Favorite Home Remedies

He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities. – Benjamin Franklin

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist.

Ask any physician and they will tell you that rest is essential for physical health. When the body is deprived of sleep, it is unable to rebuild and recharge itself adequately. Your body requires rest.

Ask any athlete and they will tell you that rest is essential for healthy physical training. Rest is needed for physical muscles to repair themselves and prevent injury. This is true whether you run marathons, pitch baseballs, or climb rocks. Your muscles require rest.

Ask many of yesterday’s philosophers and they will tell you that rest is essential for the mind. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.” And Ovid, the Roman poet, said, “Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” Your mind requires rest.

Ask most religious leaders and they will tell you that rest is essential for the soul. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha’i, and Wiccan (among others) teach the importance of setting aside a period of time for rest. Your soul requires rest.

Ask many corporate leaders and they will tell you that rest is essential for productivity. Forbes magazine recently wrote, “You can only work so hard and do so much in a day. Everybody needs to rest and recharge.” Your productivity requires rest.

Physicians, athletes, philosophers, poets, religious leaders, and corporate leaders all tell us the same thing: take time to rest. It is absolutely essential for a balanced, healthy life.

Yet, when you ask most people in today’s frenzied culture if they consistetly set aside time for rest, they will tell you that they are just too busy to rest. Even fewer would say that they set aside any concentrated time (12-24 hours) for rest. There are just too many things to get done, too many demands, too many responsibilities, too many bills, and too much urgency. Nobody can afford to waste time resting in today’s results-oriented culture.

Unfortunately, this hectic pace is causing damage to our quality of life. We are destroying every sense of our being (body, mind, and soul). There is a reason we run faster and work harder, but only fall farther behind. Our lives have become too full and too out of balance. Somewhere along the way, we lost the essential practice of concentrated rest. We would be wise to reclaim the ancient, lost practice of resting one day each week.

To get back into balance, just consider the countless benefits of concentrated rest for your body, mind, and soul:

§  Healthier body – We each get one life and one body to live it in. Therefore, we eat healthy, we exercise, and we watch our bad habits. But then we allow our schedules to fill up from morning to evening. Rest is as essential to our physical health as the water we drink and the air we breathe.

§  Less stress – Stress is basically the perception that the situations we are facing are greater than the resources we have to deal with them – resources such as time, energy, ability, and help from others. We have two choices, either reduce the demands or increase our resources. Concentrated rest confronts stress in both ways. First, it reduces the demands of the situation. We have no demands on us as long as we have the ability to mentally let go of unfinished tasks. Secondly, rest reduces stress by increasing our resources, particularly energy.

§  Deeper relationships – A day set aside each week for rest allows relationships with people to deepen and be strengthened. When we aren’t rushing off to work or soccer practice, we are able to enjoy each other’s company and a healthy conversation. And long talks prove to be far more effective in building community than short ones on the ride to the mall.

§  Opportunity for reflection – Sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees. It is even more difficult to see the forest when we are running through the trees. Concentrated rest allows us to take a step back, to evaluate our lives, to identify our values, and determine if our life is being lived for them.

§  Balance – Taking one day of your week and dedicating it to rest will force you to have an identity outside of your occupation. It will foster relationships outside of your fellow employees. It will foster activities and hobbies outside our work. It will give you life and identity outside of your Monday-Friday occupation. Rather than defining your life by what you do, you can begin to define it by who you are.

§  Increased production – Just like resting physical muscles allows them opportunity to rejuvenate which leads to greater physical success, providing our minds with rest provides it opportunity to refocus and rejuvenate. More work is not better work. Smarter work is better work.

§  Reserve for life’s emergencies – Crisis hits everyone. Nobody who is alive is immune from the trials of life. By starting the discipline today of concentrated rest, you will build up reserves for when the unexpected emergencies of life strike… and rest is no longer an option.

