The reason that childbirth is very costly is because hundreds of thousands of babies are delivered in hospitals to illegal Mexican aliens who do not pay their hospital bills.
The costs are passed on to hard working citizens. Dozens of hospitals have closed down because of this. Costs will continue to increase for all medical care, and your insurance premiums will double within the next decade, while illegal aliens continue to drain the medical system.
The funny thing is, I am a greencard holder, too, but I still get jury summons every year. I end up copying my Chinese passport and sending it back every time.
All this anti-CEO sentiment doesn't add up to anything if we, the people, can't get it together to support terrorists who will kidnap CEOs and force them to change their ways.
I'm so with you, Ryan. I used to not think much of it, but there seems to be a whole group of pickle enthusiasts who have changed my mind on the total hotness of pickling. Thanks for the turning tip, too!
Before our trip to Disneyland this summer, I purchased several items beforehand. I picked up some books, stickers, small toys and other items that would keep them busy for our road trip but also give them out as souveniers during the trip. Saved a ton, as prices at Disneyland are pricey. We still did buy a few items at the Park, but it save a lot and gave them something to remember the trip.
Hey! I've noticed another way to save money is to scout out those great deals on hotels (of course), but I’m an ambassador for Hampton Inns, and we’re running huge deals right now, I thought I’d let you know about it.
Hampton Inn is offering 10% off the best available rate until September 1st. We’re also giving away bikes, vacations and a lot of other stuff for the Olympic Games!
I have too many magnets so I by a post card from the places I visit, and when I come back home I buy a photo album and stick the postcard in the picture slots. I write something on the back about when I was there and a short blurb at what I did.
$80 a week is amazing! I have kept us to $100 a week for about 5 weeks now. It's going well, but I don't know how I'd get it down to $80. I struggle with healthy, whole, local food and to that end I am investing (our gov. refund check) in a backyard potager garden. I can shave about $15 off our weekly grocery bill if I can just pick the produce from our own backyard. I am very picky about the meat and fish we buy and I am a raw milk convert. It's expensive stuff, but worth it in the long run. Making a flexible menu plan and sticking to a list has really helped. Next challenge: figure out how buying bulk (grains to grind, berries to can) figures in. Thanks for the info and inspiration.
I collect the tickets (to the local transport, to the parks museums etc) and receipts from my trips. In most tourist places you get really colorful tickets and receipts and they usually have pictures of local attractions on them. When I get back, we just make a nice colorful collage of all those and scan it. We get a wonderful summary of all that we did on that trip. We don't spend any money and we don't clutter our house. I always feel good when I flip through the images of these collages.
When I was a kid, we traveled almost every summer throughout Europe - - - on a dime (or less!). My mom was the queen of finding fun, educational, cheap mementos for us to collect. For many years, my sister and I collected business cards! Every place we went, every store we went into, we would take a free card! Our friends started collecting as well and eventually - this is how geeky we were, but OK - we started trading them like baseball cards.
Mom also had the idea of buying us 3 or 4 postcards at the gift shop of every church and museum we went into - before we actually even started walking around. Then we would have to find the object on the postcard, which would keep us busy throughout the visit. We would also keep the ticket stubs, metro cards, etc. for the day's adventures, and at the end of the day we would paste them into a journal and write about the day. I still have some of those journals, and now my kids love to read them as well ("Gee Mom, you sure loved the word "splendid" the summer you were 9").
I can't even remember any of the "stuff" we bought on those trips - but I do remember with great fondness all the fun we had on the cheap!
25k is about what it cost some friends of mine to have a baby in Houston three months ago.
I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant with my first child, and will use cloth diapers. I'm also trying to follow this guideline: If my grandmother didn't have it, then I should think thrice about whether I really need it.
