After enjoying and featuring "..Kraft Dinner.." by the colourful blogger, Potato, over at Blessed By The Potato, we thought we'd sign him to a temporary guest column series contract with the moneygardener for an undisclosed sum... This post series promises to be unlike any other consumer reporting/ offbeat commentary you've ever read. John Stossel eat your heart out.... This series will be a change of pace, and we're calling it potato wedges. Enjoy...
On Slippers and Hats and Warm Woolen Mittens
Energy costs are crashing, and we're probably going to be due for a credit/adjustment from Union Gas before the winter is out - but for the moment, we're paying through the nose for our heat. Roughly 30% more than last year. So conservation is big in our minds at the Potato homestead, for both financial and environmental reasons.
Making changes to your home to make it more efficient are great steps to take. Since we're renting here there's a certain limit to what we can do: we've put plastic wrap over the windows and caulked the cracks we could find, and we have opened and closed registers so that most of the heat is flowing in to the kitchen and the bedrooms (where we spend most of our time).
The next step, and one that is sometimes overlooked, is to bundle up. Heat yourself, not the house… that actually reminds me of an amusing anecdote often shared at conferences: at one point shortly after the miracle of microwaves was discovered (and apparently more recently, too), it was proposed to use them to heat people. Yes, people -- a microwave/millimeter beam would heat you up in your own living room, because as long as you were warm it wouldn't matter how cold the room was. But I'm not here to talk about the mad science of the 1930's.
As much fun as it is to run around the house in a T-shirt like I do at work (oh, they waste so much heat at work), I can turn the heat down a few degrees by just throwing on a sweater. Of course, even more important than a sweater are slippers. Keeping your feet warm is key to staying comfortable in what is otherwise a frigid house. Not just because they're the furthest part of your body from your heart so they go numb and cold quickly, but also because they make direct physical contact with the cold floor.
The slippers I have right now are really crazy warm. They're Darth Vader slippers, and his mighty head is pretty much solid stuffing which is just oh so toasty warm. Of course, I don't know if it's the fact that I tend to drag my feet when I'm wearing slippers or what, but they freak the hell out of the cat. Ah well, a small price to pay for energy savings (and though the cat doesn't have slippers, she's fluffy and doesn't seem to mind the cold).
The next step for me is going to be hats and gloves. So far I've held off because I want the house to be warm enough that I can type without gloves, since I spend so much time on the computer, but a hat makes perfect sense. I mean, ok, it does seem kind of goofy to run around the house in a toque, but they do always say that a large part of your heat loss is through the head…
Showing posts with label potato wedges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potato wedges. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2009
Monday, December 15, 2008
potato wedges - joint finances
After enjoying and featuring "..Kraft Dinner.." by the colourful blogger, Potato, over at Blessed By The Potato, we thought we'd sign him to a temporary guest column series contract with the moneygardener for an undisclosed sum... This post series promises to be unlike any other consumer reporting/ offbeat commentary you've ever read. John Stossel eat your heart out.... This series will be a change of pace, and we're calling it potato wedges. Enjoy...
Well, I'm married now.
We talked early on about money. We agree on a surprising amount: we both are fairly frugal, and are comfortable with equity investing, we're both responsible and pay bills on time, and can keep (roughly) to a budget.
The one thing I was not expecting after the marriage was that we couldn't figure out the nuts and bolts of actually managing joint accounts. Before, we had recorded all our spending during a month, who paid for what, then would transfer money between us so that we both paid roughly half the household expenses, maintaining always our own individual accounts. I figured that there were a number of approaches to take once we were married: we could continue to split things equally; we could just simply pay for things and not worry about whether it was equal or not, perhaps transferring between our individual accounts if the balances got out of...balance; we could split the monthly costs instead according to who made what, so that our savings/investment accounts went up at about the same rate; or, we could have the higher-income person pay for everything, so that investments are made in the hands of thegraduate student lower-tax bracket person. In all of my scenarios, there wasn't an explicit need for a joint account of any sort, and I hadn't really planned on making an extensive use of one.
