I actually use an envelope-type system that I designed in Excel and which is perfectly adapted to my needs. Mostly the "envelopes" are just virtual spending categories, but for a couple of them I put actual envelopes in my wallet.
These are the categories that I need to put closer control on. In my case, groceries and gas for the car and food out are they.
The catch here is that there isn't necessarily any cash in the envelopes! Instead, what I do is that on the "Food--Groceries" envelope I write the weekly cash allocation on the outside by the upper left corner. When I'm at the store, I can pull my wallet, look on the envelope and see: oh, I have only $21.36 left for groceries until the 10th of December! Better keep that in mind while I'm selecting stuff! Then whenever I spend on the groceries, (using a credit card, cash, or whatever payment I feel like), I write the amount on the outside of the envelope and bring the remaining balance down. And don't go over the budget without making a conscious decision to.
This is basically just a way for me to keep a closer eye on certain categories by having my available budgeted allocation figures right there in my wallet where I can see them at the store. It prevents unmindful overspending.
When I get home, I enter them into my excel sheet, but really for some categories I need to know what I've budgeted right in my wallet, which won't fit the whole budget plan.
I trim the tops of the envelopes off so they are the same height as US paper currency and will fit in my wallet and put the budget amount on the outside of the envelope.
I tend to cut up envelopes that came in with junk mail for this purpose. For those I also trim them by length, cutting off the right side of the envelope so it's only sealed on the bottom and the left edge. It actually makes it easier to slip cash in and out of when done like that.
Occasionally I'll even use the envelope to store cash or receipts, but the guideline I go by is the number on the outside of the envelope, not the cash in the envelope.
What works for me for expense tracking is 1) I always get a receipt when I spend, and put it in my wallet. 2) if there's no receipt available, I make one out myself. Something like "$5.46 Cash Food Out". This also goes in my wallet. Also if I do an online banking transaction, I make out a paper receipt and put it in my wallet. If I don't have a piece of paper, I make a mental note and borrow one as soon as possible to make the receipt.
All receipts from my wallet go into a jar by my computer.
Once a week I pull the receipts and enter them into my Excel transaction register. Then I take a look at how the budget totals are looking for the month and see if I need to adjust either my spending or my budget.
The jar by the computer really turned out to be the missing link for me that made my expense tracking really work well.
YNAB is a great program (and support community) for tracking your spending and your accounts while keeping your budget front-and-center.
I personally don't use it (I tried it for a month and a half and requested a refund) but only because I am able to program an excel spreadsheet with just as much functionality. But many people don't know how to do that (using array formulas, the SUMIF command, and multiple sheets in the workbook) and for them I think YNAB is the best I've seen for zero-based budgeting. Much more useful than Quicken and the like for controlling your spending.
If you are looking to put up a clothesline, I thought I would share my experience.
Realize that you only need the line, you don't need fancy pulleys and stuff. I recommend the cotton clothesline over the plastic stuff, although I've used both. I prefer cotton because it performs well using traditional knots, is easily unknotted, and can be used for other purposes if you just take the line down.
You can put a line up using just a couple of simple knots. You may need two half hitches to secure it around one support, (or tie a loop into it and loop it over a hook) and you can use a trucker's hitch to tension the line.
You can spend up to $100 putting a clothesline up, or you can just buy $9 worth of cotton clothesline, look up those knots, and you are good to go.
BTW, I prefer to set up a line inside as I have inconsistent results drying outside (due to weather). I always know it's not going to rain in the house, so I don't need to think about it. Attics are a good place for a line, also covered porches and, if you have the space, between two door openings that are a good distance apart (tie the line around the upper hinges of the doors).
Nice article. It definitely is a good idea every once in a while to look at each budget category with a more radical eye.
I do find, however, that the iterative process of tracking my expenses and income and adjusting my budget every month does a very very good job.