Regarding: "I do not think that people should necessarily take the first offer they see, but if it is a decent job with reasonable benefits then it does not hurt to take the job and continue looking." That's a horrible message to send to people. It takes a lot of time and money to train a person, just to see them leave for another job. It really screws over employers when people do that. Get a job temping if you have to, but don't take a job temporarily! If you know you aren't going to keep it for more than a few weeks, don't take it at all.
My wife and I started pickling last year, with the direction of a neighbor that has done it for 30 years. We put baby carrots and chunks of cauliflower in for color. As it turns out, they are delicious too! I'm now doing whole jars of just carrots and cauliflower. I'm going to try beans too.
We did 5 jars of Claussen style refrigerator pickles. The recipe says to turn them over once a day for five days. They are great and will keep in the fridge for a couple months. Very easy to make.
my favorite! send to friends with descriptions of your adventure, send to yourself as a way to capture memories, or use blank ones to draw, sketch or color your impressions of a place.
On my first trip to another country, my parents asked me to bring home a Christmas tree ornament, or something that could be used as one (the above maligned key chain items work for this). I kept this up, and then they gave me the collection when I had my own home, and now have a nice collection to pull out every year to remind me of many trips all over the world over the last 20 years.
Thanks so much for this info! I was able to book a room for a trip we're taking in November. The hotel is in Sedona AZ, and rooms are usually $140-$150 a night. We're just looking for a place to crash, and this fits the bill (and our budget!).
I think this is such a phenomenal service for both the foodies and the farmers. And family farms are usually short on advertising budgets. This is such a simple way for even those who have avoided the internet computer thing to have an immediate online presence for free.
Generations of the past often grouped into "clubs" to have inexpensive fun. My grandparents belonged to numerous fraternal orders, civic organizations and social clubs, including their church, the Masons, bridge club, etc. They had very busy social lives and participated in frequent gatherings (usually pot luck and live entertainment) that cost very little money.
Moderners scoff at fraternal orders and church bean suppers, but I think something important has been lost. Bridge clubs and similar gatherings (cards, book clubs) usually host a weekly gathering which rotate at peoples houses. Civic and social groups used shared facilities (church, public building, function hall) which were rented cheaply to members for individual functions (such as a birthday party). Younger members would bring their children [or in my case, grandchild] and we would go into our own room or area for our own little party, often bringing a sleeping bag to crash if it got late. My grandparents attended a dance, party or dinner nearly every weekend and had no need for a McMansion because they could use the club or lodge to entertain if a party was going to be too large for their modest home. Pot luck was the norm. Sadly, many of these organizations died out as their members did and the rest (such as Rotary, many churches and the Masons) are dwindling as brainwashed consumers go to a heavily-advertised expensive restaurant or commercial activity center instead of their local social club.
Perhaps it's time people regained their interest in "fuddy duddy" organizations and tapped into the wisdom of our forbears. The next time a little white-haired lady approaches you at church and asks if you want to buy a ticket to the bean supper, say yes!!! Better yet, volunteer to help and make some good friends! Things will only be "fuddy duddy" as long as you don't add your energy to the mix. The next time the Masons (if you are a man) or another civic organization (Rotary, Lions, Elks, etc.) advertise an open house, go!!! Since I changed my definition of "fun" to include "fuddy duddy" activities and a broad range of ages, my family has been having the best time of our lives!!!
I was surprised to find so many even in Nebraska. Don't let the Viriginia focus steer you away from checking out areas near you. It seems that they are adding new ones almost daily!
Vinegar is an awesome cleaner. I have stopped using both shampoo and conditioner, favouring vinegar instead. It's cheap, and after the initial adjustment period for one's hair (I personally didn't go through this, though I hear most do), the hair is much healthier, as is the wallet. I use white vinegar; 2 tablespoons put in 6-8 ounces of hot water. Pour it on, let it sit a minute, rinse it off.
This is also healthier for people w/ curly hair, since curly locks are more porous than straight ones. No chemicals to get stuck in the hair = healthier hair for you.