Properly developing a discipline of concentrated rest requires both inward and outward changes. Consider these steps to reclaiming the lost practice of weekly rest in your life:

1. Find contentment in your current life. – Much of the reason we are unable to find adequate rest is because we are under the constant impression that our lives can and should be better than they are today. This constant drive to improve our standing in life through the acquisition of money, power, or skills robs us of contentment and joy. Ultimately, rest is an extension of our contentment and security. Without them, simplicity and rest is difficult, if not impossible. Stop focusing on what you don’t have and start enjoying the things that you do.

2. Plan your rest. Rest will come only from intentional planning and planning rest will come only if it is truly desired. Schedule it on your calendar. Learn to say no to any tasks that attempt to take precedent. Plan out your day of rest by choosing creative activities that are refreshing and encourage relationships. Understand that true rest is different than just not working. As the Cat in the Hat wisely said, “It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.” Avoid housework. Plan meals in advance to help alleviate cooking responsibilities. And by all means, turn off your television, e-mail, and blackberry.

3. Take responsibility for your life. You are not a victim of your time demands. You are the creator and acceptor of them. Refuse to complain or make excuses and start changing your habits. Remember, you are only as busy as you choose to be. Leave “if only” excuses to the kids. If needed, alert your employer about your desire for rest and tell them you will be unavailable on that particular day.

4. Embrace simplicity. Embrace a lifestyle that focuses on your values, not your possessions. It is difficult to find rest when the housework is never finished, the yard needs to be mowed, or the garage needs to be organized.

5. Include your family. It is much easier to practice the discipline of concentrated rest if your family is practicing it too. The fact that this gets more difficult as your kids get older should motivate you to start as soon as possible.

6. Live within your income. A debtor is a slave to his creditor. It is difficult to find rest for your mind when you are deep in debt. The constant distress of your responsibility to another may preclude you from truly enjoying a day off. It is possible; it’s just more difficult. Don’t overspend your income, live within it.

7. Realize the shallow nature of a results-oriented culture. If you live in a results-oriented culture where productivity alone is championed on every corner, rest is counter-cultural. And thus, the saying goes, “If you rest, you rust.” Rest may even be seen as a sign of weakness by others. Unfortunately, that view of humanity’s role in this world is shallow. It is true that many of the benefits from concentrated rest are not tangible; but then again, only a fool believes that all good things can be counted.

Rabbi Elijah of Vilna once said, “What we create becomes meaningful to us only once we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so.” The implication is clear. We could live lives that produce countless widgets, but we won’t start living until we stop producing and start enjoying. Capture again the lost practice of resting one day each week and start truly living.

Read more from Joshua at his blog, Becoming Minimalist, subscribe to his feed, or check out his new ebook, Simplify.

Late in Bubelah’s first pregnancy, we stopped in at a bar after a visit to the doctor for a routine checkup. I had a beer and she had a seltzer.  It was a mild winter day, mid-afternoon and we were savoring some quiet time together before the main event, due a few weeks later.  As we chatted, I was slightly surprised to see a couple walk in with a stroller and a baby who appeared to be about two years old.

As they sat at the bar, with their baby parked behind them, I stewed. I had a lifetime of bachelorhood behind me; the main interaction I had with children before I had my own was glaring at them when they cried on airplanes.  My just-recently born niece and nephew were – as far as I can remember – the first and second babies I had held in my life.  I hadn’t been around people with children much at all; my life in New York and Moscow before that was centered around singles life.  Babies and toddlers were a vague, distant afterthought.

So when the toddler at the bar started fussing, my passive-aggressive fury mounted, and I threw the parents a nice rough glare. They seemed to shrug it off.  Being midafternoon, the bar didn’t have any smoke in it, wasn’t crowded and except for a few patrons around the bar and towards the front watching a soccer game on TV, it was quiet.  My glare cut like a knife hurled in the parents’ direction – or at least I imagined it did.  They probably thought I was squinting at the TV.

I am more sympathetic now, of course, since I have two toddlers of my own. It’s tough to avoid “grown-up” places when you have kids.  Just because I have kids doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to visit an adult-oriented establishment from time to time.  The obvious answer is to have a babysitter, but it’s tough to leave two small toddlers alone in the evening with a babysitter unless you have a great deal of trust in her (and yes, I’ll be sexist and say “her”).  And now that I’m a parent, I’d like to expose my almost-four-year-old son to a nice restaurant once in a while.  I’m not sure my daughter appreciates the difference between McDonald’s and the Olive Garden and Morton’s yet, but why not let her enjoy french fries from Morton’s, too?

