43 year old, 4 kids (2 teens, 2 small), 2 divorces, 4 jobs so if something goes arye is a temper tantrum allowed?
My thought is it is OK and necessary to vent once in while. A tantrum is OK if it doesn't happened on an every day basis.
Anyone else ever have a tantrum?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
To keep Landline or not, just what is the best suggestion
I have a landline with long distance & dial up internet for which I pay about $65 per month and do not use very often, except for the internet. I pay $15 per month to internet provider, Cell phone bill of $55 per month and cable tv for $50. But is it feasible to drop the landline? I have children at home and do have babysitters once in a while therefore if there was an emergency the cell phone nor vonage or something similar would not have the exact address of the home. As far as bundling we live in a rural area therefore there is not much choice as to bundling. Any other suggestions, experiences, ideas?
Monday, April 28, 2008
Do you know what a Loan Shark Is?
Here is a prime example.
Here are CashCall's current rates. Please be aware that not all applicants will qualify for every loan product or the lowest interest rate for a particular loan product. Some applicants will not qualify for any of our products. Our lowest rates and higher loan products are reserved for customers with excellent credit. CashCall reserves the right to change the rates and loan products listed below without notice.
What state do you live in?
Loan Product Borrower Proceeds Loan Fee APR Number of Payments Payment Amount
$10,000 Loan* $9,925 $75 29.26% 120 $256.26
$10,000 Loan $9,925 $75 59.46% 120 $493.22
$5,075 Loan $5,000 $75 70.08% 84 $294.50
$2,600 Loan $2,525 $75 99.25% 42 $216.55
*Exceptionally qualified applicants only
Loans made to residents of California, Idaho, New Mexico, and Utah will be underwritten and funded by CashCall. Loans made to residents of all other states (excluding Iowa, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and West Virginia) will be underwritten and funded by First Bank of Delaware (Member FDIC).
STAY AWAY FROM THESE LOAN SHARKS!
Here are CashCall's current rates. Please be aware that not all applicants will qualify for every loan product or the lowest interest rate for a particular loan product. Some applicants will not qualify for any of our products. Our lowest rates and higher loan products are reserved for customers with excellent credit. CashCall reserves the right to change the rates and loan products listed below without notice.
What state do you live in?
Loan Product Borrower Proceeds Loan Fee APR Number of Payments Payment Amount
$10,000 Loan* $9,925 $75 29.26% 120 $256.26
$10,000 Loan $9,925 $75 59.46% 120 $493.22
$5,075 Loan $5,000 $75 70.08% 84 $294.50
$2,600 Loan $2,525 $75 99.25% 42 $216.55
*Exceptionally qualified applicants only
Loans made to residents of California, Idaho, New Mexico, and Utah will be underwritten and funded by CashCall. Loans made to residents of all other states (excluding Iowa, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and West Virginia) will be underwritten and funded by First Bank of Delaware (Member FDIC).
STAY AWAY FROM THESE LOAN SHARKS!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Have you ever noticed delayed gas pumping but price still registers?
I notice this all the time but never really thought much of it until I read the following article. Guess it's just another way to "RIP OFF" the customer!
Common glitch at pump adds to gas costs, also cheats station
By Michael Gormley, Associated Press Writer
Common glitch in gas pumps can give consumers less gas, can also cheat gas stations
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Angry about the price of gas? Just imagine paying for gas you don't get. Some alert consumers have noticed it over the years: A pump that seems to hesitate a second when the lever is squeezed. Anywhere from 2 to 6 cents tick off before the rush of gasoline starts. That's what happens with a common, hard to diagnose and mostly ignored problem with the "check valve," which is supposed to make sure gas flows at the same time the price meter starts.
But even if your gas pump works, it can still be off as much as $5 for every fill up. Tests by local regulators allow a pump to charge as much as 6 cents more than the gas delivered in a five-gallon test.
Don't blame the gas guys. Even consumer advocates say retailers may be losing as often as consumers and no one appears able to rig the meters. But the small "check valve" at the end of the multibillion dollar industry just wears out, and often goes unnoticed for months.
Regulators' records show short staffing, particularly for financially struggling counties that try to inspect pumps every six months, but too often don't even meet the one-year requirement in states like New York.
