Amy Currioman

With so many consumers struggling with job loss, many of them have been forced to make some difficult decisions between paying for their foods and medicines or to pay for loans that were taken on good faith that the income needed to pay those bills would be there. Suddenly many of us are getting embarassing collection calls; sometimes even for bills that have not even come due yet! Fortunately there are resources available on the Internet that the savvy consumer can use to help stop collection harassment for good.

In some states, there was a law enacted in 1978 in California called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that is designed to protect the consumers against abusive and unfair debt collection practices. Since then, lawyers have become specialists in how to stop collection harassment California and in some cases the debt collectors have had to pay penalties and fines for their unfair debt collection practices. Sometimes the government actually does help the little guy!

Thanks to Lemuel Craft

Everyone has left the house in a hurry in the morning on the way to work. You are running to catch the train or jump in the car to sit in traffic and you are in such a hurry that you forget to turn something off at home. You have to turn around and go all the way back just to have the peace of mind that you did in fact turn off the coffee pot this morning on the rush out the door. If you are anything like me when you get back to the house the thing you were worried about was already turned off. One thing that you don’t have to worry about turning off or on when you leave the house is your wireless home security system. You can run out the door without setting it and then set it from your phone once you are in the car or train or bus or whatever your mode of transportation. This is quite possibly the coolest part of having ADT is being able to control it from my smart phone.

My boss wanted me to attend a business related convention to represent our company and I reluctantly agreed to do it. He had arranged for me to share a motel room with three other ladies I had never met before, in order to save money. Well, I arrived last night and met the ladies for the first time. They had already met each other and had gone out for drinks and were feeling no pain. They were laughing and giggling and hollering at each other to “Shut up” until about 2am. When the room finally quieted down and they went to sleep two of them snored quite loudly. I spent a sleepless night sleeping in a too hard bed with a total stranger, listening to the sounds of fire engines screaming past and the snoring of my room mates. I will be very glad to get home and sleep in my own bed as soon as possible.

One of the great debates that I see almost every day on Facebook is the one around health care. One of my Facebook friends wrote that she had just seen a documentary on television about a group of cancer patients who had lost their jobs, and therefore lost their health insurance benefits. Since there are no affordable health insurance plans available to them, they cannot get the treatments that they need to fight the cancer, and they are going to die.

This is a very sad state of affairs. Most all of the other modern countries have a health insurance plan that ensures that everyone that lives in the country will get life-saving medical care. A lot of people here in the United States feel that if the United States adopts a socialized health plan that the entire foundation of the American way of life will be broken. I think that a lot of people are confusing themselves, not realizing that a democracy is different than a republic (and the USA is a republic) and the difference between capitalism and socialism. There is an old saying that too much of any good thing can kill you. I think in this case too much capitalism is killing Americans. What do you think?

I am a bargain hound, plain and simple. I clip coupons. I search for discount codes on the Internet. I keep trying to grab up insanity deals at nomorerack.com because the nomorerack has an amazing selection of products at extremely low prices.

I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you that the world’s economy is changing in leaps and bounds, and the Internet has a lot to do with those changes. No longer is the consumer stuck with only the merchandise in his corner Mom & Pop variety store or ordering from the now extinct Sears & Roebuck mail order catalog. (Did you realize that the Sears & Roebuck mail order catalog used to sell complete house kits?)

Using the Internet to bargain shop is becoming more commonplace than going downtown on a Saturday afternoon to shop. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Well I think that question is moot because good or bad, it is in all likelihood here to stay. Many of today’s consumers don’t have the time on their hands to go into town to shop, and don’t want to have to find a baby sitter to watch their children when they go out to shop. And most parents don’t want to take their kids shopping with them because the children become bored and cranky pretty easily.

Not long ago townsfolk were alarmed at the thought that Wal-Mart, the Super Giant Retailer was going to destroy the commercial centers of their towns. In many cases, that is exactly what happened. Now it is the Internet’s turn to destroy Wal-Mart. More consumers would rather just sit down at their computer and order something to be delivered to their homes (in many cases delivery is free) than drag their families down to the crowded Wal-Mart on a weekend. I know that is what I would rather do! Because the Internet commerce is growing and giving Wal-Mart (and Target, and all of the other big discount stores) a run for their money, the commercial center of town just might enjoy a revival of small, locally owned service-based stores. After all, once the customer buys the product at a bargain rate, there will often be a need to service, clean, or repair the item. Yes, there will be the opportunity to ship the item needing repair to someplace “out there” but for the most I think that people would prefer to get their items repaired locally. What do you think? Is Internet bargain shopping better for the economy, or worse?