Wayfare, being a more sentimental person (i.e.: female), was appalled at my down-to-earth practicality, and insisted that a joint account was a must, because we're married, damnit! So any wedding gifts that came in the form of cash or cheques went into the newly-minted joint account (and I wish I could describe with words the look on her face when I suggested we just split the wedding gifts and put them in our existing accounts and just record the wedding-gift-house-downpayment fund balance in a spreadsheet). This was just the beginning though, because that's our joint house savings account is for that purpose only now. It's sentimental and carries with it a certain lingering magic from the wedding (I wonder if PC financial offers bonus interest for magic?). In the face of a looming liquidity crisis, I suggested she just use the money in the joint account to pay her tax installment to the CRA, and re-deposit it when her paycheque arrived.
Whoa. It was a good thing there was halloween chocolate nearby, or I might not be here to blog about the experience.
So as you can plainly see, money is just money to me. But to Wayfare, things can be a bit different.
We still haven't fully figured out exactly how we're going to do this. Right now we're working off the "doesn't matter who pays for what, just let it ride" method, largely because it involves the least amount of work. We know that we don't really want to get a Joint Account for everything -- we don't really want all our paycheques going into some common pool and merging our credit cards and just working from there: we both like our autonomy, and don't want the other person to know what we spend on gifts, etc. Besides, it's all "our money" in the end. We don't really have a model to work from: talking about money is not a big topic for most people, especially the nitty-gritty of how they combine their individual accounts after marriage. We know that both our sets of parents have Joint Accounts (capitalized for emphasis that this is not merely a shared account) and one spouse takes care of all the finances. Since we're both financially savvy though, we both want to keep some measure of control, to keep our fingers in the pie as it were.
Michael James beat me to it this morning with a great quote: "Sharing a bank account feels sort of like sharing a toothbrush to me. It can be done, but you'd have to be in quite a romantic mood to think that sharing a toothbrush is a good idea."
Well, I'm married now.
We talked early on about money. We agree on a surprising amount: we both are fairly frugal, and are comfortable with equity investing, we're both responsible and pay bills on time, and can keep (roughly) to a budget.
The one thing I was not expecting after the marriage was that we couldn't figure out the nuts and bolts of actually managing joint accounts. Before, we had recorded all our spending during a month, who paid for what, then would transfer money between us so that we both paid roughly half the household expenses, maintaining always our own individual accounts. I figured that there were a number of approaches to take once we were married: we could continue to split things equally; we could just simply pay for things and not worry about whether it was equal or not, perhaps transferring between our individual accounts if the balances got out of...balance; we could split the monthly costs instead according to who made what, so that our savings/investment accounts went up at about the same rate; or, we could have the higher-income person pay for everything, so that investments are made in the hands of the
Wayfare, being a more sentimental person (i.e.: female), was appalled at my down-to-earth practicality, and insisted that a joint account was a must, because we're married, damnit! So any wedding gifts that came in the form of cash or cheques went into the newly-minted joint account (and I wish I could describe with words the look on her face when I suggested we just split the wedding gifts and put them in our existing accounts and just record the wedding-gift-house-downpayment fund balance in a spreadsheet). This was just the beginning though, because that's our joint house savings account is for that purpose only now. It's sentimental and carries with it a certain lingering magic from the wedding (I wonder if PC financial offers bonus interest for magic?). In the face of a looming liquidity crisis, I suggested she just use the money in the joint account to pay her tax installment to the CRA, and re-deposit it when her paycheque arrived.
Whoa. It was a good thing there was halloween chocolate nearby, or I might not be here to blog about the experience.
So as you can plainly see, money is just money to me. But to Wayfare, things can be a bit different.
