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five more things
Mar. 10th, 2009 10:24 pmI am so brilliant! I am on hold with customer service, and she just came back to ask if I could wait a little longer. So I thought I would post, but my neck is getting sore, so I just sat the phone down on my desk and turned the speaker on. I am now listening to staticy elevator music through a cellphone speaker, but at least my neck is on straight.
I have five more topics to write about, thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grain_damaged. You know the drill--ask if you want five things about which to expound.
(I am no longer on hold, because they don't want to keep me holding that long. She promises to call me right back. We'll see. By the way--this call is part of my new consumerist lifestyle. I should do a post about it at the other blog. Here's the quick summary, though: FOLLOW THROUGH. Always follow through. Write your rebates and promotions on your calendar and set it to nag you. If they don't actually give you the promotion, you didn't save any money!)
Sweden
I wrote about this one forcarrieb's five things here, so I don't have a whole lot to say about this one this time. However, I could add that it's funny how the Swedish connection works. I never thought about it before I met M. There were a few references to Sweden passing through my life at various times, but nothing made me sit up and say, "hey, I think I would like it there!" And yet, I do. M and I have laughed about it on several occasions, that I am almost more Swedish in temperament than he is.
Guns
This one is a funny one because I am actually terrified of guns. I have a serious unease and distaste for them. But M ended up working for this small company that sells firearms and supplies. It's not the absolute most fantastic job that he could ever have but it's pretty nice and it pays enough to finance a stay-at-home-mom sort of lifestyle and all that. But for someone coming from Sweden, where guns are much more tightly regulated, it's pretty funny. He now has a couple of guns that he takes out and plays with at my grandfather's house sometimes. I'm not a fan but what can you do?
I used to be gung ho on wanting more anti-gun laws but I have learned a few things in the last few years of this job. One of these things is that many prospective gun laws are frighteningly stupid and basically just give people false security. Another is that the people who follow gun laws are not generally the ones we need to worry about. And also... this might make me a horrible person and all, but I have also learned that you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. Literally. The gun world has had their panties in a wad about the new administration and how guns! Are all going to be illegal! And sold with magically disappearing ammunition! Or whatever the paranoia is today. Thankfully, that does not appear to be so, and therefore, we still have income. Crass, but that's life.
Nature
I like nature. Really, I do. I like to go on walks and be outside.. when the weather is nice, the dirt is kept to a minimum and the bugs are nonexistent. It gets pretty hot here in the summers, and I don't like being outside then. I don't like being outside when it's cold, either. Spring and fall, really, are the best times to be outside. I dislike discomfort, basically. But in theory, I like nature! I just prefer to see it from behind glass in a climate-controlled location.
DIY
I love the idea of doing and making things yourself. It's so much more satisfying that way, and (usually) cheaper. I made all of Evelyn's last set of cloth diapers and most of her second-to-last set. It was so much more satisfying to see her wearing Mommy-made fluff than factory-made stuff. Where's the personality in mass-produced? Also, my family tends to be pretty handy about doing things themselves, so I have inherited that to some degree. If it's something that I/we *CAN* physically do ourselves, then we pretty much feel like we HAVE to.
This was an interesting topic but I'm having a hard time writing anything about it. I guess that happens sometimes.
Coupons
I like coupons. ("cooop-maaaa!" in Evie-language...haha.) They are a huge pain in the rear sometimes but they are fabulous. Think about it for a second. I am handing over a piece of paper with a barcode instead of a dollar. That dollar stays with me and can go buy something else! I save fifty or sixty percent on my grocery bill these days, and spend nearly nothing on toiletries and household goods. What's not to love?
I have tried to get into using coupons in the past but it never took, and here's why: they are all but a waste of time if you are doing it on a random basis. If you buy the Sunday paper for the coupons ever so often, and then only clip the ones for products you always buy, and then stick them in your wallet and let most of them expire because you don't remember to use them... you will probably not make up the money it took to buy the paper. There's a balance to be learned--you can't buy things just because you have a coupon, but you do have to expand your horizons a little and try new things. You have to be consistent with it, organized about it, and you have to watch the sales to figure out where to spend your coupons. When I first started doing this last year, I got discouraged and skipped a couple of weeks of buying the paper before getting into it completely. Those two weeks of missing coupons haunted my deals for months. Things that would have been free remained on the store shelves because I didn't have access to those coupons. You just kind of have to stick with it. The good news is that there are several sites out there that pretty much spoon-feed you and tell you what to go buy. You can read those sites, make your lists and enhance them with your own deals, and then you walk out of Walgreens having bought two packages of Huggies and one refill package of wipes for a profit of fifty cents, like I did tonight. Easy peasy and fun, too.
