Category: More

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The Battle of Your Bulges: Weight Loss Programs

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Whether you’re truly overweight like me, or you just think you need to lose a couple of pounds, you’ve probably been sucked into the diet phenomenon at some point in your life. After all, you’ve seen the TV commercials, maybe read some reviews, or even known people who’ve lost a bunch of weight with one of the many weight loss programs. Or maybe, like me, you’ve tried one, two…or ten of them in an attempt to improve your health and your look. So what’s wrong, if anything, that a not-so-small percentage of customers complain about failing with them? Can you actually succeed long term with any of them?

Losing weight can be difficult, but weight loss programs aim to make it easier, at a cost. I review 3 popular programs, and what it takes to lose long term.

Hey Mr. and Mrs. America, You’re Fat!

As a country, America seems to have a real weight problem, greater now than ever before. You may be or may not be actually fat, but you are still often feeling the pressure of losing a few pounds because of health or the ever-present social pressure we all live with to be thin and look “good”. As if you can’t really look good with a little meat on your bones! Continue reading

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Are You an Early Bird or a Night Owl? Why It Matters

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Good morning, good afternoon, and good night! That’s a baseball phrase you might have heard for strikes one, two, and three on a batter, making him out. But in real life, the difference between morning and night is even more important, at least when it comes to whether you’re an early bird or a night owl. Is it better to be a morning person? There’s a real debate about whether or not that is better when it comes to work, play, productivity, health, and more. Amazingly, there is lots of evidence on both sides of the issue. So with the jury still undecided, I’m going to weigh in on it and make my opinion known about these chronotypes.

If you're a morning person or a night owl, there are certain advantages and disadvantages. You need to tailor your lifestyle to your chronotype for success.

My Own Tendency

I have always been a morning person myself. I think it worked best for me and paid off at my workplace. Being in the office to get an early start and organize my day made everything flow much better. On days when I didn’t do that, I felt very much out of sorts and lagging. It is a common thing among early birds. Continue reading

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How to Be Eco-Friendly, Save the Earth, and Save Money Too

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Lately, there has been so much more talk about our environment, climate change, and what’s been happening with the EPA (or as some have been recently calling it the EDA – The Environmental Destruction Agency) that you can’t help but feeling worried, confused, and even desperate to do something to prevent disaster. I hope I am not too late for the party by bringing up a subject that has been around since my first eco-friendly Earth Day back in 1970, but yet I and millions of others can see that we still aren’t fully committed to protecting ourselves from our worst enemy…us.

We need to take care of our home, the Earth. Here are some tips on how to be eco-friendly, save money, and take care of the environment at the same time.

Here’s something that I came to realize late in life and it’s something to really think about when you think about conservation:

Do you realize that the water we have here on earth is exactly the same water that has been here since creation? No more and no less. The only difference is whether or not it’s “clean” water. The water that evaporates every day and returns to us as rain is the same water that you used to wash the car and flush your toilet. It’s finite, so you have to keep it clean and take care of it or we are doomed! Continue reading

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And the 2018 Super Saving Tips Awards Go To…

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It’s baaaaaaaack! Well, it has been a full year since I awarded the Super Saving Tips first annual awards (given at the halfway mark of the year just to be a little bit different). These are the savings awards that I give to the businesses and products that save you the most money or offer the best deals that earn you the most in cash and rewards! Oh, you haven’t heard about them? Hmmm, that’s strange. As I said last year, it was in all the papers. 😉

In my second annual awards, check out my recommendations for best credit card in different categories, best banking offers, and more!

Oh, you don’t read the paper? Well, no problem with that. If you did happen to miss the news this year of these very prestigious awards then let me recap them right here for you now. It will save you some time and money. So, here are the “best of” winners for the last 12 months, in my opinion of course. Continue reading

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The 3 Best Tips to Save Hundreds on Funeral Expenses

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Today’s guest post on funeral expenses is sponsored by Safe Passage Urns.

As funeral costs continue to rise, families are looking for any alternative way to save money. Unless the person who has passed away has a last will or life insurance plan in place, the family of the decedent will be responsible for paying the funeral expenses. These expenses can amount to well over $7,300, which is the national average cost for a burial funeral according to the National Funeral Directors Association. The average American family simply does not have this kind of money laying around to foot the bill, but hopefully, after reading this guide you will be better prepared to save money while planning a funeral.

