Surely you have heard of this acronym, which stands for “keep it simple, stupid.” Which reminds me of an old joke: A guy has a flat tire on the street next to the insane asylum. He removes the lug nuts from the wheel, pulls it off and replaces it with the spare from the trunk. But as he reaches for the lug nuts, they all fall down the drain gutter. Dismayed, he says to himself “Dang. How am I to get home?” Then he hears a voice coming from a window high up on the building behind him. “Hey, you down there – just take one lug nut off of each of the other three wheels and use them on your spare.”

The driver is elated, “Wow, thanks, man. What is a person as smart as you doing in the crazy house?”

The voice responded, “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.”

Which brings me to my IRS Form 1040.

Continue “KISS me, please”

I have been noticing a lot of buzz among my Facebook friends lately regarding personal wealth, or the lack of it, or the lack of access to it, if you will, among many of the citizens of our great nation, or any nation, for that matter. In any event, those commentaries brought to mind the title question, which was originally posed to me by a reader, who was doubtful at best. She posted the query in a comment to an article I published about a year ago that actually had nothing to do with A-Rod (for those who don’t know what an “A-Rod” might be, this is the media’s term of endearment for a specific and, obviously, very special baseball player with the New York Yankees by the name of Alex Rodriquez). What a great question! I had actually composed a response, but upon going back and having a look at it, I discovered that it was never actually sent. So, here it is:

Continue “Does A-Rod deserve a quarter of a billion dollar contract?”

You might be surprised to learn that the product-dating routinely found stamped on packaged foods in your local grocery is not required by the feds, or anyone else for that matter, except in the case of infant formulas (it surprised me). After all, every food processer/manufacturer I know of would lead us to believe that they know exactly when it is time to chuck those leftover salad dressings, eggs or baloney and replace it or them with a new package.

It was the General Brewing Company of San Francisco that was reportedly the first producer of a food product to add an “age date” to its containers. They started doing this way back in 1935, specifically, on their “Lucky Lager” beer bottles, in order to let their customers know that it had been properly aged. Apparently, other brewers were inclined to ship their beer to market before it was ready, thus exposing all those, well, “un” lucky lager consumers to green beer. It wasn’t until 1985 that the Boston Beer Company began including a “freshness date” on their Samuel Adams product to make sure it wasn’t too aged. And the rest is marketing history.

Continue “Expiry”

WYSIWYG is the acronym for “what you see is what you get” and comes from the world of information technology. It involves a user interface that allows you to view a document on your computer screen with essentially the same editing and graphics with which it will appear when printed. Wouldn’t it be nice if people had such an interface? That is, some way for you to be assured that the pleasant gentleman you just met at a cocktail party is as he appears and is not secretly a pedophile or a serial killer or something.

Continue “WYSIWYG”

I found yesterday that I had forgotten to stuff any folding money in my pocket when I left for work in the morning. My kids both regard cash with disdain. They have completely transitioned to the digital age and use their debit cards almost exclusively. But, being old school (and old), I am still uncomfortable if I don’t have a few bucks in my jeans for emergencies.

Anyway, after work I popped into the local grocery store to pick up something for dinner and, at the checkout, used my debit card to not only make my purchase but to draw down some funds from my checking account. As the clerk handed me my cash, I commented to the elderly gentleman who was bagging my groceries that I felt really uncomfortable with no money. He said he could relate to that.

Continue “The rocky road to good budgeting”