Federal standards require all gas pumps to start pumping gas as soon as the price meter starts, said Ken Butcher of the National Institute of Standards of Technology, part of the U.S. Commerce Department.
Bob Wolfram knew something was wrong when the pump he used in Davenport, Iowa, showed he put two more gallons of gas into his tank than the tank holds.
"I was low, but it wasn't negative," said Wolfram, a 54-year-old engineer.
He reported it to a consumer Web site then took it to the government regulators, who acted promptly. But even then, the test showed the pump was only off a quart.
"I just kind of said, `What will they do next?'" Wolfram said.
Correcting the problem depends on alert, well-informed consumers like Wolfram. It also depends on honest retailers who choose to pass along reports to regulators who must confirm the problem before an authorized repair company is called to fix it.
"There's one Mobil owner, he tells clerks that if there's a discrepancy within $5 to reimburse the customer," said C. Todd Godlewski, director of the Schenectady County Bureau of Weights and Measures in upstate New York, the agency that inspects pumps.
"Yes, it can be that much," he said.
A bad valve can also work against retailers, freezing the price gauge for an instant after gas starts. No one's sure who gets gored more, or how deeply.
"Even one penny on the amount of petroleum pumped annually or weekly at a station would be several thousand gallons of fuel, and add that up," Godlewski said. "If you have a meter that is costing a customer, it adds up quite a bit."
The problem compounds the aggravation of record high gas prices. On Tuesday, the national average hit a record $3.51 per gallon, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. That's nearly 66 cents higher than last year, and rising.
"We'll hear complaints about this quite regularly, usually several each week," said Jason Toews, co-founder of the independent nationwide Web site GasBuddy.com that tracks prices and complaints.
"It's mostly about the principle of it," he said. He said the problem usually only costs a consumer pennies per fill-up, but that's more than enough these days.
Toews discounts the conspiracy theories that blame the problem on retailers or the oil industry. Most retailers, he said, wouldn't know how to alter the pumps to their benefit.
A New York Comptroller's Office audit in 2000 found "many municipalities" statewide failed to inspect their pumps once a year as required (the best practice is two inspections every year) and that meters were corrected during testing, which could mask overcharging. Four years later, a follow-up audit found only partial resolution, partly because of too little staffing.
Bob Renkes of the Petroleum Equipment Institute based in Tulsa, Okla., has heard about complaints, "mostly when gas prices are high." He said meters "get looser over time," which could make them malfunction and start to count pennies before fuel starts pumping.
"I think our industry would love to replace anything that wears down," Renkes said. But the check valves aren't a high priority when the industry is dealing with issues such as preventing identity theft when swipe cards are used, static electricity discharges and the 5 percent of retailers whose old mechanical equipment can't register a price of $4 a gallon.
State and local regulators doubt any but the most ambitious consumers would contact them in case of a problem, even though the phone numbers are on inspection stickers. More likely, consumers fume and wonder if they were cheated, or report it to the manager of the gas station or convenience store.
"That's what's tough about this," said Jessica Chittenden, spokeswoman for New York's weights and measures office that oversees local inspectors. "The two cents or whatever would go to the retailer."
Even when a report is made, and a local inspector is dispatched, the problem might not be fixed.
Chittenden said a faulty valve would likely work sporadically: "It's very difficult to find it unless you are there every day several times a day."
Godlewski, the upstate New York inspector, said he's found pumps off by as much as three times the 6-cent threshold. Because of it, his county this year is tracking pump problems and hopes to quantify it for the first time.
"You ask yourself," he said, "`If nobody said anything ... and it's run like that for six months, how many were taken?'"
Common glitch at pump adds to gas costs, also cheats station
By Michael Gormley, Associated Press Writer
Common glitch in gas pumps can give consumers less gas, can also cheat gas stations
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Angry about the price of gas? Just imagine paying for gas you don't get. Some alert consumers have noticed it over the years: A pump that seems to hesitate a second when the lever is squeezed. Anywhere from 2 to 6 cents tick off before the rush of gasoline starts. That's what happens with a common, hard to diagnose and mostly ignored problem with the "check valve," which is supposed to make sure gas flows at the same time the price meter starts.