Jimmy Carter was way ahead of his time on energy issues. So far ahead that the culture wouldn't listen. It's always more appealing on the surface to just consume more stuff if it's available--which it has been. But i think that's changing, unfortunately, and I think this economic crisis/housing/credit bubble is really part of a larger and more fundamentally skewed environmental bubble. We need to start paddling hard away from the waterfall starthave any chance of not having terrible shocks and repercussions in the next 30 or so years. It will definitely be interesting.
Um, Philip, I have this slight problem...It costs MONEY to move across the country and I don't have it...and I'm not going to have it as long as I'm paying two-thirds of my income for rent.
This is the same reason I cannot move across town into a cheaper room.
You can make your own Greek yogurt by buying regular plain yogurt and draining it in a cheesecloth. The excess liquid drains out, and what you have left is much creamier. That said, I've heard that some of the most important nutrients in the yogurt come from the excess liquid - maybe you can save it and through it in a protein shake or something?
I second the call on freshly ground black pepper. I'm also a sucker for good salt - not Morton's, but good sea salt with no iodine in it. I take kelp supplements as it is, so I don't need the extra iodine in my salt. It changes the flavor so much - I don't need to use nearly as much sea salt to flavor something as I would use if I used regular table salt.
I also love fresh herbs. They're pricey to buy at the store, which is why I have my own rosemary and oregano growing outside my door - I barely care for the plants, just hack off bundles of leaves whenever I need a good steak or soup topper. Thyme is also extremely hardy.
Linsey, have you had caper berries? For years, I didn't realize that capers were flower buds, but they actually do produce fruit if pollinated. I had one in a martini a few years ago, and have been hooked ever since.
I love these ideas! I usually do one or more of them every year. As you mentioned, baked goods or treats are perfect for people you don't know very well, and the jars of cookie mixes are great for those friends who are hopeless in the kitchen.
Another favourite low-cost gift of mine is a coupon booklet. Great for friends and family, you can include coupons for a free housecleaning, or babysitting or home-cooked meal, etc. that you perform for them. Only the cost of the paper is involved, and it's the gift that keeps on giving! It's great for older family members too, they really appreciate the extra help!
Some of the above comments say, "read the fine print" but I only saw one who had observed there is an 18% gratuity charge. Sometimes I add a bit more for awesome service.
Guilt? Not a bit.
And I have discovered that using two $25 coupons within the month limit of only one coupon per month does not apply at one restaurant where I was allowed to use two in one month. The restaurants need to fill the seats and I am available!
Linsey, I like your attitude. Your glass is half full, not half empty.
geO
Local Indian and Middle Eastern markets have a myriad of affordable offerings on spice shelves and in the produce sections. Nothing is quite as satisfying as making your own chai masala.
can make anything taste gourmet. One of my favorite things to eat is just bread dipped in olive oil and vinegar-- yum! And if you have a couple of windowsill herb plants, just chop those up and add. Fresh herbs make a HUGE difference.
I have a teeny kitchen and actually compiled a list of my most essential items a while back... and it overlaps yours quite a bit. I get my sundried tomatoes at Costco (no backyard to grow my own, boo) but the huge jar is under $7 and still fits neatly into my fridge.
and I went back and read the old one too. I enjoyed it immensely. I enjoyed reading from the people who would NEVER move away from LA (okay then, that's your choice to live in an expensive place). I live in So Cal too, but if we lost our jobs, we'd be gone in a heartbeat.
The medical insurance issue was a good one too. Because back in the 60's, medical care was different. I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, and for a good while we didn't have insurance. We paid for dental visits annually out of pocket. No braces. The occasional doctor's visit. And when I had to have surgery in 1983, my parents paid that $6000 bill for YEARS, at $100 or so a month.
I think the concept behind the HELOC is good, but anyone who is sophisticated enough to understand it is sophisticated enough to do it themselves with a spreadsheet. You don;t need to pay someone $3800 to do it.
by the "immoral people who caused this financial crisis?" Desperation for a flat panel TV or some throw-away trinket or trendy worthless gadget for their children? Puh-leeze! Then why blame the people who were driven to desperation to get their kids into Harvard or to get a new BMW or keep their yacht in convenient moorage?
