Posts Tagged ‘economy’

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Should a HOA be allowed to ban green energy?

July 5th, 2010 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Life


Is the modern HOA the enemy of solar? I think that it really is. I’m not sure why state amendments that bar homeowners associations from stopping residents from adding solar panels haven’t made it into law. We’re always reading about how expensive energy is and how our power grids are having problems coping with the increased strain, yet it is still legal for a homeowners association to block residents from generating their own energy because someone down the street thinks the panels are unsightly? Absolutely ridiculous. I’m in north Texas, and we have plenty of sun. I would love to be able to add solar panels to my house to help curb the high power bills but we’re unable to, thanks to the HOA. So much energy is wasted on running air conditioners. Having solar panels on my house would absorb a lot of the sun that’s causing the house to heat up in the first place.
One local case make national news. A resident put up solar panels and was promptly sued by his HOA. Fortunately, smarter heads prevailed and the HOA dropped the lawsuit. The article notes that not only is the resident able to offset his entire electrical bill, but he’s able to sell excess energy back to the utilities. Imagine if every house on the street was able to generate enough power for their homes while selling excess back to the grid. Reduced strain on the power grid, reduced consumption of natural resources such as coal, oil, and natural gas, and reduced costs for solar panels. The more that are being produced, the cheaper and more efficient they will become. It’s a win-win situation, so why are people against it?

What do you think, folks?

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Is the economy keeping bad employees employed?

August 21st, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Life

I was talking with my wife about this last night. Do you think that bad management employees are keeping their jobs because nobody is willing to stand up against them? I know of a particular situation where an upper manager has been downright hostile to employees, but the employees are afraid to make their concerns known to her superiors because they are afraid of being terminated as a retaliatory action. While in many cases firing someone as a retaliatory action is against the law, it’s a steep uphill battle that may be very lengthy and difficult for the employee. The employees figure that it’s just better to have a job right now.

Have any of you encountered something like this? How did you handle it? What was the outcome?

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Ok, maybe not. “Cash For Clunkers” Gets another 2 billion dollars.

July 31st, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Etcetera


Reports are saying that the House has approved another $2,000,000,000 for the Cash for Clunkers program.

“The House has voted to rush an additional $2 billion into the popular but financially strapped “cash for clunkers” car purchase program.”
“The bill was approved on a vote of 316-109. House members acted within hours of learning from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the program was running out of money.”

If you were going to use the program to buy a new car, it might be a good idea to do it sooner rather than later.

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Get out of debt. No, really…

July 12th, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Life


Bible Money Matters has an entry with a few of the tips from financial guru Dave Ramsey.

Whether you’re Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Atheist, Mormon, or from another planet, a lot of the tips that Dave Ramsey has are great ones. The biggest hurdle to getting out of debt is the lifestyle change that needs to happen before you can start on the path to financial freedom. Or, at least on the unpaved trail to not being broke all the time. Giving up the morning trip to Starbucks can be hard. Cutting the cable TV can be difficult. But, it’s important to give it a try.
One of the things that they don’t cover in the usual financial articles is what to do when you’re slapped with an Early Termination Fee. The best way to avoid those is to simply avoid getting into a ‘service agreement’ in the first place. Be very careful with cellular phone companies because most of them will renew your 2 year ‘agreement’ for something as simple as changing your rate plan. It’s a nasty tactic, but they’re liable to do practically anything to help keep their ‘churn’ numbers down. ‘churn’ is when a customer cancels and goes to another carrier. Notice how cell contracts are now for 2 years? They used to be for 12 months only, but the industry has moved to the more restrictive 2 year plans. Watch out for those.

Same with Dish Network and DirecTV – they both have long term contracts now as well, usually 2 years. This is fairly new, and is designed to keep you paying that monthly bill. So while it may sound easy for someone to just say “Well, cancel the cell phone and the satellite TV” it’s not always that easy. Such providers have no qualms about sending you right to collections and slapping the collections on all three credit reports, so be careful.

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Go on, cut that cable!

July 7th, 2009 by stuffaboutlife | Comments Off | Filed in Life


Here’s a good article about watching TV online and not having cable TV. There are many websites/services that will let you watch TV online for free. There are some trade offs, though. One of the biggest ones is that unless you’re using a home theatre/media PC attached to your television, you’re going to be sitting in front of the computer to watch the shows. That’s about the only drawback that I can think of offhand at the moment. There’s a technical issue as well. Some of the sites use the newer Microsoft Silverlight, and there is no version for Mac OS X computers that are using the PowerPC processor. (Not sure? Apple Menu -> About This Mac. Look at “processor.” if it says “Power PC” then you’re out of luck.)

You might get charged an extra $10/mo if you have cable internet but no cable TV service. We have Verizon FIOS only – no TV service and no home phone service. They’re simply unnecessary. We get TV channels with our TV antenna, and the rest of the stuff we watch online.

There’s also Fancast too.

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