we used self storage as a tool to clear out our home while it was on the market, and again to store our boat for 6 months during the winter before we added a boat driveway to our new home. I just don't understand storing stuff...but then, I regularly clear stuff out and donate it to Goodwill or hold a garage sale. We have 10 boxes stored in our attic that hold the decorations for different times of year. Otherwise, everything is in use or stored in cabinets in the house.
Blogging is great, because no matter who you are, your posts have equal access to the marketplace of ideas. If you write compelling ideas, you will gain readership; if not, then it's the other way around.
And if you want to learn marketing and networking, it's hands down the best way.
Blogging should be looked as a way to have an online portfolio and resume builder more than a business. Unless it is paired with another product that can be sold, it is difficult to make money from blogging.
Agree, food is tough to buy at Costco because unless buying for a larger party, the food will most likely go to waste. Better to buy goods that are not perishable.
I think you hit it on the head - for some people, it's a useful tool, but that's not who the storage companies make their money from.
My parents have a small storage unit - they live in an RV, but they really wanted to keep a few things (some photo albums, the bedroom set they bought when they got married, some paintings) and my little brother, who lives in another country, asked them to keep some of his childhood stuff and some things he only uses on his annual visit here. But first they sold off most of what they owned on Ebay, gave sentimental pieces to friends and family, and had an estate sale.
They have RVer friends who dump a lifetime of possessions on their kids to store, or keep their original houses just to be full of stuff. It's insane - and it's just like your friend, holding onto the past even when you've decided to leave it behind.
I think they bought it since a still was hard to carry. But they probably fermented anything with sugar in it. A favorite all the way back to the first European Americans:
APPLEJACK (an Unofficial Recipe)
Hard (fermented) apple cider
Take a quantity of hard cider, preferably several gallons at least, and put it in a cold place. Traditionally this is done in a barrel outdoors in wintertime, but improvise as your circumstances require. After it has chilled for several hours (traditionally this is overnight) inspect the barrel and see if a layer of ice has formed on top of the liquid. Remove this ice, as completely as possible, and discard. Repeat process until cider has achieved the desired degree of intoxicating qualities.
The rationale for this process is as follows: Cider, or any other wine, ferments naturally only to a certain point of alcohol content, after which it either turns to vinegar or simply goes bad. In circumstances where mechanical distillation was either impractical, illegal, heavily taxed, or unknown, the procedure above was the only means available to raise the alcohol content of the beverage any further. The results were not elegant brandy such as distillation would have produced, but achieved the desired result of the biggest drunk for the buck.
A recipe for this product has not been found in the Cookbook Editor's collection of material from 1865 or earlier, but we had a reader request for this item and decided to pass along what we know about the matter.
from this site http://www.civilwarinteractive.com/CookbookBuzz1.htm
If you ferment apples, that will make cider. If you distill it, that is hard cider. I don’t think the taste of shine with apples sounds as good. If you work it right, you could distill vodka and make apple schnapps.
Is the pressure cooker aluminum or stainless? You don’t want to use aluminum. When you convert it over, make it so you can turn it back. A coil of copper in the kitchen or out in a field does not look as suspicious as a mock up of a still. It’s just copper and a pressure cooker sitting around.
I have to agree that in some cases storage spaces can be very useful, but most of the time they are money pits. I thought about renting a storage space when I moved from a larger apartment to a smaller one, then rethought the situation and decided that storing my goods would just lead me to believe that I needed more things and I would end up wasting more money. I would advise against them generally.
It may be possible to save money with college students, co-op interships, medical residencies, temporary military assignments, etc by making sure that your insurance reflects your actual location.
As an example: someone from Los Angeles or the metro NY/NJ region may save money if that person is living in a lower cost area for a year or more by insuring to that location. One item of note is to make sure that you insure with the exact same company as in that high insurance area if you intend to return to the higher risk area. Certain companies will drop your coverage if you decide to return to the higher risk area as those companies do not do business in high risk/cost areas. (That note is based on a personal experience of 5 years insured no tickets/no accidents in Alabama and was dropped upon returning to New Jersey due to the insurer "not servicing that area".)
The same applies to people with multiple residences in that the person is supposed to have their vehicle insured and registered to the residence where they spend the most time. Often this may be the lower insurance and registration costs location- also make sure your driver's license reflects your residency requirements.
As above you may be able to get additional savings on yearly registration and inspection costs- though you have to be aware of some state's yearly ad valorem taxes on the value of your vehicle. Some areas do not even require yearly safety and emissions inspections while others require in-depth and potentially costly inspections. You may be able to qualify for a registration in your home state which exempts the annual vehicle inspection requirement if you are in college or the military and the vehicle is too far away to return for its annual safety/emissions inspection. This could save money if your home state registration/insurance is less expensive than that of your temporary residence state. Most state DMV websites list the legal requirements and often costs of annual registrations and / or inspections.