We still haven't fully figured out exactly how we're going to do this. Right now we're working off the "doesn't matter who pays for what, just let it ride" method, largely because it involves the least amount of work. We know that we don't really want to get a Joint Account for everything -- we don't really want all our paycheques going into some common pool and merging our credit cards and just working from there: we both like our autonomy, and don't want the other person to know what we spend on gifts, etc. Besides, it's all "our money" in the end. We don't really have a model to work from: talking about money is not a big topic for most people, especially the nitty-gritty of how they combine their individual accounts after marriage. We know that both our sets of parents have Joint Accounts (capitalized for emphasis that this is not merely a shared account) and one spouse takes care of all the finances. Since we're both financially savvy though, we both want to keep some measure of control, to keep our fingers in the pie as it were.
Michael James beat me to it this morning with a great quote: "Sharing a bank account feels sort of like sharing a toothbrush to me. It can be done, but you'd have to be in quite a romantic mood to think that sharing a toothbrush is a good idea."
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
potato wedges - luggage
After enjoying and featuring "..Kraft Dinner.." by the colourful blogger, Potato, over at Blessed By The Potato, we thought we'd sign him to a temporary guest column series contract with the moneygardener for an undisclosed sum... This post series promises to be unlike any other consumer reporting/ offbeat commentary you've ever read. John Stossel eat your heart out.... This series will be a change of pace, and we're calling it potato wedges. Enjoy...
potato wedges
Luggage
It's important to have good luggage if you're going to go travelling for an extended period of time, or so I've heard. For the most part, I've found it important to have a good backpack (which I use daily), and then when I go away I just muddle through with a duffel I got for free. Occasionally I've found the need for a rolling suitcase -- which I found fairly cumbersome, especially on the train -- but couldn't deny the obvious benefit in the airport. It's been rare enough though that I just borrow one from my parents.
So when Wayfare and I got married, we registered for some good wheeled luggage, paying particular attention to it being lightweight (though I don't know why we bothered, since what we fill it with is going to be the main determinant of the final weight) and having good wheels and bearings. I remember having to haul my (borrowed) suitcase down a long gravel walk at one hotel, and having wheels that were a little bit bigger than average really helped there. Some particularly small plastic rollers will lock up on the smallest piece of dirt, turning your wheeled luggage into dragged luggage. Another point we looked for was a handle that would operate smoothly with one hand (retract, extend): Wayfare's old suitcase required holding the suitcase and button with one hand and yanking the handle with the other, trying it one-handed would as likely as not just lift the suitcase entirely, or tilt it over on its side.
Luggage, I've found, is ludicrously expensive. A lot of that must be mark-up, because we've seen some pretty incredible sales come by, including a 65% off sale on some Air Canada brand pieces at the Bay last week (Wayfare went with one of those for our new stuff). As much as I ripped into the Bay for their gift registry, they do offer some benefits after the wedding is over: for the next year, we can use all those gift cards we got (as well as our own cash when those run out) to buy stuff to "complete" our registry. And when we do that, they give us a minimum discount, equivalent to their typical sale (or, a recent sale price if we're lucky). So, we can get ~25% off kitchen stuff on our registry for the next year, ~10% off sheets, and 50% off luggage. So that right there should tell you what kind of discount you should be looking for if you're waiting for a good luggage sale (or if you are looking to negotiate).
For reference, the one really huge piece Wayfare originally registered for was $400 (Swiss army, which my parents can't recommend highly enough for their luggage, but you really, really pay for the name). Thankfully, nobody bought us that (I would have felt bad if they paid full price). The Air Canada piece was roughly equivalent in size, weight, and quality, and was even a little bit more visually attractive, too. It was normally about $250, and we got it for $85.
potato wedges
Luggage
It's important to have good luggage if you're going to go travelling for an extended period of time, or so I've heard. For the most part, I've found it important to have a good backpack (which I use daily), and then when I go away I just muddle through with a duffel I got for free. Occasionally I've found the need for a rolling suitcase -- which I found fairly cumbersome, especially on the train -- but couldn't deny the obvious benefit in the airport. It's been rare enough though that I just borrow one from my parents.
