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Processing fees of all kinds nickel and dime us all the time. Here's how to reduce them …

Let's start off with something we can all agree on: Fees suck.

Late fees. Overdraft fees. ICANN fees. Service fees. Fees, fees, fees.

Credit card companies forbid merchants from passing on merchant fees to their customers. Charging fees makes you look like the bad guy.

Processing fees: Fees for … accepting my money?!

OK, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I feel a bit better.

The particular kinds of fees that can be reduced a bit are processing fees, which are sometimes called payment fees or convenience fees.

To be fair, accepting money does cost money. It could be an employee that's paid to accept a check or credit card from a walk-in customer. Or it could be a third party like a bank or credit union that has the systems in place to transact.

Taking in foster dogs — or foster anything — is rewarding. But it's by no means easy …

If you're in the market for a pet, there's little need to buy one. There are lots of pets waiting to be adopted. Pet shelters get them all the time: all ages, sizes, breeds, and backgrounds.

Though the initial financial outlay for adopting a dog can be less than buying one, there could be more outlay later due to the dog's history. The previous owner brought the dog to the shelter (or the dog was brought there by someone else) likely because the dog wasn't getting the care it needed, or because the owner couldn't take care of it the way it needed. So, the dog likely has some baggage that the new owner gets to deal with.

Foster dogs: Come in and stay a while

I wasn't a dog person growing up. My grandmother had a dog, and I was a mean little bugger to it.  (I was more allergic to dogs then than I am now, so that didn't help.)

Free trials are all over the place. If you sign up for one, watch out …
Free is one of my favorite four-letter words.

But attach the word trial after the word free, and it can get you into trouble (or at least end up being something decidedly not free).

In and of themselves, there's nothing wrong with a free trial of a service or a membership. It's a great way to try something out before committing financially to it.

But, like all good things, free trials come to an end.  Then, a decision is in order.

Free trials can get you

A few weeks ago I signed up for a bundle deal on an online course.  The package by itself was a good deal.

There are 24 hours a day, last time I checked. How are you creating value for yourself during any of those hours?

Times of transition are unsettling. The more transitions we go through, the easier they become, to an extent.

If it's a transition in national power, such as happens every few years, things can be unsettling for weeks or even months. (Paying attention to the events beyond a pretty basic level of awareness just makes it worse, unfortunately. There's little comfort in being well-informed.)

Three eight-hour buckets

Robert Pagliarini, author of The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth & Purpose, writes that we have basically three eight-hour blocks of time each (week)day:

1. Sleep
2. Work
3. The Other 8 Hours

The Sleep part we can't rob from for very long (at least I can't).