Buzz: Skeet’s Stuff – a blog about ‘clutter’! And it’s not cluttered!

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skeet

I recently visited Skeet’s Blog, and was immediately struck by the unusual but delightful header image on her blog.

When I wrote her about it, this is what Anita wrote:

Mahalo Kenneth! A friend did the art for me after my theme designer tried to sell me on a very chic, Sex-in-the City looking gal for the header. So not me! Goal was to depict me – mature semi-anonymous (like all bloggers) woman, sitting in her clutter, reading a book instead of doing something about the mess. Camera, shopping and books all tie in to the new blogs I’m building. I really love what she came up with. Dogs and Hawaii are central to my life, too, of course.

I’ve mentioned eye candy in several ways over the last few months. And the personalization she achieves by including a sketch of a human being (herself) in cartoon form really adds to the tone and appearance of her blog. Very nicely done. I’ve been posting comments on her environment and finance categories.

Good luck on your blog!

‘Free Money’: What do you do with it?

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It’s tax season in many countries in the world: U.S., UK, and here in Taiwan, too. It’s time to pony up our share of our ill~ (well?!) gotten gains for the previous fiscal year, and that got me started thinking about ‘free money.’What is ‘free money’? Well, in some cases, it’s really free. You win the money in a competition, you inherit some money, you earn a surprise bonus, a stock suddenly bounces, whatever. This money came to you from the Goddess of Fortune. In other cases, ‘free’ money isn’t quite so free, but still it can be a big benefit.

‘Free money’ like that may come from many places, money that you dropped under the sofa, lay hidden in a bank account that was forgotten about, you loaned to a friend that was unexpectedly returned, a tax rebate… the list goes on. The key point to such money is that it is yours, but it was not available to you to spend or invest until you reclaimed it some how.

The temptation when you find such ‘free money’ is to spend it, because you want something in particular, and didn’t have the money for a purchase. In reality, this is a bad choice, because saving or investing ‘free money’ will always produce a bonus of some kind in the form of interest or dividends or capital appreciation. Also, over several years, such little amounts of ‘free money’ can, in fact, add up to quite a large some, larger than you might otherwise expect.

An example: in 1999~2000 our landlord, for various tax reasons (I don’t quite understand) returned our full year’s rent, that was about $8350. Then when we mortgaged and remortgaged our house a few years ago, because the paperwork took a while, we didn’t have to pay a mortgage payment for one month. That saved about $600. About three years ago, a relation returned our $3,500 loan now that they had the means to do so. Adding up all those amounts, we get about $12K. That’s not bad for free money.

Of course, there have been other occasions when we have received such ‘free money’ in smaller amounts, but the money has been spent or invested without us knowing or being able to account where it went.

So, this year, if you get a rebate or inheritance, don’t go out and buy a boat or a 2nd car or remodel yourself or your house. Think intelligently, and if you really want any of those items, work out a way to get the money from your regular budget. Put the ‘free money’ to use in your investments, whether it is tax free or not. It will add up quite quickly, and produce a loot more!

What kind of ‘free money’ did you receive? How did you manage it? Well or badly? Share your story with us!

Firefox Add-ons: You have HOW many!?

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firefox add-ons

For those of you who use Firefox in any of the recent incarnations, you’ll be quite happy to discover there are hundreds of ‘add-ons’ that you can use for your installation.

I have repeatedly reinstalled my add-ons as I’ve changed pcs over the last few months, but I can never remember all of the adds that I have so this post is to help me, and inform you of the plugins that I like to use…

AdBlock Plus: Blocks Ads. It’s that simple. Useful if you want to make sure you don’t click on your own Google Ads by mistake!

All-In-One Sidebar: a useful plugin that puts everything you need in a sidebar (yes, another sidebar!), just like in the photo on the right.

FasterFox: a plugin that automates the process of speeding up your browser.

Firefox Showcase: Make it easy to switch to the right window in FF. This is very useful for people who open multiple windows (as I do!).

FireFTP: I’ve been a fan of FileZilla for a long time, but recently found that the software isn’t as reliable as it used to be. Having an FTP client IN your browser really helps with little things that you have to upload, but forgot!

Foxmarks: Blogged here already.

Foxy Tunes: Adds a simple Media Controller at the bottom of the browser, and works with MOST media players nowadays. I always install it.

GmailSpace: An easy to add plugin that turns your Gmail into a kind of folder for your hard drive! Upload all sorts of stuff, and store it in Google.

IETab: Allows with one click the option to show pages through IE. This is fabulous if you have trouble accessing CERTAIN websites without support for FF. (it’s insane that all sites still don’t support FF! Even MSN does nowadays.). Anyway, it works well.

desktop

PayperpostOpps: for Payperpost Opps.

Reload Every: so you’re bidding on Ebay, and your worried about losing out on the auction! Reload allows you to auto-reload the page every x seconds/minutes.

Scribe Fire: The old Performancing plugin. I use it occasionally now, as I prefer BlogDesk for its no-nonsense use, and nice jpeg handling.

Search Status: Allows you to check the PR and Alexa ranking, amongst other things.

Tab Mix Plus: Adds extra options on each tab. Very useful, if you close a tab accidentally.

I’m including a jpeg of my desktop to show you what I mean. It’s a little blurry, but you can make out the obvious ones! Anyway, these are my favorite plugins right now. Any other ‘essential’ suggestions? Add them to our comments! Also, I would like to see who has the most! I have 16, but I can think of another six that I’d like! Anyone got more?