Web: If you want to know which books should be on your reading list, then sign up for The Fussy Librarian. Set up your preferences and you will get daily emails with recommendations for books, along with options to buy the ebooks on different stores.
    
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To make your Christmas cookies look good, you need to go through the painful process of icing them carefully. Here's a neat trick from The Kitchn: prepare two types of icing (one thicker and one thinner) to speed up the process and make it easier.
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The Nexus 7 is arguably the leading Android tablet, and for good reason. It's slim, trim, powerful, and affordable. If you want to keep it safe though, you'll need a decent case or protective sleeve for it—one that'll protect it from drops, bumps, or other things in your bag. This week we're looking at five of the best Nexus 7 cases, based on your nominations.
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The next time you need to squeeze a lemon, you don't need fancy juicers or squeezers to get the most out of it. Just stab it with a fork and move it while you squeeze the lemon. It'll get all the juice out, and much more easily than usual.
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The number one rule to financial success: spend less than you earn. And the best way to do that is to keep track of what you spend. Here are 10 tricks for crafting the perfect budget (and sticking to it).
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To give someone a boost, ask them about a specific aspect of their life where they are doing well, and follow it up with a generic question about their overall happiness. It sounds simplistic, but it works wonders, according to Nobel laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman.
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If you write a lot in notebooks, chances are you have a large pile of the things. Some notes are worth saving, but others you could do without after awhile. Wipebook allows you to take those temporary notes and wipe them away when you're done, just like a dry erase board.
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The hardest part about doing laundry isn't the sorting, stain-removing, washing, drying, or folding. It's getting those clean clothes back where they belong (and not using your laundry basket as a makeshift dresser). Fool yourself into finishing that essential last step.
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Dear Lifehacker,
I share a lot of large files with my friends, but it seems like everyone uses different services. What's the easiest way to do it?
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Nothing ruins a good night's sleep like a child. Whether you're concerned about your teenager's dark under-eye circles or your toddler is the cause of your own, here are some of the most common sleep issues children have and how we can help them, so everyone is well rested.
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First things first: The dollar store is your best friend in the time you have left, and not just as a place to score gifts on the cheap. It’s where you can get most of the supplies needed for the DIY ideas below (but not the vodka), saving you massive amounts of money, especially if you create these gifts in bulk.
If you’re not a DIY kinda person, no worries. We’ve got some easy suggestions for gifts you can still buy, and then add some quickie homemade flair — from the dollar store — so that it will look like you planned your gifts months ago. (Okay, maybe not months, but not five minutes ago, anyway.)
With all that out of the way, here are some ideas so you don’t suck at last-minute gifts.
FOR THE DIY-ERS:
Anything in a jar: Maybe you have a grandma or great-aunt who still makes her own jams, mustard, salsa, anthrax (okay, maybe not the anthrax). Lots of people don’t have that special family member anymore, but it’s hard to go wrong with a homemade treat. Start with some pretty jars from the dollar store, and earmark a couple of hours for prep work. If you make these gifts in bulk, you can drive down your time and costs.
Try some of these recipes: 30-minute jam, pickles, salsa, ketchup and mustard and hot sauce. If you’re not a foodie, here are some other great jar ideas.
Self-contained terrarium: We’re all busy these days, and that means it’s common for the plants in our lives to suffer. Fatally. My home is guilty, except for one plant, housed in a large, plastic Utz pretzel container. My kid brought it home six years ago after winning a classroom raffle at the end of first grade. It gets minimal direct light and we’ve never opened the screw top. Here are some strategies to make your own from SproutHome.com and The Ecology Center.
Photo gifts: In these days of digital everything, lots of homes lack traditional printed photo albums. This is an easy one. E-mail or upload the photos you want to your local pharmacy superstore, office supply store or anyplace else that prints photos, and pick up a photo album at the dollar store or another retailer. Add photos and voila! Thoughtful present done. Or just as simple, print out a 5×7 or two and frame them (again, dollar store).
The gift of music: It’s not just for high-schoolers anymore. Create and burn a CD of someone’s favorite songs. This doesn’t have to be a romantic gift (though it could be). Think of a theme if that helps. If they like Christmas, make it holiday tunes. If you shared an island vacation together, go for some Bob Marley. If it’s for your parents, add delight from the year they got married or graduated from high school. If you have some extra cash, add a $10 gift card for iTunes, Google, Amazon or wherever they buy their music from and wrap it all together in a dollar store basket.
Memorialize a memory: Turn knick-knacks, photos, ticket stubs and other items into a personalized shadow box. Take memories from a special day you spent with your gift recipient and create a gift worth giving. For example, if you’ve spent days on the beach with your recipient, make a beach photo the centerpiece of a shadow box (um, dollar store), and glue in some sand and shells. Or for a concert, print a photo of the band, and add a ticket stub and other paraphernalia to a shadow box. Or for a grandparent or favorite uncle, take photos of the kids, and add a toy figurine, LEGO or the like and create the same. You can shadow box just about anything.