I have five more topics to write about, thanks to
grain_damaged. You know the drill--ask if you want five things about which to expound.(I am no longer on hold, because they don't want to keep me holding that long. She promises to call me right back. We'll see. By the way--this call is part of my new consumerist lifestyle. I should do a post about it at the other blog. Here's the quick summary, though: FOLLOW THROUGH. Always follow through. Write your rebates and promotions on your calendar and set it to nag you. If they don't actually give you the promotion, you didn't save any money!)
Sweden
I wrote about this one for
carrieb's five things here, so I don't have a whole lot to say about this one this time. However, I could add that it's funny how the Swedish connection works. I never thought about it before I met M. There were a few references to Sweden passing through my life at various times, but nothing made me sit up and say, "hey, I think I would like it there!" And yet, I do. M and I have laughed about it on several occasions, that I am almost more Swedish in temperament than he is. Guns
This one is a funny one because I am actually terrified of guns. I have a serious unease and distaste for them. But M ended up working for this small company that sells firearms and supplies. It's not the absolute most fantastic job that he could ever have but it's pretty nice and it pays enough to finance a stay-at-home-mom sort of lifestyle and all that. But for someone coming from Sweden, where guns are much more tightly regulated, it's pretty funny. He now has a couple of guns that he takes out and plays with at my grandfather's house sometimes. I'm not a fan but what can you do?
I used to be gung ho on wanting more anti-gun laws but I have learned a few things in the last few years of this job. One of these things is that many prospective gun laws are frighteningly stupid and basically just give people false security. Another is that the people who follow gun laws are not generally the ones we need to worry about. And also... this might make me a horrible person and all, but I have also learned that you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. Literally. The gun world has had their panties in a wad about the new administration and how guns! Are all going to be illegal! And sold with magically disappearing ammunition! Or whatever the paranoia is today. Thankfully, that does not appear to be so, and therefore, we still have income. Crass, but that's life.
Nature
I like nature. Really, I do. I like to go on walks and be outside.. when the weather is nice, the dirt is kept to a minimum and the bugs are nonexistent. It gets pretty hot here in the summers, and I don't like being outside then. I don't like being outside when it's cold, either. Spring and fall, really, are the best times to be outside. I dislike discomfort, basically. But in theory, I like nature! I just prefer to see it from behind glass in a climate-controlled location.
DIY
I love the idea of doing and making things yourself. It's so much more satisfying that way, and (usually) cheaper. I made all of Evelyn's last set of cloth diapers and most of her second-to-last set. It was so much more satisfying to see her wearing Mommy-made fluff than factory-made stuff. Where's the personality in mass-produced? Also, my family tends to be pretty handy about doing things themselves, so I have inherited that to some degree. If it's something that I/we *CAN* physically do ourselves, then we pretty much feel like we HAVE to.
This was an interesting topic but I'm having a hard time writing anything about it. I guess that happens sometimes.
Coupons
I like coupons. ("cooop-maaaa!" in Evie-language...haha.) They are a huge pain in the rear sometimes but they are fabulous. Think about it for a second. I am handing over a piece of paper with a barcode instead of a dollar. That dollar stays with me and can go buy something else! I save fifty or sixty percent on my grocery bill these days, and spend nearly nothing on toiletries and household goods. What's not to love?
I have tried to get into using coupons in the past but it never took, and here's why: they are all but a waste of time if you are doing it on a random basis. If you buy the Sunday paper for the coupons ever so often, and then only clip the ones for products you always buy, and then stick them in your wallet and let most of them expire because you don't remember to use them... you will probably not make up the money it took to buy the paper. There's a balance to be learned--you can't buy things just because you have a coupon, but you do have to expand your horizons a little and try new things. You have to be consistent with it, organized about it, and you have to watch the sales to figure out where to spend your coupons. When I first started doing this last year, I got discouraged and skipped a couple of weeks of buying the paper before getting into it completely. Those two weeks of missing coupons haunted my deals for months. Things that would have been free remained on the store shelves because I didn't have access to those coupons. You just kind of have to stick with it. The good news is that there are several sites out there that pretty much spoon-feed you and tell you what to go buy. You can read those sites, make your lists and enhance them with your own deals, and then you walk out of Walgreens having bought two packages of Huggies and one refill package of wipes for a profit of fifty cents, like I did tonight. Easy peasy and fun, too.
