Posted on 06/06/2011 2:02:38 PM PDT by Daffynition
For most Americans, the recession hasn't ended. There are plenty of people out of work. The stock market is still a bipolar mess. Uncle Sam is up to his goatee in debt. The nation is pinching pennies to squeak by, and maybe that's a good thing?
Because last decade was a drunken orgy of a spending spree. We bought giant, expensive McMansions on credit in the suburbs because everyone in the family needed two toilets. We would eat out all the time at fancy restaurants that served "tapas," which is Spanish for "very expensive tiny plates of very little food." Americans took up golf by the millions, and that's a sport where you pay out the nose to walk around a park with a bag full of pricey toys.
Then that ended, and here we are. Hungrier, but leaner. Not completely broke, but certainly more frugal. Most Americans don't waste money the way they use to. But there are still some who insist on throwing their moolah at crapola that isn't worth the price tag. Check out our list of dumbest wastes of money! Let us know how you're saving a buck here and there.
(Excerpt) Read more at trutv.com ...
So long as you’re having fun casinos aren’t a waste of money. When I cut through the casinos for a concert (in Tucson our best concert venues are tied to casinos) almost none of the people I see in there are having fun. They all have that same grimly determined look you see a lot in emergency rooms, those people are definitely wasting their money, you can be unhappy for free.
Totally with you on top shelf booze. It does taste better and has fewer hangover costing impurities. Only non-drinkers and lushes think top shelf is a waste.
the gym is not a waste of money. Buying excercise equipment that you think you’ll use at home is because it will end up as a coat rack.
But I think people should spend their money how they want to as long as they’re not taking food out of their children’s mouths.
Oh, heck, kids are too fat anyway. Go ahead.
Stupid people say "you can't win it if you're not in it." Smart people say "you can't win it."
Somebody in New York won the $200 million Powerball last week.
Just sayin'.
sounds yummy.
Totally agree with one cavet. Many people are out of work and they still do stuff that costs money and makes no sense, then bitch to you about how broke they are.
My biggest complaints are
1. Every freakin member of your family has a cellphone but you are broke
2. You have all the pay packages for cable and you are broke.
3. You eat out all the time and you are broke.
4. You bitch to me all the time about being broke, yet you still piss away money like you have some.
I really don’t care how adults spend their own money, as long as they don’t bitch to me about it.
[25] Spending money on women who are gonna leave you!
When in Vegas, we might spend maybe 4-6 hours a day actually gambling. Rest of the time we are checking out the sights and sounds on the strip, sampling the restaurants or just hanging out at the pool.
I agree with you. The 2 I don’t think are stupid is the Gym and SUV’s.
$35 a month is a good deal IF you use it
SUV is bigger and needed for many familys to haul them and stuff around. You can buy one used much cheaper than new to get more bang for your buck.
That is assuming someone has the space for these things and many don’t.
Believe me, I’m as much of a proponent of power racks as anyone (today was squat day for me), but that’s not all of the equipment that a person can use that’s good for them. It’s great for the average person to get started, but there are a lot of good exercises (like dips) that can’t really be done on a power rack. Furthermore, a good dumbbell set (that goes up to over 100 lbs) is expensive and takes up a lot of room.
[26]Spending money on women who won't leave in the morning!
I go to the Casino about once a month. I get free rooms and free food (yea, I know they plan to get it back) and I get out of the house for a weekend. I live in Memphis and Tunica is 45 minutes away.
I do have a job and I limit myself. More often than not, I also leave with extra money, but not always.
I look at that list as do’s and don’t if you are having financial troubles and it makes more sense.
I don’t do minivans. I like to ride high and run over the smart cars that get in my way. ;)
My observation at a number of gyms is that the most heavily used piece of equipment is the mirror on the wall.
.
Top waste of money:
Millions of Americans are losing their jobs and their homes, thousands are going hungry. In the midst of all this, Barack Obama can’t give your money away to foreigner terror imams fast enough.
BILLIONS FOR JIHAD!
Obama gives billions http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/obamas-supplemental-bill-passes-gives-billions-to-enemies/
of U.S. taxpayer dollars to countries and entities that support Sharia law and/or harbor, hide and support those who want to destroy the U.S. and our allies.
