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I agree. I've bought buy one, get one free (locally known as BOGO) and taken half to a food pantry. One can of this, a couple cans of that.
No refusals, no snottiness. Just an attitude of gratitude.
All of which is off topic.
Today's project: there's a box sitting on the floor of the spare room. I have no idea what's in it but haven't opened it in 2 yrs or so. Unless it's summer clothes, it's probably going.
I have a car filled with stuff and a HUGE box filled with things for our local pantry. I joke that my dog is the "helping Chiuhahua" because I bring her to all our drop off and everybody remembers her and runs out to help me and visit with Lady.
Last move, I took a Hugh box of books to a used bookstore, many hardcover, all in good to excellent condition. They offered me $1 total---for the whole box It was like 30--40 books, so, that comes to about 2 cents/book! I took my dollar and left, I was moving and just wanted to get rid of stuff.
Same for used kids clothes. I took a bunch of barely-used, nice, designer dresses, etc to a kid's consignment store. She looks them over with a disdainful look, points out invisible flaws, then, offered me some ridiculous price, like $4 for 10 items. Look, I told her I would give them away rather than sell for nothing. I saw a mother with her little girl in the parking lot going in, and asked her what size her daughter was. The exact size of the clothes I had, which included some authentic Disney costumes, complete with ALL accessories, also, some nice Easter dresses, a pair of shoes NIB---never worn, didn't fit. The child was delighted with the free gifts, so was the mother.
But the store owner saw us and came huffing out, said she had called police, it was illegal to undercut her business by selling similar merchandise in front of her store. Well, I could perhaps see that point, but---I didn't sell the items, I just gave them to the child. Besides, we weren't' directly in front of her store, its not like I was standing there saying "get your stuff free---don't buy from this place" I'd parked a bit off to the side. I told her if she'd given me a reasonable price she could have sold my clothes for a tidy profit in a matter of minutes, too bad, so sad
Another item you literally can't give away---food! I mean, packaged, canned, bottled itesm, in good condition, not expired. I tried calling various food banks, they weren't interested, and even had a snitty attitude.They said the wanted items in bulk, like from grocery stores, so they could do better inventory control. I checked various grocery stores that have the food barrels. They said you could only donate items you bought in the store. Now HEB has done away with the food barrels and instead sells a bag of low-cost items for their shelf price at the checkout. You can buy it then then they place it in their"barrel to donate to food banks---again, I was running out of time, it was a cross-country move, I couldn't pack and ship such items, so....I threw them away!
Wow, MaryLee, that is so pathetic! People in your area are that well off that they would turn good food away? Unthinkable here.
Twice a year the Post Office has a food drive, leave a grocery bag in your mailbox on the given day. Around here the need is huge, since the meltdown food pantries have struggled to meet the double and sometimes triple demand of what they were doling out.
Hoping to get into the attic today and start trimming down the clothes. I'm in a bind b/c I have company coming so I really can't store stuff to go to the thrift store until after Friday. I might have to wait on it.
I stopped by my adopted Mom this weekend and she filled my truck bed with nice clean boxes for packing and a huge bag of plastic grocery bags. They make great padding for packing things.
I don't want to downsize, I want to upsize to a large, luxurious house. I never moved from my "starter house."
I can go wild with the witicisms here.....
"The grass isn't always greener on the other side",
"Be careful what you wish for",
"Be happy with what you've got",
"Be thankful you have a house (home)",
"Money doesn't buy happiness",
"Bigger doesn't always mean better".
"Large and luxurious" isn't all it's cracked up to be (my words and opinion).
At this point in (y)our life use your time, money and resources to do what you want to do instead of "supporting" an expensive lifestyle. Have you thought about selling your "starter home" and buying another the same size or smaller that you LOVE? Why would it have to be a "large, luxurious" home? Your furnishings can make it "luxurious".
Please be thankful for what you have and don't spend your precious time being sad, angry or resentful for what you don't have. I wish you peace and happiness.
Having largely downsized my house, I'm now tackling the downsizing of my overabundance of computer files. I'd rather downsize the house! I'm dumping all work-related computer files, I never want to see them again, though it's hard to let go b/c the work I did (in arts and nonprofit development) defined my life. It's strange what dumping filed into a trashcan (and hearing the dumping sound, swooosh!) can do to one's sense of liberation.
