Susan Reimer at the Baltimore Sun wrote a column today about how the average middle-aged person is feeling the effects of the economic recession. She talked about how people aren’t spending as much money because they feel poor, even if they may not actually be poor.
But I think that feeling of being poor is more universal, not just confined to the middle-aged.
I hope you all caught the story in this morning’s business section about the class action lawsuit filed against Pure Weight Loss (formerly known as L.A. Weight Loss).
I feel terrible for the people who lost hundreds or thousands of dollars when the diet center closed abruptly in December.
Have you or any of your friends been members of Pure Weight Loss? Did you lose a lot of money?
Or do you belong to other weight-loss programs? What have your experiences been with them?
I’m sure many of you may have noticed grocery stores offering sanitary wipes for customers to use to wipe down shopping carts. And starting in February, the Rutter’s stores will have Purell dispensers by the doors.
For my story that will run in tomorrow’s paper, I went out to grocery stores and gas stations and scoped out the number of people who used the various antibacterial products that each store offered.
Let me tell you, after watching people cough, sneeze and practically spit all over their hands before touching their shopping carts, I will never not use the wipes. I mean that’s just nasty. Think of all those germs getting passed from one person to the next. No wonder we all have colds that seem to last forever in the winter.
But no one does it better than the cruise ships. I can only speak to Royal Caribbean because that’s the line I’ve been on, but they knew what they were doing. Every time I walked into the buffet-style eatery on board an attendant was standing there to offer me a hand wipe.
It wasn’t a suggestion, like, “Hey, you’re about to eat, you should probably take a wipe.” It was mandatory. You weren’t allowed in unless you wiped down your hands.
I attempted to stroll by the attendant once because I wasn’t planning to eat. I was just looking to see if my friends had sat down for breakfast yet, but I couldn’t even enter the restaurant without taking a wipe.
Kudos to you Royal Caribbean for forcing everyone to use them.
When I stood at the grocery stores and gas stations, I watched tons and tons of people pass by without giving the antibacterial products a second glance. I don’t get it. If it’s there, why wouldn’t you use it?
I’ll be honest. I have an unhealthy relationship with Facebook. I spend way too much of my free time checking to see who’s put up new pictures or videos or which of my friends have updated their profiles most recently.
Just the other day Facebook told me my formerly blond friends dyed her hair brown.
But one thing I don’t have are Facebook applications, programs users can download to add extras to their profile. There are tons of applications that let you do things like rank your friends or play games back and forth each time you log on.
One of those games is called Scrabulous, a spin off of the popular board game Scrabble, that lets users play the game online for no cost.
Now Facebook and the two men from India who developed the Scrabulous application are being sued by Mattel and Hasbro for violating copyright laws, the Baltimore Sun reported today. The toymakers said they want users to play Scrabble on a “legal” (to be read: You probably have to pay for it) Web site.
Let’s be honest here for a minute toymakers. While Scrabulous is letting Facebook users play for free, do you really think you’re losing that much money? I will concede because there are ads on the site, you deserve a kick from that. But how many teens or young 20 year olds do you know who are clamoring to go out and buy the board game or pay to play online? If they had to pay, chances are the majority wouldn’t be playing at all.
But maybe it’s not about the money. Maybe it’s the principle of having your product re-marketed without your permission. I wouldn’t want that either. So maybe there’s some happy medium everyone can agree on so that Scrabulous doesn’t get destroyed forever.
To Hasbro’s credit, the company said it is reviewing several options with all parties involved to solve the problem “amicably.”
I was browsing through Consumer Reports Money Adviser this morning and came across this interesting tidbit: Using the self-checkout lanes in stores can save impulse buyers money.
Consumer Reports cited an industry study stating only 12 percent of customers who use the self checkout bought anything in checkout displays (gum, candy, magazines, etc.)