Funeral costs continue to rise, with the national average for a burial funeral costing $7,300. Here are several ways you can save money on funeral expenses.1. Selecting the Right Funeral Home

The variance between funeral home pricing can be much greater then what you might imagine which is why it is so important to do some comparison shopping beforehand. Some funeral homes charge much more for the same exact services. People will often select a funeral home because it is close to their home or has served their family in the past. It might seem easier to just go with what is most familiar, however, if there is a funeral home that is farther away from your family but it is significantly cheaper than other funeral homes closer by, then it makes sense to drive the extra half hour to save hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars. Continue reading

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Is The Nostalgia Trap Cluttering Up Your Life?

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Last week my wife and I saw the film “Nostalgia” (free of course!) courtesy of AARP’s “Movies for Grown-ups” program for its members and guests that they offer every month or two. Nothing quite like a great night out (with popcorn) and a movie for free! It was great seeing the “Black Panther” premiere the last time too. It’s just another reason why I love the AARP even though some of you have told me that you aren’t particularly a fan. Oh, I might just add that my membership is also free this year thanks to a deal I got through a Walgreen’s promotion, so can that be bad? But I digress, here. The movie we saw, Nostalgia, got us thinking quite a bit. It’s a series of stories about people’s relationships to their memorabilia or the memorabilia of their family members.

My wife and I saw the film Nostalgia last week, and it really started me thinking about the memorabilia and other trappings of nostalgia that many of us collect. So how do we keep these "treasures" from cluttering our homes and our lives?

What today’s post is all about is a little deeper than just seeing a free movie. It is about the role that nostalgia plays in our lives today and what it may mean to you and your family’s future.
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What? – It’s Blogiversary #4!

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Back at the end of 2013, I was forced to stop working and “retire” because of health issues. I had had a heart attack earlier in the year and was also suffering from increased effects from diabetes, making me feel old and for the most part kind of useless. Yes, you could say I was thinking “pity party” and was selling that idea to anyone who would listen. Problem #2: no one wanted to listen.

As I'm celebrating my 4th blogiversary, I look back on where I started. Time flies when you're having fun!

Sunday?

So what does a formerly busy guy do when he’s forced to wind his life down and face the reality that he’s entered into a new phase…and he isn’t really mentally prepared for it? I began to call it the “every day is Sunday” syndrome, and looking at it you may see the reason why. Continue reading

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Why Learning to Say No is So Powerful

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Saying “yes” to almost everything requested from us feels safe, avoids conflicts, and takes less time than pausing to decide whether or not that request is truly important and valuable. Too often we are just so darn busy that we don’t have the time to stop and think about much of anything and so we default to our standard answer, “yes”. That used to describe the way I was, but not today. That’s why I’m learning to say no as my default answer.

As part of our quest for success, we are often conditioned to say yes to every opportunity. But learning to say no gives us the power to determine what's valuable to our work and personal lives. Here's why I'm learning to say no as my default answer.

What Made Me Change My Mind?

Saying no, thoughtfully, may be the most undervalued action of our time. In our world of relentless demands and infinite options, we really need to prioritize our tasks and responsibilities so that they can add the most value to our work and personal lives. That means deciding what to do more of, less of, and what to stop doing altogether. Saying no gives you the time you need to do just that. Continue reading

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Health, Wealth, or Something “Elth”?

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Remembering back to when I was kid (that’s way back!), the local Chinese American restaurant might offer special “family” combinations leading to the iconic phrase “Choice of one from Column A and two from Column B” and its variables. Those restaurant menus used to have long columns of dishes (Column A, Column B, etc.) and whenever you were ordering food family style, it was a pretty cool way for each member of the family to get their own special choices. And even better, it was usually specially priced because you were getting multiple items at once for the big meal.

If life were like a Chinese menu, with choices from column A and column B, what would you select? Are you working in real life to obtain these life choices?

Column A or Column B?

One could choose one item from Column A, two items from Column B, and so forth and this method became so familiar that choices from “Column A” and “Column B” in anything (business, mathematics, whatever) often were called a “Chinese menu” in the slang of the time. The “Column A, Column B” sorta became a joke around the country back then. Continue reading

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12 of My All-Time Favorite Money Songs

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From time to time, I sit down and cruise through YouTube and amuse myself with songs I like and haven’t heard in a while. My days of commuting and listening to the radio every day are in my rearview mirror so to speak, so I use YouTube a lot to revisit my favorites. That led me to write this post about my favorite “money songs”, most of which you probably have heard yourself if not when they were popular but in some cases on the elevator as they might now be part of the “Muzak family” by now.

When we hear a message in a song, it somehow gets through to our brain in a whole different way. Here are 12 of my favorite money songs, each one telling us something about how money affects our lives.

So here are 12 great picks on my list of money songs that can speak to you about life, money, and lessons to be learned. Continue reading