Your money: February 2008 Archives

Grocery stores must love it when the weatherman says there’s going to be snow, ice and, in general, just a wintry mess.

People panic and immediately run out to buy milk, bread and toilet paper, as if a couple of inches of snow will keep us in our houses for weeks causing us to run out of all our rations.

Let’s be realistic here.

That’s probably not going to happen.

However, that didn’t seem to stop people from flocking to the Weis in West Manchester Township this morning to stock up on necessities.

The parking lot was packed, and the checkout lines were long.

And while I didn’t go visit all the grocery stores in the county, I assume the situation was probably similar.

What is it about the weather that drives tons of people to the grocery store? Is it a comfort thing, knowing you won’t have to venture out in the bad weather? Or do you legitimately need another half gallon of milk?

The battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray format is finally over, with Toshiba's HD DVD admitting defeat.

Production companies and video rental chains like Blockbuster and Netflix aligned with the Blu-ray format all but forcing Toshiba to stop producing the HD DVD players and discs.

That means anyone who purchased an HD DVD player wasted a lot of money. (Of course they didn't know they were doing so at the time.)

And it's not like the HD player is going to suddenly stop working. It will continue to play standard DVD's and any HD DVDs customers bought. But in time, there will be less and less movie selection available. And the HD player doesn't play the Blu-ray format.

The HD player will be like the VHS system that standard DVD players wiped out. Or it will be like cassette tapes that CD's obliterated. Sure there are still some floating around, but they are not produced anymore.

Have you bought an HD DVD player recently? What are you going to do with it? Keep it, return it, exchange it? I'd really like to hear.

After spending a day interviewing wedding planners for a story that will run in tomorrow's paper and after watching two of my friends attempt to plan their own wedding, I have come to one conclusion. Wedding planning is stressful and definitely not a walk in the park. Oh and it's expensive. I guess that's two things.

My soon-to-be-married friend spent a recent Friday night sprawled out on an apartment floor with every bridal magazine imaginable. Her fiance is working on building them a Web site to include all the information friends and family need to find the church and the reception hall.

There are dresses to be tried on, themes and colors to be determined and music to be selected.

It kind of makes my head spin.

The wedding planners I talked to today really seemed to have it all together. They know vendors and make time lines and in general keep the bride and groom calm.

There's something to be said for both planning a wedding on your own and using a wedding planner. So what did you do when you got married? How were you able to trim costs but still have a great wedding day?

I’ve written before about how much the high gas prices are cramping my style, even though they have been dropping lately.

And I don’t mean the following to be taken as an endorsement for the current prices. They are still way too high.

But, the other day I stopped to fill up at the Citgo on Route 30 at the intersection of Fairlane Road.

Not only is gas there a couple cents cheaper than most other places I’ve seen, but there are two prices. If you pay in cash, it’s about another five cents cheaper than that.

Last time I drove by, the regular price was $2.89, but the pay-with-cash price was $2.85.

How cool is that?

Has anyone else seen gas stations that are doing anything similar? This is the first one I’ve seen like that.

The collapse of cheap oil is having some pretty bad results here at home.

Example: Anyone else think $2.95 was a cheap price for gas when it fell to that recently? I did, but then realized that's like double what I can afford and keep the old American lifestyle.

That's probably part of the reason I had a minor freak out when I looked at my last ATM receipt. My bank account fell below the threshold that I ordinarily don't let it pass, and I was worried someone got a hold of my PIN or something. Turns out, it was just all the extra money living in the post-cheap oil world costs.

Then, I read this.

I have no words. I tried to write them, but they are no match for the mud the people of Haiti are forced to eat - without the cause of war or natural disaster. Just because the market commanded it so.

Is there anything we could have done to prevent this?

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as up on the Fed (the Federal Reserve) as I was when I was an econ minor in college. Yeah, that was a while ago. But I came across a neat widget from the Associated Press explaining a little more about the Federal Open Market Committee, the group that is responsible for my credit-card interest rates going down (thank you!)

Give it a look.

If being a rabid sports fan is bad for heart health as a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine states, I am in some serious trouble. It probably means I'm taking years off my life every time I pace the floor nervously praying for my Terps/Eagles/Phillies to win.

The study looked at German fans during the 2006 World Cup and found heart problems more than tripled for males and doubled for females. Factors such as the intensity of the game, the game's overall importance and how close the game was all play a role.

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, I'd be curious to see if the number of stress-induced heart attacks increases. Millions of people watch the game. Advertisers pay millions of dollars for 30-second spots for that very purpose.

And what if you gamble your hard-earned money on the game? The study didn't specifically address sports gambling, but I wonder if it relates in anyway to the number of heart attacks that result. I can only imagine stress levels go up for people that have money riding on the game -- and lots of people do. Sports gambling is not uncommon.

What do you think? If you bet on the games are you super stressed or do you manage to keep a calm, cool demeanor no matter the outcome?