Amy Currioman

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?

As much as I tried to avoid it, I finally arranged to have texting enabled on our family’s cell phone plan. Up until now I had ordered it blocked because I think texting is dangerous and rude on many occassions, and people don’t seem to have the common decency or sense when to use it or not. But my son told me that his boss really wanted him to have text messaging enabled, so I went ahead and enabled it.

So I had to have my son teach me how to use it, and he laughed at me because he thought that I should already know how to use it! It was easier than I thought it would be, and I have used it a couple of times. I wonder how much I’ll use it in the future. I can’t imagine doing it while driving. That would be dangerous and dumb.

This guest post from Lewis Beck

Being a small business owner is a lot of work but I really found out the true meaning of that when I got mono last year. I was more or less a one man shop and being so sick for so long nearly put me out of business. I learned the importance of having good people behind you when you need them most and also not to solely rely on yourself since it’s hard to really know when you’re going to be out of commission. Thankfully before I even opened the doors of my shop I did a lot of research on things like online billing and small business xo and really had the whole place ready to go for someone to take over so when my best friend Jim stepped in to help out while I was sick it wasn’t too much of a learning curve. He really saved me those couple of weeks and after a few months things were back to normal. I don’t know what I would have done without all his help!