But. There’s a but.

Kids don’t belong in bars. There are two reasons:  first, they aren’t 21.  What’s the cutoff?  If I bring my 12 year old to a bar, is that OK?  Is it fine as long as they don’t drink?  If so, can a 16 year old stroll in?  19?  Second, I think other patrons have a right to a “no-children-allowed” bar experience, just as they do to a “no-kids-at-R-rated-movies” experience or a “no-kids-playing-in-the-office” experience.  I have seen both; I remember going to see the movie Alien Versus Predator at a matinée * and sitting there with my jaw on the ground as stroller after stroller rolled in filled with (understandably) shrieking babies.  I’ve seen quite a few single mothers who work in accounting over the years bring their kids in to the office in an emergency (babysitter sick, everyone else at work, etc.).  It’s not fair to everyone else to bring kids there.

This may be an Americanism.  Europeans don’t worry much about children at bars. Maybe most cultures don’t care.  I’ve sat on enough beer garden benches with rugrats playing tag in the aisles while in Germany to know that.  Americans may just be more prudish, or more considerate, or less (or more) family oriented.  I’m sure the argument can be made that exposing children to the drinking of alcohol isn’t healthy, but you could make the same argument (in my opinion) for exposing them to TV, junk food, pop culture, toxic big cities and even various political philosophies.

I’m not sure when I’d start feeling comfortable bringing my kids to a bar at happy hour.  The article I read that prompted this thinking (here) seemed to be centered on the parents’ need for socializing.  I view that as selfish.  If you want to socialize, get a babysitter.  Have lunch while your child is at day care.  Take turns as parents staying home while the other goes out.  It’s not ideal, of course, but many of the comments were dead on:  you are a parent now.  If you miss hanging out all afternoon drinking sangria at the local watering hole with friends: tough.  If you’d like to pop into the local bar for a beer with the kid in tow on the way home from work when your child is sleepy:  too bad.

So if you go to TGI Friday’s with the family in tow, fine. They’ll put you near the kitchen, give you some crayons and a kids’ menu and tolerate the tossing of forks.  Should you go to O’Hallorans at 7 pm with your two-year old?  Nope.  Head home, read Runaway Bunny and suck it up.  There’s a happy medium, and I’d rather not be the guy pictured on CNN with an obviously crying baby on my lap and a half-drunk glass of wine in front of me (look at the article).

* I love science fiction.  I loved Alien.  I really loved Aliens, one of my favorite movies ever.  I loved Predator, too – how can you go wrong with two future governors (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura) fighting an eight-foot-tall invisible rastafarian bug-man?  I was really excited about Aliens versus Predator before it came out.  I did NOT love AvP.  Way to stick a fork in both franchises, people who made AvP.

photo by Penningtron

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babies in bars is an original article from the website brip blap.

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter or identica.

I don’t often write reviews of ebooks, but a handful of them have come out in the last couple weeks that I just can’t ignore — I really think they’ll be of interest to Zen Habits readers who are interested in getting out of debt, in minimalism, or in reducing dependence on cars.

The first is a project I’m involved in: Unautomate Your Finances. An ebook by Baker of ManvsDebt, it teaches you to curb your impulse spending and become more conscious of your financial habits, so you can stop living paycheck-to-paycheck and take control of your money. I wrote a forward to the ebook and there’s a video interview with me on these topics that comes with the book. Buy it here: Unautomate Your Finances.

A quick note: the links to the ebooks in this post are affiliate links, which means that while I’d fully recommend them without compensation, if you do buy a copy you’re helping to support Zen Habits.