• $3.6 billion, matching the request, to expand and improve capabilities of the Afghan security forces
• $400 million, as requested, to build the counterinsurgency capabilities of the Pakistani security forces
• Afghanistan: $1.52 billion, $86 million above the request
• West Bank and Gaza: $665 million in bilateral economic, humanitarian, and security assistance for the West Bank and Gaza
• Jordan: $250 million, $250 million above the request, including $100 million for economic and $150 million for security assistance
• Egypt: $360 million, $310 million above the request, including $50 million for economic assistance, $50 million for border security, and $260 million for security assistance
• Pakistan: $1.9 billion, $591 million above the request
• Iraq: $968 million, $336 million above the request
• Oversight: $20 million, $13 million above the request, to expand oversight capacity of the State Department, USAID, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan to review programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq
• Lebanon: $74 million
Africa: $151 million, $18 million above the request, for economic and security assistance for Kenya, Somalia, Southern Sudan, and Zimbabwe
• International Food Assistance: $500 million, $200 million above the request, for PL 480 international food assistance to alleviate suffering during the global economic crisis
• Refugee Assistance: $343 million, $50 million above the request, …including humanitarian assistance for Gaza. Funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency programs in the West Bank and Gaza is limited to $119 million (Note: Gaza = Hamas)
• Disaster Assistance: $200 million to avert famines and provide life-saving assistance during natural disasters and for internally displaced people around the world, including Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the Middle East and South Asia
• Peacekeeping: $837 million for United Nations peacekeeping operations, including an expanded mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a new mission in Chad and the Central African Republic
• Department of Justice: $17 million, matching the request, for counter-terrorism activities and to provide training and assistance for the Iraqi criminal justice system
. Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA.
(This is the news that didn’t make the headlines)
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
The mainstream media remains silent on this but the International News has now picked up the story http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=22164
— and then there is Obama’s $108 billion IMF bailout scheme http://michellemalkin.com/2009/05/13/obamas-100-billion-imf-bailout-scheme/
in addition to the Supplemental.
According to the Associated Press, the Obama administration will give away nearly $6 million of American tax dollars to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including Islamic mosques and minarets, in 55 nations. See the State Department document here.
25. Paying the IRS.
Same here, $10 for 1-2 hours of golf is pretty cheap. Got my clubs for $10 too. This list is mostly dumb.
I think it’s because Vegas is a tourist destination, people are there on vacation, everybody knows it’s supposed to be fun. While local casinos are a store basically, it’s a trip to the mall, maybe the laundry mat comes closest, the people are going to try to win money, which of course they probably aren’t because everything favors the house, but their goal isn’t to have fun, so they aren’t.
..................which could feed a hundred cows, which could produce meat to feed the starving children in Africa..............
I have yet to see a smart waste of money.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.~ Mark Twain
If you're ever in CT, take time to visit his home, Nook Farm...you'd love it. I swear you can feel his presence in it.
Excellent list, pat08!
How about a homemade frappucino? Or ice blended (the Coffee Bean version)?
I know. This guy seems to keep showing up in mine...
Yes, we get better gas mileage but the trade off in space isn't worth it, IMO. Next time we need a new vehicle it will be a LARGE suv.
When I got serious into tournament paintball...I had $1000 in my marker(gun), $100 in the mask and ammo belt, and blew an easy $100 per tournament on paint at $50 a 2000 round case. Not counting entry fees, gas, etc.
I know skeet shooting can be high. I live not far from the venue used during the 96 olympics and a bunch of duck, quail hunters.
Who said anything about mini-vans?
Thanks.
Not many ordinary Americans know about this.
This is absolutely INSANE.
This should go viral and cook his Marxist/Muslim a$$.
Okay. One beer and one hotdog. :-)
I thought this was going to be about Government waste of money. As soon as I saw it was about consumers, who CAN SPEND THEIR MONEY ANY WAY THEY WANT, I dismissed the rest of the article. The list of dumb government wastes of money is assuredly much much longer.....
Don’t know those recipes off the top of my head, but I can look them up when I’m not at work ;)
I’m sure you’ll find it useful as we march toward 2011.
Youbetcha
Agree with all except suv’s and live sporting events.
Agree with all except suv’s and live sporting events.
Agree with all except suv’s and live sporting events.
Source: http://endoftheamericandream.com/
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Keep The Change: 20 Ways That The U.S. Economy Has Gotten Worse Since Barack Obama Became President
By almost any measure that you can think of, the U.S. economy has gotten worse since Barack Obama became president. Unemployment is higher, the cost of food and gas are skyrocketing, the number of Americans living in poverty has spiked dramatically, the housing market is in nightmarish shape and our national debt has absolutely exploded. Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to prance around the country declaring that “we can live out the American dream again” and that what we are experiencing right now are simply “bumps on the road to recovery”. But such mindless platitudes are of little comfort to the millions of American families that are slowly descending into poverty or the tens of millions of American families that are already there. If this is the “change” that Barack Obama was promising then he can just keep the change.
