The Chronic Consumer

It looks like we’ll be getting our new vehicle in February, as planned. We’ve been waiting to see what our financial picture would look like after Christmas expenses and taxes were accounted for, and now we have a pretty good idea of where we stand.

We’re getting a truck, which means my husband is going to have to buy a bunch of accessories for it. For example, we need a truck bed liner to protect the paint from scratches, a tool box to securely store my husband’s tools and motocross equipment, and perhaps even a tonneau cover for when there aren’t any bikes in the back.

In addition, we’ll likely need a bed extender so the bikes can fit in there even with the tool box taking up space in the back.

This stuff is going to cost a bunch of extra money, so we’ll probably end up buying them one at a time as our budget permits. The bed liner definitely has to come first though!

Because I work from home, I’m constantly dealing with productivity problems. I have a hard time staying on task, and not surfing the Internet or watching TV when I’m supposed to be working. So in order to help combat this problem, I recently purchased a Polder Digital Timer, with the goal of setting time limits for all of my tasks. I’m much better at getting things done when the clock is ticking, and figured this product would help.

The Polder Digital Timer comes with several features that I absolutely love. For example, I can set the timer to count up or count down. I was specifically interested in the countdown timer because then I can give myself, say, 15 minutes to complete a task and have the alarm beep when the time was up. Much easier than having to keep an eye on a traditional count-up timer.

Another feature that attracted me to this timer was the way I could choose from three different alarm notifications: vibration, sound, and light. I love this because I can use the sound alarm when I’m by myself, and can use one of the other two alarm types when there are other people around so I don’t disturb them. Fantastic!

And finally, I love the little things about this Polder Digital Timer. It has a stand so I can easily keep an eye on the time without having to take my hands off the keyboard to pick it up. It has a very large display that’s nice and easy to read. It takes standard AA batteries so I don’t have to hunt around for obscure replacements.

Overall, this is an awesome little device that I hope will help increase my productivity for the long run. I’ve been using it for about a week now, and have noticed definite improvements in my work habits. As a result, I highly recommend the Polder Digital Timer. It’s the best $10 I’ve spent in a long time!

My diamond engagement ring came from an upscale jewelry store that charged much higher prices than everyone else. I guess they figure that their name had offered the kind of cachet that consumers would willingly overpay for, so they have no qualms about their price points.

My husband had never bought that kind of jewelry before, so he didn’t really know what he was getting into. If he could go back in time, however, I’m sure that he wouldn’t have paid so much just for a name brand.

When it came time to purchase our matching wedding rings, we made much smarter decisions. We stayed away from the high-priced stores, and ended up getting two platinum bands of superb quality for a fraction of what we would have had to pay elsewhere.

After seven years, our rings still look as beautiful as the day we exchanged them in a small, oceanside chapel in Hawaii.

I know a lot of people out there like to collect brand-name timepieces as much as I do, so I thought I’d pass along a good site I found. It’s called thetimezone.com, and offers a wide range of fine watches at discount prices. All of the products sold on the site are authentic, and come with the original packaging and serial numbers intact.

I spent some time browsing through their collection today. I found a really nice Montblanc watch that I would love to own, as well as a couple of ebel watches that would look fantastic on my husband.

I’ve bookmarked thetimezone.com, and will definitely go back when I’m ready to purchase another luxury timepiece!

Redenvelope.com is having their Winter Sale right now, which means you can save up to 70% on selected products. For example, you can buy a pair of men’s leather + cashmere gloves for $39.99 (regularly $78); a cashmere travel set that includes a blanket, memory foam pillow, and eye mask all in a zippered pouch for $138.99 (reg. $275); or a Wine Tasting Party kit for $39.99 (reg. $75).

Redenvelope.com has long been one of my favorite sites for corporate gifts, so I’m definitely going to spend some time looking through the sales products to see what else is available. I might stock up on a few of the lower-priced items to give away to valued clients during the year just to help ensure good karma .

Most of the products sold on Redenvelope.com can be gift-wrapped for just $4.95 extra, and many can even be personalized through engraving or embroidery.

