Shhh, insider secret: Consumer product companies want you to be slaves to trends.  Companies that produce automobiles, clothes, furniture, electronics, etc. are all dependent on repeat business (in marketing terms: retention rates) and the only way they can get customers to buy a product again is to argue that their older product is outdated and now has a newer version available.  […]

There’s something about Warren Buffett that makes me feel warm and tingly all over and it’s not his net worth of $62 billion!  Rather it’s a combination of his personality, habits, and life philosophy.   I first saw Warren Buffett on Charlie Rose (he and Charlie are very good friends) and become captivated with him from the get go (I remember […]

With temperatures beginning to drop and cold winds battering against our 83 year old house, we’ve been giving serious consideration to replacing our original, single pane, wood windows.  Our windows also include storm windows that, at one point, guarded against strong gusts of wind (but they are pretty much non-functional at this point). We do like the aesthetics of our […]

There have been some great blog posts on the web this past week focused on happiness and savings, frugal living, how to talk about sensitive money/job issues, etc. and here are the best of the lot: – Trent @TheSimpleDollar talks about Happiness and Saving for the Future – JD @ Get Rich Slowly posted a nice article on great wine […]

One of the first things I do in the morning (even before I have a cup of coffee and say good morning to my wife!) is turn on NPR (National Public Radio).  Listening to the news wakes me up and gets my brain going in the morning and I’m grateful that NPR is available as a free (well, somewhat free; […]

I received a recent email from Dee asking how to prepare real meals (i.e., not your standard sandwiches, tuna, and fast food items) in a practical way and I’ve been giving the question some thought.  Cooking is not rocket science, but it does require that you 1., care about the quality of the food you purchase and 2., set aside […]