Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Travel, Pennies, & Shoplifting

Heading out to spend the next three days at Mom's as soon as I get this post, posted. Lots of people travel during the holidays. Many questions whether it is cheaper to fly or drive. I now have the answer to that question:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/12/02/savings-experiment-holiday-travel/?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl11%7Csec1_lnk2%7C117836

Do you have any pennies handy? I have a bunch that I was going to give to the church but after reading the next article I am reconsidering that.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/laws-change-penny-hoarders-cash-thousands-dollars/story?id=15076522

Do you ever wonder what are the most popular things in stores for the holidays? One way to judge is by what is shoplifted:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/high-risk-merchandise-for-sticky-fingers_n_1121075.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-sb-nb%7Cdl5%7Csec3_lnk1%7C116728

Comment Away.

QUOTE

Selma Lagerlof authored yesterday's quote. "The creative adult is the child who has survived", was authored by an American woman writer whose fantasy and science fiction explores ethics and the future. Her most famous work is the Earthsea series. Have you ever seen THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS? If you have then you can tell me who authored today's quote.

4 comments:

Lady DR said...

Interesting fly-drive comparison. For out trip out west, at present, it's $650 less to drive, including factoring wear and tear on the car. Now, it's four days, versus ten or twelve hours, but since it's to be a fun trip and allows us to take the dogs with no hassle, it's nice to know it also saves a bit of money.

The penny article kinda blew me away. Even with some special machinery (must be factored into profit figures), it sounds incredibly time and labor intensive. Plus... if the mint does away with pennies, how the heck are we to deal with 6% and 7% sales taxes and such?

Some of the items on the shoplifting list made sense, some really surprised me, like food items and deoderant.

William J. said...

Hi DR

I prefer driving for a number of reasons mostly it involves control. You stop and smell the roses and so forth. Now to mention transportation to and from the airport and when you get to a destination.

The penny article also blew me away. Interesting questions about the sales tax if the mint quit making pennies.

I actually felt sorry for someone that would life some of the items on the list, like food and necessities.

Bill

Pat said...

I know the kids consider it easier, cheaper, and faster to drive than to try to fly the something like 400 miles between us. The drive is 5 or 6 hours and their usual car gets great gas mileage.

Very interesting about the pennies. Way too much work for me, but I might look at my meager collection of probably less than $1 worth to see if any are real copper. I have heard that it costs more to make pennies than they are worth, and they want to retire them and round everything (up, I'm sure).

The "most shoplifted" list doesn't surprise me. At least the high-priced items don't. For the necessity items, that's just kind of sad. I just wish stores could come up with better security so there couldn't be a list, since the rest of us consumers wind up paying for the losses.

William J. said...

Hi Pat

I can never figure out why anyone would fly from Portland to Seattle or visa versa. Takes a little over three hours to drive. Flying takes about a half of an hour but that doesn't take in to consideration the time to drive to the airport, the time to get off the plane and find transportation to a hotel or rent a car and so on. I figured out once it took me twenty minutes less to drive. I do like, however, to take the train to Seahawks games.

The pennies do sound like a lot of work but this is an admission. I have about forty dollars of them in a mug. I don't know if I have the energy to go through them to see the copper ones.

I completely agree with on the shoplifted items especially the part about the store providing more security. We all pay for their losses in higher prices.

Bill