So when Wayfare and I got married, we registered for some good wheeled luggage, paying particular attention to it being lightweight (though I don't know why we bothered, since what we fill it with is going to be the main determinant of the final weight) and having good wheels and bearings. I remember having to haul my (borrowed) suitcase down a long gravel walk at one hotel, and having wheels that were a little bit bigger than average really helped there. Some particularly small plastic rollers will lock up on the smallest piece of dirt, turning your wheeled luggage into dragged luggage. Another point we looked for was a handle that would operate smoothly with one hand (retract, extend): Wayfare's old suitcase required holding the suitcase and button with one hand and yanking the handle with the other, trying it one-handed would as likely as not just lift the suitcase entirely, or tilt it over on its side.
Luggage, I've found, is ludicrously expensive. A lot of that must be mark-up, because we've seen some pretty incredible sales come by, including a 65% off sale on some Air Canada brand pieces at the Bay last week (Wayfare went with one of those for our new stuff). As much as I ripped into the Bay for their gift registry, they do offer some benefits after the wedding is over: for the next year, we can use all those gift cards we got (as well as our own cash when those run out) to buy stuff to "complete" our registry. And when we do that, they give us a minimum discount, equivalent to their typical sale (or, a recent sale price if we're lucky). So, we can get ~25% off kitchen stuff on our registry for the next year, ~10% off sheets, and 50% off luggage. So that right there should tell you what kind of discount you should be looking for if you're waiting for a good luggage sale (or if you are looking to negotiate).
For reference, the one really huge piece Wayfare originally registered for was $400 (Swiss army, which my parents can't recommend highly enough for their luggage, but you really, really pay for the name). Thankfully, nobody bought us that (I would have felt bad if they paid full price). The Air Canada piece was roughly equivalent in size, weight, and quality, and was even a little bit more visually attractive, too. It was normally about $250, and we got it for $85.
Friday, November 7, 2008
potato wedges - income trust yields & valuations
After enjoying and featuring "..Kraft Dinner.." by the colourful blogger, Potato, over at Blessed By The Potato, we thought we'd sign him to a temporary guest column series contract with the moneygardener for an undisclosed sum... This post series promises to be unlike any other consumer reporting/ offbeat commentary you've ever read. John Stossel eat your heart out.... This series will be a change of pace, and we're calling it potato wedges. Enjoy...
potato wedges
Income Trust Yields & Valuations
The market has been a little insane lately. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, as the saying goes, and one is often instructed not to catch a falling knife. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but plow the money I got from Q9 being taken over right back into the market, specifically into some high-quality income trusts that I think are just ridiculously under-valued at the moment. Quarterly results have just been released, and while I recognize that they are lagging reports (for the period ended Sept 30, though the markets and economy didn't really go totally batshit loco until October), they seem to underline just how non-catastrophic some sectors are.
Yellow Pages income fund (YLO.UN) had very strong results: they are well on track to keep up the modest ~4% revenue growth needed to maintain their distributions after a conversion to a corporate structure. They had impressive improvements in their margin, so net income was up even more, 19%, helped also by the growth of their online business. If a temporary bump in the road comes along, the distribution is less than 80% of their cashflow, so there is a safety factor there. I know that the coming recession hasn't really hit them yet, but at the same time, keeping up your ad in the Yellow Pages is pretty much necessity for any small business. Advertising spending may get chopped next year, but the part of it that goes to YLO will surely be the last to go. MG likes and owns them as well, and just had a post on averaging down. Right now YLO is down so much it's yielding about 15%.
H&R Reit (HR.UN) is a real estate investment trust that has commercial real estate (office space, industrial buildings, and retail space) that it leases out. It has a preference for long-term leases with large, stable companies. To go with that, it has long-term fixed mortgages, so the credit crunch shouldn't really affect them much. Nonetheless, it's down to below the value of the real estate it owns (though the balance sheet values of real estate holdings must be discounted in this market) and is also yielding about 15%. They haven't released their quarterly results yet, but I would be incredibly surprised if it was anything other than "steady as she goes". Their payout is a little higher at 90%, but they don't need to build up the tax cushion other trusts do (REITs are, AFAIK, immune to Harper's tax).