I'm with Top Cat on whether Wal-mart's to blame. In theory, maybe Wal-Mart could have prevented this if it had installed dozens of security guards at each of its thousands of stores, but then they'd be out of business, and the incident would simply happen at some other store that didn't take such expensive precautions against a low-risk event.
Where I disagree with Top Cat and many other posters is that the whole crowd was responsible for this. With perfect hindsight, this incident might seem preventable through crowd control measures. With wilfull blindness, it might seem the fault of the crowd as a whole.
But in the real world, I'm placing my bets that this was not a problem in shopppers' crowd control, it was a looter-instigated riot. It would only take a determined dozen or less criminals to create an event like this, a perfect opportunity for looting. The rest of the crowd were likely as helpless as the poor man who was killed.
Whether it will ever be reported as such in this day of political correctness, that out of fear of being called racist averts its eyes from the hard-core street-criminality of a small part of the black population even when the far larger law-abiding black community is the primary victim, is anybody's guess.
I hope they do identify the hoodlums who started this, and charge them with voluntary manslaughter at least.
As can be seen from these comments, though, it is far easier to blame the "desperation" of low-income people, or the "greed" of Wal-mart executives or of shoppers or of anonymous people "who caused this financial crisis" or "American consumerist culture" than to accept the likelihood of a handful of true criminals being responsible.
Let's not lose sight of something: Although the whole idea of standing around for hours being jostled appalls me, what Wal-mart did and what the shoppers did SHOULD BE SAFE and almost always is.
The fact that in this instance it wasn't should send us looking, first, at that old adage, "cui bono," or "who benefits?" Who benefits from a store at which the employees are overrun and distracted? Obviously, thieves. The fact that law enforcement is studying video of the incident tells me they are well aware of the likely reason for this incident.
What is with this relentless need to blame our whole society or huge segments of it every time something bad happens? Look around you, folks. Are most of your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers really that bad? As foolish or unfrugal as may be your neighbor's desire for a new truck or your kid's desire for $150 sneakers or even some bank executive's desire for a nice boat, is it evil? Or does it make you feel superior to be able to look down on everyone else?
Some small percent of the population and of every sub-group in it, whether it's bankers or a crowd outside a Wal-mart, are criminals. Catch them and let the rest of us go on our merry ways, as normally self-interested and basically harmless as those ways are likely to be.
I have a new game call of duty 5 and it gave deep circular scratches is there any way that I can fix those without completely ruining the game please help
I have a problem with being smug. I struggle against it (with some success, I think), but it's hard to conquer completely.
Much better, when you can manage it, is to share the joy you feel at your successes. It actually turns out to be a lot more fun than feeling smug, plus it's a lot more likely to motiviate people to follow in your footsteps.
For example, back when I had a day job, I'd ride my bike to work anytime the weather was nice. When I passed a gas station and saw that prices were way up, I found it hard to resist feeling smug (but managed to, mostly, keep it to myself). When coworkers complained about gas prices, I (mostly) managed to keep my mouth shut. When they said, "Have a nice day," though, I was always pleased to answer, "Yes. It's always a nice day when I can bicycle to work."
Seems almost daily -- or it used to -- that someone gloated at me about their fancy stuff, jewlry, car, teevee, etc. It's amazing how proud people can be of their bling, and how judgmental they can be of those of us who prioritize security over stuff.
I refused to leave the house on Black Friday...until I remembered I had to pick up a family friend at the airport. By then it was 1 pm and most of the hysteria had vanished.
The previous week, I was in Chicago at the "Lighting of the Lights" ceremony on the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave). I will no longer fear my local small-town mall after seeing the Michigan Ave shopping madness! People were lined 4 to 5 deep to see the paradae, and at this "Family Friendly" event people started shoving and shouting and swearing. It was scary for a couple minutes as we worked our way to the back of the crowd and off the main street.
