Good place to shop is Salvation Army Superstore. sm

• Frugal ideas - Siren
  • First rule: Know your prices. sm - linda
  • make your own laundry detergent - pennywise
    • Don't know about that one - Old part-timer
      • It actually does save me a lot - sm - pennywise
        • Sounds interesting - Old part-timer
  • Quit Smoking and Don't Play The Lottery!!! - NM
    • yeah well it's only wasting money when you lose - personally I think $1 twice a week is
  • Buy motion-sensored exterior lights - NM
  • Change your own oil. This is so easy whether your a guy or a girl - MTinMT
    • Coupons - RadMT
  • Wear your clothes more than once before washing or - dry-cleaning
  • Ditch the paper towels... sm - Valerie
  • We put in a wood stove - I haven't used natural gas - in 3 years! - nm
  • My best way to save -- my mom and I share - shopaholic
  • Have your spouse cut your hair - Sara
    • No way would that save me money -- - shopaholic
    • I know that you are talking about females - mtmomof2
      • It would be easy in my house. He would tell me to never cut - it.
  • Replace the windows in your house. - GabbyChick
  • Dump the gym membership - sm.
  • Drop your cable TV - Old part-timer
  • Negotiate lower interest rates on your credit cards - sm
    • DH paid off credit card. Now I'm paying him back. No - interest. Yes, it's pathetic..
    • Plan out your dinners for the week. - NM
      • Share a meal when you’re out to eat - sm
        • yes! order an appetizer - they are huge, enough for 2 (or more). NM - anon
  • Use every last drop of dish soap...sm - CheapSkate
    • Rachael Ray has a segment from time to time - mtmomof2
    • Try Out Red Box for renting movies. - NM
  • When gas was over $4/gall I started riding the bus. sm - MT and worn out
    • Increase your insurance deductibles - personal opinion only
      • Wash your car yourself. - I now hate car wash places,
  • Cancel the ID theft protection on your credit cards. - You don’t need it.
    • Transfer your banking business to a free checking account - Sara
      • Better yet, see if you can join a - linda
  • frugal ways - meMT
  • frugal sm - Anonamiss
    • Buy and install a programmable - thermostat
  • I am using Angel Food Network for help with food (sm) - MeMT
    • I also stopped some luxuries....sm - MeMT
      • Good place to shop is Salvation Army Superstore. sm - PM
        • We have the best Goodwill store in my town - Thrifter
          • Just Lysol inside the shoes - lol nm - MeMT
        • By small, I mean size 7 or under. I only wish I was. - PM
          • Why would anyone dump on you for that? I love those types of stores nm - MeMT
  • Hang out your laundry if possible - Old part-timer
    • be careful if you have environmental allergies - this can exacerbate them
      • OUTDOOR ALLERGENS - MQMT1m
        • Man - Siren
    • Thanks for the info. - jss
      • I heard the same ads - Old part-timer
  • Unplug anything possible. - jss
    • Wow guys - Siren
      • buy generic - mtmt

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I give to Salvation Army every time I walk in a store.  In fact, I quit shopping at Target years ago because they wouldn't let the Salvation Army bell ringers on their property (and also are into that so-called pro-choice" crap--well not for the unborn baby!)  Anyway, I make a point to go where the good people who give back are ringing those bells.  All growing up we gave to SA, too.

I know Catholic Charities is a biggie, too.  My ma-in-law is big into that one.

Hopefully you've got some good ideas now.  Good luck to you, my dear.

PS:  This is what I prefer to see on these boards instead of the bickering and picking over silly stuff.  This is what we should all be concentrating on--those who really need us to be "here" for them.  This msg and the one from the lady who found out her husband has been cheating on her speaks volumes as to the kind of humans who are really behing these messages.  We have a wonderful, caring group of people here!

7. Call the 3  national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert  on your name and also call the Social Security fraud line number.  I  had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me  an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name. The alert  means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen,  and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit.   
By the time I  was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had  been done. There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the  thieves' purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the  alert.  Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves  threw my wallet away this weekend (someone turned it in).  It seems to  have stopped them dead in their tracks.