Similar to the cookbook idea, every time I eat something local and really yummy, I jot down what I think the ingredients are and how I think it might have been made. Then when I get home, I experiment until I get the recipes right (or equally as good but maybe with different ingredients). As a result, I feel almost like I'm extending my trip, and my friends love coming over to be my taste judges!
Chicken gizzards (except the liver), feet and tails add flavor to soup and gravy for very little cost (along with the neck and back). I stick the liver in the pan underneath the tail while roasting and eat the slightly-crispy liver as a tasty snack, but find liver overpowers the "traditional" flavor of soups and gravies so don't use it there. A Chinese and a Thai friend both make tasty stir-fry dishes with chicken kidneys, vegetables, and ethnic sauces. Store-bought chicken doesn't usually come with feet on them.
Calves liver gently sauteed in 2T bacon drippings with onions are tasty over mashed potatoes, but beef liver is so strongly flavored it's hard to hide. Our local supermarket often marks it down at the end of the week to $.30 per pound. I cut it into 2-oz chunks before freezing and grind 2-oz liver into a pound of hamburger. Any more than that and the kids can taste it, but at $.30 per pound versus hamburg at $1.99 per pound, 2 oz = $.25 in my pocket!
Tongue and kidney are cheap, but I'm not too keen on steak and kidney pie nor braised tongue. The flavor isn't overpowering to the point of being impossible to hide, however, so maybe somebody has tasty ethnic recipes for these cuts? THAT would be a good wisebread topic!
Tripe? Blech! My mother-in-law used to cook that (as well as beef lung) as a Portuguese delicacy. The flavor wasn't too bad as she marinated them in a tasty lemon-port wine sauce, but the texture is just plain gross!!! Kalimari my foot!!! The texture is like eating a gushy dish sponge!!!
Be mindful of what you may be throwing away. There is nearly 1/4 pound of meat in the "head" of the lobster that most people throw away. At $6.99 per pound for a typical 1.25 pound lobster, it's well worth your while ($1.75) to pick through the head for tiny pieces of meat and simmer the shell for a nice Newburg sauce.
There is also nearly a full pound of meat thrown out with the average fish head/fish frame of an average sized haddock. When you buy your fish at your local supermarket or fishmonger, ask if they have any fish frames for stock. They usually throw these out, so if you time your visits to the store to when they receive and fillet their fish, they will often throw a couple of frames into your fish purchase for free. I like Julia Childs method of simmering the fish head/frame (and skin and eyes) WELL BELOW A BOIL (or the stock will get bitter) for an hour then carefully picking out the tiny bits of meat to make a tasty fish chowder. A full pound!!! I've weighed it several times and am amazed at how much gets thrown away!!!
I make a soup from whatever bones I have, including "second use" bones such as BBQ chicken legs and the bones from pork chops or broiled steak. If you put an acidifier (wine or lemon) into your bone pot and let it simmer overnight, the cartilage will liquify and, whallah!!! You've got your own home-brewed chondroitin to battle arthritis pain!!! I've measured the "waste" meat I pick from soup-bones and it averages 1/2# for an average 3.5# chicken, 3/4# for a Boston Butt roast, and 1/4# (not including cartilage) for a steak or ham.
In the end, I've adopted the position the Dali Lama takes on eating meat. Animals don't want to die, so he once tried going without meat. However, after a time, his health began to fail and he became sick. If you can go without meat, good for you, but if you can't, be mindful of the sacrifice of the animal that gave it's life and eat no more than you need to maintain your health. Enjoy that nice tenderloin steak, but eat a modest 4-ounce serving instead of a 16-ounce beauty.
The reason that childbirth is very costly is because hundreds of thousands of babies are delivered in hospitals to illegal Mexican aliens who do not pay their hospital bills.
The costs are passed on to hard working citizens. Dozens of hospitals have closed down because of this. Costs will continue to increase for all medical care, and your insurance premiums will double within the next decade, while illegal aliens continue to drain the medical system.
