An Amazingly Cheap Meat Substitute (that tastes good too!!)

We recently made burgers out of this mix and were amazed at how good it was. It's also very good for you and low in fat.

First you make the meat substitute and then mix it with other ingredients to make the burgers.

Meat substitute:1 cup lentils, 1 cup bulgar wheat, and 2 cups water. Boil this mix for 45 minutes.

Next take 2 cups of the lentil-bulgar mix and add:
1- 1/2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup chopped onion
4 Tbsp Italian herbs
4 Tbsp garlic powder
Mix these together then add:
2 eggs (or 2 Tbsp soy flower & 2 Tbsp water)
1/2 cup milk

Chill for 30 minutes then make into patties and fry 10 minutes per side or bake at 350 degrees F.

Are We In The Middle Of A Real Estate Bubble?

Many are wondering if we are in the middle of a real estate bubble. My guess is that we are. In many areas of North America (and other parts of the world) prices over the past few years have increased dramatically. Just like the Tech bubble that we had in the late nineties (and burst in 2000), prices have increased too fast and in many cases further increases will be unsustainable. The factors that have driven this increase are historically low interest rates, poor returns on common mutual fund investments and the baby boomers moving to larger and grander homes. But, as with all things, this too must come to an end. Hopefully we will experience a "soft" landing - meaning prices won't retract in value, they will just stop going up for a while. The worst case will be if prices suddenly fall sharply and interest rates rise. If that happens...well, good luck to all of you who are over-extended in the debt department, because you may have to sell your new home at a loss and still pay off a whopping mortgage on a house you no longer own. Ouch!
Scrooge

Financial Planners - Free or Fee

If you are looking for a financial planner (or advisor) do yourself a favor and don't consult with a free one. The free advisors are never free. Do you think they don't need to earn a living? The fact is they may earn a healthy living selling you too much insurance and mutual funds with front or back-end loads. Some financial advisors (or planners) will only charge you $1500 in fees to do up a full plan and get you the very best investments and the minimum insurance, they will also look at wills, trusts and children's needs. Meanwhile the "FREE" advisor will do a quicky plan and advise you to buy such and such and in the process earn $5000 or more. Then you end up getting too much insurance and dopey investments that don't perform. Nothing is free in life and the more you cheat yourself in the financial area the more you will end up being taken for a ride. Be kind to yourself and your family and hire a trustworthy fee advisor.
Scrooge.

Beware of Northwest Airline - flight 1200 - May 21, 2005

Our trip back from Las Vegas (business...no gambling) was a nightmare. Our midnight flight was delayed almost 18 hours after we had already checked in and sat on the plane for an hour and a half. We were kept in the dark regarding the status of the flight and not even offered a drink of water. It was almost 110 degrees that day. We were then told the plane had a mechanical problem and they were sending us back to the ticket counter for hotels assignments. After waiting at the ticket counter for a long time...it was now 3:30am...the lady in charge started insulting the crowd and then told us they called all the hotels and there were no rooms. This was a lie. The first hotel we called had rooms and the couple beside us called a hotel and they had rooms also. As it turned out we got back to the hotel at 4:30am and checked in and back to the airport at the following afternoon. The airline (this was Northwest Airline - flight 1200 - May 21, 2005) did not refund all of the hotel charge, would not refund all the taxi charge, and did not inform us we could have gotten refunded (something) for our extra food cost. In all they were dishonest and uninformitive. I will not fly with them again. If you decide to use them, good luck if you run into problems.
Scrooge.

Las Vegas - the city where you throw away your money

Just back from a business trip to Las Vegas, I was reminded again how useless gambling is. Every hotel is a casino so I got to spend lots of time watching the gamblers dump the money in the machines. In all that time (I was there a week) I didn't see one person win anything. Are you surprised? I'm not! Do you want to gamble and make money? Then play the stock market. At worst you will only lose a part of what you put in and at best you will make some money. Spend time learning how to invest and you will certainly make more than you lose...and you can satisfy any gambling urges!
Scrooge.

Planning is the Key to Riches

If you look at the most successful people (financially successful) you will notice a trend - a common thread; they are all careful planners. In fact, there are many examples of people who have little in the way of income, but are such good planners that they are able to make much out of little. Planning is boring, unexciting work. But if you just take a few hours a week to develop and monitor a plan for how you earn money, how you spend it and how you invest it and pay down debts, this will make all the difference between living comfortably and living under a cloud of uncertainty and debt. The path out of financial despair is paved with budgets, frugal living and constant investments.

