Comments on: The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: My Hidden Agenda Edition

By: Trent

Trent — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:52:55 +0000

“Perrier with 100% raspberry or pomegranate juice and a twist of lime is bubbly and refreshing but not necessarily less expensive than soda.”

I actually drink something like this on occasion. I’ll mix Perrier (or another effervescent water) with pomegranate blueberry juice. It’s utterly wonderful.

By: Laurel

Laurel — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:56:46 +0000

Perhaps your wife will give up her soda (and save you the temptation of drinking it also) if she learned that it has a deleterious effect on her bones. It is acidic, which also contributes to health problems and aspartame is suspected of possibly causing all sorts of health problems.

Buying soda is not a good idea if you are trying to save money since it contributes nothing to your health and may detract from it in the long run.

Perrier with 100% raspberry or pomegranate juice and a twist of lime is bubbly and refreshing but not necessarily less expensive than soda. To save money, dilute 100% fruit juice half and half with regular old tap water (filtered, if you like). Lemonade made with stevia (an all natural sweetener) instead of sugar is also a nice alternative for those who want their water flavored. Stevia works well in iced tea too.

For more ideas for living well, check out my blog:

http://www.creativelifeskills.blogspot.com

By: Vicky

Vicky — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:04:44 +0000

I gave up sodas for good as my New Year’s resolution for the year 2000. My suggestion, if you want to stick to it, is to politely ask your wife to switch from single-serving packaging to 2-liter bottles until you get the hang of your new habit. It’s a lot easier to catch yourself if you are having to get a glass from a cabinet and a bottle from the refrigerator. Make sure you have something you can have instead – tea, juice, water, whatever.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:11:57 +0000

Chiara, I don’t see where I’m being judgmental at all. All I’ve said is: (1) a very good way to save gas is not to drive, (2) “pretty much nonexistent” is not the same as “nonexistent,” and (3) no one is forcing Mina to live where she lives. Those are all statements of fact – not value judgments in any shape or form.

I’m not saying that Mina is wrong for choosing to live where she has chosen to live. But when you set up your life in such a way that you’re heavily dependent on your car, the risk that’s inherent in that is that you’re vulnerable to gas price increases to a much greater degree than someone who makes walkability, bikability, and transit access a priority in choosing a place to live. That’s a statement of fact too, and I’m sorry if it’s one that you don’t want to hear right now.

By: Mina

Mina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:49:10 +0000

Let me re-write that, I’m rushing out the door to go to work. Luckily I re-read before I did.

Chiara, I definitely could not have said it better myself, well worded. It’s nice to know that there are still people out there that understand that different people have different situations, it can’t all be perfectly cut and dry. There are so many different factors that can be involved in whether someone utilizes public transport (or walks or rides a bike etc.) or not, that for someone to think that these options are THE answer, just baffles me.
My husband and I were talking about gas and public transport last night and about how much we missed living in the city (also pre-kids!) and utilizing public transport, walking and a few other perks of city life.

By: Mina

Mina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:46:53 +0000

Chiara, I definitely could not have said it better myself, well worded. It’s nice to know that there are still people out there that understand that different people have different situations, it can’t all be perfectly cut and dry. There are so many different factors that can be involved in whether someone utilizes public transport (or walks or rides a bike etc.), that it THE answer.
My husband and I were talking about gas and public transport last night and about how much we missed living in the city (also pre-kids!) and utilizing public transport, walking and a few other perks of city life.