The funny thing is, I am a greencard holder, too, but I still get jury summons every year. I end up copying my Chinese passport and sending it back every time.
All this anti-CEO sentiment doesn't add up to anything if we, the people, can't get it together to support terrorists who will kidnap CEOs and force them to change their ways.
I'm so with you, Ryan. I used to not think much of it, but there seems to be a whole group of pickle enthusiasts who have changed my mind on the total hotness of pickling. Thanks for the turning tip, too!
It makes me happy to see people getting in on this promo! Vacationing can be such a burden -- this helps a bit. Thanks for sharing your success!
That is the coolest commercial for Smash! Thanks for sharing.
Before our trip to Disneyland this summer, I purchased several items beforehand. I picked up some books, stickers, small toys and other items that would keep them busy for our road trip but also give them out as souveniers during the trip. Saved a ton, as prices at Disneyland are pricey. We still did buy a few items at the Park, but it save a lot and gave them something to remember the trip.
Hey! I've noticed another way to save money is to scout out those great deals on hotels (of course), but I’m an ambassador for Hampton Inns, and we’re running huge deals right now, I thought I’d let you know about it.
Hampton Inn is offering 10% off the best available rate until September 1st. We’re also giving away bikes, vacations and a lot of other stuff for the Olympic Games!
Check it out here: http://hamptoninn.hilton.com/en/hp/promotions/hx_summerpromo08/index.jht...
Check out this video also and let me know what you think! Hope I didn’t bother or cross any boundaries by contacting you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Y0jf-BKpI
Best,
Rob Williams
Official Hampton Inn Ambassador
naturalhouse302@gmail.com
I have too many magnets so I by a post card from the places I visit, and when I come back home I buy a photo album and stick the postcard in the picture slots. I write something on the back about when I was there and a short blurb at what I did.
$80 a week is amazing! I have kept us to $100 a week for about 5 weeks now. It's going well, but I don't know how I'd get it down to $80. I struggle with healthy, whole, local food and to that end I am investing (our gov. refund check) in a backyard potager garden. I can shave about $15 off our weekly grocery bill if I can just pick the produce from our own backyard. I am very picky about the meat and fish we buy and I am a raw milk convert. It's expensive stuff, but worth it in the long run. Making a flexible menu plan and sticking to a list has really helped. Next challenge: figure out how buying bulk (grains to grind, berries to can) figures in. Thanks for the info and inspiration.
I collect the tickets (to the local transport, to the parks museums etc) and receipts from my trips. In most tourist places you get really colorful tickets and receipts and they usually have pictures of local attractions on them. When I get back, we just make a nice colorful collage of all those and scan it. We get a wonderful summary of all that we did on that trip. We don't spend any money and we don't clutter our house. I always feel good when I flip through the images of these collages.
When I was a kid, we traveled almost every summer throughout Europe - - - on a dime (or less!). My mom was the queen of finding fun, educational, cheap mementos for us to collect. For many years, my sister and I collected business cards! Every place we went, every store we went into, we would take a free card! Our friends started collecting as well and eventually - this is how geeky we were, but OK - we started trading them like baseball cards.
Mom also had the idea of buying us 3 or 4 postcards at the gift shop of every church and museum we went into - before we actually even started walking around. Then we would have to find the object on the postcard, which would keep us busy throughout the visit. We would also keep the ticket stubs, metro cards, etc. for the day's adventures, and at the end of the day we would paste them into a journal and write about the day. I still have some of those journals, and now my kids love to read them as well ("Gee Mom, you sure loved the word "splendid" the summer you were 9").
I can't even remember any of the "stuff" we bought on those trips - but I do remember with great fondness all the fun we had on the cheap!
Kate
25k is about what it cost some friends of mine to have a baby in Houston three months ago.
I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant with my first child, and will use cloth diapers. I'm also trying to follow this guideline: If my grandmother didn't have it, then I should think thrice about whether I really need it.