Now, here are  the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, etc., has been  stolen:
 
1.) Equifax:  1-800-525-6285

2.) Experian  (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742

3.) Trans   Union : 1-800-680-7289

4.) Social  Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271

We pass along  jokes on the Internet; we pass along just about everything.  

If you are  willing to pass this information along, it could really help someone.

Think about the occasions in her life when she undoubtedly was influenced by other Christians.  She may have made that decision late in her life and that is what you need to focus on. 

...then that would be because of a capricious, arbitrary and cruel God that only a human could dream up.  That God would possess no true God-like qualities if a person is condemned eternally because of not following some rules that are human interpretations of the word of God.  Sigh.

I believe goodness in this life will be rewarded if there is an afterlife, whether Buddhist, agnostic, Christian whatever.  Different religions suit different cultures....but it's all one God. 

I know for some here they've said it's Walmart.

There's a chain of stores here in NJ, not sure if they're anywhere else though. It's calles SixthAvenue Electronics. We had a bad experience with them many years ago (they sold us a reconditioned piece of electronics without telling us it wasn't new) and to this day I won't even look at their flyers. I just throw them away.

Where won't you shop?

I am one of those st**pid women with little dogs and they are better company than someone like you, I am sure. They go where we go including nice hotels where they are welcome.  No one has ever complained.  They are clean and groomed, don't bark, and are gentle and loving.  Stores cater to me because I spend money there.  Are you?  Or, are you just walking around looking?  Maybe they don't cater to you because of your not so nice comments to their good customers.

Edited by Moderator for content. 

Mare stare has a whole boatload of farms that offer live cams in easy to navigate list format.  Usually in the spring these cams are trained in on mares who are about to give birth--which is incredibly cool (and sometimes scary!) to watch. 

http://www.marestare.com/Cams.htm

Against the Wal
A class-action lawsuit in Dakota County could strike a costly blow to the world’s largest private employer
by MARGARET NELSON BRINKHAUS

In July 2001, Nancy Braun was watching television with a friend when a commercial caught her attention. The ad was soliciting litigants for a potential lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retailing giant, for allegedly cheating employees out of wages they were rightfully owed.

A single mother of two—and grandmother of four—Braun had started working for Wal-Mart in 1997. At the time, she lived in Slidell, Louisiana, where she had previously worked for a grocery store. She considered Wal-Mart a step-up. “I liked shopping there,” she says. “I thought I’d like working there too.”

And she did enjoy it, at least for a while. She liked the people, the work, the sense of solidarity among employees. But in 2000, homesick for her family, she moved back to Minnesota and transferred to the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley, where she was assigned to run the Radio Grill, the outlet’s now-defunct in-store restaurant. There, Braun quickly became disenchanted with the company, especially after a supervisor repeatedly prohibited her from taking breaks—even after she had surgery that required frequent trips to the bathroom. She soon quit.

Braun’s friend encouraged her to call the number mentioned in the advertisement to see if she qualified for the suit, but Braun was hesitant. She didn’t relish the prospect of reliving that period in her life. Yet she remembered how her mother, a longtime switchboard operator at Carleton College, had always encouraged her to speak up, to do the right thing when confronted with an injustice, big or small. “You can’t allow yourself to be treated like an animal,” she says. “I’m sure Mr. Walton would agree with me on that.”

One morning this past October, six years after she first saw that television ad, Braun sat inside a Dakota County courtroom in Hastings, her striped shirt and beige pants—bought from Wal-Mart—in marked contrast to dark suits, leather briefcases, BlackBerrys, and laptops sported by the army of attorneys in the room. “I’m a Plain Jane kind of gal, nothing fancy,” she said. “But I know what’s right. What Wal-Mart did to me wasn’t right.”