By: Chiara

Chiara — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Johanna, that’s awfully judgmental unless you know a lot more about her situation (and still!). There are so many factors that go into where someone lives, not the least of which is that in most places, housing gets more affordable the farther away from the city center you get. (And what if a given commuter has a spouse who *does* work close to home?) There is a lot of argument that incentives should not be what they are to structure American metro areas that way, but that’s hardly one individual’s fault for picking her best option the way things are now.
In the metro where I live, “pretty much nonexistent” means that there might be one express bus stop in a given suburb many miles away from most homes (would take hours to walk to, less to bike, or, tada, drive there), and the process adds too much time to the daily commute to be worth it to most people (not all). Time is worth a lot, too.
If you are privileged enough to live where you can utilize public transportation and walking and still get your day accomplished in a reasonable amount of time, that’s wonderful (it’s what I did when I was single and childless and shared a small condo downtown). But,no, not everyone currently has that as a *reasonable* option.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:50:38 +0000

your daughter has excellent taste. I cannot help but stare at bon appetite on the news stands. They get incredible photographers to do their covers. You just want to eat the photos!!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:23:28 +0000

Trent, I think MJ is just being a poopy pants. :-p I think a lot of people believe “If so-and-so thinks its a good investment it must be.” My father almost signed up with a financial planner based solely that his brother used the same guy, so he must be alright. The adviser wanted my father to move all his stocks, and other investments to this guy’s firm. Not surprisingly he was commission based. :-|

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:40:36 +0000

re: Giving up sodas

I’ve recently been working on eliminating sodas from our diet and our grocery budget. I really enjoy them, but it’s hard to justify the expense. I switched to diet sodas years ago, so calories aren’t the issue. I just prefer flavored drinks to tap water much of the time, even though our tap water is excellent.

Fortunately, I do have a nice homemade alternative, which I posted about today on my blog. It’s called shrub, and you can read about it here:

http://livingthefrugallife.blogspot.com/2008/06/shrub.html

By: ChristianPF

ChristianPF — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:26:35 +0000

Thanks for the mention trent!! I agree with Johanna, lets just walk!! :)

By: Trent

Trent — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:04:55 +0000

MJ: Mind sharing what my hidden agenda is? I’m kind of curious what I’m hiding from myself.

By: MJ

MJ — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:49:57 +0000

“…if you think a writer has a hidden agenda that’s keeping them from giving you the best information or advice, move on. And that includes The Simple Dollar.”

Will do. I used to visit this site multiple times a day to read the posts and the comments, but I recently took it off my feedreader and have been working on breaking the habit of visiting daily, with the intention of stopping completely in the future.

By: Susan in CA

Susan in CA — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:47:41 +0000

I’ve been following your health twitter. Ditch the DIET soda. So bad for your health and, honestly, the only people I see drinking diet soda are overweight. Hmmmm

By: Johanna

Johanna — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:50:12 +0000

Mina: If transit service is only “pretty much” nonexistent, that means that there is some that exists. And nobody forced you to live in a place where it is inconvenient for you to commute to work without your car.

By: April

April — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:48:28 +0000

Wait, that’s how I read my issue of Bon Appetit.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:07:43 +0000

Makes perfect sense to me. That's my goal with The Art of Zen Living. On one hand, there's a "man, I wish I'd known all this a long time ago!" and on the other, when people read and comment, there's a tremendous amount of satisfaction in the validation. Hopefully, I'm also providing information that makes people's lives a little better and a little easier, and that's "right livelihood" any way you look at it!

By: Trent

Trent — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:43:10 +0000

Thanks to the readers who noticed my missing italics tag. I fixed it and then removed the dozen or so comments pointing it out. Thanks again!

By: Mina

Mina — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:37:11 +0000

Johanna, simply not driving is not an option for some. While I will opt out of starting up the car for a trip to the mailbox or a visit to a nearby friends house and just walk. Unfortunately though, I live in a suburb (or borough) with a pretty much non-existent public transportation system, so I unfortunately have to make the long commute to work in the inner city by car. I’ve been trying to get a carpool together for months, that’s the peril of being the first one to the office everyday, no one wants to carpool with you.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:25:37 +0000

Trent – I thought you (and readers) might be interested in this site, which will soon be launched as a new addition to the Discovery Channel lineup:

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/

More info here: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/about.html

Some good stuff available here…