Yes, it is already that time of year for back-to-school sales. This is a great time of year to buy office supplies and equipment for the home office. Some small appliances like coffee makers and microwave ovens will also be on sale.
Yesterday I bought a new rug for my office and last week I bought a new printer and some paper.
It is time to take advantage of back-to-school savings.
It was ten years ago this month that we made our last mortgage payment. It was a joyous occasion.
By the numbers: 30.9% of Twin Cities metro-area homes were owned outright in 2022, up from 27.7% in 2017, according to the latest census data. The number of people who own homes free and clear is on the rise probably because older people are more likely to have the mortgage paid off.
I have read a lot of advice that says having a mortgage is a good thing. Yes, mortgage interest may be tax deductible but only for those who itemize. Those deductions work the best for the wealthy. In fact, if you are wealthy, buy real estate.
If you managed to pay off your mortgage congratulations! Don’t let anyone tell you that it was a mistake to pay it off.
It is hard to believe but it has been ten years since the downtown St. Paul Lunds store opened. It was indeed a big deal. The population of downtown St. Paul had grown and a grocery store was and is most welcome.
The store has been in the news this week. Starting next week store hours will be shortened by 5 hours. It will open at 10:00 AM and close at 7:00 PM. The area around the store can seem scary early in the morning. There is always a police officer in the store.
Some folks are claiming the reduced hours create a “food desert”. People who depend on the store will need to adjust and possibly be inconvenienced. The store is open 7 days a week.
The 4th of July is my least favorite holiday. It is a hellish day and I am always happy when we get past it. This year neighbors were blowing up some large loud fireworks in the street. They were loud enough to shake the house. Several of us asked them to stop. They said “f-u”. A few of us called 911. It was noisy and the fireworks were close to houses and some of the people detonating them were children who looked to be under 10 years old.
Eventually, a squad car came by and the officer asked the neighbors to stop lighting fireworks. No one said “f-u” They were polite and told the officer they were done. After the officer left they started up again and we called 911 again.
Even though fireworks are illegal in Minnesota (In Minnesota, fireworks that explode or shoot into the air are illegal for use by the general public) in St. Paul there doesn’t seem to be any penalty for the people who play with them other than the injuries they get. Usually, there is a penalty for breaking the law. The penalty for detonating fireworks in the city should be a fine of at least $1000 and it should double if those fireworks are detonated within 20 feet of a house or building. The fine should triple of people under the age of 18 are lighting the fireworks and quadruple if they are under 10.
Repeat offenders should be fined and sentenced to community service which would involve going around the city and picking up the debris from fireworks and all other July 4th trash.
In Minneapolis, people were arrested for detonating illegal fireworks. it will be interesting to see how that worked out.
The hellish day is behind us but we still have a few more nights of illegal fireworks in the streets. It gets worse every year.
I don’t print much these days but I have a wonderful wireless laser printer in my office. I can print from anywhere in my house. I can print from any device. This morning I couldn’t print at all. I tried a few times. The printer is so reliable I had to try a few times.
Then I remembered the universal fix for printers that won’t print. I learned it back in the day when we had a dot matrix printer on a 286 PC.
I turned the printer off and counted to 10 and turned it back on. It still didn’t print. Then I rebooted my computer.
Problem solved, printer fixed it prints.
Some things have changed since the early days of personal computers and printers and some things have remained the same.
If restarting had failed I would have moved on to using software type diagnostic. If that failed I would have messed around some settings and probably would have made things worse. If that had failed . . well lets not even think about that.
Being self-employed sometimes means being my own I.T. department and being able to help others with large PDFs and JPEGs.
Welcome to the first Monday in July.
Over the last few years, I have gotten rid of a lot of excess stuff. Probably half of my possessions. I have made few mistakes in determining what to keep and what to toss, donate, or recycle.
When I go to a big box home improvement store I am confronted with multiple options for storage. Before I buy I think about what I would use the storage for. Sometimes it is best to get rid of items rather than to store them.
I now have many empty plastic totes that were once used for storage. I got rid of many items that languished in storage tubs in the basement for years. What is the point of having possessions that are never used but always take up space and require storage?
My goal this summer is to eliminate the need for one of the tall shelving units I have in the basement. Almost everything on the shelving unit has been there since 2014.