I have very sensitive skin that’s prone to breakouts. As a result, I have to be very careful about what kind of products I use on my face, and I can only wear makeup on special occasions (rather than on a daily basis).

But recently I’ve been thinking that perhaps a change in makeup brands is in order. Right now, I use a popular brand that’s available at all department stores. I like it, but it is rather harsh on my skin, which is why I can’t wear it regularly.

So what if I changed over to something like Jane Iredale Skin Care Makeup instead? This line is specifically designed to be safe for your skin, and is widely recommended by dermatologists and plastic surgeons.

As soon as my regular makeup runs out, I think I’ll either get a sample of Jane Iredale’s stuff or buy some outright.

Hopefully it will work for my skin!

For Christmas this year, I decided to surprise my husband with a new MP3 player. He had been using a 4th Generation (I think; I can’t keep all of them straight!) 20GB iPod, but after several years of daily use, the battery life was being affected.

I briefly thought about buying my husband a different brand, such as a Zune or a Creative Zen, but didn’t know how easy it would be to transfer all of his music from iTunes to this other software. In the end, I decided to stick with the Apple brand, especially because we’ve purchased so many of these over the years (this was the seventh iPod between us: two 1GB Shuffles, one 4GB Mini, two 4GB Nanos, the 20GB 4th generation iPod, and now the new one) and have never had problems with any of them.

There are several differences between the old 4th generation that my husband was using and the new “iPod Classic”, as Apple has taken to calling these things. First of course, is the storage capacity. Eighty gigs is a HUGE amount for a portable device, and my husband is nowhere close to filling his iPod up, even though he has several TV shows, full-length movies, YouTube clips, and all of his music on there.

I could have gotten the 160GB iPod Classic for a hundred bucks more, which is a better dollar-per-gig deal. However, I figured that my husband would never use that much space and that he would probably get another new iPod in a few years, so why bother with spending the extra money now.

Another difference is that the iPod Classic now plays videos. The device requires video files to be in a special format (I don’t know what it is offhand, but it’s not AVI, DiVX, MPEG, or any of the usual types), which means you have to run your vids through a converter before loading them (if you don’t buy them off iTunes, I mean). The conversion is a long, tedious process, but my husband doesn’t seem to mind it. He loves having video playback capabilities on his iPod, so he’s willing to jump through all these hoops to put his movies on there.

And finally, the iPod Classic has a feature called Cover Flow. This essentially allows you to browse through your music by looking at album covers. For example, if you have the latest Linkin Park CD loaded on your device, you can play all the songs from it by clicking on the cover art. This admittedly looks pretty cool, but isn’t exactly a selling point. Just an extra perk.

The rest of the iPod’s features, including games, calendar, photos, contacts, etc. are the same as older generations.

Overall, I think the 80GB iPod Classic is a great portable music and video player. It’s a bit on the expensive side compared to other brands, but at least you’re getting a name you can trust. I paid the full retail price of $249 for this one, as it was a last-minute Christmas decision and I bought it from a local store, but it can be had on Amazon.com or other websites for $10-$20 less.

Definitely recommended!

Because of skyrocketing energy costs, the winter months always prove to be a major drain on my household budget. Even when I keep the thermostat at a barely-comfortable 68 degrees, our heating bills are usually more than we anticipated. So in recent weeks, I’ve been investigating alternative home heating solutions that might be viable for my family.

With a small child running around, I thought it would be best to avoid space heaters for the time being. Instead, I began looking closely at ventless gas logs that we can use in our fireplace.

I’d never really considered using our fireplace as a source of real heat before, but the more I read about the energy-efficient qualities of heating a room with ventless gas logs, the more I became convinced that this was the answer my family has been looking for.

Ventless gas logs are great for heating purposes because almost 100 percent of the heat goes into the room as opposed to up the chimney. They provide all of the cozy warmth that you’d expect from a fireplace, without all the hassles of dealing with wood logs, smoke, soot, and ashes.

I found a number of both vent-free and vented gas log products (as well as other home heating solutions) at the DESA Online Outlet website. These items were priced significantly lower than comparable products at other online retailers, so I’ll likely end up buying from there. If I do, I’ll definitely write a full review of whichever gas log I purchase!