Look for some updates soon

As you can see, the main stickler for helping out your credit is making all your payments on time. It helps to incorporate the mindset that I have adopted over the last year or so in that I pay all my bills and myself first, then figuring everything else out later. Before everything else, including groceries, festivals, etc, I make sure my bills are taken care of, and that I have put something away into savings, and this has worked out quite well. It has also instilled in me the value of frugality.

A lot of people don’t seem to understand how credit (or even their own personal finances) works, and surprisingly I used to be in the same boat when I was married. I chock that up to being young and stupid.

When I left my husband, my credit score was 525. Granted that’s somewhere “in the middle” but the reality is, to people looking at your credit, that’s awful. I couldn’t get approved for anything, and I certainly wasn’t going to get approved for a car loan at that point.

Since then however, I’ve been slowly hacking away at my credit, and last I checked it was close to if not 700 or more. And being over 700 is right where you want to be.

I got my start with Capital One, which approved me for a meager $250 credit card a few years ago. I slowly worked up my credit, have an increase to $500 on that particular card, and was approved for another one with my military insurance for $5,500. After building up my credit with both of those cards, I was finally approved for an auto loan and now have my lovely mustang, and my very first new car. All it takes is time, regular payments, and understanding that buying things on credit is never a good idea. I do not buy anything unless I have the money to pay for it. If I don’t, it takes a lot of convincing for me to even consider it.

There are several agencies that claim that they will give you a free credit report. I used one called FreeCreditReport.com once, and while detailed and very use-friendly, it was also a scam, because it wasn’t actually free. And they also enroll you in a $12.95/month credit monitoring service.

Your best bet is to check your credit once a year at annualcreditreport.com, which will check with all 3 major agencies, and it -is- absolutely free.

My next step will be my first mortgage in the next year or two. By then my car should be paid off completely (if not sooner).

And remember, you are never too poor to fix your finances, and make sure you don’t commit the 10 most common mistakes when dealing with credit.

However I am not interested in contributing to the unethical waste of plastic or metal sunglasses, that almost all seem to be prone to.

I did discover iWood Eco-Friendly Wooden Sunglasses which actually look pretty snazzy. However, at $350 a pop, they are certainly out of my budget, as well as most consumers I would imagine. Disappointing.

Despite the fact I would love to have wooden sunglasses, I did run across Equation LLC. which claims to have 100% recycled and reconditioned sunglasses, and at a much more reasonable price. So until a sane manufacturer creates a set of wooden sunglasses for normal consumers, no wooden sunglasses for me.

2. Buy Local Obviously it is always recommended to buy local. There are many farmers that raise turkeys and will even kill and cut them up fresh for you (my uncle is one of them). Raising and killing our own turkey’s has been a family tradition of mine since I was born. So I always know where my turkey comes from each holiday.

3. Avoid or Prepare for Holiday Travel. If you don’t have to travel, don’t. If you do have to travel, prepare your vehicle to be as sufficient as possible by checking the tire pressure, carpool as much as possible. And if flying, purchase carbon credits to offset the pollution you will be creating.

4. Buy Organic. Why not make all of your dishes this year from organic and wholesome foods? Treat your family this year by making sure there are no chemicals or processed foods on your thanksgiving table.

Some safe alternatives to remove poison ivy from your land:

• Goats are actually an interesting alternative because there are two species of goats that absolutely �love- to eat poison ivy. Spanish and Angora goat breeds love to make a meal out of poison ivy.
• Soap has long been used for an all-purpose herbicide. Many health food stores carry liquid soap such as Dr. Bronner�s Pure-Castile Soaps.
  A homemade poison ivy vegetation killer spray that is safe and effective:
  • 1 cup of salt
  • 8 drops of liquid soap
  • 1 gallon of vinegar

  Combine salt and vinegar in a pan and heat to dissolve the salt. Cool the vinegar, add the detergent, and pour into a large spray bottle. Note that this formula will kill the vegetation so be sure to only spray on the poison ivy. Avoid spraying near walls if you use a lot of this formula, as the salt will eventually reach your water supply.

Some effective remedies should you contract a case of poison ivy:

• Osha Root Tincture (which may be ordered online or found in your local natural foods store) is the best remedy for allergic reactions caused by poison ivy and bug bites EVER. Simply apply tincture directly, and sparingly, to the affected area and allow to dry.
• Native Americans used fresh bark of beech trees as a poultice for such things as poison ivy. Simply fill a jar with the pieces of the bark, pour in boiling water to cover, and let the infusion steep for about 20 minutes. Strain and discard the bark and allow the fusion to cool. Apply the tea to the skin and cover it with cheesecloth.
• Jewelweed is another effective remedy against poison ivy. Simply crush and rub the plant on the exposed areas. Also used for stings and other skin problems
• Tea tree oil is another remedy I�ve found in my research that supposedly does wonders for itch relief and overnight cure of poison ivy

To familiarize yourself with the different types of poison ivy and poison oak, you�ll need to learn to recognize them by site. Of course, in my case, the field had been mowed so I didn�t get a chance to see anything.

http://altnature.com/Poison_ivy/index.html
Lists various poison ivy, oak, and berry pictures to help you recognize the distinction between the varieties.

http://ncnatural.com/wildflwr/obnxious.html
Another good site that lists various versions of poison ivy.

http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/info.html
An EXCELLENT poison ivy resource site.