Regarding: "I do not think that people should necessarily take the first offer they see, but if it is a decent job with reasonable benefits then it does not hurt to take the job and continue looking." That's a horrible message to send to people. It takes a lot of time and money to train a person, just to see them leave for another job. It really screws over employers when people do that. Get a job temping if you have to, but don't take a job temporarily! If you know you aren't going to keep it for more than a few weeks, don't take it at all.
My wife and I started pickling last year, with the direction of a neighbor that has done it for 30 years. We put baby carrots and chunks of cauliflower in for color. As it turns out, they are delicious too! I'm now doing whole jars of just carrots and cauliflower. I'm going to try beans too.
We did 5 jars of Claussen style refrigerator pickles. The recipe says to turn them over once a day for five days. They are great and will keep in the fridge for a couple months. Very easy to make.
Pickling is sexy!
my favorite! send to friends with descriptions of your adventure, send to yourself as a way to capture memories, or use blank ones to draw, sketch or color your impressions of a place.
On my first trip to another country, my parents asked me to bring home a Christmas tree ornament, or something that could be used as one (the above maligned key chain items work for this). I kept this up, and then they gave me the collection when I had my own home, and now have a nice collection to pull out every year to remind me of many trips all over the world over the last 20 years.
Thanks so much for this info! I was able to book a room for a trip we're taking in November. The hotel is in Sedona AZ, and rooms are usually $140-$150 a night. We're just looking for a place to crash, and this fits the bill (and our budget!).
I think this is such a phenomenal service for both the foodies and the farmers. And family farms are usually short on advertising budgets. This is such a simple way for even those who have avoided the internet computer thing to have an immediate online presence for free.
Generations of the past often grouped into "clubs" to have inexpensive fun. My grandparents belonged to numerous fraternal orders, civic organizations and social clubs, including their church, the Masons, bridge club, etc. They had very busy social lives and participated in frequent gatherings (usually pot luck and live entertainment) that cost very little money.
Moderners scoff at fraternal orders and church bean suppers, but I think something important has been lost. Bridge clubs and similar gatherings (cards, book clubs) usually host a weekly gathering which rotate at peoples houses. Civic and social groups used shared facilities (church, public building, function hall) which were rented cheaply to members for individual functions (such as a birthday party). Younger members would bring their children [or in my case, grandchild] and we would go into our own room or area for our own little party, often bringing a sleeping bag to crash if it got late. My grandparents attended a dance, party or dinner nearly every weekend and had no need for a McMansion because they could use the club or lodge to entertain if a party was going to be too large for their modest home. Pot luck was the norm. Sadly, many of these organizations died out as their members did and the rest (such as Rotary, many churches and the Masons) are dwindling as brainwashed consumers go to a heavily-advertised expensive restaurant or commercial activity center instead of their local social club.
Perhaps it's time people regained their interest in "fuddy duddy" organizations and tapped into the wisdom of our forbears. The next time a little white-haired lady approaches you at church and asks if you want to buy a ticket to the bean supper, say yes!!! Better yet, volunteer to help and make some good friends! Things will only be "fuddy duddy" as long as you don't add your energy to the mix. The next time the Masons (if you are a man) or another civic organization (Rotary, Lions, Elks, etc.) advertise an open house, go!!! Since I changed my definition of "fun" to include "fuddy duddy" activities and a broad range of ages, my family has been having the best time of our lives!!!
I was surprised to find so many even in Nebraska. Don't let the Viriginia focus steer you away from checking out areas near you. It seems that they are adding new ones almost daily!
Vinegar is an awesome cleaner. I have stopped using both shampoo and conditioner, favouring vinegar instead. It's cheap, and after the initial adjustment period for one's hair (I personally didn't go through this, though I hear most do), the hair is much healthier, as is the wallet. I use white vinegar; 2 tablespoons put in 6-8 ounces of hot water. Pour it on, let it sit a minute, rinse it off.
