Recent comments

  • 5 Kitchen Luxuries That Are Worth It (and 5 That Aren't)   14 years 27 weeks ago

    If they're guaranteed for life, how the heck is this remotely "dishonest"? Someone, at some point, paid full price for this pan. It's not like someone stole it out of a truck, sold it to Goodwill, and then this other person paid $3 for it and screwed over Calphalon.

    Unbelievable mentality.

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    My motivation to save was when i got married last year i promised my wife we pay off all our debts asap and get ourselves ahead in life. I racked up credit card debit for some of he wedding and she has student loans. We have made a dent in our outstanding debt and are on the right track. This goes without sayings For richer or poorer till death due us part and we both took that statement to heart.

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    I'm motivated to save for 2 reasons:

    1) I work hard and deserve to pay myself.
    2) I want to relieve my future self from having to work as hard as my current self.

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    What motivates me to save - is the feeling I get from being prepared for the future!
    I want to have money to pay emergency expenses which always arise. I want to have money to live comfortably in retirement. I know that if I'm prepared I won't fear....

  • How to Make Moonshine   14 years 27 weeks ago

    Rebel,
    Cracked is better, but malting it is best. Take the corn, get it wet, lay on a tarp and cover with another tarp for a couple days. Make sure it does not dry out. It will sprout. This is when you want to crack it. The malting will help convert the starch to sugar, which is fermentable.

  • 5 Kitchen Luxuries That Are Worth It (and 5 That Aren't)   14 years 27 weeks ago

    My luxury that has saved me a ton of time an money is a stand alone freezer. I buy frozen veggies and meat when it's on sale, managers special rolls and bread, and save a ton of money. Fish for example is cheap this time of year because of lent. I've saved on that and will eat it throughout the year. The freezer attached to the fridge is used for leftovers. I cook a double or triple batch of food and put it all in containers as single servings. Label it with masking tape, and you can eat a variety of food while only cooking twice or thrice a week.

    This is good for families or couple on the go.

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    What motivates me most is the thought of not having to completely start over at $0 after every major purchase I make.

  • Little Old Lady Recipes: Classic Frugal Cooking   14 years 27 weeks ago

    I got this book for Christmas and WOW! These are real recipes with real ingredients. No fuss just delish!

  • Should You Repair a Dripping Faucet?   14 years 27 weeks ago

    Actually a slow dripping tap costs nothing. It is too slow to register on the water meter.

  • Ask the Readers: Do You Buy Apps?   14 years 27 weeks ago

    I buy apps to keep me entertained and kill time while I'm waiting at the doctor's office, on the bus, etc.

  • Tasty, Healthy Breakfast Cookies With Chocolate-Covered Espresso Beans   14 years 27 weeks ago

    Just made these and they were pretty good. From the picture I guess I expected them to me crunchy, but they were soft when I made them. Are they soft or crunchy when you make them? What do you think I could change if I wanted them to be more crunchy?

  • How to Answer 23 of the Most Common Interview Questions   14 years 27 weeks ago

    this was very helpful thank you so much .

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    My cat needs to be kept in kibble. And my horse needs to be kept in hay.

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    I'm motivated to save by the thought of descending into dire poverty and find myself living under a sheet of cardboard on the street. That's always a good motivator, I've found.

  • 17 Ways to Use Old Newspaper   14 years 27 weeks ago

    St. Vincent De Paul thrift stores in my area are always looking for newspaper.
    They use the paper to wrap fragile items, such as glassware or casserole dishes.

    I save mine in paper grocery sacks (I have a closet full of paper bags left over from the days before we used cloth grocery totes), and take them to St. Vincent De Paul when I have a few bags.

    They also are looking for clean plastic grocery bags. Many of their customers don't have cars, and carry their purchases home on the bus, so the grocery bags with handles are best.

    I really like supporting this charity in particular because profits from St. Vincent stores go to purchase food for food pantries in the community.

  • Best Money Tips: Saving Money at the Gas Pump   14 years 27 weeks ago

    Thanks very much for the mention!

  • How to Save on School Supplies Without Going Crazy   14 years 27 weeks ago

    For elementary and middle-school kids:

    1. At the end of the school year, clean out the backpack, file or toss all of those papers which come home at the end of the year, and use the backpack to store the school supplies for next fall. If the supplies are in the backpack, you don't have to hunt for them later.

    2. Pay your kids for stuff that they re-use. One of my daughters took excellent care of her things, and for several years used the same backpack, pencil box, ruler, math compass set, colored pencils, erasers, and sturdy folders. She also re-used many spiral notebooks (she just ripped out the few pages which were written on). I gave her $20 every fall. And when I bought her anything new which she needed, I was comfortable with an occasional "splurge" for cuter stuff because I knew she would take good care of it.