And, as always, consult a health professional before using this or any remedy if you are pregnant, or have compromised or threatened health.

Resources for this article include:
Tom Browns Guide to Wilderness Survival
Growing and Using Healing Herbs

Vitamin B6: One small study has shown that taking vitamin B6 may reduce symptoms by half. Though researchers aren’t sure why, the active ingredient, pyritinol, seems to work as an effective intervention for a nasty hangover.

400 mg at the beginning, middle, and end of the party. Don’t take this remedy frequently. PRolonged use of high doses of vitamin B6 can cause nerve damage

Prickly Pear Cactus Extract: Opuntia ficus-indica, found in the pear extract, can reduce the body’s inflammatory response to alcohol, staving off nausea and dry mouth.

One capsule (1600 IU) five hours before drinking

Gen Gen (also known as pueraria or kudzu root) and JuHua (chrysanthemum flower): Kudzu root generates fluids, reduces thirst and nausea, and alleviates headaches and stiff muscles. Chrysanthemum flower, a common treatment to relieve headaches and irritability, clears toxins and brigthens eyes.

Either in powder tincture, pill form, or as a tea, before bed and the morning after. For the correct amount, contact a licensed herbalist.

Other Methods: Before Drinking

One easy way to feel less the effects of alcohol is to eat a 2 small or one medium bag of potato chips an hour or so before drinking alcohol.

An alternate method is to eat a sandwich (possibly baguette or ciabatta) made with lots of salami and butter (yes, I do realize the taste would be awful, but hey it helps; at the max you can eat one salami sandwich and one with just butter). This way the bread/potato chips will absorb some of the alcohol before it has the chance to get absorbed into your blood stream.

A good way to prevent getting wasted right away is to always drink the same thing, don’t mix alcohols, and if you order/make cocktails make sure to at least drink the same kind. Different alcohols consumed in the same time lapse will cause weariness quicker, splitting headaches and cause major hangovers, and, if you are a woman taking oral contraceptives, and you took your pill 4 hours earlier you are no longer protected (if you regurgitate that is, so be careful with that too).

Another remedy, used primarily by Native Americans was to eat raw almonds before drinking any alcoholic beverage to reduce the chance of suffering from any hangover.

Peanut Butter is also thought to be of somewhat remedy.

Remember to try to have a sports drink (like Gatorade) which will replenish the minerals that the kidneys excreted during your drinking. If you regurgitate due to excessive drinking, let it all out of your system and then have a sports drink to give you back some minerals.

If you had a long night of drinking, water (about 3 glass fulls should be enough) will help rehydrate you. Drinking makes you lose a lot of fluids, going to bed dehydrated will just leave the alcohol in your system at it’s concentrated levels and will cause you to feel their effects later on.

Remember to not take painkillers such as aspirin, ibrofen and the like. If taken in high quantities or on a continuous basis they’ll start to cause problems to your kidneys (such as kidney failure).

Other Methods: After Drinking Recipes

1. Lemon: Pour some lemon juice (of 1 lemon) to a cup of black coffee and drink it, no sugar, no milk.
2. Chicken soup - just as it works with colds, it can also help rid you of your hangover.
3. Honey: take about 2 table spoon fulls every 30 minutes since you wake up till you start feeling better.
4. Apples: Eat some as soon as you wake up, it will somewhat help you feel better.
5. Lastly, and probably most effective is to make a banana and honey milkshake. Take 3 bananas, pour in some milk and honey, blend it all till it’s all nice and smooth and gulp it down, it will help sooth and settle your stomach, calming your nerves and ultimately relieving you of your splitting headache due to a major hangover.

drugstore.com - Unlike mothernature.com, drugstore.com actually carries a lot of other random elements like Seventh Generation laundry detergent.

gaiam.com - A more expensive resource, but they have fantastic eco-friendly products from sheets to rain water collection.

etsy.com - Not necessarily an organic site, but a shopping site of hand-made products. A fantastic variety of good, most of which are made without any chemical.

greenfeet.com - They have a small inventory of products, but they cover bases that other sites don’t, such as that eco-friendly toilet brush.

lehmans.com - The non-electric catalog. This site lists a lot of Amish products, but is excellent for finding eco-friendly alternatives to everyday appliances, tools, and even traditional toys.

mountainroseherbs.com - If you’re looking for herbs and teas, this is a great resource.

bluecanoe.com - Hosts a variety of organic clothing (mainly women).

environgentle.com - Sells many eco-friendly tees with or without logos. Uni-sex.

If you’re the sort of person who reads articles like this, you probably think pretty much everyone knows about CFLs by now.

Think again. Despite widespread availability and dramatically lower prices — name brand CFL bulbs go for about two dollars these days — CFL adoption in the United States remains around 6 percent. The rate is much higher in Europe and parts of Asia. Still, in the largest single consumer market in the world, CFL awareness remains in single digits. Contrast this with a recent survey suggesting up to 34 percent of all Americans believe in UFOs.