That sense of determination is one of the reasons why Braun found herself in Hastings, taking on the country’s largest corporation. She’s one of four lead plaintiffs in a massive, class-action lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart, a case that could affect 56,000 people who worked at Wal-Mart in Minnesota between 1998 and 2004. The suit alleges that over that period, the discount retailer systematically avoided paying wages earned by employees for overtime work and missed or shortened meal and break periods. And though the case is not the first of its kind—workers have won victories in similar cases in California and Pennsylvania—it may end up being one of the most significant. If Judge Robert King Jr. rules against Wal-Mart in this phase of the trial, the company would likely have to pay up to $500 for each employee, which could mean a payout in the tens of millions. More significantly, a ruling against Wal-Mart in this first part of the trial would also mean that the case would move to a jury to assess whether punitive damages are in order. If that happens, Wal-Mart could be on the hook for not only millions, but billions.

Braun’s troubles began after she returned to Minnesota. At the Apple Valley Wal-Mart, she worked in several different departments before running the Radio Grill. At first, she enjoyed the work. “I treated that place like my own kitchen,” she says. “I did it all willingly. I’m not afraid of work…never have been.” Not long after she started in Apple Valley, Braun had learned she needed to have gallbladder surgery. After the procedure, Braun suffered some relatively common side effects that required her to take frequent bathroom breaks. Braun’s supervisors initially said they would accommodate her needs, but that’s not what happened. “I’d get in a pinch, be there all alone, and soil myself, ruin my clothes,” Braun recalled. “I’d feel so degraded. Sometimes I wouldn’t have clothes with me, and the manager would say ‘We have clothes here for sale. Get your purse and go buy yourself some.’ They didn’t care.”

Putting up with an insufferable boss is, of course, an unavoidable part of a job for many people. Yet Braun’s treatment, argue the plaintiffs’ attorneys, wasn’t unique among Wal-Mart employees. Another lead plaintiff, Debbie Simonson, 59, started working as a cashier at the Wal-Mart in Brooklyn Park in April 2000. As a single mother of two children, she needed the money. And, like Braun, Simonson was often told by her supervisor not to take bathroom breaks. “He’d say ‘Skip the bathroom and get your butt out here,’ and I’d do it,” she explained in court. “It was an order. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it.” She quit after 13 months.

According to Justin Perl, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, the denial of breaks was standard operating procedure at Wal-Mart. As part of the case, he and his colleagues combed through Wal-Mart’s own records to find workplace violations. They identified millions of missed bathroom and rest breaks, as well as millions of shortened rest breaks, along with thousands of missed meal breaks. “It’s the Wal-Mart way,” says Perl. “They nickel-and-dime the lowest- paid workers so they can improve their own bottom line.”

Wal-Mart sees it differently. A spokesman, John Simley, says the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but in other cases the company has denied it encourages employees to miss breaks or work off the clock. Wal-Mart, company officials maintain, tries to ensure compliance with company policies and state laws, but has no control over individual choices workers make.

Yet those individual choices are often informed by pressure from the company, argues Perl. According to testimony in other wage cases, Wal-Mart compensates its managers largely via bonuses that are tied to profits—and the easiest way to increase profits is by cutting expenses. “They do it by erasing everyone else’s salary,” says Perl. “It’s not a hard job. They cut staffing. They shave breaks. They make their profit goals. It’s the only basis for how they compensate their managers.”

Pamela Reinert, 54, saw for herself how that pressure was brought to bear. A petite, soft-spoken mother of seven from Maplewood who has a PhD in psychology, she joined Sam’s Club—a Wal-Mart subsidiary—in 1997, after she was laid off from another job. Like Braun and Simonson, Reinert liked the work, and was good at it. She made it into the management-training program shortly after joining the company. As a manager, she would sometimes try to intercede on behalf of workers who weren’t getting their breaks. Eventually, though, she was told to stop making trouble. She eventually quit after a supervisor threatened to write her up for insubordination—for trying to take her complaints up the chain of command.