Some other awesome ebooks I think you’ll be interested in:

• Simplify: focuses on 7 guiding principles used by the family of four who share their journey at the excellent blog, Becoming Minimalist. Must-read.
• Simply Car-free: wonderful ebook by Tammy of Rowdy Kittens (another awesome simplicity blog) that explores the whys and hows of becoming car-free. Very practical guide that’s been useful to me as my family and I move towards a car-free lifestyle (will be fully car-free when we move to S.F. in June).
• Project M-31: Simplify Your Life in 30 Days: excellent step-by-step approach by Dave of The Minimalist Path that will target one area of your life per day for 30 days. Makes a major change manageable.
• The Art of Being Minimalist: book by Everett Bogue, great advice on becoming a minimalist.

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Haiti Relief Donation
I’m also happy to report back to all of you that my fund-raising effort for the Haiti disaster relief was successful, thanks to all of you! As I said near the end of January, 100% of Zen Habits ebook sales for 30 days would be donated to Doctors Without Borders. Last week, I was happy to make a donation of $6,100 from those ebook sales.

So thank you, all of you, for your generosity!

If you’d still like to buy a Zen Habits ebook to support this site, you can do so:

1. Zen To Done.
2. The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life.
3. The Zen Habits Handbook for Life.

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Zen Habits blog skin, plus a video
Finally, a couple things of potential interest to bloggers:

1. Zen Habits skin. If you buy the Frugal theme for Wordpress, or if you already own it, you can get the Zen Habits skin for Frugal. The skin is free, and it’ll make your blog look pretty much like this one, if that’s of interest.

2. Video interview with Leo: Making a living online. Eric Hamm, developer of Frugal and blogger at Motivate Thyself, did a video interview with me on making a living online. I don’t give you any get-rich-quick answers, but it’s a little insight into what has worked for me.

I’m a bit late with this week’s link roundup (surprise) but I have an excuse. As I was driving to work for an early morning meeting on Tuesday, a heavy, driving rain broke out.  The pitch black, heavy rain and early hour (about 6:30) would have been bad enough but my windshield wiper chose that moment to whip off the car.  I had to go retrieve it in the pitch black, driving rain and 70 mile-per-hour traffic and then use a small pair of pliers to try to work it back on – all in cold weather with a light windbreaker on.

Needless to say I was soaked. Traffic accidents on I-95 extended my cold, shivering wait in the car to two hours.  After spending 20 minutes in the gym locker at work with a hair dryer on me, I felt more or less OK.  Then…. bam.  About 24 hours later, I felt sick.  I visited the urgent care clinic and got some help.  24 hours later, with my blood pressure soaring, severe sinus pain and serious weakness, I was off to the doctor.  I had to get a CAT scan to rule out a stroke, but apparently it was just my body’s reaction to the infection.  My blood pressure’s been normal for 7-8 years, and was just checked about 3 weeks ago so the surge was weird, and made the doctor double-check with the CAT scan.  Not a fun experience.  On the bright side, with some antibiotics and a brief course of blood pressure medicine I’m back to feeling more or less normal today (120 over 70 type blood pressure, and sinus pressure greatly reduced).

Too much information?

Well, just wait til you see the boatload of links I’ve got:

• Running Up Debt:  Never having been in debt other than mortgage debt in my life, I’m always slightly fascinated by other people’s stories of debt spiraling out of control.
• Are Over Half of Workers Really Dissatisfied with Their Jobs?:  Doesn’t surprise me, simply because most of us believe our job should pay a bit more, the boss should be a bit nicer or the guy in the next cubicle shouldn’t tap his pen all day long.
• Do Something You Love, Before You Have To Do Something For Money:  Amen – which is why you should go to an inexpensive college, preferably public, and get out of school without needing to go to work immediately to pay off $80,000 in student loans (or more).
• Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe for Under $15 – Easy and Frugal:  We just got a Crock Pot (actually the exact same one Jeremy has in this post) so I’m going to have to give this a shot.  Nothing like pork for healthy eating!
• To Succeed Financially, You Must Know Yourself and Know Thy (Financial) Self:  Closely related articles, and both worth considering:  you need to understand yourself before you attempt to change yourself.
• What Happened to Patrick? A Few Thoughts About Blogging Anonymously:  I’ve written about my struggle with anonymity before, and Ryan (who is the “real Patrick”) over at Cash Money Life finally gave up on anonymity, giving out his full name right there on the blog.  Not a bad idea.  You can find my real name without much trouble, but I still haven’t just slapped it up on the blog.  Patrick Ryan’s probably right – anonymity won’t do much for furthering your online “brand.”
• The Curse Of Making Too Much Money And Not Pursuing Your Dreams: I sympathize with Lyndon in this post. I make enough money that dropping my current lucrative career seems insane, even to follow my dreams (which aren’t that firmly defined, but that’s a separate question).

