What a ripoff

My Mom actually decided she wanted to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. This in itself is very strange. She has never done this before. There was only one thing that she wanted and it was a Christmas tree. The one shown here was going for 150.00 dollars. We show up and there are quite a few people in front of us but we wait. They finally open the store(it is cold so it feels like a long time). We go inside and head right in the direction of the trees. We finally find someone in the department that tells us the tree we are looking for is out of stock. They only received three of the them. We then go ask customer service if they can call another store. After more waiting they inform us that the other store is also sold out. We head home and check the website. They want 90 dollars for shipping. Unreal.

Happy Thanks Giving

Happy Thankgiving everyone! I am including my own sweet potato recipe. I do not care for the overly sweet potato recipes.

J. Arthur's Delicate Sweet Potatoes
5 sweet potatoes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
3 eggs
1-1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 cup and tablespoons white sugar
2 table spoons and 1-1/2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/4 cup margarin
3 tablespoons and 2-14 teaspoons all purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans


DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. Bake sweet potatoes 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until they begin to soften. Cool slightly, peel, and mash.
3. In a large bowl, mix the mashed sweet potatoes, salt, 1/4 cup butter, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sugar, and heavy cream. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.
4. In a medium bowl, combine 1/4 cup butter, flour, brown sugar, and chopped pecans. Mix with a pastry blender or your fingers to the consistency of course meal. Sprinkle over the sweet potato mixture.
5. Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until topping is crisp and lightly browned.


If you try this one and like it let me know.

Wooo hoooo 3rd worst!

The Riverside-San Bernardino area is ranked as the third worst housing market in the United States. The median house price has fallen by 7.6% according to forbes. I wonder how much further down this will go. And someone did not think that the market was bad here in october.

More Green Bleh

Green must be the new marketing tool. Advertise for good causes without showing exactly how you are contributing does not sound quite so admirable. As I was riding the train into work today one of my fellow commuters pulled out a magazine for Barney's New York. Their current advertising is of course green. Buy our products and we will donate some of the proceeds to good causes. The interesting thing is that not all of the items specify how much money they donate per sale. If you look closely not all of the items donate portions of the sale to a good cause :(.

Go green or go home

This morning I noticed that metrolink was advertising for a credit card again. They are being very sneaky in the way that they advertise. How it works:

You get your employer to sign up for the card. Each month you employer puts 110 of your dollars on the credit card from your paycheck before taxes. Then you use the credit card to purchase your fair.

They advertise that not only are you saving the planet but that you are earning quite a bit of money before taxes and you get a free green bag! I have not sat down to do the math. While it might add up to be a nice sum the simple fact is that many people can't control their spending habits with credit cards. According to nbc the average American carried $9,000 dollars in credit debt in 2005. I am sure it is much higher now. I want to know what metrolink is getting out of this. Given that the average interest rate on a credit card was 13.46 in may of 2007. I think metrolink should focus on being more timely with their trains instead of getting people to sign up for credit cards.

How far do we go to avoid taxes?

While discussing the automatic millionaire homeowner with a friend. I began to wonder if we as a society have become so concerned with avoiding taxes that we have forgotten what is most important to us. My friend maintains that keeping a balance on his mortgage is the best thing he could do because of the tax breaks. After reading the book I realized that if you decide to forgo the tax advantage on the house you can pay off a house about 8 years early! This of course depends on interest. The higher your interest rate is the more years you save. That made me curious about what people value. I personally would want the 8 years of freedom. What do you think? Eight years or a tax break?