7-12-08

One of the rx's I am on is like speed. I have been going like a house afire all day. And I am wiped out. But it's a good kind of tired, like I finally got a bunch of stuff accomplished.

Hope you are better, baldar.

Sounds like you had a good day. Mine started off at 6:30 am. It was the subdivision's annual yard sale today, so of course it was my respnsibility to see that all the yard sale stuff got hauled up from the basement......the same stuff that has been hauled up and down for the past few annual yard sales, and hauled back down. I admire her entreprenuership, but damn.....there comes a time when the trashman should get a bonus. Selling a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff bought at retail, and making a hundred bucks off of it with people that will try to bargain you down from 25 cents to 20 cents.....and spend ten minutes to do it......just doesn't seem that productive to me.

I will never have another yard sale. What a load of time and trouble for so little payoff.

If you itemized taxes donation is the way to go. You haul off stuff as it accumulates (I keep a few bags in a corner of the guest room for everyone to dump their castoffs and when they're full off I go). Lots of places will pick up, too - for just the effort of a phone call you bag, label and set the stuff by curb on the assigned day.

I can claim more value on the donations than I could earn at a yard sale even claiming only the amount items will sale for at the thrift store.

She gives stuff away too.....usually to Cedar Lake Lodge, a home for "mentally impaired" kids, or the AMVETS. They pick up. I think it's the social aspect of the thing she enjoys the most.....that, and going around to the other yard sales to add to the accumulation of junk. I'll never understand it!

Just went out and checked the mailbox.......stimulus check finally arrived....WOOOOHOOOO......$2200.00 of my own money coming back to me in the guise of a gift from our government.

What should I do to help stimulate the economy.....hmmmmm.....perhaps I'll go to the store, and buy $1200.00 worth of canned tuna fish, to use in barter goods when the system breaks down.

Or......I could buy $1200.00 worth of Cialis......not only stimulate the economy......but ME, too!

They say there's a big increase in sales in the adult entertainment industry thanks to the stimulus checks.

perhaps it would help stimulate the economy....at least on a micro scale.....if I gave it away 5 or 10 bucks at a time to people who have already spent their checks.

Sassenach wrote:

They say there's a big increase in sales in the adult entertainment industry thanks to the stimulus checks.

Now tht's an idea....I could go to Trixies, and give it away a buck at a time, and watch young naked ladies cavort and gring for my optic pleasure.

I know one thing.......Home depot ain't gettin' none of it......that place is worth than the Caesar's gambling boat in extracting money from your pockets...

Maybe, just maybe.....I'll save it, to pay for the extra taxes I'll incur this year for "sale of assets" capital gains.

Nah.....how the hell would that stimulate the economy....after all, this is supposed to be a "stimulus" check, and I consider it my patriotic duty to do my part.

The oil companies are hurting right now......maybe I'll go fill up both cars, and buy a gas card for the balance.....that way the oil companies can be assured of having at least a few bucks coming their way to get them over these rough times.

Or.....I guess i could donate it to a political campaign.....but I'm not sophisticated enough to bribe a congressman or senator to support a law for me which might get me a 10,000% percent of return on my money...

I have never given money to a politcal campaign. I have considered it but never followed through.

So kid1 has called 3 times today. Seems there is trouble in paradise. Her friend is fighting with her parents and "having a breakdown". Her friend's older sister is on the trip, too, but was coming back home today and kid1 and friend want to come home with her.

We're a little uncomfortable with this - the sister is 24 and has a friend with her, too, but this particular sister has had emotional troubles of some sort and lives at home in the parents basement. Plus it has been raining all day and they will be after dark getting home.

Yet another call had kid1 in tears saying she's wanted to come home since day 2 because her friend doesn't want to do anything - go to the beach or the pool or shopping. Seems like the parents did not agree to the younger girls leaving early with the older ones. And the parents are not available for us to talk to. Kid1 really knows how to pick 'em.

Dammit, I just wanted to go to the mall today with kid2.

Honestly.....I think I would rather give money to a guy standing under an overpass with a sign hanging around his neck....."please help.....need blowjob.....God Bless"

Poor kid1.....Nothing like being away from home with someone you no longer wanna be with, and having no choice in the matter.

I've had some reservations about this friend for various tho not severe reasons but kid1 is 16. Better to let her learn some lessons the hard way. She never listens to me anyway and me pushing against her just makes her push back.

I actually thought kid1 might be a good influence on the friend. Her parents love my kid. But my kid has boundaries. If she popped off to me like I hear her friend does to her parents we'd have to have a throw down even if she does have a few inches on me, lol. Needless to say, we don't have to. Kid1 is good kid.

The older she gets, the more she'll realize how smart mom and dad actually were.....

Update: kid1 is coming home with the older girls but her friend is not. I expect that will not be a happy vacation house.

I had a $15 gift card from Penney's for my b-day month and I found FOUR tops regularly priced $38 each on clearance. I owed 98 cents (why is there no cent sign on the keyboard?!) total!

God I love a good buy.

Perhaps, just perhaps we will start to see prices on some items going down instead of going up. As people stop spending on non-necessities because of the increase in must haves (gas, food, utilities) maybe the bottom will fall out of the clothes, shoes, household market.

There certainly were a lot of deep cut prices around the mall today.

That is a harbinger of things to come.....they're cheap and discounted exactly because of what you said....people are having to spend on necessities instead of other things....and it will get worse as the months drag on. The economy is between a rock and a very hard spot: on the one hand, you have soaring prices on the basics....food, energy, etc. because of the falling dollar......but if the FED raises interest rates to curb spending and inflation to prop up the dollar, it will slow the economy down to stall or crash. Combine this with the financial crisis's of the banks and brokerages, the housing decline, and the already slowing economy....you have a recipe for an extremely severe recession. The stock market has already realized this.....thus the 3000 plus point decline over the last several months. It's gonna get worse before it gets better....a lot worse, I think. I know you guys are conservatively invested with Cd's and such, which will preserve capital....but if inflation really kicks in, you'll be losing buying power. Now's the time to go into precious metals....and not gold or silver.....but platinum and palladium. Another 2000 points on the market downside, and I'll move back into stocks.