THE PEOPLE MUST HAVE THEIR DAN MILLER

Now seems like a good time to post my final 2005 Grocery savings / expenditure totals. Yes, it is nearly the end of March, why do you ask? I can neither confirm nor deny that until today there were 4 months worth of receipts sitting in my “receipt drawer”. I CAN NOT CONFIRM OR DENY THAT DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!!!

In any case, I’ve been meaning to post this for awhile, but, hypothetically speaking, cleaning out 4 months of receipts and entering them in the appropriate spreadsheets and stuff is very time-consuming. HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING! I have had one of my faithful readers asking me for these totals a few times, so Ramon, this post is for you.

2005 Final Grocery Totals:

Gross spending: $15,519.82
Coupons: $4,219.71
Doublage: $2,150.17
Mail-in rebates: $691.47
Catalinas: $906.40
Store savings / rainchecks: $5,973.97
Other (mostly fuel rewards): $815.00

Net price: $763.10
Savings: $14,756.72
Savings pct: 95.08%

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. A month by month breakdown of the totals

The big months were March (Garnier / Borders / Ann Taylor gift card deal), September (Thank you Peachtree Accounting!) and April (nothing like “buying” over $2000 of groceries for under $100)

So far, 2006 has not been quite as lucrative - the past few months have not had very many good deals. January was 61% savings, and February only 37.64%. That all changed this week though, as Meijer has had one of the best deals in the history of couponing. More on that possibly tonight or tomorrow as I still have a trip or two left in me before the end of the week…

So, I’ve been on a health kick lately over the past few days. Let me back up a bit to explain how this all got started. Last week my company offered free cholesterol screenings to employees. I signed up because hey, free cholesterol screening. The results came in the mail over the weekend and I believe Carolyn’s reaction was something to the effect of “OH MY GOSH YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!!!!“. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. I had similar results when I got my last physical which was maybe 2 years ago or so.

I’ve had some ideas to get in better shape for awhile now, but just have lacked the motivation to actually do anything, so this seemed as good a time as any to get back on the train.

Most of you have probably heard of the revolutionary weight-loss fad that I am working on now - it’s my own invention. It’s so crazy it just might work. It’s called “Eat less, exercise more”. I think it just might work.

About 3-4 years ago, I started keeping track of my calories. It actually worked out pretty well for me. I followed that for several weeks until one day I was out at some party and gorged on snacks and such and then I just gave it up. You may have noticed that I am very goal oriented.

Thanks to the wonders of advancing technology, I am tracking my calories online at calorie-count.com. I have set the goal of 2000 calories per day, with the understanding that some days I can go up to 2300. If you’d like to follow along with my progress, you can register over there, let me know your username and I can add you to my “friends” list so you can see my stuff. I don’t think you have to track anything - just sign up to spy on me. It’s pretty slick over there - they have just about every food listed with all the caloric contents and you can put your own stuff in there too.

And of course the exercising comes into play. Monday I went out and rode my bike some. I’m not sure if it was due to it being dang cold, or if I’m signifincantly more out of shape than I was 6 months ago when I did EFSM, but it was a lot harder than I remembered it being. I was really hurting.

Funny story about that - I went out to get my bike on Monday morning and lifted off our patio chair cushions that we are storing in the garage (since they were on top of my bike) and found that squirrels had ripped open one to use as a nest. That was annoying. Then I found that in my moving of the cushions, a baby squirrel had landed IN my bike spokes. It was all chirping and so I got out of there (on foot) since I didn’t know if the mama squirrel was going to be around and angry. Eventually we decided to just let it go. Probably should have killed it since it’s just going to be an annoying adult squirrel but I couldn’t bring myself to bash its little squirrelly brains in. We have had squirrels living in our garage all winter due to a hole that we need to patch but just haven’t. So I went back out with gloves on and pried the squirrel off and just left it on the floor of the garage. When I got back it was gone so I assume the mom took it back (or ate it). The last 2 mornings there has been snow on the ground, so I have done a little DDR in the mornings. It gets you pretty going, and conveniently also tracks your calories burned. 30 minutes this morning burned 341 calories.

The goals for my revolutionary “Eat less, exercise more” diet are to go from 210 to 170 by Scott’s next birthday (3/20/07). When I got up and weighed myself on the 2nd day I had dropped from 210 to 205. I quickly calculated that at that pace, I would be done by the end of the month. Unfortunately, I was back up to 208 this morning :-).

I hope you all have enjoyed my non-Rubik’s cube post.

Okay it’s time for a little bit of an experiment. As you have probably noticed, I’ve had those little ads up on the top of my blog for quite awhile now. Or maybe you haven’t noticed - ads tend to really get ignored, at least by me. Stocks are cool.

