I was at a conference this week in California. Most of the conference attendees stayed at one particular Hyatt because of its proximity to the conference locale. This was a very good stay with only a couple of blips in my expectations. It wasn’t any false advertising by the hotel. Without getting into all of … Read more
I was saddened when our local discount grocery store went out of business. After nearly a year, though, it’s back in business with a new twist. It’s no longer just “scratch and dent” groceries for sale. About half of the shelf space is groceries as it was before — canned goods, household chemicals, pet food, … Read more
Since our budgeting by using the force isn’t quite working anymore, and since we’ve noticed that our outflows are getting a little large relative to our inflows, we’ve set an allowance for ourselves. The allowance is for discretionary purposes, which include eating out (or getting drinks “on the go”), stuff bought online, vending machine purchases, … Read more
The last post discussing Debt is Slavery dealt with the effect “stuff” has on our finance and on our lives. Part of the accumulation of our stuff is gifts we’ve received. And part of the stuff others have is likely gifts we’ve given them. Michael Mihalik, author of Debt is Slavery, discusses the “giant marketing … Read more
… I’d consider buying Maynard Ferguson’s 1994 Cadillac DeVille. Normally I’m not a car aficionado but I used to play jazz trumpet a lot more than I do now and Maynard Ferguson was one of my favorites to listen to. Ferguson died last year and parts of his estate are being auctioned off on eBay. … Read more
My wife was shopping at Ukrop’s one day, mostly for our daughter’s foods. Ukrop’s is one of a limited number of places that carries foods that our daughter can have because of her allergies. (Costco doesn’t carry what we need here.) When my wife goes there she will stock up on Soy Dream Enriched Original … Read more
The furniture stores in our area are one-upping each other on easy financing terms. One offered “no interest until 2009.” Another offered “no interest until 2011.” Still another offered “no interest until 2011 and no payments until 2008.” It’s crazy! Nearly a full year without any payments, and nearly four years to pay off the … Read more
At work recently someone had left a shoebox filled with probably tens of thousands of Betty Crocker Points. Turns out the program was cancelled on December 15th, 2006, rendering all of those points almost worthless except for a limited-time 10% discount on Cooking.com. That hurts. Also recently I went to cash in some points at … Read more