Make ugly sweaters into ugly pants: Take part in a frightening new trend — swants, or sweater pants. Yes, that’s right. You turn a sweater into pants. It’s the perfect gift for that relative who can’t seem to stop buying you all those sweaters for the holidays, or for anyone who could use warm legs. Even if you’re not handy with a sewing machine or needle and thread, you can pull this one off. In fact, we dare you. And please, send your photos to notsuck@consumerist.com.
Family cookbook: Collect your favorite family recipes and add them to a book. Use a handwritten notebook (yes, dollar store) or print them out and add them to a binder.
To get you started, here’s a new favorite for you: “Not Suck Chili,” courtesy of my mother-in-law.
1 lb. chopped meat
2 bottles Heinz Chili Sauce
1 small can tomato sauce
1 can Progresso red kidney beans
1 large onion
black pepper
hot pepper
bag o’ your favorite tortilla chips
white rice
Brown chopped meat in a pan. Drain oils (unless you like ‘em, like we do). Place browned meat into large pot. Add chili sauce and tomato sauce and stir. Simmer. Chop onion, not too fine, and add to the pot. Shake in black and hot pepper — 15 shakes each, or about 1 tsp. each, for you specific folks. Stir and simmer for 60 minutes. As you go, taste and add additional pepper(s) to taste. Cook white rice per box’s instructions. Rise beans, and stir them into the chili mix 10 minutes before serving. Serve with tortilla chips, and eat.
Other expertise: If you’re not a chef, you’re sure to have some talents your loved ones could benefit from. Create a guidebook, with photos (selfies work just fine) and step-by-step instructions for something you’re good at: plumbing or other home improvement tips, ironing, scanning a computer for viruses, saving money and budgeting — anything! You can add a subscription to a specialty magazine to match your topic, toss them together in a dollar store basket and you’re all done.
Family tree/history: Talk to your relatives and get the scoop on your family’s history, and create a family tree that can be framed and hung up. To go with it, write some stories your family will never want to forget: the time Uncle Bob got his tie stuck in the blender; the Thanksgiving when MaryLou dropped the hot bowl of mashed potatoes and they exploded all the way up to the ceiling (okay, I did that once); that unforgettable moment when Joey’s dog peed on the Christmas tree. Leave extra pages so the receiver of the gift can add more tales as time passes. Place it all in a (let’s say it together now!) dollar store basket with a few nice pens.
Homemade alcohol: Give a holiday de-stressor that packs a punch. Buy a few large bottles of your favorite vodka and infuse some flavor — your favorite fruity candy, mints, fruit or even — gasp! — bacon. You can do this in bulk, and add the spirits to smaller bottles from the dollar store. Try this guide on how to make your own distillery of sorts.
IF YOU MUST GO SHOPPING
Movie night: Get some movie rental coupons or buy a few cheapie classic movies (you can get many online for under $10) and add to a dollar store basket with some microwave popcorn, maybe a bottle of wine or other beverage.
For tea or coffee lovers: Buy a few flavored teas or coffees, or both, and add to a basket with a mug or two. If you want to splurge for a coffee grinder — the simple ones go for as little as 10 bucks — buy beans instead of ground coffee.
Kid art: Ask your child to create a special painting or drawing for that special someone, then frame it for art, or laminate it as a placemat. Or, help your kid cut out and decorate some tall and skinny drawings, then have them laminated as bookmarks. If you’re splurging, add a book or two and create a reader’s basket.
Game night: Classic board games come pretty cheap. Buy a couple, or just one, and wrap together with a note remembering your favorite memories of playing the game with the receiver.
For travelers: If that special someone has a trip planned, put together a basket with essential travel items: a guidebook or history book about the destination, a travel alarm clock and a toiletry bag with small, carry-on-size-approved bottles for shampoo and other liquids.
Help the wanna-be: Create a basket of quality kitchen tools for someone who wants to be a better cook. Add in some potholders or kitchen towels. You can buy those and the basket at the dollar store, of course, but you may want to go slightly higher end for the kitchen tools.
For someone with a new home: Give them their junk drawer in a basket: small flashlight, batteries, screwdrivers of varying sizes, duct tape (you can never have too much duct tape, and you never know when it will come in handy), picture hooks, safety pins. Open up your junk drawer for some ideas.
Get girly, even for the guys: Fill a basket with some bubble bath, bath oils, a nail care kit, hand cream and the like. Don’t forget the good old loofa sponge.
For drivers: Put together an emergency kit so your loved ones are never stuck out on the road unprepared.
For your techie: A thumb drive and some writable DVDs and/or CDs. And of course, a dollar store basket.
