Smart Money’s recent article, Ten things not to buy in 2010, listed the who’s who of soon-to-be-obsolete consumer products. Among them: CDs, DVDs, and newspapers. Newspapers, I can understand, especially after seeing a comedian absolutely decimate the folks at the New York Times. (Though I do fully recognize their point that news gathering is expensive … Read more
OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, especially when I’m about to talk about ketchup. I went grocery shopping with my wife last night, and in the condiment section, shockingly, I found various brands of ketchup. The store brand came in a number of sizes. Here are two of them: 20 ounces for $1.79 … Read more
My wife and I have recently discovered the wonders of raw organic agave nectar for sweetening tea and other things. (It’s low-glycemic index, and it doesn’t overpower the taste of what we’re sweetening the way honey or maple syrup does.) We tried a small bottle from the grocery store, and like it enough that we … Read more
Notaphily (pronounced no-TAH-fuh-lee) is the collecting of bank notes. Related terms are philately (stamp collecting) and scripophily (old stock and bond collecting). After writing my post yesterday on gift cards vs. cash, and after thinking about what people might do if their unused gift cards expire worthless or if the company can go out of … Read more
I found out recently that our county is going to be entering the late-20th century in an important way: We’re getting a Walmart. This is important to us because it’s going to be built adjacent to a subdivision we’re considering purchasing a new house. But that’s a separate issue. The issue at hand for this … Read more
(If you have a true love, then you have thirty of them from last Christmas! Most people really only need twenty-nine French hens.) Regifting this year is up. Way up. A Consumer Reports survey found that a little over a third (36%) of American adults said they’d recycle a gift this year, which is a … Read more
Liz Pulliam Weston had an article today on the new tip-jar economy (article link broken as of 10/2014) — that new business practice of putting out the tip jar, raising the “customary” tipping percentage, and adding other tip-like fees that are no longer discretionary, but mandatory. Her take regarding the tip jars was, in essence: … Read more
OK, so I’m reading the July, 2009, issue of U.S. News & World Report that my mother-in-law left the last time she visited, and I happen on an article called “Frugal Forever?” written by Kimberly Palmer, senior editor at U.S. News and blogger at Alpha Consumer. (She had several articles in that issue.) The gist … Read more