In an ultimate form of irony, we went to the Jason Mraz concert later that evening, and everyone was polite and well-behaved. Granted, the crowd was smaller and there were beers all around, but it was funny that no one was pushing or getting angry. Then again, we Jason Mraz fans are a rather relaxed bunch.
My heart aches for this man and his family. Yet another reason to shop locally!
I have seen sun dried tomatoes in the store with prices of around $4 for a very small bottle, so I likely never would have tried to add that to any dish as it would just be too pricey, but after checking out the Instructable thinking about growing some tomatoes next year and giving it a try. Thanks for sharing the info!
I do not support Wal-Mart,to me they are not a good business, but this could have happened anywhere. What the hell has gotten into people? do we need "things" so badly we are willing to risk sleep, life and limb for it? I am ashamed at how un-human we have all become and I dare say it is time we get ourselves in order and knock off the selfish, materialistic crap. Learn to say to no, to yourself, to your kids and get a grip.
First, as horrible as this story is, its nothing new. This is the same walmart mentality that refused to release surveillance tapes from their parking lot to track a woman kidnapped from their premisis. But its not really exclusive to Walmart. I remember a few years ago reading about someone getting killed in the UK at an IKEA grand opening.
This kind of stuff has been happening at walmart for a long time. I worked there in 93 and was witness to a similar stampede and just general creepiness by customers I Black Friday. I have boycotted it ever since.
Just a comment.. why must the McDonald's coffee incident be invoked every time someone starts talking about a stores responsibilities to their clientele? Check the facts. That poor woman got third degree burns, had to have skin grafts, when the coffee was so hot it burned THROUGH her clothes, requiring considerable medical attention and expense. McDonald's totally shined her on. A bad management decision that could have been settled by a few thousand in medical expenses, cost them millions, for lack of some foresight and common sense.
There is no excuse for what happened at this store. Walmart's general business practices encourages this sort of behavior.
I actually use an envelope-type system that I designed in Excel and which is perfectly adapted to my needs. Mostly the "envelopes" are just virtual spending categories, but for a couple of them I put actual envelopes in my wallet.
These are the categories that I need to put closer control on. In my case, groceries and gas for the car and food out are they.
The catch here is that there isn't necessarily any cash in the envelopes! Instead, what I do is that on the "Food--Groceries" envelope I write the weekly cash allocation on the outside by the upper left corner. When I'm at the store, I can pull my wallet, look on the envelope and see: oh, I have only $21.36 left for groceries until the 10th of December! Better keep that in mind while I'm selecting stuff! Then whenever I spend on the groceries, (using a credit card, cash, or whatever payment I feel like), I write the amount on the outside of the envelope and bring the remaining balance down. And don't go over the budget without making a conscious decision to.
This is basically just a way for me to keep a closer eye on certain categories by having my available budgeted allocation figures right there in my wallet where I can see them at the store. It prevents unmindful overspending.
When I get home, I enter them into my excel sheet, but really for some categories I need to know what I've budgeted right in my wallet, which won't fit the whole budget plan.
I trim the tops of the envelopes off so they are the same height as US paper currency and will fit in my wallet and put the budget amount on the outside of the envelope.
I tend to cut up envelopes that came in with junk mail for this purpose. For those I also trim them by length, cutting off the right side of the envelope so it's only sealed on the bottom and the left edge. It actually makes it easier to slip cash in and out of when done like that.
Occasionally I'll even use the envelope to store cash or receipts, but the guideline I go by is the number on the outside of the envelope, not the cash in the envelope.
What works for me for expense tracking is 1) I always get a receipt when I spend, and put it in my wallet. 2) if there's no receipt available, I make one out myself. Something like "$5.46 Cash Food Out". This also goes in my wallet. Also if I do an online banking transaction, I make out a paper receipt and put it in my wallet. If I don't have a piece of paper, I make a mental note and borrow one as soon as possible to make the receipt.
All receipts from my wallet go into a jar by my computer.
Once a week I pull the receipts and enter them into my Excel transaction register. Then I take a look at how the budget totals are looking for the month and see if I need to adjust either my spending or my budget.
