simple

By Deborah Taylor-Hough Someone recently told me that she was tired of being in debt and was ready to get her spending under control. But she was concerned about the fact that she still enjoyed spending money to pamper herself. She was looking for inexpensive "luxury" ideas. I didn't necessarily have specific luxury ideas to suggest, but what I've found over the past several years is Read more...

When microwaves were first introduced as rather expensive kitchen novelties, they engendered fear more than anything else. In some circles, they were even labeled miniature nuclear reactors. Since then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has developed strict standards to regulate microwaves, which now must be leakproof and equipped with safety systems that turn the oven off when the door is Read more...

Dear Elaine, I wanted to respond to your invitation to readers to share their ideas about the things that complicate their lives. One of mine is the "bigger is better" philosophy. It seems to apply to so many things: houses, cars, food... In most cases, I don't think it's making us better -- just more stressed, wasteful, polluting, in debt and fat. My husband and I once had Read more...