In-Flew-Enza

There is some real need for concern over the avian flu that is spreading (currently very slowly) in parts of Asia. It kills more than 50% of those who contract it. Afterall what's the point of being frugal if you and all your loved ones get wiped out in an epidemic?

You can track its spread on a very useful website www.who.int - this is the world health organization. It wasn't that long ago that another wicked flu hit the planet. Here is a snippet from the WHO site on the Spanish flu of 1918:

U.S. AT WAR. MYSTERY VIRUS LEAPS AROUND THE GLOBE KILLING SCORES IN ITS PATH. SCIENTISTS RACE TO FIND A CURE.
Not headlines from March 2003, but from 85 years earlier. In 1918, hundreds of thousands of American troops headed to Europe for the closing offensives of World War I. Estimates of the number of deaths from the pandemic range from 21 million to 50 million worldwide.
Meanwhile back home, schoolgirls jumped rope to a new chant:
I had a little bird, And its name was Enza, I opened the window, And in-flew-Enza
Influenza—more specifically the Spanish flu—left its devastating mark in both world and American history that year. The microscopic killer circled the entire globe in four months, claiming the lives of more than 21 million people. The United States lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu in 1918—more casualties than World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. Pharmaceutical companies worked around the clock to come up with a vaccine to fight the Spanish flu, but they were too late. The virus disappeared before they could even isolate it.
Read more here: http://www.paho.org/English/DD/PIN/Number18_article5.htm

Scrooge

No Debt Worries? Really!

The Canadian TD bank in February reported that:

1 “For well over a decade, personal disposable income (PDI) has grown more slowly than the overall Canadian economy.”

2 “The imbalance between income and spending growth has caused the personal savings rate to fall to a record low of just 0.0 per cent, as of the third quarter of 2004.”

3 “…personal debt has been rising in Canada and has reached record levels. As of the third quarter of 2004, personal debt was equal to 113 per cent of personal disposable income, a new record high.”
What I take issue with is their comment: “However, talk of a looming consumer debt crisis is misinformed for two crucial reasons. First, the rising debt level has been more than offset by the growth in household assets. In fact, personal wealth rose by 10 per cent last year in Canada - the fastest pace in almost a decade. Second, the share of personal income needed to keep a handle on debt interest costs in 2004 was the lowest on record.”

First they don’t define personal wealth, it may be just a count of assets that are funded by further debt. Their second reason is based solely on low interest rates – something most experts see as rising over the next few years.
Scrooge

Erasing Debts in Bankruptcy Will Get Much Harder

I got this off the American Press. All the more reason to get out of debt sooner than later.
Scrooge

WASHINGTON - Erasing medical bills, credit card charges and other debts in bankruptcy soon will become more difficult under landmark legislation that has vaulted its last major hurdle before Senate passage.

The legislation gliding toward congressional passage following Tuesday's procedural vote in the Senate would constitute the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. bankruptcy laws in a quarter-century.
Senate passage this week and likely House approval of that bill next month would deliver to President Bush the second of his pro-business legislative priorities after Republicans fattened their majorities in both chambers in November's elections.
Congress sent Bush a law last month placing most large multistate class action lawsuits under federal court jurisdiction, making it harder for plaintiffs to join together and win multimillion-dollar judgments in state courts.
Banks, credit card issuers and retailers have pushed for eight years for bankruptcy revisions that would force more people to repay at least part of their debt. It nearly passed in 2002 — failing when the Senate accepted, but House Republicans rejected, a Democratic amendment barring protesters from using bankruptcy to avoid paying court fines for blocking abortion clinics.
This year, with four more Republican senators, the abortion provision was rejected Tuesday on a 53-46 vote. Later the Senate voted 69-31 to limit further amendments, close the debate and hold a final vote this week.
The bill would set up a new test for measuring a debtor's ability to pay.
Those with insufficient assets or income could still file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which if approved by a judge erases debts entirely after certain assets are forfeited. But those with income above the state's median income who can pay at least $6,000 over five years — $100 a month — would be forced into Chapter 13, where a judge would then order a repayment plan.
Critics say that's unfair because many people who file for bankruptcy have lost their jobs, or are going to lose them.
According to current law, a bankruptcy judge determines under which chapter of the bankruptcy code a person falls — whether they have to repay some or all of their debt.
Sensing a long-elusive victory at hand, Republican backers exulted Tuesday and urged colleagues to move speedily through remaining Senate deliberations.
"The sooner we finish work in the Senate and get the bill to the House, the sooner our bankruptcy system will be focused as it should be on helping those with real need, and less vulnerable to abuse by consumers who have the ability to repay their debts," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the bill's primary author.
The bill's supporters argued that bankruptcy frequently is the last refuge of gamblers, impulsive shoppers, divorced or separated fathers avoiding child support, and multimillionaires, often celebrities, who buy mansions in states with liberal homestead exemptions to shelter assets from creditors.
Opponents, too, have a litany of stories. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., speaks of Zoraya Marrero, a single mother with three children from Woodbridge, Va., the eldest of whom has spina bifida. Having had to return $60,000 in state disability benefits and medical coverage for the child, and paying medical expenses, Marrero recently filed for bankruptcy.
Most applicants "did not seek bankruptcy relief willingly," Kennedy says. "Millions of ... Americans in similar situations have filed for bankruptcy only after exhausting all other options."
A recent Harvard University study found that costly illnesses led to about half of all personal bankruptcies and that most people who file for bankruptcy protection because of medical problems have health insurance.
Consumer and civil rights groups and unions say the legislation is unfair to low-income working people, single mothers, minorities and the elderly and would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face mounting medical bills. They say it would turn the bankruptcy courts into collection agencies for the credit card companies.