The jar by the computer really turned out to be the missing link for me that made my expense tracking really work well.
These comments will come in handy if I am ever forced to fly.
Thank you.
YNAB is a great program (and support community) for tracking your spending and your accounts while keeping your budget front-and-center.
I personally don't use it (I tried it for a month and a half and requested a refund) but only because I am able to program an excel spreadsheet with just as much functionality. But many people don't know how to do that (using array formulas, the SUMIF command, and multiple sheets in the workbook) and for them I think YNAB is the best I've seen for zero-based budgeting. Much more useful than Quicken and the like for controlling your spending.
If you are looking to put up a clothesline, I thought I would share my experience.
Realize that you only need the line, you don't need fancy pulleys and stuff. I recommend the cotton clothesline over the plastic stuff, although I've used both. I prefer cotton because it performs well using traditional knots, is easily unknotted, and can be used for other purposes if you just take the line down.
You can put a line up using just a couple of simple knots. You may need two half hitches to secure it around one support, (or tie a loop into it and loop it over a hook) and you can use a trucker's hitch to tension the line.
You can spend up to $100 putting a clothesline up, or you can just buy $9 worth of cotton clothesline, look up those knots, and you are good to go.
BTW, I prefer to set up a line inside as I have inconsistent results drying outside (due to weather). I always know it's not going to rain in the house, so I don't need to think about it. Attics are a good place for a line, also covered porches and, if you have the space, between two door openings that are a good distance apart (tie the line around the upper hinges of the doors).
Nice article. It definitely is a good idea every once in a while to look at each budget category with a more radical eye.
I do find, however, that the iterative process of tracking my expenses and income and adjusting my budget every month does a very very good job.
Jimmy Carter was way ahead of his time on energy issues. So far ahead that the culture wouldn't listen. It's always more appealing on the surface to just consume more stuff if it's available--which it has been. But i think that's changing, unfortunately, and I think this economic crisis/housing/credit bubble is really part of a larger and more fundamentally skewed environmental bubble. We need to start paddling hard away from the waterfall starthave any chance of not having terrible shocks and repercussions in the next 30 or so years. It will definitely be interesting.
Um, Philip, I have this slight problem...It costs MONEY to move across the country and I don't have it...and I'm not going to have it as long as I'm paying two-thirds of my income for rent.
This is the same reason I cannot move across town into a cheaper room.
Thanks for the tip. I'm not even sure where/how I could get my grubby little mitts on a caper berry. Next time we lunch, let's scout some out!
Linsey Knerl
I heard of this only recently,how do you book these,I believe you have to pay into membership?
You can make your own Greek yogurt by buying regular plain yogurt and draining it in a cheesecloth. The excess liquid drains out, and what you have left is much creamier. That said, I've heard that some of the most important nutrients in the yogurt come from the excess liquid - maybe you can save it and through it in a protein shake or something?
I second the call on freshly ground black pepper. I'm also a sucker for good salt - not Morton's, but good sea salt with no iodine in it. I take kelp supplements as it is, so I don't need the extra iodine in my salt. It changes the flavor so much - I don't need to use nearly as much sea salt to flavor something as I would use if I used regular table salt.
I also love fresh herbs. They're pricey to buy at the store, which is why I have my own rosemary and oregano growing outside my door - I barely care for the plants, just hack off bundles of leaves whenever I need a good steak or soup topper. Thyme is also extremely hardy.
Linsey, have you had caper berries? For years, I didn't realize that capers were flower buds, but they actually do produce fruit if pollinated. I had one in a martini a few years ago, and have been hooked ever since.
I love these ideas! I usually do one or more of them every year. As you mentioned, baked goods or treats are perfect for people you don't know very well, and the jars of cookie mixes are great for those friends who are hopeless in the kitchen.
Another favourite low-cost gift of mine is a coupon booklet. Great for friends and family, you can include coupons for a free housecleaning, or babysitting or home-cooked meal, etc. that you perform for them. Only the cost of the paper is involved, and it's the gift that keeps on giving! It's great for older family members too, they really appreciate the extra help!