Overall compare costs and legal requirements to determine the ~legal~ and least costly options for your specific situation.
Every time I think about spending money on self-storage, I first think about whhat that extra $50 would do to my mortgage repayment if put there, or -- even better -- how much more house I could have bought if I had merely been willing to add $50/mo to the mortgage payment I was willing to pay.
Then I find a way to sufficiently recycle other things in my home to avoid the need to store.
I have a friend who moved away to attend medical school and left stuff in a self-storage unit that runs about $100 a month. The quickest he could have gotten back here after finishing his residency would have been five years, I think--which would mean having spent $6000 on storage costs.
I have no idea what my friend stored, but there's no doubt in my mind that he'd have been way ahead if he'd sold what was saleable and then given away or thrown away everything else (except a box of stuff like family photos, legal papers, and such small enough that he could have left it with a relative). Instead of a storage unit full of old junk, he'd have had thousands of dollars with which to furnish his new place with whatever seemed best, instead of whatever he'd accumulated during and after college.
I didn't catch the show, but now that it is on Hulu.com, I might have to check it out. The concept seems like it would be very entertaining. It's great that the coach tackles on-the-spot problems and helps the person set a budget through the parents, but I can see where this short-term planning may not last in the long-term.
I also wonder if Christina, the young woman with the financial problems, asked for help from her parents in the beginning. I'm just wondering who is contacting the show initially, if it's not the person in debt, that person may not be that motivated to change their lifestyle.
It's really too bad this woman grew up forming such irresponsible spending habits, though I can see how it would be easy to get used to buying only the expensive versions of food. I hope that they worked on a structured budget for her on the show so that she keeps track of where her cash ends up each month.
As stated in message #39, they added apples to there mix of sugar and yeast and ferminted for several days. My question is, Do you pour all the apples and the fixings in the still and simmer off the alcohol and capture in a jar?? I am new and want to know as much as possible before I convert my pressure cooker to a still.
My husband and I bought a reliable gas saving Honda Fit for our college son. He's making the payments on the car ( on our account) and we are paying the insurance for a 22 year old who drives more than 12,000 miles a year with one accident and one ticket- $90 a month with State Farm.The bank of Mom and Dad saves him over $550 a month and we got a much better rate for financing a car (3.5%) than a 22 year old with no credit. It will be his car after he graduates, has a degree and it's paid off...and he will be 25 years old so the insurance rate then will be much cheaper. Same with his Crackberry-oops, Blackberry-it's $40 a month for unlimited data on my plan but it would be hundreds for him on his own. College kids get screwed- ask your parents to help!
I have not priced the organic milk, but the Kirkland brand milk has no rBST (artificial growth hormone) and it is sold much cheaper than the local grocery stores (which all sell milk with rBST).
I buy the following items at Costco for less than at my grocery store:
cheese (block and shredded)
butter
yeast
chocolate chips
honey in bulk
eggs
Abuelita tortilla chips
ground beef (quite a deal!)
frozen strawberries
organic baby carrots (5 lb bag - too big for many families but not for mine)
bananas
I hate shopping at Costco because I really don't like the fact that they look at my receipt and cart every time I leave the store as that just slows things down. There can be quite a line at the door to get out.
The greatest deal is the enormous bottle of Old Vine Zinfandel for $9.99. They also have many excellent wine deals that even Trader Joe's can't beat for outstanding wine.
Natural food stores like GNC sell witch hazel w/o alcohol (Thayers is the brand I bought), which is nice if you want to avoid the drying effects of alcohol on your skin, especially on the face. I like using it for a toner/cleanser.
As a gardener, I'll also mention that some cultivars are incredibly beautiful small trees for the garden!
This is the first time I've seen this reference in this type of article, and it really makes a great point! I'm not really living on the edge, so I can indeed responsibly purchase many of my wants in life. But I'm trying to minimize the less valued ones, and recreational shopping has brought way to many of those "not even wants" into my small home! I'm definitely trying to eradicate those tendencies completely!
I don't watch TV at all, but glossy home & garden magazine ads can be tempting. I find the best strategy for me is to stay out of the stores unless I really need something.
we used self storage as a tool to clear out our home while it was on the market, and again to store our boat for 6 months during the winter before we added a boat driveway to our new home. I just don't understand storing stuff...but then, I regularly clear stuff out and donate it to Goodwill or hold a garage sale. We have 10 boxes stored in our attic that hold the decorations for different times of year. Otherwise, everything is in use or stored in cabinets in the house.