I'm overwhelmed with JPG photos of my grandchildren. I'm worried that this format will not be around forever and that ultimately I'll lose the files. I do not want printouts, that's a burden of organization I don't want to take on. Does anyone here know how to preserve computer files of photos forever? (other than Cloud, etc).
Having largely downsized my house, I'm now tackling the downsizing of my overabundance of computer files. I'd rather downsize the house! I'm dumping all work-related computer files, I never want to see them again, though it's hard to let go b/c the work I did (in arts and nonprofit development) defined my life. It's strange what dumping filed into a trashcan (and hearing the dumping sound, swooosh!) can do to one's sense of liberation.
I'm overwhelmed with JPG photos of my grandchildren. I'm worried that this format will not be around forever and that ultimately I'll lose the files. I do not want printouts, that's a burden of organization I don't want to take on. Does anyone here know how to preserve computer files of photos forever? (other than Cloud, etc).
The answer is a definite "No".
Formats change. The only way to preserve and view the formats is to also save the computer on which they can be viewed.
So, when JPG becomes replaced with the next new format save them on a USB and save a computer that can view them. A cheap laptop will do.
Because once the format turns dinosaur operating systems will drop it and no longer support it.
Remember how the old printers hooked up to the computers with a special printer port ?
Now they are all USB and no computer sold today has a printer port. Serial ports too went by the wayside.
So just buy a cheap laptop and save all the pictures to a USB and you are set.
I'm overwhelmed with JPG photos of my grandchildren. I'm worried that this format will not be around forever and that ultimately I'll lose the files. I do not want printouts, that's a burden of organization I don't want to take on. Does anyone here know how to preserve computer files of photos forever? (other than Cloud, etc).
Jpg format has been around since 1991. I expect it to be around for a long time. If the industry comes up with another format, there will be plenty of conversion programs to convert jpg files to the new format.
I think what you are asking here is how to store the files other than on your computer/laptop hard drive or an online storage service like cloud.
You definitely want to have a backup copy of your files. Hard drive crashes often. Online storage is 'safe' but can be hacked.
The easiest way to backup the files to have an external hard drive. I don't know how many jpg files that you have and what the file sizes but if we assume each file is 1MB, 1TB drive can hold 1 million files. External hd is quite cheap with 4TB drive costing around $100 (imagine storing 4 million pictures!).
A cheaper and more reliable way is to burn the files on DVD or Bluray disc. A DVD holds 4.7GB (4,700 Mb) and a bluray holds 25GB (25,000Mb). DVD burner is pretty standard on many PC/laptop. If your existing PC/laptop does not have a bluray burner, you can replace the DVD burner with a bluray/DVD burner for something like $50.
Another way to store files in a very compact format is on flash drive, SD cards. Don't bother with the thumb drive and get a SD card reader (many computers/laptops have built in card reader). High capacity SD cards (32gb, 64gb, 128gb) have come down in prices. I just saw an ad at newwegg for a Sony 64Gg SD card for something like $15.
The easiest way to backup the files to have an external hard drive. I don't know how many jpg files that you have and what the file sizes but if we assume each file is 1MB, 1TB drive can hold 1 million files. External hd is quite cheap with 4TB drive costing around $100 (imagine storing 4 million pictures!).
A cheaper and more reliable way is to burn the files on DVD or Bluray disc. A DVD holds 4.7GB (4,700 Mb) and a bluray holds 25GB (25,000Mb). DVD burner is pretty standard on many PC/laptop. If your existing PC/laptop does not have a bluray burner, you can replace the DVD burner with a bluray/DVD burner for something like $50.
Another way to store files in a very compact format is on flash drive, SD cards. Don't bother with the thumb drive and get a SD card reader (many computers/laptops have built in card reader). High capacity SD cards (32gb, 64gb, 128gb) have come down in prices. I just saw an ad at newwegg for a Sony 64Gg SD card for something like $15.
I have two external hard drives, and I back up everything on those. I also store on compact discs (CDs) but wonder how long those will be able to be read. I used to use zip drives (those plastic square discs) and they can no longer be read by my Mac operating system.
I"ll look into the SD cards. Whatever I use now, after organizing all the photos, I want to work for at least a half-century (for my grandkids).
I'm mostly concerned with the JPG format, will that become obsolete??
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It was like 30--40 books, so, that comes to about 2 cents/book! I took my dollar and left, I was moving and just wanted to get rid of stuff.