That mozarella wouldn't last 5 minutes in my house. ;)
Some of the above comments say, "read the fine print" but I only saw one who had observed there is an 18% gratuity charge. Sometimes I add a bit more for awesome service.
Guilt? Not a bit.
And I have discovered that using two $25 coupons within the month limit of only one coupon per month does not apply at one restaurant where I was allowed to use two in one month. The restaurants need to fill the seats and I am available!
Linsey, I like your attitude. Your glass is half full, not half empty.
geO
Local Indian and Middle Eastern markets have a myriad of affordable offerings on spice shelves and in the produce sections. Nothing is quite as satisfying as making your own chai masala.
can make anything taste gourmet. One of my favorite things to eat is just bread dipped in olive oil and vinegar-- yum! And if you have a couple of windowsill herb plants, just chop those up and add. Fresh herbs make a HUGE difference.
I have a teeny kitchen and actually compiled a list of my most essential items a while back... and it overlaps yours quite a bit. I get my sundried tomatoes at Costco (no backyard to grow my own, boo) but the huge jar is under $7 and still fits neatly into my fridge.
http://renaissancetrophywife.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/city-kitchen-essen...
and I went back and read the old one too. I enjoyed it immensely. I enjoyed reading from the people who would NEVER move away from LA (okay then, that's your choice to live in an expensive place). I live in So Cal too, but if we lost our jobs, we'd be gone in a heartbeat.
The medical insurance issue was a good one too. Because back in the 60's, medical care was different. I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, and for a good while we didn't have insurance. We paid for dental visits annually out of pocket. No braces. The occasional doctor's visit. And when I had to have surgery in 1983, my parents paid that $6000 bill for YEARS, at $100 or so a month.
I think the concept behind the HELOC is good, but anyone who is sophisticated enough to understand it is sophisticated enough to do it themselves with a spreadsheet. You don;t need to pay someone $3800 to do it.
by the "immoral people who caused this financial crisis?" Desperation for a flat panel TV or some throw-away trinket or trendy worthless gadget for their children? Puh-leeze! Then why blame the people who were driven to desperation to get their kids into Harvard or to get a new BMW or keep their yacht in convenient moorage?
I'm with Top Cat on whether Wal-mart's to blame. In theory, maybe Wal-Mart could have prevented this if it had installed dozens of security guards at each of its thousands of stores, but then they'd be out of business, and the incident would simply happen at some other store that didn't take such expensive precautions against a low-risk event.
Where I disagree with Top Cat and many other posters is that the whole crowd was responsible for this. With perfect hindsight, this incident might seem preventable through crowd control measures. With wilfull blindness, it might seem the fault of the crowd as a whole.
But in the real world, I'm placing my bets that this was not a problem in shopppers' crowd control, it was a looter-instigated riot. It would only take a determined dozen or less criminals to create an event like this, a perfect opportunity for looting. The rest of the crowd were likely as helpless as the poor man who was killed.
Whether it will ever be reported as such in this day of political correctness, that out of fear of being called racist averts its eyes from the hard-core street-criminality of a small part of the black population even when the far larger law-abiding black community is the primary victim, is anybody's guess.
I hope they do identify the hoodlums who started this, and charge them with voluntary manslaughter at least.
As can be seen from these comments, though, it is far easier to blame the "desperation" of low-income people, or the "greed" of Wal-mart executives or of shoppers or of anonymous people "who caused this financial crisis" or "American consumerist culture" than to accept the likelihood of a handful of true criminals being responsible.
Let's not lose sight of something: Although the whole idea of standing around for hours being jostled appalls me, what Wal-mart did and what the shoppers did SHOULD BE SAFE and almost always is.
The fact that in this instance it wasn't should send us looking, first, at that old adage, "cui bono," or "who benefits?" Who benefits from a store at which the employees are overrun and distracted? Obviously, thieves. The fact that law enforcement is studying video of the incident tells me they are well aware of the likely reason for this incident.