Barack Obama is proving to be one of the worst presidents in all of U.S. history. Perhaps when it is all said and done he will be recognized as the absolute worst. Not that George W. Bush was much different. In fact, the Republican Party will not regain much credibility with the American people until it admits that George W. Bush was an absolutely horrible president. Sadly, the truth is that we have not had a decent president in decades. This statement is going to upset almost everyone that is still trapped inside the false left/right political paradigm in this country, but I am not here to pander to the political establishment.
Barack Obama is a horrific president.
So was George W. Bush.
That is the truth.
Not that it is our presidents that actually run our economy. As far as the economy is concerned, the U.S. Congress deserves as much (or more) of the blame as the executive branch does.
However, if you really want to point fingers at someone, then you should place the most blame on the Federal Reserve. As I have written about previously, the Federal Reserve has more power over our economy that any other single institution....
So exactly what is the Federal Reserve? Most people would say that it is an agency of the federal government. But that is absolutely not true. In fact, the Federal Reserve itself has argued in court that it is not an agency of the federal government. Rather, the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned banking cartel that has been given a perpetual monopoly over our monetary system by the U.S. Congress. This privately-owned central bank has been destroying the value of the U.S. dollar for decades, it has run our economy into the ground and it has driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve operates in great secrecy, it has never been subjected to a comprehensive audit and it is not accountable to the American people. Yet the decisions that the Federal Reserve makes have a dramatic impact on the lives of every single American citizen.
But the mainstream media rarely points fingers at the Fed, and the truth is that when election 2012 arrives, the American people are going to judge Barack Obama primarily on how the U.S. economy is performing.
By just about any measure you can name, the U.S. economy has gotten much worse since Barack Obama became president. Of course it is glaringly obvious by now that Barack Obama is completely clueless when it comes to economics. In fact, Obama surrounded himself with economic advisers such as Larry Summers who actually were highly instrumental in getting us into this mess.
So should Barack Obama be held accountable for this economic disaster?
Yes.
But so should Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., the entire U.S. Congress and the Federal Reserve.
The economic decline we are experiencing now has taken decades to build, and what we are experiencing now is simply an acceleration of the long-term economic trends that are destroying this country.
The following are 20 ways that the U.S. economy has gotten even worse since Barack Obama became president....
#1 In January 2009, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. Today it is 9.1 percent.
#2 When Barack Obama took office, the number of “long-term unemployed” in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is up to 6.2 million.
#3 When Barack Obama first became president, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.83. Today it is $3.79. This also affects the price of almost everything else that we buy.
#4 In April 2009, the average U.S. household spent approximately $201 on gasoline. In April 2011, the average U.S. household spent approximately $369 on gasoline.
#5 According to an article in the Daily Mail, the cost of a Memorial Day cookout was 29 percent higher this year than it was last year.
#6 When Barack Obama was sworn in, there were nearly 32 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 44 million on food stamps.
#7 According to the U.S. Census, the number of children living in poverty has gone up by about 2 million in just the past 2 years.
#8 When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars. Today it is 14.3 trillion dollars.
#9 The federal government has borrowed 29,660 more dollars per household since Barack Obama signed the economic stimulus law two years ago.
#10 During Barack Obama’s first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
#11 The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011. Thanks to George W. Bush, Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress, U.S. taxpayers are standing behind that debt.
#12 Under Obama, the U.S. trade deficit continues to grow. The trade deficit was about 33 percent larger in 2010 than it was in 2009, and the 2011 trade deficit is expected to be even bigger.
#13 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#14 Just since August, 2 million more Americans have left the labor force.
#15 In 2010, more than a million U.S. families lost their homes to foreclosure for the first time ever, and that number is expected to go even higher in 2011.
#16 The U.S. real estate crisis just continues to get worse. During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.
#17 The U.S. dollar has fallen by 17 percent compared to other major national currencies since 2009.
#18 Faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries is rapidly declining. The mainstream news is not reporting on it much, but right now the Chinese are rapidly dumping U.S. government debt. That is not a good sign.
#19 When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today an ounce of gold costs about $1500.
#20 Americans seem to be more pessimistic about the economy than ever. According to a brand new poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that they will not return to their “pre-recession” lifestyles until at least 2014.
NOW yer at the ballgame!
If you need 100 lb+ dumbbells, you're not an average person going to the gym spending $100s per year using the machines. BTW, my power rack has a dip attachment so no extra space needed. The original poster made it sound like you can't effectively equip yourself for the money of a gym membership. True, you need some space, I'm using 10' x 10' in my basement.
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