Remember my dog ate my blinds? It ended up being a $270 chew toy - thanks to Blinds Chalet for the quick turnaround on some 2" faux wood blinds. 4 blinds replaced in total, including the beastly window you can see on the left of the right frame:
The Suspect (Shown Here Eating a Volleyball)
No one is happier than my neighbors to see blinds replace bedsheets!
Welcome Free By 50 to my Blogroll! I realized that my blogroll had a Free By 50 sized hole in it. If I had to explain Jim's site, I'd say it is similar to ours - math and evidence based personal finance, with frequent diversions into economics. Go get your Free By 50 fix and subscribe today. (You, of course, have noticed that the blogroll is 10 random sites picked from our list, right? Don't expect the world on every post!)
- For NPR - we have an English ticket into a weird story about a Portugese con-man conning, well, all of Portugal into thinking he was a respected Economist.
- The University of Wisconsin is telling "who you know" to take a backseat to "what you know", at least for a pilot program in competency degrees they are offering. Think I have a shot at any subjects?
- Ironman at Political Calculations had a graph which pretty much summarizes the growing Medicare and Social Security issues - a graph of life expectancies for 65 year-olds since 1950. Guess what? If you make it to 65 you're expected to live a lot longer... almost 5 years for a male, and around 5.5 for a female than your peers from 1950.
- A decline in the number of new applications for disability benefits? You better believe it! It would be nice to see this number decline further. (Combine that with the increased ability, at least among white collared workers, to work from home? Physical disabilities may eventually meet their match. More on this in a future post?).
- Control Your Cash slaughters sacred cows on a weekly basis, and yesterday was no different. The next time you're cataloging your DVD collection, taking the bus, or creating your own deodorant - ask yourself, what, exactly, is your time worth? There's a reason important people fly privately.
- Timeless Finance featured an advice column... for convenience stores to find new streams of revenue. Of course, all I could think about was the Cracked article making the rounds about secret uses for Gas Station items.
- 101 Centavos is the only site I'd trust to break down the ridiculous labeling laws which dictate the wording on supermarket products to this day. This particular post is Kosher and Organic.
- At Beating Broke, a counter-argument to the in-vogue paens to total account vision with tools like Mint, Adaptu, Ready For Zero, and Yodlee (and Wesabe, and Buxfer and anyone I missed.) (You guys can all pay me now!).