This is also healthier for people w/ curly hair, since curly locks are more porous than straight ones. No chemicals to get stuck in the hair = healthier hair for you.
Similar to the cookbook idea, every time I eat something local and really yummy, I jot down what I think the ingredients are and how I think it might have been made. Then when I get home, I experiment until I get the recipes right (or equally as good but maybe with different ingredients). As a result, I feel almost like I'm extending my trip, and my friends love coming over to be my taste judges!
Chicken gizzards (except the liver), feet and tails add flavor to soup and gravy for very little cost (along with the neck and back). I stick the liver in the pan underneath the tail while roasting and eat the slightly-crispy liver as a tasty snack, but find liver overpowers the "traditional" flavor of soups and gravies so don't use it there. A Chinese and a Thai friend both make tasty stir-fry dishes with chicken kidneys, vegetables, and ethnic sauces. Store-bought chicken doesn't usually come with feet on them.
Calves liver gently sauteed in 2T bacon drippings with onions are tasty over mashed potatoes, but beef liver is so strongly flavored it's hard to hide. Our local supermarket often marks it down at the end of the week to $.30 per pound. I cut it into 2-oz chunks before freezing and grind 2-oz liver into a pound of hamburger. Any more than that and the kids can taste it, but at $.30 per pound versus hamburg at $1.99 per pound, 2 oz = $.25 in my pocket!
Tongue and kidney are cheap, but I'm not too keen on steak and kidney pie nor braised tongue. The flavor isn't overpowering to the point of being impossible to hide, however, so maybe somebody has tasty ethnic recipes for these cuts? THAT would be a good wisebread topic!
Tripe? Blech! My mother-in-law used to cook that (as well as beef lung) as a Portuguese delicacy. The flavor wasn't too bad as she marinated them in a tasty lemon-port wine sauce, but the texture is just plain gross!!! Kalimari my foot!!! The texture is like eating a gushy dish sponge!!!
Be mindful of what you may be throwing away. There is nearly 1/4 pound of meat in the "head" of the lobster that most people throw away. At $6.99 per pound for a typical 1.25 pound lobster, it's well worth your while ($1.75) to pick through the head for tiny pieces of meat and simmer the shell for a nice Newburg sauce.
There is also nearly a full pound of meat thrown out with the average fish head/fish frame of an average sized haddock. When you buy your fish at your local supermarket or fishmonger, ask if they have any fish frames for stock. They usually throw these out, so if you time your visits to the store to when they receive and fillet their fish, they will often throw a couple of frames into your fish purchase for free. I like Julia Childs method of simmering the fish head/frame (and skin and eyes) WELL BELOW A BOIL (or the stock will get bitter) for an hour then carefully picking out the tiny bits of meat to make a tasty fish chowder. A full pound!!! I've weighed it several times and am amazed at how much gets thrown away!!!
I make a soup from whatever bones I have, including "second use" bones such as BBQ chicken legs and the bones from pork chops or broiled steak. If you put an acidifier (wine or lemon) into your bone pot and let it simmer overnight, the cartilage will liquify and, whallah!!! You've got your own home-brewed chondroitin to battle arthritis pain!!! I've measured the "waste" meat I pick from soup-bones and it averages 1/2# for an average 3.5# chicken, 3/4# for a Boston Butt roast, and 1/4# (not including cartilage) for a steak or ham.
In the end, I've adopted the position the Dali Lama takes on eating meat. Animals don't want to die, so he once tried going without meat. However, after a time, his health began to fail and he became sick. If you can go without meat, good for you, but if you can't, be mindful of the sacrifice of the animal that gave it's life and eat no more than you need to maintain your health. Enjoy that nice tenderloin steak, but eat a modest 4-ounce serving instead of a 16-ounce beauty.
i love this idea. I collect cookbooks anyways, amazed this never dawned on me before.