Get puzzled: Put together a basket of crossword puzzle and Sudoku books, and get a little retro by adding Mad Libs.
For… well, anyone: Buy a few shot glasses and choose a bunch of mini-liquor bottles. Toss them in a dollar store basket and hope your receiver wants to share after they open it.
What are your quick and cheap last-minute gift ideas? Leave a comment or write us at notsuck@consumerist.com and share the wealth!
Have a topic you’d like to see covered in How To Not Suck? Or maybe you’re an expert who would like to share your insight with Consumerist readers? Send us a note at notsuck@consumerist.com.
You can read Karin Price Mueller’s stories for The Star-Ledger at NJ.com, follow her on Facebook, and on Twitter @kpmueller.
PREVIOUSLY ON HOW TO NOT SUCK:
How To Not Suck… At Saving For The Holidays
How To Not Suck… At Charitable Giving
How To Not Suck… At Disputing Credit Report Errors
How To Not Suck… At Lowering Your Utility Bills
How To Not Suck… At Home Inspections
How To Not Suck… At Understanding Credit Card Rewards
How To Not Suck… At Getting Ready For Tax Season
How To Not Suck… At Picking A Retirement Plan
How To Not Suck… At Deciding When To DIY
How To Not Suck… At Getting Out Of Debt
How To Not Suck… At First Year College Budgets
DISCLAIMER: Any websites, services, retailers, or brands mentioned in the story above are only intended as some of many options available to consumers, and do not constitute an endorsement by Consumerist, Consumerist Media LLC (CML) or its staff. Per Consumerist’s No Commercial Use Policy, such information may not be used by others in advertising or to promote a company’s product or service. In addition, this policy precludes any commercial use of any of CML’s published information in any form, or of the names of Consumers Union®, Consumer Media, Consumer Reports®, The Consumerist, consumerist.com or any other of CU or CML’s publications or services without CU or CML’s express written permission.
KKTV in Colorado Springs reports on a local couple who were at home when someone claiming to be a Comcast tech knocked on their door.
“He said that he needed to check the wiring for a job that was recently done on the house, and I wasn’t sure what he was talking about,” the husband says about the man at his door.
His wife then suggested to her husband that he ask for the supposed Comcast contractor’s ID, so the husband walked around to the side of the house where the clipboard-carrying man was peering over a locked fence.
“I said, by any chance do you have any ID? And he said no,” recalls the husband. “I asked him for his name and he said, ‘Well I’ll just come back some other time.’”
The couple then called Comcast, which said that it had no record of anyone being dispatched to that house. The couple says that the suspicious man was driving a van with the name of a company that Comcast does indeed do work for the cable company, but KKTV could not get an official response from that contractor.
We’ve written before about scammers and criminals pretending to be employees of various companies in order to illegally gain access to customers’ homes. In 2011, criminals in Maryland posed as workers for a local utility company to steal thousands of dollars worth of jewelry from multiple victims.
If someone shows up at your door claiming to be from Comcast — or any utility/cable/satellite/whatever company — and you’re not expecting them, here are the steps you should take to verify their identity.
1. Don’t be fooled by a shirt and a clipboard. Ask to see some sort of photo ID that shows this person works for the company they claim to work for. If you’re very suspicious, you may want to ask to see both the company photo ID and a state-issued ID to make sure the names match.
2. Ask to see a work order or some other documentation showing that this person needs to be there, and specifically that he/she needs access to your property.
3. Contact the company to verify this information. An ID and paperwork can be faked. It’s much more complicated to also make sure that someone at the company’s dispatch is in on the ruse. And make sure that you are the one who is calling the company to verify this information. The tech may offer to call a dispatcher from his phone, but you have no way of knowing if he’s dialing the company or just calling a pal.
4. If you are unable to verify all of this information, tell the tech he will have to come back at a time when the info can be confirmed. We’re not talking about putting out fires or dealing with a medical emergency here.
You may feel like it’s going overboard to require all of this proof to just let a cable tech onto your property, but think of how many times you have to answer the same stupid ID-verification questions every time you get bounced around Comcast’s customer service. If a company is going to demand proof that you are who you say you are, there’s no reason its employees shouldn’t be held to the same standard when they show up on your doorstep unannounced.
Over at MoneyTalksNews.com, Stacy Johnson looks at the pros and cons of store credit cards, but here are the basic questions you need to ask yourself:
1. Is a 10% discount really worth the risk of a 25-30% interest rate?
Most store card offers give the customer an immediate discount (say 10-15%) off his first purchase, but they also tend to come with sky-high interest rates, sometimes as high as 30%.
If you’re just using the card the one time to make that one purchase and you pay the card off in full in a very short period of time (and you don’t make any additional purchases), you end up getting all or most of that initial discount. Each month the card account isn’t paid in full is another chip of the chisel on that 10% you saved at the point of purchase.
