consuming to invest 18

( before we start today, here was the link I forgot in Monday's article for the new Grid Down book:
http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Down-Perceptions-Reality-Volume-ebook/dp/B00T27FPE8
)
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CONSUMING TO INVEST 18

Thrift Store Clothes

Thrift store shopping is something that every swinging cheese dingus out there needs to be doing.  First, you are helping a good cause.  Second, you give Mother Gaia a big wet sloppy french kiss by encouraging recycling ( although, looked at another way, you are also encouraging mindless consumption and waste, but since that ship sailed decades ago I wouldn't worry too much about giving evil a helping hand ).  And last, you save lots of money.  Perhaps not at some places, like Goodwill which charge $5 for a crappy busted item you can get new at Wally for $10 just because the flaming stupid craphole of a CEO who runs the thing for way too much money decided all stores must not only stay in too high rent areas but they must send higher amounts of sales to corporate so he can get a raise this quarter, but at most independently run thrift stores.  You can’t always find everything you need or want, but enough to put a serious dent in your clothes budget.  I can never find slacks, as most seem to be waist size 99 and leg size 29, like all men look like Jackie Gleason.  But polo shirts and wool sweaters are always available.  And so cheap I can stockpile years ahead.  Which is important.  Not only can you clothe yourself cheaper, AND stockpile ahead, you still come out money saved.

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You don’t think clothing is going to be available from the cheapest slave labor country forever, do you?  With food production shrinking due to weather events and drought, food fields will eventually take over cotton fields ( once the higher price of cotton is no longer a sufficient motivator, since they can’t buy food from anyone since everyone has export embargoes in place ).  And then you have a nation full of cheaply made clothes with no more coming in.  You had better have plenty of them stocked up.  Which is why I am amazed I see so much clothing being donated to our thrift store.  I’m glad for the sake of my job security, but I shake my head in disbelief so many people hold them valueless.  They think the heater will run forever, the fracking fields never decline and population never outgrow resources.  Don’t be one of those idiots.

END-ANOTHER ARTICLE BELOW

E-SHAVER UPDATE

You’ll have to excuse me this week ( I’m writing a week ahead to take into account non-writing too cloudy days.  None for awhile, but I’m prepared in case ) if some of my articles have been a little weak.  I’ve had a heck of a week.  I’ve been breaking in a new computer, which is always frustrating.  I went with another Windows, since they lowered their price to match Google Chrome machines.  I simply can’t do anything off-line with Chrome, although otherwise a vastly superior product.  I did have to spend an additional 50% getting the latest Word version, but hopefully that will pay for itself ( knock on wood, I’ll make some money with it as I’m planning to finally go ahead with the survivalist advertising magazine-details in a few weeks ).  Monday night, I barely scrapped by with a smidge over four hours sleep ( a restless night is a warning to remove another blanket as I get too hot- but I’ve rarely had one this restless ) and three days later I am still suffering from it.  I’m groggy even after seven hours sleep last night and a twenty minute nap after work.  I’m barely concentrating on this article.  I was so tired, I managed to totally delete a nice long article which I then had to rewrite.  Don’t know how I managed either.  Then, I don’t know if it was related or not, I’m getting mild flu symptoms ( everyone else at work has already been sick and taken days off.  I mega-dose vitamin C year round, and exercise, and take in plenty of cold fresh air-thank you Ben Franklin, so I only get very mild signs of a sickness which brings others down ).  Anyway, sorry about that.  Here is some puffery and drivel just to jack today’s word count up.

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I’m bitching and moaning, as is my wont, to one of the intake clerks on a donation pick-up.  My damn $50 electric razor only lasted a year.  Well, it turns out he also had one, a top of the line $130 one, and it only lasted a year and a quarter.  So obviously these things are now like disposable five blade razors, built to be profited off of the replacement blades.  He didn’t say, but I assume he ponyed up the $30 to $50 the replacement heads were to keep using the thing.  This has got to be engineered in.  So, still wanting to stay cleaner shaven on work days ( I can‘t shave with a regular blade on consecutive days as it tears the crap out of my skin, but I can alternate days between safety razors and an electric razor ), I was resigned to buy another replacement e-razor.  But I wasn’t going to be ripped off again.  Certainly, I wasn’t going to give $30 to those robbers for replacement heads.  What if the motor burned out?  Then I’d spend yet another $50!  The answer is a travel e-razor.  They are only $14 for a Panasonic ES3831 at Amazon.  They use two AA batteries rather than a wall socket plug in.  And, a bonus, it is a wet/dry unit for those days your skin is battered and bruised you can use shaving foam.  I’m only using them three times a week, so a set of batteries are good for a month.  Maybe longer, but that is sufficient ( look in the comments section for a review testing how long the batteries lasted ).  I’ll grant you, it is a rougher shave than a plug in.  And you definitely must go slow or it bogs down ( I do the light touch shave, clean, then the heavier pressed down shave ).  But for the price?  I can shave without feeling the cost, AND have back-ups in stock, just like my hair clippers.

END

 

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