Link Roundup: Cleaning Out the Favorites List

Every time I see an interesting article, website, or informative post on the internet, I save it to my favorites file. Although many of these saved items are posted on the Daily INSIGHT link, there are usually a few at the end of the month that don't really fit anywhere but still seem useful nonetheless. Here's today's roundup:

• Urban Fruit Gleaning (a good idea)
• The Fabulous Forager (pass this on to the women folk)
• Temporary Camouflage (cool)
• KRRC Media Archives (funny)
• Adventure Doc (one of my favorite medical blogs)
• Paul Auerbach's Medical Blog (another favorite)

Bartering 101

I don’t have to tell you that the economy is in the tank right now. Even the price of a pizza has risen dramatically because the cost of flour to make the dough has tripled over the past year. Of course there are ways to save money, and the option of doing without, but if there is something you really want and money is tight, consider bartering.Although bartering has been going on since forever, it has, over the past few decades, become less and less of a necessity as most people earned the money to just go out and buy what they needed and wanted without having to develop the skill or the social connections to get things without the exchange of funds. Here’s a few ways to get you onto the path to successful bartering:

• Read ‘One Red Paperclip’. This book about how a man started with a paperclip and traded it until he ended up with a HOUSE will make you inspired.
• Make a list of your assets, skills and resources. Include everything from the flowers in your garden and your power auger to your ability to bake bread and your friend who installs windows. All of these items may come in handy in the future when you put your bartering plan together.
• Start small. If you see that the neighbor has a kiddie pool which never gets used, offer to mow their yard in exchange for the pool that your children will enjoy. Starting small, with people you know, will build your confidence to move on to bigger challenges.
• Make sure every exchange is equitable, fair and enjoyable for all. Bartering means everyone is pleased with the exchange and a network is developed for future exchanges. Feelings of being taken advantage of, one-uped, or making a bad deal will kill your barter network faster than anything else.
• Look to expand your bartering network by checking out the barter section of the local newspaper or Craigslist.
• When making a trade, base the value of the item traded not on the retail cost you would pay at Macys but on the true value of the item to you and your trading partner, the amount of service the item would provide you, or the hourly wage it would take to earn the item at its true value. The very fact of bartering means you don’t have to take into account overhead costs, advertising costs, and other expenses that inflate the cost of an item.
• After you get your bartering feet wet, consider more complicated trades. Need concrete work done but your friend only does windows? Consider trading your plumbing skill to the window guy who then does the window installation for the concrete layer who then provides his concrete services to you. Get the idea?

Bartering is fun, valuable, and a lost art that really needs a resurgence, especially in our current economy.

Earthquake!

If you were anywhere near the news today, you know that there was an earthquake in Southern California this morning. Whether or not you live in a seismically challenged area, you should know what to do in the event of an earthquake because you never know if or when this type of thing will happen (ie: there may be no earthquake faults where you live but one could strike when you are on vacation with the family in Disney Land). Here's what to do should the ground start shaking:

• Realize that earthquakes can happen anywhere but there is a higher probability that they will strike in the Pacific Rim and other fault-laden areas (China, South America, etc).
• When the shaking starts, it's a crap shoot--you will find sources that tell you to cover or not to cover, to stay inside or go outside, to stand in a doorway or not stand in a doorway--basically there are situations in which each of these would be good advice however the consensus is to drop, cover, and hold until the shaking stops then exit the building as quickly and safely as possible (obviously if you are in a crumbly building like the schools that disintegrated during the China earthquake you may want to run outside as soon as the shaking starts, however people have been killed this way as well when things fall on them).
• As soon as the shaking stops, get up, dust yourself off, make sure everyone in your immediate location is OK, take any immediate safety precautions (ie: if you were cooking, turn off the burner and move the pan to the back of the stove), and exit the building/house quickly with your BOB in hand. Don't forget to check the area you are heading towards for dangers such as falling bricks, falling trees, falling power lines, broken glass, etc.
• Once you are outside, if you know there is an immediate problem in your home such as a gas leak, damaged electrical wires, or a water leak, and you are able to shut off these utilities, do so.
• If you are in an outside area where a major gas line or water main has broken or there are live power lines on the ground, get as far away from these dangers as possible.
• Immediately after the quake, use your cell phone for quick emergency calls only such as to find your kids or call 911 for a life threatening emergency. As soon as the immediate family is accounted for or 911 has been alerted to an emergency (calling just to say that there was an earthquake will be unnecessary), stay off your phone so the system doesn't become overwhelmed and those who need to make emergency phone calls can do so. Save the phone conversations about details of your experience for after the need to not overload the phone system has passed.
• Now that you have handled the immediate emergencies, check on your neighbors.
• If possible, stay near your home and don't drive around to look at the damage. It's a good idea to let any downed power lines be turned off before you drive over them. On the other hand, if you live in a tsunami-prone area, you will want to get to higher ground as soon as possible.
• If family members are scattered around the city, ensure that they can shelter in place during the time being. If this is not possible, devise a plan to rendezvous. Cover these details in your quick, initial conversation.
• Break out your battery-powered AM/FM radio so that you can receive official news and information about the event.
• If you do need to communicate, break out your portable HAM radio. Usually right after a disaster, the phone networks are overwhelmed while the HAM airwaves are wide open.
• Do a quick check of your home from the outside and note any damage. If your home looks structurally sound from the outside, you may want to take a look around the inside for damage. Note that depending on the type, depth, and intensity of the quake, there may be a series of aftershocks that will send you scurrying back outside.
• If there is no or minimal damage to your home, you may want to go back in and clean up anything that was broken (of course wear work gloves and heavy shoes when doing this).
• If there is damage to your home which would make it unsafe to go into and there is wide spread damage, consider setting up camp in your back yard. Be sure to check the location for trees, chimneys, power lines, or other things that could fall on you during an aftershock.
• Some people may want to head to the nearest hotel if their home is unlivable, however wide-spread damage may also damage hotels and restaurants and require you to 1) bug out to another location if the roads are passable, 2) seek shelter in a community shelter set up for this event, or 3) park yourself near your home. Many people, after a disaster, choose number 3.
• If you are required to camp outside for the time being, be sure to take necessary precautions to ensure the safety of yourself and your family. That could mean a number of things depending on where you live, the local situation, and plans that have been made ahead of time.

Basically there are no "right" answers when a disaster strikes. If you survive, you've made the correct choices. It does pay, however, to seriously plan ahead of time for this and other types of disasters.

10 Reasons to Avoid Bad Situations

Some people stumble into the occasional bad situation while others seem to be drawn to them on a daily basis. Here's why you want to avoid bad situations--everything from drugs to embezzlement, from the psycho significant other to bar fights, from legal troubles to underhanded dealing--no matter what:

1. It takes a toll physically (stress, drugs, fighting, etc can have a significant impact your body)
2. It takes a toll financially (court fines, bail, legal judgements...the list financial ramifications is long)
3. It takes a toll emotionally (any major or long term emotional situation such as taking a life or living in a violent situation will impact your emotional development)
4. It takes a toll on your reputation (people do tend to judge you by your actions and your history and reputations tend to proceed people)
5. It takes a toll on your relationships (friends and family will lose respect for you, others will avoid you--and the trouble that follows you)
6. It takes a toll on you psychologically (the loss of peace and living in a continual "high alert" level has an extreme impact on psychological development)
7. It takes a toll on your security (continually having to watch your back is not a good way to live)
8. It takes a toll on your productivity (it's difficult to focus on the task at hand when you are stressing over the latest drama)
9. It takes a toll on your future (the results of many bad situations often carry out far into the future)
10. It takes a toll on your ability to be prepared...this is a preparedness blog after all... (being prepared means your current situation is taken care of so you can focus on being ready for any disaster that may happen; this is next to impossible to do if you are dealing with the above mentioned repercussions)

If You Think You Don't Have Space to Garden...

Yesterday I stopped by and visited a friend who lives in the city. His house is small, his lot is small, but he has done an amazing job of turning this tiny, run-down space into a food producing garden with a great wood storage area to boot. Come winter he will have plenty of wood for the wood stove and plenty of food canned up as well. It just goes to show that with a lot of effort, and in his case, very little expense, you can turn any area into a viable place to grow some of your own food.

About the pictures: like I said, he has spent very little money to get things set up--I asked him why he was growing many of his veggies in containers and he said it worked better on his small lost since he doesn't have a whole lot of ground to rototil and he can move the plants around to catch the sun. He also noted that since he was planting in containers, he decided to use his old grill when it broke instead of throwing it away and buying "official gardening containers". The same goes for the old sink that he took out of his house when he remodeled it.

