but for those of us who want to donate but don't have any use for one of those laptops for ourselves, the entire amount is tax-deductible.
http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/give-a-laptop.php
Debtors Anonymous is a wonderful, empowering, life changing group. I can't recommend them enough. In DA we don't use credit cards. And we track our numbers.
Sounds like your friend was trying to justify their own stupidity of having kids and spending more than they make by trying to convince you to do the same.
We're brought up in a world that tells everyone to: "spend spend spend. It's ok, you have a credit card. You can pay the monthly minimums, you don't really have to have money to act like you do have money."
This is not smart and it ends up being an emotional issue for many people because of the stress it causes. Most people don't want to be told that with their income and the cost of kids that they really should have bought that $150,000 house instead of the $250,000 house. Or that they shouldn't have bought that HUGE tv just because they were offered a sears card that allowed them to make monthly payments on it (barely putting a dent in the actual cost I might add.) People want to be rich so they live like they're rich even when they aren't. They play keep up with the Jones'.
I remember growing up and my mother was always saying "NEVER EVER tell anyone what you make." It was some sort of taboo.
Now that I'm self employed it's not really a number most of my friends can associate with anyway because they don't understand the difference between billable hours and the number of hours I spend on my business. Net vs Gross doesn't make much sense either because there are business expenses for items I would buy even if I worked for someone else (I love what I do and that's why I do it too so it also doesn't compare to someone who slaves away at a job to make lots of money but hates their life.)
My parent's are all secretive about their money. Too much so because if something were to happen to them tomorrow we (their kids) would have to deal with the nightmare of trying to figure out what their financial situation was as well as deal with running the business with almost 50 employees they would leave behind. We've tried to discuss it with them but we're "just kids" in their minds even though none of us live at home anymore.
As for talking with friends about money - there are a few who get it. They want to live debt free lives and be smart with their money. Most however I don't bother talking to about money - it would just fall on deaf ears.
Occasionally an easy way to talk money is actually to recommend books or authors to people. My favorites are Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki. I don't agree with absolutely everything either one of them says but they both have some of the best financial advise I have ever seen. If the person I recommend them to goes off and reads them and likes them (and remembers your recommendation) you may end up having additional money conversations with that person.
Giving the books is a tricky thing though because if the person doesn't want to read it they will just take it as an insult (kind of like when my grandmother gave me a book by some conservative female author warning all women about cohabitating with men outside of marriage because "they only want one thing"... I am the one who doesn't want to get married.)
If someone is complaining about debt though I definitely recommend they read Dave Ramsey (I don't do pity parties well so if they're complaining I will probably be making suggestions on how to fix the problem.)
I know I'm not personally perfect with money. My boyfriend pointed out the other day that I will have a burst of working and billing clients and then spend it all on bills and have no money for awhile, have some "off" days and then have another burst of working and making money. Always keeping afloat but never making it to exactly where I want to be.
That I do need to work on...
I will leave with this though. I really wish schools would get a little involved in financial education (parents should be more involved too but sometimes they don't know what they are doing either.) Even just something where a class does a project to find out how much it would cost to live in the real world. How much an apartment would be, electric, gas, water, a car, gas for the car, insurance. Helping them understand things like what a deductible is (I will admit I didn't understand what a deductible was until someone hit my car and ran and I didn't have their insurance covering my repair costs.) How to balance a checkbook (or in today's world just keeping tabs on their bank balance since more and more of us use debit cards as if they were credit cards instead of actual checks.)
Can I buy them just because they look cool? :D
Then again I have been feeling nauseous lately, waking up, just walking around the house, or anything really... :-/
*buys*