Money Talks

Daily Dose of Shopping – Earth Day?

1 Comment / Foodie, Money Talks, Travel Log /

If we had been home for Earth Day we would have worked in the garden, we really need to work in the garden, but we weren’t so we didn’t.  Instead, we found ourselves using the last of a tank of very expensive gas to drive 30 miles into Tampa to shop at the new Wild Oats.

I’ve never been to a Wild Oats before and I was disappointed to find out it was opening just a couple of days after our Spanish II field trip early in April.  It was terrific to find ourselves a half hour away from Wild Oats and plenty of time to spare on a shopping spree.  And shopping, we did.

First let me just say that you Tampa folks talk really loudly and you should tone down your voices a little bit when you are in Wild Oats.  The lighting and the nice music should be respected and appreciated and your grocery shopping experience should feel relaxing in that environment, not like a three ring circus.  I know it’s a new store and you’re excited but please. relax. 

Once I got use to the sheer NOISE and the crowds I was good.  I even managed to get through the entire store without feeling the need to bolt and drag TW OUT of there.  And, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Cool stuff.  Interesting stuff.  Familiar stuff too.  And the cafe was nice.  Some weird people there – why would anyone ask the barista if the hot chocolate tastes like milk or tastes like coke?  That’s just a weird question, ya know?  And the dude who tasted every hot entree item and then ordered 1/4 lb of the macaroni & cheese was also weird.   The cute little manager, Ashley, was not weird to me – I have teens who look like she does but a lot of people probably thought she was weird.

So, Wild Oats shopping was a success!  Whole Foods in a couple of weeks and then Trader Joe’s this summer and I can die a happy woman.  I never thought I’d say I enjoy grocery shopping.  I never thought I would be looking forward to visiting grocery stores.   Talk about weird….

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Daily Dose of Work – Freebies

2 Comments / Community Chest, Day to Day, Money Talks /

Work? For free? – aka volunteering?  Mark Glazer wants to know why you and I "work for free".  It’s a "nagging question" for him. 

Is this such a difficult concept to grasp? Couldn’t you make a list of 100 reasons people volunteer their time, effort and knowledge?  Or am I wrong?  Is it hard for you to figure out why AOL had more volunteers than it knew what to do with? Or why iVillage still has a million volunteer CLs even though iVillage is less than good to its volunteers?  Or why you can’t throw a stone in a suburban neighborhood without hitting a PTA mommy? Or why you can’t wander through a big city without bumping into a soup kitchen volunteer?  Or why women are happily contributing blog posts to Blogher? 

I wonder if people who don’t have a strong history of volunteerism are the ones who have the biggest problem understanding the work for free  concept.

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Daily Dose of Women – Africa

5 Comments / Health and Wellness, Money Talks /

Last week I sent Luna Pads to Zimbabwe and the next donation I’m sending is to the Fistula Foundation.  We hear an awful lot of about female genital mutilation but not so much about menstrual hygiene or fistulas.

Now someone find me an organization that is working on ending unsafe abortions in Africa, please.  I’ll happily add it to my charitable contributions list.

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Daily Dose of Hate – Money

6 Comments / Day to Day, Health and Wellness, Money Talks, Pet Peeves /

Don’t ask me why I am reading I will teach you to be rich, I can’t answer that question anymore than I could have answered it when I was reading Hello Dollar.  Maybe I can answer it.  Now that I think about it.  I think I am reading it (and read Hello Dollar before it) because it’s almost normal to do so and I have hope that I won’t always hate thinking about money, talking about money, moving money around and spending money.  Being rich is not my thing, paying my bills is my thing and that’s pretty much where I draw the line.  If I’ve got more money around than that, then I give it away. 

Where was I?  Oh yea I was here and trying to come up with things I hate spending money on – like a normal person.  The answer everything is not normal, right?  So I read the post and the comments and then the follow up post and comments.  And I saved both as new and released them and went back and grabbed them and saved them as new and then released them again.  See, even reading blogs about money makes me more nuts than I already am!  What do I hate spending money on?  Here’s my list, and it’s making me nervous to even begin to type it.  Not as nervous as that 101 things list but close….

1) Healthcare.  After 41 years of not paying for healthcare, of never paying for a prescription and of buying over the counter medications only rarely, I still can’t get use to paying for healthcare.  Either the insurance payments or the copays.  Michelle and Chris’s copays I pretty much have gotten use to but my own and TW’s – those make no sense.  I am always surprised by something that either is or isn’t covered and in my head any RX copay should be $9, that’s the Tricare way and I’m finally use to that.  Avmed and Blue Cross should both follow along, it’s the only thing Tricare seems to do right.