What is with this relentless need to blame our whole society or huge segments of it every time something bad happens? Look around you, folks. Are most of your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers really that bad? As foolish or unfrugal as may be your neighbor's desire for a new truck or your kid's desire for $150 sneakers or even some bank executive's desire for a nice boat, is it evil? Or does it make you feel superior to be able to look down on everyone else?
Some small percent of the population and of every sub-group in it, whether it's bankers or a crowd outside a Wal-mart, are criminals. Catch them and let the rest of us go on our merry ways, as normally self-interested and basically harmless as those ways are likely to be.
I have a new game call of duty 5 and it gave deep circular scratches is there any way that I can fix those without completely ruining the game please help
I have a problem with being smug. I struggle against it (with some success, I think), but it's hard to conquer completely.
Much better, when you can manage it, is to share the joy you feel at your successes. It actually turns out to be a lot more fun than feeling smug, plus it's a lot more likely to motiviate people to follow in your footsteps.
For example, back when I had a day job, I'd ride my bike to work anytime the weather was nice. When I passed a gas station and saw that prices were way up, I found it hard to resist feeling smug (but managed to, mostly, keep it to myself). When coworkers complained about gas prices, I (mostly) managed to keep my mouth shut. When they said, "Have a nice day," though, I was always pleased to answer, "Yes. It's always a nice day when I can bicycle to work."
Seems almost daily -- or it used to -- that someone gloated at me about their fancy stuff, jewlry, car, teevee, etc. It's amazing how proud people can be of their bling, and how judgmental they can be of those of us who prioritize security over stuff.
I refused to leave the house on Black Friday...until I remembered I had to pick up a family friend at the airport. By then it was 1 pm and most of the hysteria had vanished.
The previous week, I was in Chicago at the "Lighting of the Lights" ceremony on the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave). I will no longer fear my local small-town mall after seeing the Michigan Ave shopping madness! People were lined 4 to 5 deep to see the paradae, and at this "Family Friendly" event people started shoving and shouting and swearing. It was scary for a couple minutes as we worked our way to the back of the crowd and off the main street.
In an ultimate form of irony, we went to the Jason Mraz concert later that evening, and everyone was polite and well-behaved. Granted, the crowd was smaller and there were beers all around, but it was funny that no one was pushing or getting angry. Then again, we Jason Mraz fans are a rather relaxed bunch.
My heart aches for this man and his family. Yet another reason to shop locally!
I have seen sun dried tomatoes in the store with prices of around $4 for a very small bottle, so I likely never would have tried to add that to any dish as it would just be too pricey, but after checking out the Instructable thinking about growing some tomatoes next year and giving it a try. Thanks for sharing the info!
I do not support Wal-Mart,to me they are not a good business, but this could have happened anywhere. What the hell has gotten into people? do we need "things" so badly we are willing to risk sleep, life and limb for it? I am ashamed at how un-human we have all become and I dare say it is time we get ourselves in order and knock off the selfish, materialistic crap. Learn to say to no, to yourself, to your kids and get a grip.
First, as horrible as this story is, its nothing new. This is the same walmart mentality that refused to release surveillance tapes from their parking lot to track a woman kidnapped from their premisis. But its not really exclusive to Walmart. I remember a few years ago reading about someone getting killed in the UK at an IKEA grand opening.
This kind of stuff has been happening at walmart for a long time. I worked there in 93 and was witness to a similar stampede and just general creepiness by customers I Black Friday. I have boycotted it ever since.
Just a comment.. why must the McDonald's coffee incident be invoked every time someone starts talking about a stores responsibilities to their clientele? Check the facts. That poor woman got third degree burns, had to have skin grafts, when the coffee was so hot it burned THROUGH her clothes, requiring considerable medical attention and expense. McDonald's totally shined her on. A bad management decision that could have been settled by a few thousand in medical expenses, cost them millions, for lack of some foresight and common sense.
There is no excuse for what happened at this store. Walmart's general business practices encourages this sort of behavior.