Some more good reads, but now I’ve run out of steam to comment…

• Overtime Exempt Employee vs Non-Exempt Employee
• The Key To Living Frugally
• Unemployed Tax Deductions Provide Tax Relief
• Best Gasoline For Your Car Engine? Not Always Premium Gas
• How To Get Health Insurance When You are Self Employed
• Happiness, experience, and memory – Daniel Kahneman’s TED lecture

americas-richest-counties: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance: And finally, a nice little bonus read on a statistic that always kills me. “Highest income” is a radically different concept from “richest.” I had a high income in New Jersey, but my expenses were proportionately higher. If you want to get a true look at “richest” you’d have to incorporate some sort of cost-of-living metric.

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If you read brip blap via RSS, you might want to visit the site and see the new theme; if you like it, it’s the frugal theme and if you buy it through that link, you help support brip blap.

linklings, sneezing leads to a CAT scan edition is an original article from the website brip blap.

Move over Atkins and all the other diets that have been telling us that there is some way other than controlling fat intake to lose weight and keep it off.

The low carb versus low fat battle has raged for a while now, and it would seem that the low fat guys have something of an edge.

A study recently published in the Annals of internal Medicine found after 3 years of research, that while low carb diets may lead to quicker weight loss; low fat diets were better for keeping the weight off. Over three years, researchers observed the subjects of their weight loss program and those that were on a low fat diet were seen to have sustained twice the long term weight loss when compared to the dieters who were on a low carb diet.

Of course this is not to say that this is the Holy Grail when it comes to weight loss or that this is likely to apply to each individual. This is a general guideline that people would do well to follow. However, many may find that not a low fat diet but a low carb diet may work for them. What is important is to see what really works for a particular person and work with that.

Source: The Examiner

Belly button odor can be embarrassing and can owe itself due to a variety of causes, ranging from the innocuous to the worrisome.

Bad hygiene, wherein link, dead skin or other debris getting caught can be the reason for the odor.

Then again it could be caused by obesity, wherein, there are folds of skin at the bellybutton and the area does not get enough fresh air.

The belly button is a dark and warm place and could also be moist, which is an ideal breeding ground for a number of fungal infections. And infection or an abscess could be because wherein the multiplication of bacteria can give off an offensive odor.

A yeast infection in the belly button could also be the cause of a bad smell. There could be itching in the area and vigorous scratching could well cause some bleeding in the area.

What however may be worrisome is if there is a discharge from the navel due to a urachal cyst or a previous surgery such as Patent urachus. This is a rare but potentially problematic condition, which would typically require surgery.

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Awhile back I (a bit ironically perhaps) tweeted this message:

Consider what you give your attention to each day. It’s a precious resource, & determines the shape of your life.

This seemed to strike a chord with many people, who I think are feeling overwhelmed these days. Our attention is being pulled in too many directions, leaving us feeling overloaded, distracted, chaotic, spread thinly, without focus.

There are a million blogs, people, services, media, competing for our attention. Our attention is limited, and valuable, making it one of the most precious resources we have.

The world wants that attention. Only you can decide where it goes.

And it does determine the shape of your life: what you pay attention to becomes your reality. If you watch and read the news all the time, you will become obsessed with the latest crises. If you watch and read about celebrities, your life will revolve around them. If you socialize on social networks all day long, this will become your world.

If instead, you choose to give your attention to work you’re passionate about, that you feel is important, that will change your life and the world in some small way … this will become your life.