Why did I bold the 15% yields? It's because they are, to my senses, screaming for attention. The gains for the market as a whole will likely average about 10% per year over the next decade or two, a prediction by John Bogle that Canadian Capitalist recently commented on. I personally expect equity nominal returns to be somewhere in that range as well, possibly a little lower on a 20-year timeframe (unless inflation is high). So when these stable companies are offering a 5% premium to that (or put another way, a third higher), which can be continued (hopefully) indefinitely, and moreover, predictably -- the payout comes every month, despite what the market may do (and that ~10% prediction is going to feature lots of ups and downs along the way) -- I sit up and take notice. To top it off, once Yellow Pages converts, that regular, lucrative distribution will become a dividend, which will have the added benefit of being favourably taxed.
I think these trust valuations have gotten so low, and the yields so high, that it just can't be ignored any more. There could be more bad news ahead. Given the trends, there probably will be. But I think 10 years from now I am not going to regret buying something that's this stable and yielding 15%.
Try INO Free! - Get your favorite symbols' Trend Analysis TODAY! Click Here
potato wedges
Income Trust Yields & Valuations
The market has been a little insane lately. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, as the saying goes, and one is often instructed not to catch a falling knife. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but plow the money I got from Q9 being taken over right back into the market, specifically into some high-quality income trusts that I think are just ridiculously under-valued at the moment. Quarterly results have just been released, and while I recognize that they are lagging reports (for the period ended Sept 30, though the markets and economy didn't really go totally batshit loco until October), they seem to underline just how non-catastrophic some sectors are.
Yellow Pages income fund (YLO.UN) had very strong results: they are well on track to keep up the modest ~4% revenue growth needed to maintain their distributions after a conversion to a corporate structure. They had impressive improvements in their margin, so net income was up even more, 19%, helped also by the growth of their online business. If a temporary bump in the road comes along, the distribution is less than 80% of their cashflow, so there is a safety factor there. I know that the coming recession hasn't really hit them yet, but at the same time, keeping up your ad in the Yellow Pages is pretty much necessity for any small business. Advertising spending may get chopped next year, but the part of it that goes to YLO will surely be the last to go. MG likes and owns them as well, and just had a post on averaging down. Right now YLO is down so much it's yielding about 15%.
H&R Reit (HR.UN) is a real estate investment trust that has commercial real estate (office space, industrial buildings, and retail space) that it leases out. It has a preference for long-term leases with large, stable companies. To go with that, it has long-term fixed mortgages, so the credit crunch shouldn't really affect them much. Nonetheless, it's down to below the value of the real estate it owns (though the balance sheet values of real estate holdings must be discounted in this market) and is also yielding about 15%. They haven't released their quarterly results yet, but I would be incredibly surprised if it was anything other than "steady as she goes". Their payout is a little higher at 90%, but they don't need to build up the tax cushion other trusts do (REITs are, AFAIK, immune to Harper's tax).
Why did I bold the 15% yields? It's because they are, to my senses, screaming for attention. The gains for the market as a whole will likely average about 10% per year over the next decade or two, a prediction by John Bogle that Canadian Capitalist recently commented on. I personally expect equity nominal returns to be somewhere in that range as well, possibly a little lower on a 20-year timeframe (unless inflation is high). So when these stable companies are offering a 5% premium to that (or put another way, a third higher), which can be continued (hopefully) indefinitely, and moreover, predictably -- the payout comes every month, despite what the market may do (and that ~10% prediction is going to feature lots of ups and downs along the way) -- I sit up and take notice. To top it off, once Yellow Pages converts, that regular, lucrative distribution will become a dividend, which will have the added benefit of being favourably taxed.
I think these trust valuations have gotten so low, and the yields so high, that it just can't be ignored any more. There could be more bad news ahead. Given the trends, there probably will be. But I think 10 years from now I am not going to regret buying something that's this stable and yielding 15%.