Blogging is great, because no matter who you are, your posts have equal access to the marketplace of ideas. If you write compelling ideas, you will gain readership; if not, then it's the other way around.
And if you want to learn marketing and networking, it's hands down the best way.
Blogging should be looked as a way to have an online portfolio and resume builder more than a business. Unless it is paired with another product that can be sold, it is difficult to make money from blogging.
Agree, food is tough to buy at Costco because unless buying for a larger party, the food will most likely go to waste. Better to buy goods that are not perishable.
I think you hit it on the head - for some people, it's a useful tool, but that's not who the storage companies make their money from.
My parents have a small storage unit - they live in an RV, but they really wanted to keep a few things (some photo albums, the bedroom set they bought when they got married, some paintings) and my little brother, who lives in another country, asked them to keep some of his childhood stuff and some things he only uses on his annual visit here. But first they sold off most of what they owned on Ebay, gave sentimental pieces to friends and family, and had an estate sale.
They have RVer friends who dump a lifetime of possessions on their kids to store, or keep their original houses just to be full of stuff. It's insane - and it's just like your friend, holding onto the past even when you've decided to leave it behind.
Self storage is actually a pretty good deal if instead of storing stuff in it you live in it.
I think they bought it since a still was hard to carry. But they probably fermented anything with sugar in it. A favorite all the way back to the first European Americans:
APPLEJACK (an Unofficial Recipe)
Hard (fermented) apple cider
Take a quantity of hard cider, preferably several gallons at least, and put it in a cold place. Traditionally this is done in a barrel outdoors in wintertime, but improvise as your circumstances require. After it has chilled for several hours (traditionally this is overnight) inspect the barrel and see if a layer of ice has formed on top of the liquid. Remove this ice, as completely as possible, and discard. Repeat process until cider has achieved the desired degree of intoxicating qualities.
The rationale for this process is as follows: Cider, or any other wine, ferments naturally only to a certain point of alcohol content, after which it either turns to vinegar or simply goes bad. In circumstances where mechanical distillation was either impractical, illegal, heavily taxed, or unknown, the procedure above was the only means available to raise the alcohol content of the beverage any further. The results were not elegant brandy such as distillation would have produced, but achieved the desired result of the biggest drunk for the buck.
A recipe for this product has not been found in the Cookbook Editor's collection of material from 1865 or earlier, but we had a reader request for this item and decided to pass along what we know about the matter.
from this site
http://www.civilwarinteractive.com/CookbookBuzz1.htm
If you ferment apples, that will make cider. If you distill it, that is hard cider. I don’t think the taste of shine with apples sounds as good. If you work it right, you could distill vodka and make apple schnapps.
Is the pressure cooker aluminum or stainless? You don’t want to use aluminum. When you convert it over, make it so you can turn it back. A coil of copper in the kitchen or out in a field does not look as suspicious as a mock up of a still. It’s just copper and a pressure cooker sitting around.
I have to agree that in some cases storage spaces can be very useful, but most of the time they are money pits. I thought about renting a storage space when I moved from a larger apartment to a smaller one, then rethought the situation and decided that storing my goods would just lead me to believe that I needed more things and I would end up wasting more money. I would advise against them generally.
It may be possible to save money with college students, co-op interships, medical residencies, temporary military assignments, etc by making sure that your insurance reflects your actual location.
As an example: someone from Los Angeles or the metro NY/NJ region may save money if that person is living in a lower cost area for a year or more by insuring to that location. One item of note is to make sure that you insure with the exact same company as in that high insurance area if you intend to return to the higher risk area. Certain companies will drop your coverage if you decide to return to the higher risk area as those companies do not do business in high risk/cost areas. (That note is based on a personal experience of 5 years insured no tickets/no accidents in Alabama and was dropped upon returning to New Jersey due to the insurer "not servicing that area".)
The same applies to people with multiple residences in that the person is supposed to have their vehicle insured and registered to the residence where they spend the most time. Often this may be the lower insurance and registration costs location- also make sure your driver's license reflects your residency requirements.
As above you may be able to get additional savings on yearly registration and inspection costs- though you have to be aware of some state's yearly ad valorem taxes on the value of your vehicle. Some areas do not even require yearly safety and emissions inspections while others require in-depth and potentially costly inspections. You may be able to qualify for a registration in your home state which exempts the annual vehicle inspection requirement if you are in college or the military and the vehicle is too far away to return for its annual safety/emissions inspection. This could save money if your home state registration/insurance is less expensive than that of your temporary residence state. Most state DMV websites list the legal requirements and often costs of annual registrations and / or inspections.