But even if your gas pump works, it can still be off as much as $5 for every fill up. Tests by local regulators allow a pump to charge as much as 6 cents more than the gas delivered in a five-gallon test.
Don't blame the gas guys. Even consumer advocates say retailers may be losing as often as consumers and no one appears able to rig the meters. But the small "check valve" at the end of the multibillion dollar industry just wears out, and often goes unnoticed for months.
Regulators' records show short staffing, particularly for financially struggling counties that try to inspect pumps every six months, but too often don't even meet the one-year requirement in states like New York.
Federal standards require all gas pumps to start pumping gas as soon as the price meter starts, said Ken Butcher of the National Institute of Standards of Technology, part of the U.S. Commerce Department.
Bob Wolfram knew something was wrong when the pump he used in Davenport, Iowa, showed he put two more gallons of gas into his tank than the tank holds.
"I was low, but it wasn't negative," said Wolfram, a 54-year-old engineer.
He reported it to a consumer Web site then took it to the government regulators, who acted promptly. But even then, the test showed the pump was only off a quart.
"I just kind of said, `What will they do next?'" Wolfram said.
Correcting the problem depends on alert, well-informed consumers like Wolfram. It also depends on honest retailers who choose to pass along reports to regulators who must confirm the problem before an authorized repair company is called to fix it.
"There's one Mobil owner, he tells clerks that if there's a discrepancy within $5 to reimburse the customer," said C. Todd Godlewski, director of the Schenectady County Bureau of Weights and Measures in upstate New York, the agency that inspects pumps.
"Yes, it can be that much," he said.
A bad valve can also work against retailers, freezing the price gauge for an instant after gas starts. No one's sure who gets gored more, or how deeply.
"Even one penny on the amount of petroleum pumped annually or weekly at a station would be several thousand gallons of fuel, and add that up," Godlewski said. "If you have a meter that is costing a customer, it adds up quite a bit."
The problem compounds the aggravation of record high gas prices. On Tuesday, the national average hit a record $3.51 per gallon, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. That's nearly 66 cents higher than last year, and rising.
"We'll hear complaints about this quite regularly, usually several each week," said Jason Toews, co-founder of the independent nationwide Web site GasBuddy.com that tracks prices and complaints.
"It's mostly about the principle of it," he said. He said the problem usually only costs a consumer pennies per fill-up, but that's more than enough these days.
Toews discounts the conspiracy theories that blame the problem on retailers or the oil industry. Most retailers, he said, wouldn't know how to alter the pumps to their benefit.
A New York Comptroller's Office audit in 2000 found "many municipalities" statewide failed to inspect their pumps once a year as required (the best practice is two inspections every year) and that meters were corrected during testing, which could mask overcharging. Four years later, a follow-up audit found only partial resolution, partly because of too little staffing.
Bob Renkes of the Petroleum Equipment Institute based in Tulsa, Okla., has heard about complaints, "mostly when gas prices are high." He said meters "get looser over time," which could make them malfunction and start to count pennies before fuel starts pumping.
"I think our industry would love to replace anything that wears down," Renkes said. But the check valves aren't a high priority when the industry is dealing with issues such as preventing identity theft when swipe cards are used, static electricity discharges and the 5 percent of retailers whose old mechanical equipment can't register a price of $4 a gallon.
State and local regulators doubt any but the most ambitious consumers would contact them in case of a problem, even though the phone numbers are on inspection stickers. More likely, consumers fume and wonder if they were cheated, or report it to the manager of the gas station or convenience store.
"That's what's tough about this," said Jessica Chittenden, spokeswoman for New York's weights and measures office that oversees local inspectors. "The two cents or whatever would go to the retailer."
Even when a report is made, and a local inspector is dispatched, the problem might not be fixed.
Chittenden said a faulty valve would likely work sporadically: "It's very difficult to find it unless you are there every day several times a day."
Godlewski, the upstate New York inspector, said he's found pumps off by as much as three times the 6-cent threshold. Because of it, his county this year is tracking pump problems and hopes to quantify it for the first time.