CNI Challenge #9--Barter for Something Big

Old fashioned trading and bartering, for many people, has gone the way of the covered wagon. It's quaint, it seems, but no longer necessary. As money gets tighter for many people, I'm hoping to see a resurgence of this lost art. The challenge here is to barter or trade for something you need. I'm not talking a trade of corn for tomatoes--it needs to be something fairly substantial. If you want to learn how a man started off his bartering project with one red paper clip and eventually, through many trades, ended up with a house, read "One Red Paperclip" by Kyle MacDonald. You can also find his blog at http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/ Other useful information on bartering can be found at http://www.u-exchange.com/barter101. Give it a try! Bartering can be a fun, rewarding way to acquire the things you need while helping others to get the things they need.
p.s. My biggest barter was for teeth. A friend's mom needed dentures but he couldn't afford them. He was, however, in the business of installing flooring so we found a dentist who needed flooring to pull the mom's teeth and a guy who made dentures who's son needed flooring to make the dentures and, just like that, mama had new teeth.

10 More Financial Disasters to Avoid

As WC Fields used to say, "There's a sucker born every minute". At no time in history have there been more ways devised to separate people from their hard earned money. Here are ten more financial disasters to avoid:

1. Time shares. People get into these because of the hard sell tactics used by the salespeople. If the customer would step back, take a breath, and break out their calculator, they would find that this is an extremely expensive way to take a vacation.
2. Multi Level Marketing Schemes. Every year or so another "great investment" makes it way through family and friends. I cringe every time someone I know buys into a MLM scheme then thinks it will be easy to sign me up as an associate. It's not. These are something I never participate in. There are a couple of OK MLMs (like Avon, Amway, etc which have an actual product to sell) but most focus solely on signing up more and more people; eventually you run out of people and/or sales skills.
3. Pyramid Schemes. The math seems good. Ten friends get together and decide to put in $100 each month to be given to one person in the group. You figure when it is your turn, you will have $1000 so it would kind of be like a savings account. Then life intercedes and some of the group can't afford to put in their $100 for a month or three and the pyramid implodes (along with your monthly "investment" of $100).
4. Email Schemes. No, you aren't the most helpful, luckiest, most blessed person on earth when you receive a plaintive email from a prince in Africa. These scammers--and there are many from all over the world and even in your own back yard--send you a check and ask you to cash it. They will generously offer to let you keep half of the check if you wire them the other half of the cash back. These are fraudulent checks and the sucker who cashes them and sends the money off ends up holding the bag (and the bill for the entire amount of funds).
5. EBay/Craigslist/Other Internet Scams. I used to like eBay but the last few times I listed things on there I would receive emails from people who wanted to make me a "better deal" such as double the price I was asking if I would just accept a check through the mail and send them the product immediately. This is a rip off and so are other "too good to be true" internet offerings such as the person who put an ad on Craigslist and said come to my house, I'll be out of town, take anything you want. Turns out the house belonged to an enemy of the person who listed the ad and the people who went over and helped themselves to the items were actually stealing.
6. Paying for Something You Can Get for Free. That jingle-ey commercial that comes on about "free credit reports dot com" is misleading. If you read the fine print it tells you that you will get a free credit report only if you sign up for their credit protection program, for a fee. You will get an honest to goodness free credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com. Don't pay for something you can get for free.
7. Leases. If you are leasing something other than a house or apartment, such as a car, it probably means you can't afford it. The reason people lease vehicles, although ostensibly for "tax purposes' is because the price to lease is considerably less than the price to buy. If you can't afford to buy something outright you can't afford it.
8. Investing. Not all investments are scams. If you do your homework and put together a diversified portfolio, you will be on the right track. The problem comes when people invest in a "hot tip" that they know nothing about, when they put all of their money in one company (Enron for example), or when they try to time the market. Dumb investments lead to loss of money, it's that simple.
9. Anything Illegal. People with basic math skills may be able to figure out that buying a pound of marijuana then selling it off in ounces for much more than what they paid can be lucrative, but when you figure in the additional costs (fines, lawyer fees, court costs, incarceration time, etc) the math goes out the window. The bottom line is that making money from anything that is illegal will end up costing way more than anticipated and quite frankly, isn't worth it.
10. Compromising Positions. Don't put yourself in a position to be used financially, blackmailed, et al. The Senator with a wife and girlfriend on the side has made a big financial mistake--it could cost him his salary (when he loses the next election over the hooplah), his cash (when he is blackmailed by someone in the know), and half of his assets (when his wife divorces him).

The best way to avoid these and other financial disasters is to use your common sense, do your research, do the math, never fall prey to hard sell tactics, and check, double check, and triple check anything that seems too good to be true.