Upon further inspection of the shipping box it was pretty easy to see how it was damaged. At some point in the process someone was even nice enough to cover the hole in the box with packing tape to avoid potential water damage. That was nice.
Long story short, New crib is on order and old one is going back. Certainly not the most horrible thing in the world, but a total buzz kill.
Joe
I was reminded of this Ad today, fortunately Denise found it for me.
"Babies Everywhere!!!"
Love it!
The original concept is dumb enough, this parody just amps up the dumbness!
Cee Lo Green comes soulful, funny and funky with the break up Jam of 2010.
Clever title ;)
-Joe
Just read a great little article while waiting for printer software to install. I love my job on most days, but there are some great tips in this article that can be useful for anyone.
Excerpt and link below.
Tammy: One of my favorite parts of Take This Job and Shove It is your discussion of the F*** You Fund. Can you tell us a little bit more about the concept and what our readers can do today to start building an F*** You Fund?
Tyler: So, a F*** You Fund is the money you set aside while you’re still working so that when the day comes, you can walk into work and telling your boss to “take this job and shove it.” Of course, it doesn’t have to be so dramatic, but I found that giving it a name like that makes it more fun to actually keep up with.
I go into a lot of details in the free guide about how to build it and stick with it as well as some of the misconceptions around it like the idea that it has to take a long time or that it has to be a ton of money, but I think Rowdy Kittens readers are great candidates for building a F*** You Fund because their already predisposed to living what I call a “low overhead” lifestyle.
Anyone interested in minimalism that has a few personal finance skills already has exactly what it takes to be super effective with the information in Take This Job & Shove It.
My #1 tip for someone that wants to start today, though? Open a savings account and set up a weekly automatic transfer to it. Doesn’t matter how much. Just get it started.
A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people.
Yet Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.”
So one day she stepped off.
Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number.
Her mother called her crazy.
Today, three years after Ms. Strobel and Mr. Smith began downsizing, they live in Portland, Ore., in a spare, 400-square-foot studio with a nice-sized kitchen. Mr. Smith is completing a doctorate in physiology; Ms. Strobel happily works from home as a Web designer and freelance writer. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. With Mr. Smith in his final weeks of school, Ms. Strobel’s income of about $24,000 a year covers their bills. They are still car-free but have bikes. One other thing they no longer have: $30,000 of debt.
Ms. Strobel’s mother is impressed. Now the couple have money to travel and to contribute to the education funds of nieces and nephews. And because their debt is paid off, Ms. Strobel works fewer hours, giving her time to be outdoors, and to volunteer, which she does about four hours a week for a nonprofit outreach program called Living Yoga.
“The idea that you need to go bigger to be happy is false,” she says. “I really believe that the acquisition of material goods doesn’t bring about happiness.”
While Ms. Strobel and her husband overhauled their spending habits before the recession, legions of other consumers have since had to reconsider their own lifestyles, bringing a major shift in the nation’s consumption patterns.
“We’re moving from a conspicuous consumption — which is ‘buy without regard’ — to a calculated consumption,” says Marshal Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group, the retailing research and consulting firm.
Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon.
On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.
If consumers end up sticking with their newfound spending habits, some tactics that retailers and marketers began deploying during the recession could become lasting business strategies. Among those strategies are proffering merchandise that makes being at home more entertaining and trying to make consumers feel special by giving them access to exclusive events and more personal customer service.
While the current round of stinginess may simply be a response to the economic downturn, some analysts say consumers may also be permanently adjusting their spending based on what they’ve discovered about what truly makes them happy or fulfilled.
“This actually is a topic that hasn’t been researched very much until recently,” says Elizabeth W. Dunn, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia, who is at the forefront of research on consumption and happiness. “There’s massive literature on income and happiness. It’s amazing how little there is on how to spend your money.”
CONSPICUOUS consumption has been an object of fascination going back at least as far as 1899, when the economist Thorstein Veblen published “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” a book that analyzed, in part, how people spent their money in order to demonstrate their social status.
Read the whole article, there's a lot of truth to the theory of less is more, more time time for happiness that is.
I've done a cleanse of possessions a few times in my life and it feels very liberating. I may have to do some more soon. I think it's time to go through that massive record collection once again and clear some space.
:)
