Your Health and Your Life

Find out about how blood pH affects cancer http://myplace.frontier.com/~felipe2/id18.html

Also look for the link for the alkalizing foods at this site.

Julian
www.mykudosbook.com 

Your Broker and Your Money

If your are happy with your broker, skip this blog. If you are taking control of your own investment, take a look at broker rankings by smartmoney.com (June 2012).  The survey included a variety of categories: commission on stock per trade, commissions and fees, mutual fund and investment products, banking services, trading tools, research, and customer service.  Fidelity, Scottrade and TD Ameritrade are the top 3.  I personally use TD Ameritrade on the daily basis for it's charting tools for trading stock options.

Julian
www.mykudosbook.com 

Your Car and Your Money

If you are no longer driving to work on the daily basis as before, you may be entitled to a lower insurance premium.  Call your auto-insurance providers to find out.

If your car did not pass the emissions test, have your car serviced by a CERTIFIED EMMISSIONS facility.  If you spent more than $787 for the repairs at the certified facility and still fail the emissions test, you may be qualified for a waiver from DMV.  Find out who are certified emissions facilities here: http://ctemissions.com/repair-shops.asp

Julian
www.mykudosbook.com 

Yea right!

Do vendors check competitors' price? Apparently not.  It is your job, day in and day out, to watch for sales and compare prices. Well, let's make it my job.  CVS' Sunday sales flyer shows a sale for Metamucil (114 doses) for $12.99 plus $2.00 "extrabucks" for next purchase.  At Walmart, the regular price for Metamucil (same 114 doses) is $7.84.


Julian
www.mykudosbook.com

The real reason GM left Facebook.

As the Forrester Analyst Nate Elliot put it, "Facebook still hasn’t stumbled upon a model that’s proven consistently successful for marketers, or that brings in the massive revenues to match the site’s massive user base."

Is it really that difficult to understand? People get on Facebook to check messages, share photos, socialize and what not.  How much time do they devote on reading the advertisements, especially when they have the full power to ignore them?  Unlike TV commercials, they becomes so annoying that they took a spot in your subconscious and you don't have much of an impression of other brands of products. Still, savvy consumers read reviews before they make any purchase decisions, with ads or not.

People who are looking for sales will open the sales pages.  People looking for coupons will open the coupon's page.  People looking for classifieds will open the page for classifieds.  People don't go to Craigslist to kill time or play games.  You get my drift?

 

mykudosbook.com

Patient billed doctor for waiting time

I absolutely love this.  A patient refused to pay doctor's bill and in return billed the doctor for her waiting time.  Read the story here.  http://abcnews.go.com/Health/patients-billed-doctors-waiting-time/story?id=14009452#.T7PgF8Vy-7g

She was not alone.  http://healthbeat.areavoices.com/2011/07/08/the-doctor-is-late-heres-my-bill/

As Dr. Brown in the first story suggested, "The answer is to be an empowered consumer -- and find a new doctor and write a brief note to the doctor to explain why you are leaving the practice," said Brown.

I did just that to my dentist, Dr. Primo in East Lyme, Connecticut. Not sure if he's got the message, although it was the hygienist who kept me waiting. 

However, I do not agree, as Dr. Brown put it,"that many doctors run behind schedule because they "try to address the needs of each patient, and some patients come in sicker than anticipated, need more care [or] need to be hospitalized."  Come on, let's be honest. Dr. Brown.  Over-scheduling means income. We've all seen this too often.

That is why we have reviews.  Share experience through word of mouth. Keep everybody informed.

Voice your opinion here.

 mykudosbook.com

Coupons, Groupons, and Sales

What a ridiculous culture we have.  Is it just in America?  When I was in Germany, I did not see any shoppers in front of me cashing in a stack of coupons wasting everyone's time.  It's now the norm in America's supermarkets.  More often than not, a couple of expired coupons or wrong size packages hold up the line further.

So, you get CVS, RiteAid,  Walmart, Target, Sears, Macy's flyers every Sunday.  Along with coupons, there are other "must have" items on sale.  On average, you waste about 30 minutes going through the flyers and cutting out coupons.  If time is money (you should watch the movie "In Time" where time was the currency), do you really save anything?  What about the cost of printing?  Don't they have to pass on the cost to the consumers (meaning YOU) anyway?  Why do you have to save money only when those businesses decide on Sunday?  Why can't they have a fair price for everything all the time?

Late last year, I studied the list prices for selected personal care items and medicines, such as deodorant, shampoo, moisturizer, tooth paste, detergent, and over-the-counter medicines, among CVS, RiteAid, Walmart, Target, Stop&Shop, Big Y, and BJ's. Here are some interesting findings.  Over the long run, you would spend: CVS ($142.9), RiteAid ($148.18), Walmart ($111.07), Target ($112.10), Stop&Shop ($123.97), Big Y ($132.63), BJ's ($117.25 - normalized for size)

I am not the only one opposing this coupon thingy and the phony sales.  JC Penny is now doing without it.  Kudos!  Cardinal Honda is known for its no haggling, fixed price policy.  Kudos!

http://www.mykudosbook.com