newsobserver.com projects - Sue's shopping diary - Comments

Re: A deal-lover's ideal proposal...

claire7676 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:58:19 -0500

A similar web site-assisted proposal (though not related to deals) was done a month ago on Bakerella. It was a VERY sweet (no pun intended) post. The proposal post is here: http://www.bakerella.com/wedding-cake-pops/ and the follow-up post is here: http://www.bakerella.com/she-said%E2%80%A6/

When I first read the proposal post, I had no idea what the actual intent was; I was just reading it as if it were any other post. Lots of other readers all had the same reaction; read the comments to the original post.

Re: A look back at Cameron Village...

suestock — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:08:07 -0400

Looks like you clicked read more to get to the rest of the photos already... I just put one on the main Taking Stock page because the post was so long with the photos...

Re: A look back at Cameron Village...

tmhadley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:08:13 -0400

The cars in the Nowell's photo look like early 1950s; those in the Roses look like 1930s or 40s after the war.

Where is the link to "read more"?

Re: What do you give to charity?

cbmulls — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:20:42 -0400

Hi Sue,
Your column was great. It is something I preach all the time. With the help of double and sometimes triple coupons, I am able to bring a bag of about 15 items to church every week. Rice, pastas, cereal, Hormel dinners, crackers, cans of fruits and vegetables, are easily obtained during sales and coupons. Let's hope people read your column and will try to do the same.

Re: What do you give to charity?

bakinchick — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:00:10 -0400

Like all the previous suggestions. Here is another one: Wake Interfaith Hospitality Network. See them at www.wihn.org -- they help to transition homeless families into affordable housing. Have worked with them through a couple of different churches over the years and feel like they do great work.

Forgot about what you can give: money, as always. In addition, sometimes we find extra furniture to furnish the apartments families move into, and churches donate time/space/manpower to house families for a week at a time.

Re: What do you give to charity?

dandan14 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:03:16 -0400

This is something K and I were talking about the other day. For the last several years, we have given to a charity on each other's behalf instead of traditional Christmas gifts. For example, ducks, pigs, sheep, etc. are a relatively inexpensive way to help someone in a third world country.
This year we were considering doing something really different. We are considering taking $50 or so each and making micro-loans through Kiva to enterprising people in 2nd and 3rd world countries. Since we are viewing this as a gift, we were thinking that we could add a little as Christmas or birthday gifts and just continue to roll it over to new micro-loans.

Maybe I'll post over on Savvydollar and see if I can get a few people on board.

Dan

Re: Improving the free credit report process...

jpurdy — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:38:18 -0400

BTW, a friend told me he saw this in the paper and you may have mentioned it before, but you can also request free credit security freezes (& thaws), which is a great tool to proactively protect your credit against identify theft:

http://www.ncdoj.gov/getdoc/e265b0c0-6a9c-4fef-a0a9-dce26b74277e/Free-Security-Freeze.aspx

Re: Let's hear it for falling prices...

eriksenb — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:37:52 -0400

Better to be worried if you see a lot of this. Falling prices are a sign that things are pretty bad, and can cause real problems by building expectations among consumers to delay purchases for better deals later. Perhaps the restaurant you mention is just taking less profit to adjust to the wallets of local consumers, or it's food/beverage prices have fallen and it's passing on the savings, or some of both. Terms to read up on include "deflation" and "liquidity trap." The American economy has been caught in a liquidity trap for over a year now and it's not pretty.

Re: Barcode bonanza...

dougdeep — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:26:56 -0400

Invented by IBM's George Laurer, and I believe debuted on a pack of Juicy Fruit.

Re: Barcode bonanza...

FurbishLousewart — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:48:09 -0400

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Google's frequent historic event-honoring logos.

Re: The power of the pause...

ncsulilwolf — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:51:06 -0400

Nice!

Re: Buy a book for a good cause...

magsmom — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:42:37 -0400

I'm sorry to hear the library's budget was cut. One thing I absolutely love about Wake County is how wonderful the libraries are. It's such a luxury for me (and my daughter!) to walk into the library and find hundreds of current, interesting books available, all backed up by an amazingly effective reserve system. I'm glad to hear there's a way I can help keep it as great as it's been so far.

Re: Fan your favorite companies on Facebook...

Jen1978 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:38:38 -0400

Following them on Twitter's also a good way to score free stuff. I won a gift card and a free T-shirt from Bojangles a few weeks ago by answering a trivia question they tweeted. I've also gotten coupon codes and such from other companies/stores on Twitter.

Re: IKEA Heights... next on Fox?

satern — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:40:55 -0400

Wow, that's just... huge :)

Thanks for the vid.

Chloé, from Tendances de mode

Re: When to NOT buy...

cbmulls — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:37:53 -0400

I agree with the above message. Every week I am able to bring a bag of about 10-15 products to our church who sends it to Catholic Charities and it is then given to the needy. I thank the wonderful grocery and drug stores who have enabled me to do this.