"You ask yourself," he said, "`If nobody said anything ... and it's run like that for six months, how many were taken?'"
Friday, April 25, 2008
A Job In Direct Sales
My #3 & #4 jobs are in direct sales. I sell Tastefully Simple easy to prepare gourmet foods and also sell Avon products both which can be ordered and shipped directly to your home. These I have found to be the better of direct sales. You can make 36% from both with little to no selling. Both products sell themselves and very little at home party shows. I don't know about anyone else but me and my group of friends are "partied" out! In the last 2 to 3 months we have been to or hosted Tupperware, Lia Sophia jewelry, Sensario spa products, Uppercase living, Southern Home living, At Home America, Partylite, Home and garden, and adult pleasure parties. Is there any other kind of party left out there that we haven't ordered from, arrr.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Food Rationing! Oh My Geez, What Next?!?!?!
Last night on the news I was stated that Sam's Club are limiting rice purchases to 4 bags per person. I could not believe what I was hearing. Here are 2 articles from this week about food rationing.
Load Up the Pantry
R.O.I.
By BRETT ARENDS
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.
The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.
“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.
Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.
An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.
The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.
“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”
Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of a new contract for foreign rice sales.
“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”
Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.
“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”
At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.
Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.
An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.
For now, rice is available at Asian markets in California, though consumers have fewer choices when buying the largest bags. “At our neighborhood store, it’s very expensive, more than $30” for a 25-pound bag, a housewife from Mountain View, Theresa Esquerra, said. “I’m not going to pay $30. Maybe we’ll just eat bread.”
Load Up the Pantry
R.O.I.
By BRETT ARENDS
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.
The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.
“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.
Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.
An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.
The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.
“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”
Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of a new contract for foreign rice sales.
“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”
Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.
“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”
At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.
Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.
An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.
For now, rice is available at Asian markets in California, though consumers have fewer choices when buying the largest bags. “At our neighborhood store, it’s very expensive, more than $30” for a 25-pound bag, a housewife from Mountain View, Theresa Esquerra, said. “I’m not going to pay $30. Maybe we’ll just eat bread.”
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The differance between Woman and Men....
I received this in an email and thought how true it is. What's the guys fascination?
Part I: HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A WOMAN
Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according
to lights and darks.
Walk to bathroom wearing a long dressing gown. If you see husband
along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Look at your womanly physique in the mirror and make mental note to do
more sit ups, leg lifts, etc.
Get in the shower. Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah,
wide loofah and pumice stone.
Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added
vitamins.
Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.
Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner.
Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until
red.
Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.
Shave armpits and legs.
Rinse conditioner off hair.
Turn off shower.
Squeegee all wet surfaces in the shower.
Spray mold spots with Tilex.
Get out of shower.
Dry with towel the size of a small country.
Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.
Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Part II: HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A MAN
Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them
in a pile.
Walk naked to the bathroom. If you see wife along with way, shake
wiener at her while making the woo-woo sound.
Look at your manly physique in the mirror. Admire the size of your
wiener and scratch your ass.
Get in the shower.
Wash your face.
Wash your armpits.
Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse the snot off.
Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.
Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.
Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the soap.
Wash your hair. Make a shampoo mohawk.
Pee.
Rinse off and get out of the shower.
Partially dry off.
Fail to notice water on floor because the curtain was hanging out of
the tub the whole time.
Admire wiener size in mirror again.
Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on the floor, light and fan on.
Return to bedroom with towel around the waist.
If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and make the
woo-woo sound again.
Throw wet towel on her pillow.
***If there is anyone among you who did not laugh at some of the truth
behind this, there is something SO very wrong with you. Have a great
day!
Oh, and .... woo-woo!!!
Part I: HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A WOMAN
Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according
to lights and darks.
Walk to bathroom wearing a long dressing gown. If you see husband
along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Look at your womanly physique in the mirror and make mental note to do
more sit ups, leg lifts, etc.
Get in the shower. Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah,
wide loofah and pumice stone.
Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added
vitamins.
Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.
Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner.
Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until
red.
Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.
Shave armpits and legs.
Rinse conditioner off hair.
Turn off shower.
Squeegee all wet surfaces in the shower.
Spray mold spots with Tilex.
Get out of shower.