Try INO Free! - Get your favorite symbols' Trend Analysis TODAY! Click Here
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
potato wedges, talking toothpaste
After enjoying and featuring "..Kraft Dinner.." by the colourful blogger, Potato, over at Blessed By The Potato, we thought we'd sign him to a temporary guest column series contract with the moneygardener for an undisclosed sum... This post series promises to be unlike any other consumer reporting/ offbeat commentary you've ever read. John Stossel eat your heart out.... This series will be a change of pace, and we're calling it potato wedges. Enjoy...
potato wedges
talking toothpaste
In the course of all that school work, I've pulled a lot of all-nighters, which has required a lot of caffeine to keep me somewhat awake. I've never been able to get into coffee, just too bitter for my sweet tooth (actually, I have about 28 sweet teeth), so Coke was my vice. Lots and lots of Coke.
The thing about Coke is that it is just stupidly destructive to teeth, especially when you're in the lab for 14 hours straight and aren't brushing until you sleep, and you're not doing that, either. Pretty much every tooth from my canines back has a cavity, and the funny thing I learned about cavities from my dentist is that the fillings, particularly when you "chew hard" or grind your teeth like I supposedly do, have a limited lifespan, on the order of about 10 years at which point they usually have to be re drilled and refilled because the enamel starts wearing down around the filling (widening the hole), or the filling itself may crack or become loose. So now I'm in this holding pattern where I have more than 10 fillings that are all on this 10-year cycle, so I'm getting at least one filling redone every year. Needless to say, I spend a lot on dental care -- I usually max out my $500 university dental plan every year, and still end up paying another $500 or so out of my own pocket in co-pays.
To try to ameliorate the situation, I jump on almost every dental care fad there is (I have yet to get a water pick irrigator thing, but I know it's coming). Recently, Crest and Colgate came out with new toothpastes: Crest Pro Health and Colgate Total Advanced Health/Professional Clean. They were more than twice as expensive as the regular version of the toothpaste I usually buy (Colgate Total), so they must be good, right? Well, after I got home from the store (Shoppers Drug Mart, btw) I looked at the active ingredients and the health claims and they were exactly the same. What a scam! I went back to the store and also saw "enamel hardening" toothpaste, which sounded like just what I needed. Turns out this had fluoride as its only active ingredient -- basically, they renamed their basic toothpaste (non-total, non-12-hour-antibacterial, non-tatar-fighting) enamel hardening. I started to wonder if the new Advanced Health tubes were just a marketing gimmick, repackaging the same stuff for a much bigger markup.
To make a long story merely medium-length, I found that there was one very slight difference: the new expensive versions had tiny silica particles in them, basically sand grains to act as abrasives to help clean teeth even more. I'm skeptical first off of how effective that might really be, and secondly on whether that really makes the toothpaste cost twice as much. I was just about to launch into full righteous indignation mode and write to Colgate-Palmolive and P&G expressing my dismay at their deceptive price gouging tactics and how I was going to switch back to Colgate Total when I was hit by the noodly appendage of perspective. Toothpaste, in the grand scheme of things, is an extremely minor expense, especially in light of how much I spend on dental care. In fact, I've gone and bought myself some Colgate Prevident, something I had been avoiding merely because it costs $12/bottle. Prevident, for those who don't know, is a concentrated fluoride toothpaste (1.1% vs the 0.243% in regular toothpaste) that's meant to be used as a before-bed brush-on treatment after you've already brushed your teeth with regular toothpaste. It's really for people like me with particularly horrible mouths; most people don't need that kind of treatment.
So kids, brush and floss those teeth, and do your homework early so you don't stay up all night drinking Coke like it was your job. I don't want to recommend caffeine pills since they always seemed kind of extreme to me, but it might not be such a bad alternative.
Oh, and MG: Sorry, I know you own Procter & Gamble (PG), but I've just always been a Colgate (CL) guy (and Crest doesn't have a Prevident alternative!)
potato wedges
talking toothpaste
In the course of all that school work, I've pulled a lot of all-nighters, which has required a lot of caffeine to keep me somewhat awake. I've never been able to get into coffee, just too bitter for my sweet tooth (actually, I have about 28 sweet teeth), so Coke was my vice. Lots and lots of Coke.