    The daughter who was hard on everything (scribbled on ruler with magic marker, broke pencil box, accidentally ripped folders or left them on playground and they got rained on, tore seams of backpack, and lost almost all her art supplies), she didn't get any money because she didn't re-use very much. After a few years of seeing her younger sister get the cash, she started taking better care of her stuff, and she earned some cash back too.

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    I save because I want to feel a sense of security and because I like to have money to take a nice vacation If I so choose.

  • How to Make Moonshine   14 years 27 weeks ago

    Cloudy shine is always from the first strip......and it's because the heat is too high and lots of stuff from the wash is finding it's way all the way through the still. No big whoop. It'll be gone when you run it the second time. If you use a reflux, this won't happen at all.

  • 10 DIY Dog Toys You Can Make for Pennies   14 years 27 weeks ago

    socks and rope are not reccomended for dog use. YES i know ropes are sold in pet stores but they are still not safe. My dog was playing SUPERVISED and still managed to swallow a SMALL peice of string from the rope (the rope stayed in tact he just managed to pull a small peice out of it) this small string literally tied his intestines in a knot and almost killed him. It was a difficult diagnosis as string and small bits of fabric do not show up in an XRAY. it was an exploratory surgery that found it and a large portion of his intestines had to be removed. You can watch your dog play all day long but swallowing something tlike that can happen in a split second and there is nothing you can do about it. Our vet told us that rope is one of the most common causes of blockage in dogs...just throwing that out there.

  • SaveUp Giving Away $1000 to Wise Bread Readers   14 years 27 weeks ago

    What motivates me to save is fear. I'm terrified of not having enough of an emergency fund to get by when things go wrong.

  • How to Not Be a Wage Slave   14 years 27 weeks ago

    You are absolutely right about how your expenses creep up on you and you become a slave without even knowing it. But as you suggest, you can beat the system. Be conscious of this fact and fight back by not letting your lifestyle get out of control with debt and greed. I definitely back looking for alternative forms of income whether it’s from hobbies, investments, or hopefully both.

  • How to Make Moonshine   14 years 27 weeks ago

    Which is better for moonshine, whole corn or cracked corn?

  • In Two-Income Households, Can Making More Put Us Further Behind?   14 years 27 weeks ago

    I would agree that the inability to switch back to one income is due to inflated lifestyle. In fact, it's inflated even if you're on one income. When my husband and I were shopping for homes, 20s years old couples were looking at the same houses that we were.

    Where were the people who were our age? Looking at houses that were $1-2Million more. My neighbors complain about my car being more than 2 yrs old because it devalue the neighborhood.

    Even the Habitat for Humanity families had 60" TVs in their donated homes. We certainly didn't donate the TVs but that was their priority.

    The idea of a second income is to put that money towards savings. Most people spend the money as it comes in to match society's expectations or spending it on childcare.

  • In Two-Income Households, Can Making More Put Us Further Behind?   14 years 27 weeks ago

    I think the toothpaste is out of the tube on this one. I'll grant that life is more expensive these days partially because people enjoy nicer things (even a new Nissan Versa costs almost what my parents paid for their first house).

    But there are a few things in today's economy which are quite different from our parents days.

    People live longer. Better medical care (despite America's poor showing in critical measures), safer cars, lower exposures to known poisons -- all of these things cost much more money than they used to, even after adjusting for inflation.

    Even with the New Gilded Age that is forming, America is more inclusive than it ever was. It is no longer legal to pay someone lower wages simply because of their gender, skin color, or sexual preference (although apparently it's still okay if you don't have citizenship papers). Programs like the Americans with Disabilities Act help mainstream people with mental and physical challenges. But all that mainstreaming costs money -- higher wages, language translators, adapted buildings, and so on.

    Our parents and grandparents had the advantages of steady employment in a largely-isolated market. Corporations like Whirlpool and GM didn't threaten to break their (implied) worker contracts by moving manufacturing to lower-cost countries like Mexico and China. Companies weren't purchased with high leverage to be financed by breaking them up. CEOs did not earn about 300 times what the average worker makes. The increasing outsourcing of even white-collar jobs like computer analyst and radiologist threaten middle-class lifestyles.

    Certainly people could choose to live without the 65" hi-def TV in the "media room" or the $75,000 Escalade or the suite on their cruise ship vacation. But to suggest that the additional spending ability of a second income alone has led us to new heights of debt ignores some critical changes in our country.