Overall compare costs and legal requirements to determine the ~legal~ and least costly options for your specific situation.
Putting together the weekly roundup is the best part of my week. Keep writing good stuff, guys, and I'll include it :)
Linsey Knerl
Great article.
Every time I think about spending money on self-storage, I first think about whhat that extra $50 would do to my mortgage repayment if put there, or -- even better -- how much more house I could have bought if I had merely been willing to add $50/mo to the mortgage payment I was willing to pay.
Then I find a way to sufficiently recycle other things in my home to avoid the need to store.
I have a friend who moved away to attend medical school and left stuff in a self-storage unit that runs about $100 a month. The quickest he could have gotten back here after finishing his residency would have been five years, I think--which would mean having spent $6000 on storage costs.
I have no idea what my friend stored, but there's no doubt in my mind that he'd have been way ahead if he'd sold what was saleable and then given away or thrown away everything else (except a box of stuff like family photos, legal papers, and such small enough that he could have left it with a relative). Instead of a storage unit full of old junk, he'd have had thousands of dollars with which to furnish his new place with whatever seemed best, instead of whatever he'd accumulated during and after college.
I didn't catch the show, but now that it is on Hulu.com, I might have to check it out. The concept seems like it would be very entertaining. It's great that the coach tackles on-the-spot problems and helps the person set a budget through the parents, but I can see where this short-term planning may not last in the long-term.
I also wonder if Christina, the young woman with the financial problems, asked for help from her parents in the beginning. I'm just wondering who is contacting the show initially, if it's not the person in debt, that person may not be that motivated to change their lifestyle.
thanks for the review-
Little House
It's really too bad this woman grew up forming such irresponsible spending habits, though I can see how it would be easy to get used to buying only the expensive versions of food. I hope that they worked on a structured budget for her on the show so that she keeps track of where her cash ends up each month.
I second the rotisserie chicken idea. 3 lbs minimum vs. 2 lbs or less elsewhere. Fantastic deal for a quick and easy dinner.
As stated in message #39, they added apples to there mix of sugar and yeast and ferminted for several days. My question is, Do you pour all the apples and the fixings in the still and simmer off the alcohol and capture in a jar?? I am new and want to know as much as possible before I convert my pressure cooker to a still.
Does anyone know how to set this for Region 0 for All?
I am trying to find the procedure to unblock the Samsung DVD-VR375. Like you, I´m hoping that someone does have it.
My husband and I bought a reliable gas saving Honda Fit for our college son. He's making the payments on the car ( on our account) and we are paying the insurance for a 22 year old who drives more than 12,000 miles a year with one accident and one ticket- $90 a month with State Farm.The bank of Mom and Dad saves him over $550 a month and we got a much better rate for financing a car (3.5%) than a 22 year old with no credit. It will be his car after he graduates, has a degree and it's paid off...and he will be 25 years old so the insurance rate then will be much cheaper. Same with his Crackberry-oops, Blackberry-it's $40 a month for unlimited data on my plan but it would be hundreds for him on his own. College kids get screwed- ask your parents to help!
I have not priced the organic milk, but the Kirkland brand milk has no rBST (artificial growth hormone) and it is sold much cheaper than the local grocery stores (which all sell milk with rBST).
I buy the following items at Costco for less than at my grocery store:
cheese (block and shredded)
butter
yeast
chocolate chips
honey in bulk
eggs
Abuelita tortilla chips
ground beef (quite a deal!)
frozen strawberries
organic baby carrots (5 lb bag - too big for many families but not for mine)
bananas
I hate shopping at Costco because I really don't like the fact that they look at my receipt and cart every time I leave the store as that just slows things down. There can be quite a line at the door to get out.
But the deals are quite worth it.
The greatest deal is the enormous bottle of Old Vine Zinfandel for $9.99. They also have many excellent wine deals that even Trader Joe's can't beat for outstanding wine.
Kalamata Olives
and
Bully Sticks (though these aren't alway there)
Natural food stores like GNC sell witch hazel w/o alcohol (Thayers is the brand I bought), which is nice if you want to avoid the drying effects of alcohol on your skin, especially on the face. I like using it for a toner/cleanser.
As a gardener, I'll also mention that some cultivars are incredibly beautiful small trees for the garden!
This is the first time I've seen this reference in this type of article, and it really makes a great point! I'm not really living on the edge, so I can indeed responsibly purchase many of my wants in life. But I'm trying to minimize the less valued ones, and recreational shopping has brought way to many of those "not even wants" into my small home! I'm definitely trying to eradicate those tendencies completely!
I don't watch TV at all, but glossy home & garden magazine ads can be tempting. I find the best strategy for me is to stay out of the stores unless I really need something.