A ruling on the case is expected sometime this month. But no matter how it turns out, Nancy Braun says she will always miss Wal-Mart. “I wish I could have stayed working there,” she says. She enjoyed the other employees, the customers, and the idea “that there was always something to do, always a way to keep busy. I worked my way up—that was a big deal for me. When I quit, I felt defeated.”

Now living in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and selling insurance at a cell phone company, she tries to attend the trial whenever possible. When she’s in Hastings, she occasionally makes a stop across the street from the courthouse to do some shopping—at Wal-Mart.

Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus is a Minnesota-based writer.

Against the Wal
A class-action lawsuit in Dakota County could strike a costly blow to the world’s largest private employer
by MARGARET NELSON BRINKHAUS

In July 2001, Nancy Braun was watching television with a friend when a commercial caught her attention. The ad was soliciting litigants for a potential lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retailing giant, for allegedly cheating employees out of wages they were rightfully owed.

A single mother of two—and grandmother of four—Braun had started working for Wal-Mart in 1997. At the time, she lived in Slidell, Louisiana, where she had previously worked for a grocery store. She considered Wal-Mart a step-up. “I liked shopping there,” she says. “I thought I’d like working there too.”

And she did enjoy it, at least for a while. She liked the people, the work, the sense of solidarity among employees. But in 2000, homesick for her family, she moved back to Minnesota and transferred to the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley, where she was assigned to run the Radio Grill, the outlet’s now-defunct in-store restaurant. There, Braun quickly became disenchanted with the company, especially after a supervisor repeatedly prohibited her from taking breaks—even after she had surgery that required frequent trips to the bathroom. She soon quit.

Braun’s friend encouraged her to call the number mentioned in the advertisement to see if she qualified for the suit, but Braun was hesitant. She didn’t relish the prospect of reliving that period in her life. Yet she remembered how her mother, a longtime switchboard operator at Carleton College, had always encouraged her to speak up, to do the right thing when confronted with an injustice, big or small. “You can’t allow yourself to be treated like an animal,” she says. “I’m sure Mr. Walton would agree with me on that.”

One morning this past October, six years after she first saw that television ad, Braun sat inside a Dakota County courtroom in Hastings, her striped shirt and beige pants—bought from Wal-Mart—in marked contrast to dark suits, leather briefcases, BlackBerrys, and laptops sported by the army of attorneys in the room. “I’m a Plain Jane kind of gal, nothing fancy,” she said. “But I know what’s right. What Wal-Mart did to me wasn’t right.”

That sense of determination is one of the reasons why Braun found herself in Hastings, taking on the country’s largest corporation. She’s one of four lead plaintiffs in a massive, class-action lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart, a case that could affect 56,000 people who worked at Wal-Mart in Minnesota between 1998 and 2004. The suit alleges that over that period, the discount retailer systematically avoided paying wages earned by employees for overtime work and missed or shortened meal and break periods. And though the case is not the first of its kind—workers have won victories in similar cases in California and Pennsylvania—it may end up being one of the most significant. If Judge Robert King Jr. rules against Wal-Mart in this phase of the trial, the company would likely have to pay up to $500 for each employee, which could mean a payout in the tens of millions. More significantly, a ruling against Wal-Mart in this first part of the trial would also mean that the case would move to a jury to assess whether punitive damages are in order. If that happens, Wal-Mart could be on the hook for not only millions, but billions.

Braun’s troubles began after she returned to Minnesota. At the Apple Valley Wal-Mart, she worked in several different departments before running the Radio Grill. At first, she enjoyed the work. “I treated that place like my own kitchen,” she says. “I did it all willingly. I’m not afraid of work…never have been.” Not long after she started in Apple Valley, Braun had learned she needed to have gallbladder surgery. After the procedure, Braun suffered some relatively common side effects that required her to take frequent bathroom breaks. Braun’s supervisors initially said they would accommodate her needs, but that’s not what happened. “I’d get in a pinch, be there all alone, and soil myself, ruin my clothes,” Braun recalled. “I’d feel so degraded. Sometimes I wouldn’t have clothes with me, and the manager would say ‘We have clothes here for sale. Get your purse and go buy yourself some.’ They didn’t care.”