The thing about Coke is that it is just stupidly destructive to teeth, especially when you're in the lab for 14 hours straight and aren't brushing until you sleep, and you're not doing that, either. Pretty much every tooth from my canines back has a cavity, and the funny thing I learned about cavities from my dentist is that the fillings, particularly when you "chew hard" or grind your teeth like I supposedly do, have a limited lifespan, on the order of about 10 years at which point they usually have to be re drilled and refilled because the enamel starts wearing down around the filling (widening the hole), or the filling itself may crack or become loose. So now I'm in this holding pattern where I have more than 10 fillings that are all on this 10-year cycle, so I'm getting at least one filling redone every year. Needless to say, I spend a lot on dental care -- I usually max out my $500 university dental plan every year, and still end up paying another $500 or so out of my own pocket in co-pays.
To try to ameliorate the situation, I jump on almost every dental care fad there is (I have yet to get a water pick irrigator thing, but I know it's coming). Recently, Crest and Colgate came out with new toothpastes: Crest Pro Health and Colgate Total Advanced Health/Professional Clean. They were more than twice as expensive as the regular version of the toothpaste I usually buy (Colgate Total), so they must be good, right? Well, after I got home from the store (Shoppers Drug Mart, btw) I looked at the active ingredients and the health claims and they were exactly the same. What a scam! I went back to the store and also saw "enamel hardening" toothpaste, which sounded like just what I needed. Turns out this had fluoride as its only active ingredient -- basically, they renamed their basic toothpaste (non-total, non-12-hour-antibacterial, non-tatar-fighting) enamel hardening. I started to wonder if the new Advanced Health tubes were just a marketing gimmick, repackaging the same stuff for a much bigger markup.
To make a long story merely medium-length, I found that there was one very slight difference: the new expensive versions had tiny silica particles in them, basically sand grains to act as abrasives to help clean teeth even more. I'm skeptical first off of how effective that might really be, and secondly on whether that really makes the toothpaste cost twice as much. I was just about to launch into full righteous indignation mode and write to Colgate-Palmolive and P&G expressing my dismay at their deceptive price gouging tactics and how I was going to switch back to Colgate Total when I was hit by the noodly appendage of perspective. Toothpaste, in the grand scheme of things, is an extremely minor expense, especially in light of how much I spend on dental care. In fact, I've gone and bought myself some Colgate Prevident, something I had been avoiding merely because it costs $12/bottle. Prevident, for those who don't know, is a concentrated fluoride toothpaste (1.1% vs the 0.243% in regular toothpaste) that's meant to be used as a before-bed brush-on treatment after you've already brushed your teeth with regular toothpaste. It's really for people like me with particularly horrible mouths; most people don't need that kind of treatment.
So kids, brush and floss those teeth, and do your homework early so you don't stay up all night drinking Coke like it was your job. I don't want to recommend caffeine pills since they always seemed kind of extreme to me, but it might not be such a bad alternative.
Oh, and MG: Sorry, I know you own Procter & Gamble (PG), but I've just always been a Colgate (CL) guy (and Crest doesn't have a Prevident alternative!)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
introducing, potato wedges
After enjoying and featuring "..Kraft Dinner.." by the colourful blogger, Potato, over at Blessed By The Potato, we thought we'd sign him to a temporary guest column series contract with the moneygardener for an undisclosed sum... This post series promises to be unlike any other consumer reporting/ offbeat commentary you've ever read. John Stossel eat your heart out.... This series will be a change of pace, and we're calling it potato wedges. Enjoy...
Hello everyone, I'm Potato, and I'll be taking over a spot here on MG's blog to mix things up on a semi-regular basis. I have my own blog over at www.holypotato.com, but I can't have a cool guest column pun on my own blog, so here I am. Oh, that and I usually write about whatever shiny thing happens to catch my eye at whatever point I feel like writing, which makes it a difficult blog to follow from the reader's point of view. Here, I'll try to avoid politics and travelogues, which admittedly only narrows things down a little.