If you choose to give your attention to your friends, family and other loved ones — really give your attention to them instead of only half-heartedly while also checking text messages and emails and other updates — your life will be rich in many ways.

And so I urge you to reclaim your attention.

Here’s how:

1. Limit your friends. Not real-life friends, but social network and blogging and forum friends. Not that these can’t be good relationships, but having too many makes them meaningless. And each friend will take up a little bit of your attention — when you read their updates, click on their links, reply to their messages, look at their photos, and so on. The more you have, the more attention they’ll require. Limit them to just the essential.
2. Limit your feeds. Blog subscriptions, newsletters, other updates and news subscriptions and so on. Limit them to a handful of essentials, and let the rest go. The more you have, the more attention they require.
3. Limit your communication time. Going into your email inbox? Just give yourself 10 minutes to read, reply, delete, and get out. Going to do Twitter? Give yourself 5 minutes. Seriously, set up a timer. Don’t let these things take up all your attention.
4. Give up on news. It’s a never-ending cycle. And if you’ve paid attention to the news as long as I have (I’m a former journalist), you know it’s all the same, year after year. Unless your job depends on it, the news is usually a waste of your attention. Let go of the need to stay updated. Even if your job does depend on it, keep it limited.
5. Be brief. Write brief emails, tweets, updates, blog posts. With some exceptions, of course. But make brief your de facto. Read more.
6. Give your attention to the important. This is the crucial part: choose what you give your attention to, and do this choosing carefully. What is important to you? Writing? Photography? Design? Coding? Creating a new business that helps others? Your kids? Figure this out, and give this the majority of your attention.
7. Become conscious of your distractions. Once you’ve decided to focus your attention on the important, become more aware of distractions as they come up. Make note of them, and as you get the urge to be distracted, learn to pause, breathe, and return to the important.
8. Surround yourself with the positive. If you want your life to be positive, let the positive have your attention. This applies to blogs, people, projects, and more.

For more, read my new book, focus: a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction.

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If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.

A hernia is nothing but a protrusion of any organ of the body out of the cavity that usually contains it and pushes through to another part of the body.

The most common kinds of hernia are those of the abdomen, followed by those of the spinal discs and sciatica.

There are different kinds of hernia, which have different causes and indications:

Inguinal Hernia: This is the commonest kind of hernia (an estimated 70% of abdominal hernias may be of this type).

Usually this kind of hernia happens when a portion of the intestine protrudes through the abdominal wall. This could be because of muscle weakness or a tear. This forms a noticeable and painful out-pouching.

Sometimes, the cause is congenital, in which case the hernia could occur in babyhood. Other causes include old age, obesity or pregnancy.

Inguinal hernias can also occur due to strenuous activities such as heavy lifting, or due to chronic conditions such as constipation, repeated episodes of sneezing and coughing (as observed in the case of smokers). Obesity also could cause this kind of hernia.

Hiatal Hernia: This kind of hernia involves the diaphragm, the stomach and the chest cavity. Here, the stomach pushes up and into the chest cavity through the opening in the diaphragm.

While the underlying causes are not fully understood, these hernias are thought to be caused due to an injury in the area or perhaps a congenital defect that created a larger than normal hiatal opening or weak or defective muscles in the area.

Extreme pressure on the abdomen could also cause this kind of herniation as also other activities that create pressure such as heavy lifting, constipation, chronic vomiting or coughing. Pregnancy could also be a cause.

Incisional Hernia: This kind of hernia occurs when there is a surgical wound that has not healed properly. These hernias are usually very difficult to treat.

Umbilical Hernia: This kind of hernia occurs due to a weak area of the wall of the abdomen which causes the umbilical cord to protrude.

Usually this kind of hernia is seen in babies; however adults can have it too and is usually caused by a congenital defect.

Other causes include extra fluid in the abdominal area, obesity, multiple pregnancies and other pressure such as lifting, coughing etc.

We have long heard the many and excellent virtues of fish oil being extolled and now apparently there is reason to doubt this claim.

According to a report, environmentalists have filed a suit contending that fish oil may not be so good for us after all.