2) "Well Car Check-ups".  These make absolutely no sense to me at all.  I hate them, hate spending money on them and have finally, after the last one, refused to ever participate in them again.  Ever.  For any reason.

3) Parking.  I hate paying for parking whether it is a parking meter or a parking garage or airport parking or a field across from a concert. 

4) Service charges when buying tickets or services online.  $3.95 service charge at Gatorfood.  $7.50 at Ticketmaster.  $2 at  Fandango.  Blah. 

And there you go.  My list.  Kind of boring.  I could have talked about how I hate spending money on food and stuff like that but that would scare you, some of you more than others but still probably not a good to scare you for no good reason, right?

What’s on your list?  Weird stuff like food or normal stuff like parking?

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Daily Dose of Travel – Atlanta

9 Comments / Holidays, Kid Talk, Money Talks, Travel Log /

We’ll be heading to Atlanta soon.  We being me, TW and Michelle.  This weekend will be part of Michelle’s 16th birthday celebration – woohoo!  (Did I sound properly enthusiastic?  Let me try again WOOHOOOO!)

We’re staying at the Beautiful Mid-Town Wyndham.  We’re going shopping at the Junkman’s Daughter (or whatever it’s called) in L5P.  We’re going to hit the bookstore, Charis, that I recently blogged about.  I think we’ll take Michelle to Mary Mac’s ’cause everyone needs to go to a southern tea room, once.  Besides there are tons of vegetarian choices!  The most important part of this trip though is…

IKEA

Michelle is getting a grown up bedroom for her birthday so we’re hitting IKEA in order to do that.  This will be her virgin IKEA visit and only the second visit for me and TW.  Someone remind me to bring the camera!  We’re excited!  WOOHOOOO!

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Daily Dose of Money – Taxes

5 Comments / Money Talks /

I did my taxes yesterday with Turbo Tax. I’m getting a refund. A really small refund and probably the last one I’ll ever see. Darn it.


Turbo Tax has this interesting little money stealer option that allows you to use your refund, in part or in full, to purchase gift cards for use at places like Starbucks and Expedia. If you elect to do this, you get bonus dollars – you buy a $20 Starbucks gift card for $15. Seems like a good idea, if you go to Starbucks every morning and spend $10 like we do, right? No, not really.


First problem is that there is a $14.99 handling fee applied. So if you buy $100 worth of cards you’re not saving $25, you’re only saving $10. Still, a savings is a savings, right? Wrong. You can only get cards in $20 increments which is less than two trips for me. That’s five of those plastic cards littering up the universe. I mean please, give me the option to get ONE card with $100 and then I might consider.


Now the Expedia option, it’s a better deal. Minimum purchase is $300 which you actually pay $250 for. Factor in your $14.99 and it’s still a nice enough deal, isn’t it? Especially if you’re planning on buying your airplane tickets for Blogher through expedia.


Do any of you think this new Turbo Tax feature is a good idea? Would you consider using your tax refund to buy all of those Christmas gift cards now and get it out of the way? Or is that $14.99 handling fee going to make it less appealing?


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Daily Dose of Cars – Prius

1 Comment / Money Talks /

It’s time for my last Prius blog entry, for awhile at least. The big questions are how does it drive and will I be buying one.

I just read the Driving a Toyota Prius in Winter dude’s blog (which is an interesting blog, by the way) where he calls the Prius “futuristic” and that’s about right. Driving it feels futuristic and getting into a “regular car” after driving it for a week just exaggerated that feeling for me. Besides the futuristic feeling of it, it drives pretty not bad. It’s definitely a better around town car than it is an interstate driving car. It doesn’t have much pick up and the brakes are seriously sensitive. The wind grabs it a bit but it grabs all small cars and big vans. How does it drive? It drives nice.

I want one. And I believe I’ll be buying one. Someday. Not a white one. And I want one with the back-up camera (don’t even ask me how that works because I don’t know) but not the DVD player. Yep, I want to spend $30,000 for a whaleyboy car. I sure do.

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Daily Dose of Music – MP3 Players

Holidays, Money Talks, Sights & Sounds /

I mentioned in my ABC’s of 2005 that six MP3 players have come through our home this year and now you folks get my oh so knowledgable review. I know you’ve been waiting for this before buying your own MP3 players, haven’t you?

