Sunday, January 13, 2013

Acorn Recipes!

The following article may be invaluable to you, sooner or later:

Acorn Recipes and Acorn Preparation - Grandpappy's Basic Recipes - by Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.

Acorns are all around us (there's about a billion of them on the ground next to where I park at church), and generally they're free. If you don't have any in your yard or neighborhood, check your local park; they probably have them all over the ground. And if you happen to have oak trees in your yard, even easier to collect: just set out some baskets underneath the tree(s), or perhaps some small opening net, such as fishnet or screen, on the ground, then all you have to do is collect the baskets or pick up the netting. Why, you ask? Since they're free, it will reduce your grocery bill. Just replace your use of flour with acorn meal, and other staples as well. I haven't read the whole article, but I do recall acorn pancakes.

This will be especially helpful once your paycheck starts to decrease due to the increased social security taxes this year. In fact, not only will you be able to reduce your grocery bill, you might be able to start offering the acorn meal to friends and family and/or start selling it from a roadside stand to supplement the diminished paychecks, a win-win!

Of course, if you're allergic to nuts, I wouldn't recommend trying this, as an acorn is still a nut. I'm allergic to nuts, I think, but of the human variety... I don't even have to touch them before I start to show symptoms, typically irritability and lack of listening.

(If you do happen to start making a ton of money off sales of acorn meal, please consider a donation to the author of this blog, so I can continue bringing you money saving and money making tips!)

Friday, January 11, 2013

Alabama cheats (and other stuff)

I promised more details later, and I guess it's now later, so here we go, run-on sentences and all.

First, attached (down below) is a pic of a nasty bug that was on my windshield as I started off for Upward Basketball this evening. It wasn't on there for long, once I started getting speed up to where it could no longer hold to the windshield, poor bug. I didn't go back to look for it though.

So, I guess you're wondering why I say Alabama cheats, huh? Well, I'll tell you. It has to do with a speeding ticket. No, not my ticket, and not one of my kids' tickets,  but I won't tell you whose it was (even though I was in the act of paying it). So, in Alabama you essentially have two choices for paying a ticket: go to court, and pay the court cost on top of your ticket fine, or pay it online, with a "convenience fee" tacked on. There's no way to pay just the fine. To me, that's cheating, tacking on extra money beyond the fine, that there's no way around. And so, Alabama cheats, increasing revenue of fines without the legislation to increase said fines, and without increasing the fines themselves. Cheating.

The whole "online payment convenience fee" thing is really bogus, anyway. Instead of having to pay someone to take my payment info over the phone, or to pay someone to process the endorsing and depositing of a check, your website processes the payment automatically. In reality, you should get a convenience discount for paying online, since you're saving whoever you're paying quite a bit by paying online. But, as usual, common sense takes a back seat to common cents. (Ha ha, see what I did there?)

And we're all going to need discounts, what with our "no tax increase on the middle class" going on. As with most people, my paycheck was cut this first paycheck of 2013. Social security tax went up by 2%, which equates to 47% more SS tax per paycheck. The irony is that SS tax is only calculated on the first $113,700 of your paycheck. That is, those who make well north of middle class will only be additionally taxed as much as those who make the aforementioned 113k. Proportionately, the percentage will actually be lower, since the additional tax dollar amount is a much lower percentage of the overall pay.

Anyway, enough about that for now (ask if you want more info or specific examples). Unrelatedly, I'm typing this blog out on my new to me phone, an LG Lucid, with no physical keyboard (while watching "Sherlock" on Netflix). Hopefully I've caught and corrected all the typos in this post. If not feel free to berate me. I'm a big boy (but dieting!), so I can take it. I think.