Hockey dad dies of heart attack after son spat on

I got this off the Canadian Press. It makes me wonder...about a lot of things.
Scrooge

MONTREAL -- A Montreal man died of a heart attack after he had rushed to support his 15-year-old son who had just been spat on at an amateur hockey game. "He was talking to his son to give him some encouragement," spectator Michel Gaudreau said.
"He was holding his hands, he sat down and then he collapsed."
Gaudreau, whose son was playing in the game, said ambulance technicians spent about 30 minutes trying to revive the man.
As well as spitting at the boy, some parents had thrown objects at him.

Don't Use Mortgage Insurance

Don't buy mortgage insurance. It is cheaper to buy term life insurance. Sometimes by using term life insurance you will cut the price of insuring your mortgage in half! Contact us for a quote on term insurance - we offer very good rates: scrooge@scroogeguide.com Or if you don't want to use us contact your local broker, in any event just do it, and save money.
Scrooge

Travel Europe on the Cheap

If you are wanting to travel to Europe but have been put off by the high airfares consider this route. Get a cheap flight to London (like on Zoom see http://www.flyzoom.com/) and then fly around Europe on Ryan air (see http://www.ryanair.com/). Flights on Ryan Air are as cheap as one British Pound, plus tax. You have to book ahead to get the best prices. They fly out of London Stansted airport, so if you are arriving at another London airport, like Heathrow, take a bus over to Stansted. I know people who have taken Ryan Air flights and they really are as cheap as advertised.
Scrooge

Save Gasoline

There used to be an old yellow pages ad that said let your fingers do the walking. In other words use the telephone to find what you need instead of walking. However even more important is to let your fingers do the driving. You can save gas by getting in the habit of calling ahead or using the Internet to find what you want, instead of driving aimlessly in a mad hunt. Some retailers even deliver for free. So drive less, save money and when you do need to go out use your legs as much as possible - it's good for you and your bank account!
Scrooge

Don't Use Mortgage Insurance

Don't buy mortgage insurance. It is cheaper to buy term life insurance. Sometimes by using term life insurance you will cut the price of insuring your mortgage in half! Contact us for a quote on term insurance - we offer very good rates: scrooge@scroogeguide.com Or if you don't want to use us contact your local broker, in any event just do it - and save money.
Scrooge

Learn to Play Music Real Cheap

Want to learn how to play music but don't want to spend a fortune on an instrument or too much time in lessons? Dr. David Harp has developed a fast method of instruction for the harmonica. He promises that in just a few hours you will be able to play. I tried it and it does work. You can get a complete set of harmonica, instructional CD and book for less than $20 at Lee Valley Tools www.leevalley.com or directly from Dr. David at http://www.davidharp.com/ .

Scrooge

 

Find Free Items Here

You can find lots of free things here: http://www.freecycle.org/ navigate to the city closest to you and look at the free offerings.
Scrooge

Scrooge's Web Log Site Opens

This is the location for Scrooge's new Web log (BLOG). Our web site is www.scroogeguide.com and our mission is to help people live the best life with the least money.