Simply Belle

This concerns to the US residents only:

You might have been already notified in the mail regarding the NALC’s (National Association of Letter Carriers) Stamp Out Hunger annual food drive this Saturday, May 10, 2008. I would like to make an appeal to all of you to please go through your pantry and pick out the ones that you don’t need and donate them to help family in need in your community. We want to collect as much food as possible because this is the year that many families are struggling with the recession that our country is facing.

Please set the goods next to your mailbox and your carrier will pick them up when delivering mail. It has to be non-perishable items like canned goods, noodles, cereals, etc. Money is also appreciated but has to be handed out to the carrier personally or you can deliver it to the post office yourself. Someone will be there to assist you.

Your community needs you….please help this Saturday, May 10, 2008. I will be one of the carriers who will be picking up the food.

Oh, my contribution is already in the paper bag for my husband to set out on Saturday.

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Let me count the ways….

Take a look at the picture below. Notice any abnormalities?

We are trying to find ways to cut down on our gas bill. In the month of December alone, my gas bill skyrocketed to almost $500, and half of the time the kids were not even with us and my husband and I hardly ever cooked. It has doubled from last year’s bill. The thing is we were not notified of such increase, which is not right. Since our bills are deducted from our deposit automatically every month, we were not aware of such things until 3 months later when it has already damaged my bank account drastically. That hurt! Maybe, they did notify us, but we didn’t get it for sure or the company didn’t do a good job of spreading the information. Go figure.

How will the ordinary family/young couple living on a tight budget or retired couple living on a fixed income survive? The salary/social security remains the same, but everything else goes up. Is this what people call recession? In my almost 22 years of living in the USA, I have never seen this happen. It is alarming! Houses quit selling, our town’s revenue is down by several millions, dollar versus peso hit the all time low, the price of gas is soaring, and first class letters at work has declined quite substantially but bills/gas/airfare/cost of commodities are rising rapidly. Whatever happened? Who is to blame for such economic turmoil? The way things are going, there is a certainty that recession is about to hit this country unless something is done.

Meanwhile, we are doing our best to cut down on cost. I quit running my gas-generated furnace, and turned off pilot lights. I turned down my water heater to low. I now run economical electric space heater in my bedroom, and lately, as shown in the picture, I started using my camping stove for cooking. It suits us just fine because now that the kids are out of the house, I don’t do much cooking. I find that it is cheaper to buy the little propane cylinder ($2.65) than relying on our gas outifit served by Sem Stream Company. This way, I don’t have to pay huge surcharges, and adjustments, which is what drive the cost up. In my January bill of $400, my surcharge and adjustment alone amounted to $200, excluding state and city taxes. My gosh, with tiny income we are receiving, we get ripped off every direction. My energy usage was actually $165, which is tolerable, taxes excluded. So far, my gas usage this month is 11 cubit feet, down by 3/4 from last month, which will be reflected in next month bill. And I expect to see a bill in double figure in the future especially that the warmer weather is around the corner. We are in season now when we don’t need heating or cooling.

Maybe this is the time to look into solar water heating option since we have an abundance of sunshine where we live just like in the Philippines. I know I have friends who live quite a ways from town who rely solely on solar for electricity. Worth checking into, huh? Wouldn’t it be nice if we can avoid paying these huge gas and electricity bills.

It is time I go back to old ways – walking to and from work and eating rice and sugar…hehe

Hey, a penny saved is one and a quarter earned because taxes have to be paid on the earning to get the penny.

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