More on vehicle rental ...

Again, I can't ascribe motivation but I'm pretty sure there's an accepted gain on the company's behalf when it comes to their vehicle's gas tank upon the vehicle's return.

There are the obvious ones, which you can't knock because they are there in print on your agreement. If you return a vehicle with less gas than you picked it up, they will charge you, it seems, upwards of 175% of the price of a gallon to refuel it. And that is sometimes on top of a service fee. One vehicle rental place starts with a $30 service fee when you don't return the vehicle with the same amount of gas. That's before their severely marked-up price of gas comes into play. It doesn't mean it's not ridiculous. But they tell you that. So? House rules, I guess.

Then there's the art of gas gauge literacy. Does an employee check it and note it before you take the car? Does the gauge read the same level as is noted on the rental agreement?

That wasn't our most recent experience. We agreed to refuel a vehicle ourselves before we returned it and the agreement printed up and given to us at the counter read "8/8 tank" meaning the tank was full upon release and should be returned as such.

We got in the vehicle and, to our surprise, it was only 3/4 full meaning if we had not noticed this, we'd be on the hook for that 1/4 tank, putting us out 12 or 13 bucks for their oversight. We had to bring this up with the lot attendant and get them to vouch with their signature.

And when we returned it, refueled, we were still issued a refueling charge which they admitted was incorrect and refunded. But it still means an unnecessary hold on my credit card.

On gas in rental cars:

-check to see the recorded level of fuel agrees with what you see on your gauge.
-read your receipt upon return to prevent unnecessary charges that you did nothing to incur.
-READ THE FINE PRINT.

Good night everybody.

Rentals

I'm not going to project an attitude or motivation on them but one way that vehicle rental companies take advantage of, intentionally or unwittingly, your carelessness or haste or lack of attention is by not doing the walk around with you (I've seen this more with cars. They still do this with rental moving trucks in my experience). If they and you do not do this, you can return the car (incident and accident free) and find yourself with a damage claim on your hands.

Insist they do and if they won't but you are stuck renting there, insist on a means to agree on existing damage ... because there will likely be exisiting dings or scratches. We ended up writing on a car rental agreement and having it signed by the lot attendant. Get their signature and printed name (first and last). If they don't stand behind their product with their name, complain and/or go somewhere else.

Anyway, I think most people are trying to cover their bumper, so you have to cover yours.

It's like free money . . .

which as we all know does not exist.

However, it's possible that you have some unclaimed money somewhere as a result of oversight on yours or your employer's part.

Look up in the hypertext! It's a link, it's a bookmark . . . it's . . . it's missingmoney.com.

You might have money in :
-Common types of unclaimed property include:
-Bank accounts and safe deposit box contents
-Stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and dividends
-Uncashed checks and wages
-Insurance policies, CD's, trust funds
-Utility deposits, escrow accounts
-A government sock drawer

(the first six are cribbed from missingmoney.com but you never know about the sock drawer.)

Just enter your name and state or province to find out if there's some money of yours somewhere that needs to be returned to it's rightful owner. Or join for free and it will search it's vast provincial and state databases on your behalf and save your search profile to simplify future repeated searches.

I knew that money was hiding here somewhere.

Shelf life

Anything that has an expiry date will eventually have to come off the shelf of the grocery store. And when it gets close to the date, just like a 'going out of business'sale, everything must go.

My wife and I have benefited from close to date meats, picked them up for 30-40% off. I know bread comes down drastically in price when it's approaching the date.

Keep your eyes peeled for expiry dates and ask your local grocer if they mark down on near date items.

If you don't plan to consume immediately, and it's appropriate, put it in the freezer.

The grocery store still moves product, you walk away with a discount. I think everyone might win.

Those tacks aren't just holding up the map.

As long as I have lived in New York, and in Toronto before that, I've lived in relatively central apartments, very often for convenience's sake. The biggest advantage was convenience. The biggest disadvantage, of course, was the high cost of rent. Gosh. Big money, no whammies rent.

Now, of course, you can split rent by having roommates but if you want to compound the savings even more, you might want to look at the outer edges of the map. I hope you're sitting down, that means you got on early enough in the route. In Winnipeg, we called it Transit Tom, in Toronto, it was the Rocket, actually not that one this one, and in New York, it's the MTA. I think you see where I'm going with this. I'm asking you to consider neighborhoods in the outer limits or boroughs of you city.

There are express routes that take you, likely, further than you've ever been before. But out there, there's more for less. Or the same for less. And you might get a patch of grass, or a balcony, or parking. And with monthly transit passes and departures from near the beginning/end of a particular route, you can definitely find a seat and listen to those podcasts I was telling you about.

You can put the money you save in a high interest online savings account.

Here's your homework. Visit a neighborhood somewhere "out there". Who knows? You might like it.

Just something to consider.

Papa Smurf always says; or New Style Book Learning for the listening watching busy crowd

Isn't that how Brainy would open most of his pontifications? Now if the Smurfs were introduced in 1958 and almost all of them were 100 years old, that would make Brainy around 153-ish. If they're like most animated characters and maintain their age without getting older or younger, dude's still 100 and has been for a long time. You have to believe there was (and continues to be) some serious learning in that mushroom house of his. Either the print was really small, he used the local branch of the SPL, or they also eventually got the internet.

At any rate, there are plenty of health benefits to formal and informal learning. It, along with sleep, exercise, a good diet, and manageable stress levels can contribute to stave off the mental effects of aging, dementia, and alzheimer's.

Can't make it to the library, or your favorite book on hold for someone else? Do you have a long commute or like to listen to something while you're working? Don't have the time and money to audit or take classes at a local school? Maybe, just maybe, iTunesU could be for you. You can learn from over 350,000 lectures spread over countless museums, schools, faculties, focii, and learning levels. If you can't find something that peaks your interest, you aren't trying. Yeah, I said it. It hurts a little, doesn't it? To feel like you're not trying.

I used to live in Banff. They have a world-renowned Arts Centre there. We spell it 'centre'. Don't get weirded out. I'm going to go listen to a discussion on Hope and Imagination with an artist of whom I am a fan, and I'm doing this, wait for it, from the comfort of our old office chair.

Just in case you don't have iTunes.

Now go build some synaptic bridges.

Oh, you're from Vegetaria?

Our pastor was making an illustration today about love and asked what people "love about thanksgiving?" I don't know if people were trying to be hotshots or we're just a bunch of weirdos but it was a good minute before we'd gotten through everything else (including Black Friday, family, and sweet potato casserole) and came up with turkey. To which she responded, "if you loved turkey, you wouldn't kill it and eat it." Touche . . . touche. The point was about the nature of love more than turkeys but it was cause to think.

It's true. If you loved turkey, or chicken, or cows, you would not eat them. I still eat them. I like how they taste cooked. I have the occasional brief philosophical dialogue in my head about it from time to time but, I guess, not enough to give it up cold . . . vegetable.

Here's the strange thing. I know you'll be shocked (not). It's cheaper to not eat meat. I will go so far as to say without exception, it is cheaper to not eat meat. My wife tries it sometimes. I'm thinking about giving it a shot. Perhaps do a little more reading. Review my findings, that sort of thing. And whatever my wife tells me of her own experience with that, I'll pass it on to you.

Some of my friends do a great job of cutting out the meat from their diet.

What's one easy way to see the savings? When you eat out, order vegetarian.

Just something to think about.