Depending on who you talk to, barbecue sauces have been around since the days of the American colonies.
Wikipedia claims that the first commercial barbecue sauce appeared around 1909. I know; please don't grill me on my source, folks.
And while ...
Continue reading My BBQ Sauce Taste Test: My Family Bucks Conventional Wisdom (Again)
Dogs and Old Cars: Why Both Are Worthy Of Being Man’s Best Friend
I was surfing the Internet this week when I stumbled upon a brilliant essay by The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten on why old dogs make the best dogs. In it, Weingarten astutely observed:
"It's no big deal to love a dog; they make it so easy for ...
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How to Choose a Reasonable Health Care Plan on a Budget
by Patricia Walling
Every year there are millions of Americans who struggle to afford health care. This can be due to insurance companies raising premiums, but there can be other reasons too. For example, many people who are either unemployed or ...
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How Being Absentminded Resulted In A $2750 Year-End Windfall
At least I'm calling it a windfall. Let me explain.
You see, if I leave a twenty dollar bill in a winter jacket only to rediscover it after it has been hanging in the closet for nine months, that's a windfall.
Now I can hear a lot of you out ...
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The Penner Awards: The 10 Craziest Money Blunders of 2010
As 2010 comes to a close, I think it is only appropriate that I share my picks for the ten dumbest money stories of the past year, highlighting some of the most dumbfounding displays of numismatical naivete and financial ineptitude known to ...
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Come On, People. Quit Maligning the Plastic Grocery Bag!
As a Southern California native, I took great interest in the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors decision to save the world by passing an ordinance that bans plastic shopping bags at grocery stores, pharmacies and convenience stores.
The ...
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Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs. (Well, Kinda Sorta.)
As I've previously mentioned, the Penzo household is in the middle of a long-awaited home renovation project with a reliable contractor.
Originally, it was supposed to be a fairly modest kitchen renovation that involved replacing our porcelain ...
Continue reading Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs. (Well, Kinda Sorta.)
The Ugly Truth: Why Big Spenders Are Terrible In Bed
It is a truism that most big spenders are showoffs; they feed off attention.
Ironically, while your typical big spender works 24/7 trying to impress others, most of the time they rarely do so.
There is a small segment of the population, ...
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Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline and Others: What’s the Best Travel Search Engine?
I can't believe I'm saying this, but our annual summer vacation is right around the corner. Weren't we in the throes of a Little Ice Age just last month?
Ah, well.
I'd like to say we were going back to Maui, but unfortunately I drew the short ...
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My Store-Brand vs. Name-Brand Blind Taste-Test Experiment #2
Are name-brand groceries really worth the extra cost when alternative cheaper store-brand groceries are available? More specifically, when it comes to edible products, does the quality and taste of name-brand products always justify the price premium ...
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10 Off-the-Wall Gifts for Open-Minded People
Hey! You know what I haven't seen lately on the blogosphere? A personal finance post on great gift ideas! ;-)
I'm kidding. Kinda. After all, there are already some great pieces on Christmas gift ideas for military members.
So... Are you tired ...
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10 Financial Lessons We Can Learn From Baseball
1. Take Advantage of Opportunities when they Present Themselves - After the 2008 season, the New York Yankees signed CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett on nine-figure multi-year deals. Are these two pitchers the best pitchers around? Probably not (neither ...
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Talkin’ Turkey: Evaluating My Thanksgiving Dinner Scorecard
This year Thanksgiving dinner is at my house. We'll be serving dinner for 16 people including my sister and her family, my mom and dad and the Honeybee's folks.
You know, since he came out to visit a few weeks ago, my father-in-law Tony has taken ...
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Flexible Spending Accounts Provide Free Money. Why Pass It Up?
The relentless rise of health care costs can really put a strain on your household budget. Even with an insurance plan, health care expenses can add up when you consider most people still have to pay deductibles, copayments and other items not cover ...
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Killer Asteroid? Personal Finance Strategies For the End Times
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the sign post up ahead, your next stop...The Personal Finance Twilight ...
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Personal Finance Decisions: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Regular readers know that I absolutely love Clint Eastwood movies. The other day I was watching for the umpteenth time one of my all-time favorites: the classic Sergio Leone spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. While I was watching the ...
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9 Personal Finance Lessons I Learned from Watching The Simpsons
Twenty years ago the series premier of arguably the greatest cartoon ever, The Simpsons, debuted in the United States. Over that time I have watched countless episodes chronicling the lives of Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa Simpson and all of their ...
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How to Avoid Neighbor Conflicts When It’s Time for a New Fence (Part 2)
This is the second part of a two-part series. Click here for part one.
As I noted in part one, over the years I have personally talked to several friends of mine who told me they would rather spend a couple hours in the dentist chair having their ...
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How to Avoid Neighbor Conflicts When It’s Time for a New Fence
Being a homeowner has a lot of responsibilities that renters never have to deal with. Many of the responsibilities are no big deal; others can be extremely unpleasant. One of the most painful homeowner tasks is dealing with the neighbors when a ...
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Inflation: Your Four Best Defenses For Preserving Your Wealth
I kicked off this series on inflation with a warning about why all of us should fear inflation and why the US government needs it to take root in our economy. But I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Forbes posted an excellent article on the coming ...
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