The claim is that the PCBs and other toxins contain in fish oil supplements and that consumers are unaware of this. The consumers should be made aware of these contaminants contained in the fish oil.

The fish absorb environmental toxins and chemicals, and those same chemicals are extracted into the fish oil which is then sold as a health supplement. Since the supplement seeks to offer in concentrated form, the goodness of Omega 3 contained in fish oil, the toxins are also being concentrated, the plaintiffs are alleging.

The defendants claim that their product meets are industry standards and regulations and labeling meets the requirements of the law.

It does make sense to place some credence in what the plaintiffs say; we are often made aware of the possible dangers of having farmed fish; pregnant women are advised to eschew certain kinds because of their mercury content. So it is not unreasonable to look more closely at fish supplements; particularly if they claim to be good for you and they may actually not be so!

Source: myfoxdc

Here’s a financial lesson for anyone who participates in online social media of any sort. It’s a cautionary tale about online privacy; not the stalker-type issues that most people are worried about; instead, it’s about how you have to be careful to reveal too much online about business dealings.  I was catching up with some relatives who sold their house a couple of months ago, and they told me an amusing story that showed how they “made money” using Facebook…on their home sale.

My cousin Stan and his wife Elaine listed their house about six months ago. They had remodeled it and priced it to sell in a market that had been hit very hard by the collapse in real estate prices.  Fortunately, they weren’t in any hurry to sell; the mortgage was paid off, they were already living in their new empty-nest retirement digs, and the old house had no association fees and only minimal costs (low property taxes, some minimal lighting and heat for the winter, etc.)

They finally received a good but not great offer, accompanied by the earnest money check. No issues came up, and the usual back and forth of the negotiating process went on.  Stan and Elaine are older than I am but (like me, I guess) have stayed right on top of “the internets.”  After they received the check – with the prospective buyers’ names and address on it – it took Elaine about 5 minutes to find the buyer on Facebook.  She was simply curious whether they were serious buyers or not.

What did she find? Posts on their Facebook wall about how they had found their dream home.  How they would pay anything to get it.  Links to pictures – gushing comments from their friends and family.  In short, drool splattered (electronically) all over Facebook.  The buyers were even inviting all of their friends over for a big party the weekend after closing.  Elaine found all of this – before the final price had even been agreed on!

As you can imagine, this gave Stan and Elaine (a) confidence that the sale would go through but also (b) a gargantuan advantage in the ongoing negotiations.  Instead of being tentative and worrying about offending the (still potential) buyers, they were able to become far more resolute about refusing any concessions, changes in the contract or even agreeing to make changes based on (relatively minor) inspection issues.  They didn’t become jerks about it, but they realized that they had an advantage over the buyers.  That advantage translated into a financial gain when they were able to push back on every change not in their favor.  Presumably the buyers never knew about Elaine’s visit to their Facebook page – maybe they assumed she was “too old” to be on Facebook – but more likely they simply never thought of Facebook being used that way.  Maybe they just assumed Stan and Elaine were tough negotiators.

Of course, a similar situation can arise outside of social media – I once made the mistake of being a little bit too complimentary while viewing a home with owners present – Bubelah’s done it, too. But we knew they knew in that situation.  Maybe someone more Facebook-savvy than me could tell me that there are ways of monitoring who views your wall/profile/whatever.  I’m not sure I’d trust that, though, because a more tech-savvy person always lurks around the corner, who can hide themselves from that monitoring, and on and on ad infinitum.

Keep your mouth shut online while the deal is ongoing. I can’t think of any reason that blabbing about potential deals online can help you.  From the other party finding out and being annoyed (prices being revealed, locations being outed) to simple financial loss, how can you benefit?  I am not a social media junkie, but I keep a low-key presence on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (as well as two forums, 48days.net and a blogging forum).  I have learned from Stan and Elaine’s amusing recollections of their home sale that it never hurts to assume that every single person on the planet may be reading your posts/tweets/wall messages, no matter how unlikely you might think that could be, and even the most harmless comments can have effects you couldn’t predict.

photo by kaibara87

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how to make money on Facebook is an original article from the website brip blap.