Dry with towel the size of a small country.
Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.
Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Part II: HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A MAN
Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them
in a pile.
Walk naked to the bathroom. If you see wife along with way, shake
wiener at her while making the woo-woo sound.
Look at your manly physique in the mirror. Admire the size of your
wiener and scratch your ass.
Get in the shower.
Wash your face.
Wash your armpits.
Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse the snot off.
Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.
Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.
Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the soap.
Wash your hair. Make a shampoo mohawk.
Pee.
Rinse off and get out of the shower.
Partially dry off.
Fail to notice water on floor because the curtain was hanging out of
the tub the whole time.
Admire wiener size in mirror again.
Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on the floor, light and fan on.
Return to bedroom with towel around the waist.
If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and make the
woo-woo sound again.
Throw wet towel on her pillow.
***If there is anyone among you who did not laugh at some of the truth
behind this, there is something SO very wrong with you. Have a great
day!
Oh, and .... woo-woo!!!
Monday, April 21, 2008
How Are You Going To Spend Your Stimulus Check?
The following gives a good insight of what is happening in America. I thought this was a topic since I visited my hometown swappers meet this past weekend. This was the first open weekend of the season although the weather was just OK there were more sellers and buyers than I expected. This was exciting for me since it has been about 12 years since I last attended.
As you may have heard, the Administration said each of us would get a rebate check to stimulate the economy.
If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China. If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs, if we purchase a computer it will go to India, if we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, if we purchase a good car it will go to Japan, if we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.
We need to keep that money here in America. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it at yard sales, since those are the only businesses still in the U.S.
As you may have heard, the Administration said each of us would get a rebate check to stimulate the economy.
If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China. If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs, if we purchase a computer it will go to India, if we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, if we purchase a good car it will go to Japan, if we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.
We need to keep that money here in America. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it at yard sales, since those are the only businesses still in the U.S.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Prices UP in general
Not only are gas prices up to $3.39 here in Minnesota but so is a gallon of Milk. For Kemps 2% I paid $4.59. Eggs are also up, guess $1.00 for a dozen farm fresh eggs isn't so bad. Can not imagine what the prices are going to be in the summer. I notice I have been using more & more coupons & doing the B1G1 Free deals. Here are some coupons and deals to help you out.
Land O Lakes 1/2 sticks of butter, 1lb refund
http://www.landolakes.com/pdf/trymefree-08.pdf
$1/1 Hungry Man Dinner
http://www.hungry-man.com
$1 off Vlasic
http://www.crunchinthefastlane.com
Target coupons
http://sites.target.com/site/en/supertarget/page.jsp?title=coupons_specials
$.50 off any T. Marzetti dip, hummus or croutons
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?qnm=rdodbsy88568994&bt=wi&o=52022&c=TM&p=K3HIYXVL
Will try and post more later. Have a good day.
Land O Lakes 1/2 sticks of butter, 1lb refund
http://www.landolakes.com/pdf/trymefree-08.pdf
$1/1 Hungry Man Dinner
http://www.hungry-man.com
$1 off Vlasic
http://www.crunchinthefastlane.com
Target coupons
http://sites.target.com/site/en/supertarget/page.jsp?title=coupons_specials
$.50 off any T. Marzetti dip, hummus or croutons
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?qnm=rdodbsy88568994&bt=wi&o=52022&c=TM&p=K3HIYXVL
Will try and post more later. Have a good day.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The death of the coupon
Article listed in MSN Money Central
By Melinda Fulmer
If you still clip to save -- and increasingly fewer of us do -- you'll soon be able to stop. Instead, you'll get discounts electronically. Here's how that will work. Paper coupons appear to be headed the way of the VCR. Grocery chains, food and drug manufacturers, and even coupon marketers themselves are going electronic. The concept is almost as simple as scissors and the Sunday paper: Visit a Web site, type in your loyalty codes, and find all the coupons waiting for you, electronically, at a store's cash register or on your cell phone.
The hope is that these electronic discounts will revive the dying coupon business. Only 0.5% of the 285 billion coupons issued last year were redeemed, according to coupon processor NCH, down from an average of 1% a decade ago.