Mercury in CFLs

It’s not unreasonable to think that even fewer people know CFLs contain mercury. A small amount, sure: the National Electrical Manufacturers Association recently capped 25 watt CFLs at 5 milligrams per bulb. But as adoption rates rise, so does the importance of sending CFLs to a recycler, rather than the landfill.

Herein lies the problem. While retailers such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot have exhibited environmental leadership by bringing CFLs to market, they’ve been far less forthcoming in taking them back. CFLs can last three to five years under normal use, which means the vast majority of bulbs ever sold are still in service. By 2010, however, The U.S. could be looking at 80 to 100 million improperly disposed CFLs annually if people don’t know any better and convenient recycling isn’t available. That would represent an intolerable toxic burden to our current methods of waste disposal.

CFL Recycling Options

A issue of this size won’t be solved by individual action alone. But if each of us take the initiative to identify our local CFL recycling options now, we can start the process of educating friends and family before their efficient new CFLs are ready for disposal. Want to give it a try? Here are a few places to check:

Your Local Garbage Service

Probably the best place to start is with whoever currently picks up your household trash or recyclables. If you pay for this service, you’ll almost certainly find a customer service number on your bill. Give them a call and ask if they offer CFL or mercury recycling. If not, politely suggest they do so. Here’s an opportunity to write a letter, attend a meeting, or take some other activist role in highlighting the importance of proper CFL disposal. The appropriate follow-up will depend on whether your trash service is privately or publicly held.

Municipal Government

Whether or not local trash service is provided by a private contractor, your local municipality (city, county, or parish) is ultimately responsible for waste disposal.

Most phone directories have a “blue pages” directory of local government agencies. Try the listing for sanitation services. While curbside recycling is by no means universal, your area may have designated drop-off locations or periodic CFL collections. Should your local agency not have any CFL-specific provisions, ask about safe disposal of mercury or fluorescent tubes.

Retailers

Unless you bought CFLs from Ikea, one of the first major vendors to offer a free take-back program, you’re probably going to get some blank stares when you ask the manager of your local store about CFL recycling. It’s worth the effort, though: retailers need to know their customers want safe disposal of the good they purchase. If you bought your CFLs from Wal-Mart, consider contacting their corporate headquarters and asking that they establish a company wide CFL return program.

Earth 911

Earth 911 is probably the United States and Canada’s largest online clearinghouse of recycling information. Visit their site and enter “CFL” and your Zip code in the “Find a Recycling Center” field at the top of each page. Alternately, try “mercury” and “fluorescent bulbs.” If there’s something in your region, it will almost certainly be listed. Earth 911 is currently attempting to expand its coverage to Europe, the first step toward an international registry of recycling options.

Commercial Services

There are a variety of for-profit companies which provide CFL and fluorescent bulb disposal by mail. Failing a local option, these firms represent a responsible and environmentally friendly channel for CFL recycling. Lightbulbrecycling.com, for instance, will send you a handy, postage-paid plastic pail which will accommodate about 30 CFLs — more than most homes will use in many years. Just drop your spent CFLs in their well-engineered pail, and call FedEx for pick-up. The downside is that the service is quite expensive: about $120 per shipment. At today’s prices, this almost triples the unit price of your CFL. On the other hand, with the energy you’ll save with each bulb, you’re still ahead of the game. You’ll also know for sure that your CFLs are being recycled in a safe fashion.

What If All Else Fails?

If none of these options are available to you, there’s a backup plan: storage.

As their name suggests, Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs don’t take up much room. Unless they’re broken or otherwise damaged, CFLs will hold their mercury more-or-less indefinitely. Rather than disposing of them with household trash, simply store expended CFLs until recycling is available in your area. A 5-gallon PVC bucket with sealable top can be scrounged from most construction sites or purchased new for less than ten dollars. It should safely contain a couple dozen bulbs. A sturdy cardboard box lined with a heavy plastic garbage bag should also do the trick. Just place your CFL storage container out of harm’s way so it won’t be dropped, crushed, or otherwise disturbed.

Spread the Word

Once you’ve located CFL recycling near to home, let people know. Offer to take other people’s worn-out CFLs when you recycle your own; organize drop-off programs with churches, clubs, and civic groups; and get the word out about the necessity of safe CFL recycling.

Using less than 30 percent of the power required for a conventional bulb, CFLs represent a tremendous opportunity for energy savings. But they also require special handling if we’d like to keep them from becoming an environmental problem of their own. Feel free to reprint this article in any way. Email it to friends. Be part of the solution.

For information on the proper purchase and selection of CFLs, see the Complete Guide to Living with CFLs.

Menthol Scents: Eucalyptus, Peppermint, tea tree, basically anything menthol related will help deter ants. Use a small brush to spread the oil where they are getting in, and be sure to clean up their scent trails beforehand.

Cayenne Pepper: Another scent that ants despise, sprinkle this around where they are getting in as well.

Chalk: Ants supposidly will not cross over a line of chalk. If you are able to outline where they are getting in with chalk, this should help keep them from getting in your home.