Category: Money
Posts about being frugal, getting out of debt, staying out of debt, spending practically and splurging joyfully. This category may also contain posts about hard money and what the government is doing to all that “soft money” it creates.
While Amazon’s recent moves helped spur this, I was planning to do it in any case. Over at the public section of the Cabal, I’ve begun a journal of My month of frugality. Reasons are explained in the thread, but even if most of them don’t resonate with you, it might be a good thing to try this exercise once in a while as part of your preps. We try out our storage foods, change the batteries in our flashlights, even conduct experiments in doing without our household power for a few days. But how many of us test to…
That’s a leap I have not yet decided to risk. —– On Thursday I learned that Amazon is decimating the Associates program and therefore decimating the monthly income of this blog. It may have been inevitable, but nobody saw it coming right now. You guys jumped in to make sure that February, the last month of the old program, went out with a bang. A thousand thank yous for that. But that still left me with decisions to make. About this blog. About earning a living. About whether to go ahead with planned projects. —– It was easy to decide…
… and I’m not talking about the Northwet weather. I’m quoting granny’s old maxim up there in the headline meaning those little old troubles that have a habit of pouring down on our heads in storms instead of mild freshets. I’m talking about car transmissions going haywire followed by news that’s going to take a machete to my blog income. Oh, Amazon. How could you? Actually, I can’t complain about Amazon — though I’m going to, anyhow. In its early days the Associates program (those links to Amazon I’m always going on about, links that provide this blog’s only regular…
Little late, but I just learned about this now (H/T JB): Today only, Amazon is giving an $8.63 coupon for most (not quite all) orders over $50. Check. It. Out! And of course you know which link to use when you enter Amazon to make that purchase. Seems Amazon is also about to start offering some better free-shipping options for non-Prime members. Good stuff.
Got an Internet-connected Vizio TV? Smile, you’re on Candid Camera. And in marketing databases everywhere. The FTC says: Consumers have bought more than 11 million internet-connected Vizio televisions since 2010. But according to a complaint filed by the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General, consumers didn’t know that while they were watching their TVs, Vizio was watching them. The lawsuit challenges the company’s tracking practices and offers insights into how established consumer protection principles apply to smart technology. Starting in 2014, Vizio made TVs that automatically tracked what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers.…