Even though MG is kind enough to host this guest column, he didn't write it, he (hopefully) didn't edit it, and so he certainly isn't responsible for whatever crazy things I might happen to say, just to clear him when I eventually put my foot in my mouth.
So, I'm a graduate student, which is of course setting off all kinds of alarms now given that this is a personal finance themed blog, and being a grad student is right up there among the dumb life/finance decisions one can make. I'm in science, so it's not as bad as it could be, and having a PhD in biophysics really does give one a leg up in the supervillan application process, so there is some hope post-graduation. My mind reader gizmo* tells me that the question on your minds is: why is a graduate student blogging about personal finance issues? True, for a long time I took a very hands-off and brains-off approach to my money, but even then I had at least some awareness of the importance of budgeting, saving, and investing thanks to the influence of my dad, a CA and financial consultant. However, I've been getting interested, educating myself, and reading more lately, because I've been faced with a challenge. I was a year late finishing my MSc degree, and that taught me something: my scholarships stopped paying my tuition when I took more than the recommended 2 years. Now that I'm on my PhD I want to be ready in case it takes me more than 4 years to finish, since no one I know in my department has finished in 4 years. So I'm saving, but more than that: I don't want to save just to end up broke if my thesis takes a ridiculous amount of time, to graduate in my 30's with nothing to my name but grey hair and a degree, I want to set up some investments that will grow or produce income to cover my tuition without having to eat away at the principle. And that process of reading and educating myself in money matters is what brought me here. Plus, science is kind of hard to write about, and auto magically puts a large part of my audience to sleep (yes, even more so than finance).
* - actually, my mind reader gizmo is a 1.5T magnet that takes up 3 rooms at the hospital. You'd know if I was using it.
Hello everyone, I'm Potato, and I'll be taking over a spot here on MG's blog to mix things up on a semi-regular basis. I have my own blog over at www.holypotato.com, but I can't have a cool guest column pun on my own blog, so here I am. Oh, that and I usually write about whatever shiny thing happens to catch my eye at whatever point I feel like writing, which makes it a difficult blog to follow from the reader's point of view. Here, I'll try to avoid politics and travelogues, which admittedly only narrows things down a little.
Even though MG is kind enough to host this guest column, he didn't write it, he (hopefully) didn't edit it, and so he certainly isn't responsible for whatever crazy things I might happen to say, just to clear him when I eventually put my foot in my mouth.
So, I'm a graduate student, which is of course setting off all kinds of alarms now given that this is a personal finance themed blog, and being a grad student is right up there among the dumb life/finance decisions one can make. I'm in science, so it's not as bad as it could be, and having a PhD in biophysics really does give one a leg up in the supervillan application process, so there is some hope post-graduation. My mind reader gizmo* tells me that the question on your minds is: why is a graduate student blogging about personal finance issues? True, for a long time I took a very hands-off and brains-off approach to my money, but even then I had at least some awareness of the importance of budgeting, saving, and investing thanks to the influence of my dad, a CA and financial consultant. However, I've been getting interested, educating myself, and reading more lately, because I've been faced with a challenge. I was a year late finishing my MSc degree, and that taught me something: my scholarships stopped paying my tuition when I took more than the recommended 2 years. Now that I'm on my PhD I want to be ready in case it takes me more than 4 years to finish, since no one I know in my department has finished in 4 years. So I'm saving, but more than that: I don't want to save just to end up broke if my thesis takes a ridiculous amount of time, to graduate in my 30's with nothing to my name but grey hair and a degree, I want to set up some investments that will grow or produce income to cover my tuition without having to eat away at the principle. And that process of reading and educating myself in money matters is what brought me here. Plus, science is kind of hard to write about, and auto magically puts a large part of my audience to sleep (yes, even more so than finance).
* - actually, my mind reader gizmo is a 1.5T magnet that takes up 3 rooms at the hospital. You'd know if I was using it.
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