Putting up with an insufferable boss is, of course, an unavoidable part of a job for many people. Yet Braun’s treatment, argue the plaintiffs’ attorneys, wasn’t unique among Wal-Mart employees. Another lead plaintiff, Debbie Simonson, 59, started working as a cashier at the Wal-Mart in Brooklyn Park in April 2000. As a single mother of two children, she needed the money. And, like Braun, Simonson was often told by her supervisor not to take bathroom breaks. “He’d say ‘Skip the bathroom and get your butt out here,’ and I’d do it,” she explained in court. “It was an order. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it.” She quit after 13 months.

According to Justin Perl, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, the denial of breaks was standard operating procedure at Wal-Mart. As part of the case, he and his colleagues combed through Wal-Mart’s own records to find workplace violations. They identified millions of missed bathroom and rest breaks, as well as millions of shortened rest breaks, along with thousands of missed meal breaks. “It’s the Wal-Mart way,” says Perl. “They nickel-and-dime the lowest- paid workers so they can improve their own bottom line.”

Wal-Mart sees it differently. A spokesman, John Simley, says the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but in other cases the company has denied it encourages employees to miss breaks or work off the clock. Wal-Mart, company officials maintain, tries to ensure compliance with company policies and state laws, but has no control over individual choices workers make.

Yet those individual choices are often informed by pressure from the company, argues Perl. According to testimony in other wage cases, Wal-Mart compensates its managers largely via bonuses that are tied to profits—and the easiest way to increase profits is by cutting expenses. “They do it by erasing everyone else’s salary,” says Perl. “It’s not a hard job. They cut staffing. They shave breaks. They make their profit goals. It’s the only basis for how they compensate their managers.”

Pamela Reinert, 54, saw for herself how that pressure was brought to bear. A petite, soft-spoken mother of seven from Maplewood who has a PhD in psychology, she joined Sam’s Club—a Wal-Mart subsidiary—in 1997, after she was laid off from another job. Like Braun and Simonson, Reinert liked the work, and was good at it. She made it into the management-training program shortly after joining the company. As a manager, she would sometimes try to intercede on behalf of workers who weren’t getting their breaks. Eventually, though, she was told to stop making trouble. She eventually quit after a supervisor threatened to write her up for insubordination—for trying to take her complaints up the chain of command.

A ruling on the case is expected sometime this month. But no matter how it turns out, Nancy Braun says she will always miss Wal-Mart. “I wish I could have stayed working there,” she says. She enjoyed the other employees, the customers, and the idea “that there was always something to do, always a way to keep busy. I worked my way up—that was a big deal for me. When I quit, I felt defeated.”

Now living in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and selling insurance at a cell phone company, she tries to attend the trial whenever possible. When she’s in Hastings, she occasionally makes a stop across the street from the courthouse to do some shopping—at Wal-Mart.

Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus is a Minnesota-based writer.

I also like to watch my kids play ball or take them swimming.  Sometimes, I get with my friend and her kids and we take them to the movies.  We love to cook out on the weekends and invite friends over. 

I also like just cleaning my house, believe it or not, and rearranging the furniture, etc.  Last summer, I painted and stenciled a lot and I'm thinking about doing a few pieces this summer.  I also like to take care of my flower beds.  Lots to do.  Summer is my favorite time of year. 

and it's not because I'm judgemental of anyone. God will judge in the end. But, I have a right to shop at stores that do not sell such items.  And, for the poster who said homosexuals buy condoms...heterosexuals buy condoms, too!  For example, my brother and his wife use condoms because they don't want to have anymore children but also don't want to have surgery.  For the person who posted that the Bible was written by man, let me enlighten you.  The Bible was written by man through God. That means that, while man wrote the text, God was who gave man the words to write it.  This issue for me is not JUST about WalMart, it is about all businesses who sell homosexual material.