Even though it’s what the store and the card issuer are banking on, these high-interest cards really shouldn’t be used for purchases where there isn’t a deep discount for using the card.
One concern not mentioned in the MoneyTalksNews story is that several store credit cards offer tempting, but potentially dangerous, deferred-interest plans, that lure the customer in with a no-interest or low-interest introductory period. The poisonous core of these deferred-interest cards is exposed when the cardholder fails to pay off that purchase in full by the end of the intro period, and is then hit with all of the interest for the full value of the initial purchase.
So say you used a deferred-interest card to buy a $2,000 washer and have 12 months to pay it off. If that 12-month intro period ends and you still have $50 left to pay off, you are charged the interest (again, often at 20-30% APR) not on the $50 balance, but on the $2,000. Suddenly what had been a great financing deal for you is a better deal for the retailer.
2. Will I Ever Use the Card Again?
Maybe that store charge card doesn’t come loaded with sky-high interest rates; not all of them do. Even so, can the card be used elsewhere? While some store credit cards are really just store-branded Visa/MasterCard/AmEx cards, meaning they can be used anywhere those cards are accepted, many store cards are only for use at that particular retailer. They also tend to have very low initial credit limits, so even when you have the ability to shop elsewhere, you might be limited as to your spending ability.
Some store-only cards do carry perks, like rewards points and discounts, to make up for the lack of flexibility. But if they don’t — or if these rewards also come with the aforementioned risk of high interest rates — you’d probably be better off just using the boring old credit card you already have.
3. What Will This Do To My Credit?
For people with minimal credit history, or one that needs a bit of tidying up, a store credit card could help (notice we don’t say it will help) if used properly.
Since these cards often have low spending limits, consumers with credit history issues sometimes stand a better chance at getting a store card than they would when applying for a traditional credit card. That said, it is up to the cardholder to spend responsibly and pay off his debt in a timely manner if he wants to improve his creditworthiness. In the hands of a careless consumer, even a small-limit store card can do significant damage if the balance goes unpaid.
Those consumers who have decent credit histories should be aware that all credit card applications will ding their credit scores in the short run, so if you’re looking to apply for a mortgage or other loan in the immediate future, you may want to avoid anything that could shave even a few points from your score if you don’t need it.
Another issue is having too much available credit. “When reviewing loan applications, creditors not only consider how much debt you have but also how much existing credit is available to you,” explains Johnson. “If you already have enough credit to go on a $20,000 spending bender, lenders might be hesitant to give you access to more cash.”
Without a doubt, if you really want to get a job, you should employ your full arsenal — of professional experience, pleasing people manners and other ideal qualities. And not, as one man allegedly did, employ your actual arsenal with real weapons.
Police in Norfolk, Va. say a man who wanted to get a job at McDonald’s flashed a gun at workers in his attempt to get hired, reports WAVY.com.
According to the report, the 31-year-old man walked into a McDonald’s and asked a manager for an application. So far, so good! But when the manager told him that they only had applications online, and clarified that policy a second time, that’s when police say he allegedly lifted his shirt to show the gun he had stowed in his waistband.
The manager remained calm, cool and collected, it seems, inviting the man to take a seat while she went to fetch a paper application. Instead, she called the police.
When officers arrived the would-be applicant was sitting at a table and was arrested, and charged with the misdemeanors of brandishing a firearm, carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct.
Yes, it can be hard to get a job. But it’s harder to get a job if you’re demanding things with a gun.
PD: Man with gun demanded job application [WAVY.com]
Prince William events calendar Inside NoVA Holiday Ornament and Dollhouse Exhibit will be on display through Dec. 31 at the Manassas Museum, 9101 Prince William St., Manassas. Their shine may have lost a little luster, but the antique ornaments on display cannot be matched for their nostalgic ... |
Events for kids and families this week Fredericksburg.com Teen Night, Heritage House of Virginia, 1113 Garrisonville Road, Stafford. Teens of all abilities come hang out, play video and board games, get to know other teens. Monthly event organized and led by students. Building is handicapped accessible. Free. |
It was the tweet that took the web by storm: "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"
Police say a 12-year-old boy drove his family's car nearly seven miles and went in the wrong direction on Interstate 81 before being apprehended.
The Washington Animal Rescue League needs your help finding homes for these pets.
As of yesterday, Facebook Graph Search has officially opened its big, omniscient arms to every last check-in, status update, note, and comment you've ever posted throughout your entire Facebook career. Which, yes, sounds pretty terrifying, but don't worry—we're here to help you cover your tracks.
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We've taken a look at the larger effects of the U.S.'s new health care plan, but if you're interested in seeing exactly how much you'll be paying for insurance, the Kaiser Family Foundation has put together a calculator to help you figure out if you qualify for subsidized insurance pricing.
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