I can’t believe that this is the 500th post here at The Chronic Consumer! In all honesty, when I first began this blog, I didn’t know how long I’d be able to sustain it with new material. Although I think I shop a lot, I certainly don’t buy something new every single day, so I was worried that I’d quickly run out of things to post about.
Fortunately, that hasn’t happened thus far. I’ve been writing here since May 11, 2007, and have made it to 500 posts already. I’m pretty happy with that!
This is just a reminder to all of you that Grandparents Day is next Sunday, September 7, so if you’re planning on purchasing a present for the occasion, you’ve only got one week left to shop.
I don’t think I’ve ever remembered this “holiday” before, but this time I might go ahead and get something for my mom to celebrate the fact that she’s a grandmother. A greeting card for sure, and then perhaps a fun photo product with my son’s picture on it.
Or maybe I can get a free day for myself by dropping my son off with enough money to take grandma to the zoo. They would both enjoy that and I could get a lot of work done with the boy gone all day. Now that sounds like a great plan!
This is a test post made from my cell phone. It is just from the phone browser itself, not from a third party app like Utterz or anything like that. If this works, then I will be able to post a bunch more stuff from my various shopping excursions!
I purchased a Kindle ebook reader about six or seven weeks ago, and am planning to write a detailed review of the device pretty soon. I waited so long because I wanted to really get to know the device and experience its pros and cons over an extended period before writing about it.
Without giving away too much right now, let me just say that I love the Kindle and am very happy with my purchase! Almost everything about my experience with the device has been terrific, from the moment I received the device until now. In fact, probably the biggest beef I have about Kindle is the way it comes in such nice packaging. I didn’t want to risk damaging the package with my box cutter, so I tried to get the shrink-wrap off by hand, which took me forever!
At any rate, I’ve definitely got enough experience and info to write my review. I just need to set aside some time to do it!
I know this isn’t exactly related to shopping, but I’m so bummed about the news that I just had to post it. Bennigan’s, which has been one of my favorite restaurants since high school (20+ years) is closing because of bankruptcy. Its parent company, S&A Restaurant Corp, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy today, and plans to close many of the 21 Illinois Bennigan’s locations.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the Bennigan’s bankruptcy filing was unexpected, with restaurant managers getting phone calls in the middle of the night telling them to close the stores immediately. In fact, the article went on to say that a new employee showed up for his first day of work today only to see the restaurant shuttered. He didn’t know what was going on until a couple of passersby told him about the bankruptcy!!
Chapter 7 — the Bennigan’s bankruptcy in this case — is used when a company is going to liquidate its assets, as opposed to Chapter 11, which is used when a company plans to restructure. So it looks as though Bennigan’s will be gone for good pretty soon.
Again, I’m totally bummed by this. I’ve had such great times at Bennigan’s over the years… I always went there with my friends in high school and college, and even afterwards in my early to mid-20s. Food and fun at Bennigan’s, right????
I’ve been so busy for the last couple of weeks that I didn’t even notice that The Chronic Consumer turned one! The site went live on May 11, 2007, and has been online ever since. The first year has definitely been a learning experience and it’s been a bit harder than expected to keep this site going, but I feel that I’m finally hitting my stride now.
I want to thank all my regular readers out there and welcome any new ones that might have straggled in more recently. Without you guys, there wouldn’t be much point to maintaining this blog!
I just wanted to let you know that there will likely be a slowdown in the amount of reviews posted on this blog for the time being. With the economy the way it is and my husband not qualifying for overtime at work anymore, I don’t have as much mad money as I usually do, so I’m not able to shop as much as I’d like. And short of applying to a few mortgage lenders for help, there’s no way to keep up my spending habits.
Until things get a little better on the financial front, I’ll shift my focus a bit and try to alert you to more discount codes, online coupons, and special sales instead of just doing product reviews. Actually, that was one of my initial intentions for the site, so it’s something I’ve been meaning to do anyway!
December is a great time to buy a new car because most dealerships are interested in clearing out their inventory to make room for the new model year. That means almost everybody is offering cash back, low APR financing, and other significant discounts, which is definitely to the buyer’s benefit.
If you are going to get a new car, you might want to think about donating your old one instead of trading it in. As you know,car donations are not only tax deductible, but can also be used to promote a good cause. This is especially true when you donate your vehicle to an organization like Car Angel.
Car Angel uses proceeds from the vehicle donations they receive to create videos (like the one below) aimed at helping at-risk kids and teens get their lives back on the right track. They’ve distributed more than 2.4 million videos to date, and are definitely making a difference.
Check out their website to learn more about the donation process. Car Angel makes it easy and convenient for you, so take a look!
I have a WordPress stats program installed on this site, and one of the things it does is tell me which keywords a person used to get here from the search engines. There are some really strange ones, of course, and usually I get a good chuckle out of those.
But today, I noticed a keyword string that made me marvel at how stupid people can be. In fact, I now feel compelled to write this PSA in response to that one special visitor I had this afternoon, who arrived here via the query “oxiclean as a colon cleanser”.
Look at the label on your OxiClean container. See that part in big letters that says DO NOT INGEST? Yeah, that means don’t eat it, drink it, snort it, or otherwise inject it into your body. Understand?
I just wanted to make a quick post here to let you know what kinds of products are fair game for one of my reviews. In a word: everything! That’s right, I’m liable to blog about any product under the sun. If I want it, saw it, heard of it, or bought it, it will very likely find its way to these pages eventually.
So in addition to the video games, game systems, running shoes, watches, dental floss, and shower gel that I’ve already reviewed, you could see posts about home furniture, cookies, pens, sporting goods, gadgets, cleaning supplies, and who knows what else!
Hopefully I’ll cover the products (and services) you’re most interested in. Your best bet is to keep checking back to see what I write about next!
This is just a reminder to all of you that Grandparents Day is next Sunday, September 7, so if you’re planning on purchasing a present for the occasion, you’ve only got one week left to shop. 
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I know this isn’t exactly related to shopping, but I’m so bummed about the news that I just had to post it. Bennigan’s, which has been one of my favorite restaurants since high school (20+ years) is closing because of bankruptcy. Its parent company, S&A Restaurant Corp, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy today, and plans to close many of the 21 Illinois Bennigan’s locations.
I’ve been so busy for the last couple of weeks that I didn’t even notice that The Chronic Consumer turned one! The site went live on May 11, 2007, and has been online ever since. The first year has definitely been a learning experience and it’s been a bit harder than expected to keep this site going, but I feel that I’m finally hitting my stride now.