First, the iRiver H10. TW bought this for me for my birthday and at first I was just a wee bit disappointed because I really really wanted an iPod Nano. But within moments, disappointment was a distant memory and has never returned. The iRiver is easy to use, it’s quick and it’s sturdy. Love, love, love this little toy so very much. Loved it so much that I bought one for my oldest daughter for Christmas and I do believe she also loves it.

Next into our world was the Samsung YP-T8X purchased for the 10 year old for her birthday by her father and stepmother. It’s got a really nice display and it is shiny shiny. It plays video but she’s only got a 512mb player and that’s just not going to work. I don’t believe the display and shiny shiny is really worth the money money for that tiny player.

Oddly enough, TW and I had purchased a Creative MUVO for that same 10 year old’s birthday. Easy to use, batteries seem to last a pretty long time. The only problem is the buttons don’t feel “substantial”. They feel like they could be easily broken. But so far, so good. She likes the interchangeable color cases but seems to be sticking with the red. And, she’s had some fun with the voice recorder.

Next up, the iRiver T30 for Michelle for Christmas. Similar to the Creative but the buttons are more substantial. The menu navigation is a little tough to get use to at first (though that could be related to the fact that I’ve played with so many players in the last 3 months) but Michelle has it sussed and is thrilled with it. Nice loud sound, which she loves.

And last but certainly not least, Chris NEEDED the iPod Nano. He could not be persuaded otherwise. He’s an apple nut and loyal til the end. So, his father purchased the Nano. When it arrived, I did what I had done for all of the other kids, I started loading some music on it so they could listen to something besides the pre-loaded crud that arrives with these things. The nav wheel is sensitive! And there are soooo many menu options, I got lost quickly. Then the darn thing wouldn’t turn off and I had to reset it. Sheesh. (Did I mention my brief moment of disappointment at not getting a Nano never returned?) But, it is pretty and tiny and light and I knew he would love it – and he did. I just hope he doesn’t break it or lose it, he’s not the most ummm responsible of the six children… And, I surely hope iTunes is easier to use on a Mac than it is on a PC. What a pain in the rear that was.

There you have it, my MP3 player reviews. The one thing they all had in common was my pure HATRED for putting those little felty covers on the ear buds. That just stunk, with every single player!

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Daily Dose of Kids – Lisa Frank

Kid Talk, Money Talks, Pet Peeves /

Some of you may remember the infamous day last month when I celebrated E’s birthday with not one, but two trips to the store for replacement Lisa Frank backpack and lunchbox. (for those who missed it, the dog ate them). Well now you lucky folks get the update on this situation…

Exactly one week after the purchase of those replacement items, E came home with a completely busted zipper on the backpack. Argh. I was done with this situation so I dragged her to Office Depot and forced her to choose a real backpack. She was not happy about this. These backpacks were just plain old backpacks, sure to last more than a week, and there was no bright color beautiful (aka horrendous) backpack in sight. She pouted. She stomped. She whined. She refused to choose. She insisted I take her somewhere else for something pretty. The Denise voice was used and we came home with a plain powder blue backpack that has now lasted quite nicely for just shy of one month. Success. (I also purchased a real backpack for his highness, J, because he’d been walking around with a rip in the brand new backpack his other parents bought him and the zipper broke on it as well. Some folks need a lesson in back to school shopping or they ought to leave it to the professionals… whatever).

Fast forward a few weeks and we see E climb into the car after school with a broken Lisa Frank lunchbox! I’m not kidding. The little plastic ring that you slip the velcro tab to close it came off. Seemed relatively functional to me so I wasn’t all that concerned with it. Two minutes later I see whiteness floating in the air when I glanced in the rearview mirror and I hear RJ shrieking at E to stop throwing that stuff at her. Sigh. The child decided it would be fun to tear the lunchbox completely apart and throw it at her sister. Again the Denise voice was used and I decided to share a little bit of health news with the child…

That stuff she was happily tearing apart and playing with and throwing all over the place might just contain high levels of lead. And E, did you know that lead is really dangerous? The fluff stops flying.

Lisa Frank’s lunchboxes might not be on the list of death boxes but then again, we didn’t test the darn thing. Regardless, no more Lisa Frank products will be purchased by any member of the Flamingo House family. We’re done with Lisa Frank and her beautiful colorful madness. Good riddance is all I can say about it.

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