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Posted
Sep 29 2009, 02:59 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
A whole year's worth of food for one person for only $799.99? And that's after a $200 discount. Is this too good to be true, or should we order?
Well, there is one small catch. The offer is for 78 one-gallon cans of dehydrated and freeze-dried food, plus a wheat grinder. Now, that's an emergency fund you can eat.
Actually, the ad exposed us to a movement we weren't very familiar with. Called "food storage," it's about amassing enough food on hand to survive common disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, or "economic crisis" or for "religious reasons," according to a Web site called Food Storage Made Easy.
While most people would consider enough food for a few days or a few weeks to be a sufficient emergency supply, these folks think in terms of a complete year.
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Posted
Sep 29 2009, 10:48 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We're all for dollar stores. They can provide savings, many people agree. At last count, 55% of about 423,000 people who have participated in an MSN Money online poll said they sometimes shop at dollar stores, and 36% said they frequently do. (Another 3% chose "I'd never set foot in one.")
But there are some products "rutgerskevin" of The Red Stapler Chronicles recommends you avoid, via his post called "The 10 dumbest things to buy at a dollar store." First on his list are home pregnancy tests.
Find on Bing: Dollar stores thriving in recession
Pregnancy test from the dollar store? That's a product you'd want to spend more on for a result you can trust. "I almost bought this just to see what it looked like, but the girlfriend vetoed this idea in disgust," Kevin said.
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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 03:28 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from "vh" at Funny about Money.
Why, when we're confronted, do we tend to blurt out the truth, even when it works to our disadvantage to do so? Chaucer had it right when he said that "truth is the highest thing that Man may keep." Sometimes we should keep it to ourselves.
Asked in the right way, we'll often reveal private, sensitive information that's strictly none of anyone's business, that's valuable to people trying to manipulate us into buying products and services, and that can be used to pester or even harass us. Warranty cards with long lists of personal questions are especially egregious: What about your favorite sporting event and the magazines you read is needed to guarantee a flashlight's performance? And how often do you give your phone number to companies that have no need to know it?
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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 11:35 AM
by
Teresa Mears
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We couldn't find many new food and restaurant deals this week. Could this be a sign that the recession is easing, or is it just a lull?
This is a good weekend for free entertainment, with free admission to national parks and free admission to museums nationwide on Saturday, Sept. 2.
Sit-down casual chain restaurants still have ongoing deals. You can download local restaurant coupons from Valpak, find online deals for pizza chains and be notified of deals via Facebook.
Remember, not all local franchises participate in all national promotions, so be sure to ask at your local store.
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 04:11 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Toys R Us released its list of prospective hot toys for the holidays, and guess what: Most retail for less than $100.
The toy getting the most media attention is the Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster, which retails for a very attractive $9.99. "With more than 40 different sound effects and artificial intelligence, these pets will dart around the house, play in hamster tubes, run on wheels and more," Toys R Us said. This sounds fun.
Among those on the higher end, The Associated Press reports, are "Mattel's Mindflex, about $90, which measures brain activity through a helmet and uses it to move a ball through an obstacle course." Great. We'll bring that one out whenever anyone questions our brain power.
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 02:00 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Americans are crazy for coupons again -- clipping at rates not seen in years, and the attraction is not just the 30 cents off the canned corn, The New York Times reports. It's a psychological boost, a feeling that we're proactive and therefore better than those who pay full price.
As the Times puts it, "Because it takes more work to acquire them, the people who do so feel they have outsmarted other shoppers." It's kind of like that "delicious feeling of self-denial" inherent in frugality that our pal Frank Curmudgeon likes to write about at Bad Money Advice. We're saving money and feeling good in a way that's kind of creepy.
Our collective renewed love of the coupon is also good timing. Food prices have fallen by 2.5% since an ugly high point last November, with the biggest single decline between July and August.
Here are some interesting coupon factoids from the Times and other locations:
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 10:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We have decided not to dye our hair again, and all of our women friends have an opinion about it.
Strong opinions -- ranging from enthusiastic support to this comment from an older friend: "If you go gray, you will be a granola. Still interesting to me -- but invisible to others. Don't do it -- savor your youth!"
That comment nearly stopped us in our tracks, but we're going ahead with this. It's not just the expense -- we color at home once a month for about $8.50, but if you have it done professionally, it's $40, $75 or even more depending on where you live. It's also the time, the handling of harsh chemicals (get that stuff in your eyes and you can go blind), the damage to our hair -- and the suspicion that we're denying the realities of age in a way that's not healthy or helpful.
At some point, this charade has to stop (I'm nearly 55), so why not now? (Plus, it's not like losing a limb. If we don't like what we see, we can always dye it again.)
What's the best way to proceed?
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 01:09 PM
by
Teresa Mears
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We're the first to admit that shopping as a form of entertainment isn't exactly unheard of in the United States.
Still, Ikea browsers in China may have taken the idea of shopping center as entertainment to a whole new level. The Ikea store in Beijing has become an entertainment destination for Chinese who have no intention of buying anything more than lunch.
The Los Angeles Times, reporting on this phenomenon, interviewed Zhang Xin, who took his wife, son and mother to Ikea for lunch and a break from the smog.
"We just came here for fun," the 34-year-old office manager told The Times. "I suppose we could have gone somewhere else, but it wouldn't have been a complete experience."
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 05:50 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.
We have little kids. Kids are messy. Our daughter spills milk or juice on almost a nightly basis. Our son, who's a bit older, doesn't make messes as often, but when he does, they tend to be even more disastrous, such as a full jar of salsa knocked off the counter and shattered all over the floor.
For years, our solution to this problem has been a big roll of paper towels. It's simply what we're familiar with and, like many simple and familiar things in life, it's almost an automatic thing to have on hand. We simply have paper towels in the kitchen.
A few weeks ago, though, after we bought another batch of them at Sam's Club, I began to really question that purchase. Sure, we have a lot of messes, but did we really need to be dropping $5 or more a month on paper that we wind up throwing into the landfill? Probably not.
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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 11:23 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from James Limbach at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Counting down the hours until payday? You're not alone.
As the economic downturn trudges on, many workers are struggling with household budgets. About six in 10 workers -- 61% -- report they always or usually live paycheck to paycheck just to make ends meet, compared with 49% last year and 43% in 2007, according to a new nationwide survey of more than 4,400 workers by CareerBuilder.
Thirty percent of workers with salaries of $100,000 or more report that they too live paycheck to paycheck, versus 21% in 2008.
Some workers are making ends meet by dipping into their long-term savings. More than one in five workers say they have reduced their 401(k) contributions or personal savings in the last six months to get by. Among workers earning six figures or more, a nearly equal number -- 23% -- report that they have also reduced their 401(k) contributions or savings.
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