Wedding bills will vary depending on the people and the place, so The Knot questioned 18,000 couples around the US in the largest survey of its kind to determine statistics about the average wedding in 2008. The survey breaks down everything from how much couples spent on wedding cakes to how many people were on the guest list.
By no means are these figures meant to guide your own wedding budget, but it's fun to see how weddings played out for other people. What do you know about the average '08 wedding? Take the quiz!
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Kitchen experiments aren't just for home-economics class. Perfecting your Orange Julius skills may not be as productive as it once was, but there is a prudent way to play in the kitchen. Jennifer Reese over at Slate recently put on her home-cook hat to test and ran a "cost-benefit analysis" on which of her staple grocery items would be cheaper to make herself.
She purchased the most affordable ingredients and detailed the total expense of cooking at home down to the cost of boiling water. Jennifer discovered that it's more cost-effective for her to make bagels, yogurt, and granola at home, and the quality of those items was accelerated compared to store-bought versions. She didn't have luck with the homemade cream cheese and now knows it's better to buy it, while she deemed her cracker experiment a wash when compared to the cheapest crackers at the store. As for her homemade jam, she recommends only going through the trouble if you have access to free (or nearly free) fruit.
Have you ever tried experimenting with this idea? Would you consider putting it to the test?
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When Maria Shriver was asked
how she felt leaving her job as a reporter due to conflict of interest, she said, "It was hard. A lot of things go when you lose your job, and it doesn’t matter who you are. It’s a loss of identity, it’s a loss of structure, it’s a loss of your passion depending on the role the job played in your life." Adapting to a wide-open schedule after job loss is challenging; follow my seven steps for creating structure when there suddenly is none.
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The recession has caused most all of us to reevaluate the way we shop, and people are looking for value in their purchases more than ever. Companies like Wal-Mart, Costco, and McDonald's have been more successful in the down economy due to their reputations as discount spots, but designer jeans, high-definition TVs, and iPhones haven't performed too shabbily themselves.
What gives? Shoppers see them as affordable luxuries that have extended value over expenses like vacations that don't come with material evidence. Find out where shoppers are holding back when you read more
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