Part of the problem is that newspaper readership is declining, so fewer people are looking at the Sunday circulars. The younger shoppers sought by marketers read their news online. And fewer people these days have time to clip, organize and sort coupons each week.
But apparently, we all seem to make time to surf the Net and talk on our cell phones, so these areas are where the industry is casting its net for savers.
"We are committed to reaching our customers when and where they are most receptive," says Jenifer Nunnelley, a Procter & Gamble spokeswoman.
Should you ditch the Sunday paper? Not yet. At least 75% of the coupons issued are still in the old Sunday circular, said Stephanie Nelson of the coupon mom, a site that helps shoppers combine these coupons with sale items to get the biggest discounts.
And grocery chains and food and drug companies have no plans to cut out these paper coupons until they see that enough people have migrated to the Web for discounts.
What are your thoughts on this? Mine is that there should be many ways to be able to save whether it be paper, electronic, online whatever it may be. I remember a time that my grocery store issued a plastic card lie a credit card and every time you checked out they would swipe it and you would get additional savings. Whatever happened to that techique.
By Melinda Fulmer
If you still clip to save -- and increasingly fewer of us do -- you'll soon be able to stop. Instead, you'll get discounts electronically. Here's how that will work. Paper coupons appear to be headed the way of the VCR. Grocery chains, food and drug manufacturers, and even coupon marketers themselves are going electronic. The concept is almost as simple as scissors and the Sunday paper: Visit a Web site, type in your loyalty codes, and find all the coupons waiting for you, electronically, at a store's cash register or on your cell phone.
The hope is that these electronic discounts will revive the dying coupon business. Only 0.5% of the 285 billion coupons issued last year were redeemed, according to coupon processor NCH, down from an average of 1% a decade ago.
Part of the problem is that newspaper readership is declining, so fewer people are looking at the Sunday circulars. The younger shoppers sought by marketers read their news online. And fewer people these days have time to clip, organize and sort coupons each week.
But apparently, we all seem to make time to surf the Net and talk on our cell phones, so these areas are where the industry is casting its net for savers.
"We are committed to reaching our customers when and where they are most receptive," says Jenifer Nunnelley, a Procter & Gamble spokeswoman.
Should you ditch the Sunday paper? Not yet. At least 75% of the coupons issued are still in the old Sunday circular, said Stephanie Nelson of the coupon mom, a site that helps shoppers combine these coupons with sale items to get the biggest discounts.
And grocery chains and food and drug companies have no plans to cut out these paper coupons until they see that enough people have migrated to the Web for discounts.
What are your thoughts on this? Mine is that there should be many ways to be able to save whether it be paper, electronic, online whatever it may be. I remember a time that my grocery store issued a plastic card lie a credit card and every time you checked out they would swipe it and you would get additional savings. Whatever happened to that techique.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Anyone else nickel and dimed to death?
I guess there are several ways to get nickeled and dimed to death. For example used or older vehicles, kids, etc.... Today, however, for me it is my kids' school. Seems like they need you to provide money for everything. Today they sent home an invitation for "Granparent/special friend day" where you pay for them to come eat with your kids, then the year end Zoo trip cost and cost for t-shirts to be tie-dyed for the kids to wear for the trip so they all match, then comes the registration slips for summer swim lessons, etc.... Anyone else out there in the same boat?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Are you the CEO of housework?
This past Friday we were snowed in and schools closed so what a better day to do my "Spring Cleaning". I washed down all the walls in my house, pulled out all furniture and vacuumed it all down and vacuumed all the carpeting. I have yet to do the windows, those are the worst! Yes it does make one feel good that it is done but does the cleaning ever END? So I busted butt to do all that cleaning Friday and left for the weekend and today there is dusting, laundry and dishes to do, arrrrrr. Why is it that the "Mom" is the only person that is capable of housework? I certainly would like any comments on that question. Sincerely, CEO of Housework :o)
Saturday, April 12, 2008
When will spring arrive?!?!?!?
Am so tired of 50 degrees one day & a blizzard the next. No wonder why we are constantly sick with one thing or another. C'mon SPRING :o) We Minnesotans put up with winter enough months so please quit torturing us.
Anybody else ready for SPRING?
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