In the 2 months or so that I’ve had these up (and I’ve had them up on a few of my other pages, like my Civ 4 pages), I’ve had 1758 page impressions and 39 clicks, earning a whopping $2.60. I’d imagine many of those clicks came from me, just testing things out. The program is smart enough though to figure out if the same computer clicks all the time, so it ignores me if I click from this computer and not credit it. Real estate is very smart though. I love real estate

So a friend of mine was showing me his stocks website over the weekend and told me to click an ad for him. That one made him like $1.25 or something. So it got me thinking that if I put a post on here that talks about stocks and real estate, that I might make a few bucks. You may have noticed my pseudo-subliminal messages about stocks and real estate. That is in hopes of getting some stocks or real estate ads to show up.

So now it’s time for the experiment. READ THIS PART. (That’s for if you’ve tuned out the rest as I know you all do when I start talking about other boring things). Please find the ad section and find one that looks nice and juicy - about stocks or real estate or whatever and click on it. I will report back later.

Edited to add - it didn’t really seem to work very well - all I get is an ad about celebrity blogging.

Flash version of the game Speed. It’s fun. I scored 7,082 points on Level 14

Sorry to disappoint you, it’s just more boring Rubik’s cube stuff. I know most of you don’t really care, but I put stuff here so that I can have a record of my best times and such - this is as good a place as any for me…

—– JNetCube Best Average for Sat Mar 04 09:46:24 GMT-05:00 2006 —–

Average: 53.75

Fastest Time: 38.08
Slowest Time: 1:16.41
Standard Deviation: 06.17

Individual Times:
1) 46.72 R U2 L’ F R B’ R2 L D L D’ R B L R2 B F2 L’ D R D2 R’ L U D2
2) 54.12 D2 L’ R2 F2 D F’ L B2 R D L2 U D2 F L’ U2 B F2 R2 U2 R B2 R2 B F’
3) 56.72 F’ U D2 F B’ D2 R2 U2 B F’ R2 B’ F R2 L2 D2 U’ R’ U’ B2 L2 F L’ B D2
4) 1:00.52 L2 R2 D F’ U R D2 L’ F D F’ U2 F’ R’ D’ F’ R’ L’ B’ R’ B2 U’ D L’ U
5) 52.20 R2 F2 B’ L’ F’ L’ F D U F’ D2 U2 R U2 F L2 F B’ L’ D2 U B2 U F2 B’
6) 53.81 F2 U2 D2 L’ D2 F U’ D R’ U’ D L’ D’ B’ F’ D F R B U R2 F2 B’ U D’
7) 42.66 U D’ B2 R2 B2 L D L R U2 D F2 L F2 R2 D F’ L R B’ R2 D2 F B’ D’
(1:16.41) L2 F2 B’ L’ D U2 F’ L D’ R D2 B R2 L2 B’ D’ R’ L B U2 R’ L2 U B’ R2
9) 1:04.22 D L D R’ D’ F2 D2 R D2 R D2 U F B2 D B2 R U F’ U2 B U’ D2 L B
10) 54.44 F2 U D’ L F U2 D2 R D2 U F L’ R D2 R L’ F2 D F’ L’ U’ D L’ R’ U
11) 52.12 F’ D2 R2 B U B2 L2 D’ R L D’ F’ U’ B2 L’ B D’ B2 L F L2 R2 B’ R’ U’
12) (38.08) R2 B’ F U B L F2 D2 L’ U2 B2 D2 B2 L D2 U B2 F2 L F2 B U2 F’ D’ U

A new best time - 38 seconds! It actually wasn’t a lucky case. The 42.66 was lucky - that was last night right before I went to bed. This morning though that 38 seconds just kind of all lined up right for me.

So… I’m driving to work today. Just as I am turning from Sanoma onto Thomas, I see this guy. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, I was coming westbound on Sanoma (a block from my house) to the T-intersection at Thomas. Normally I turn right to head up Thomas to cut over on ShewangoWay over to 71-North. So as I’m turning right, I see this guy out jogging southbound. He looks familiar and as I’m turning I think “man he looks a lot like my former college roommate Cliff Labbe!” Actually when I was thinking about it, I just said Cliff - I threw in that “former college rommate” part for those of you who might not know who Cliff is.

Now I am notoriously bad at recognizing people. You can ask Carolyn- I’m always saying things like “Oh doesn’t he look like so-and-so” and she has to tell me “ummmm no”. In any case, I decide to turn around in a driveway to get a closer look. I did know, from talking to Mike, that Cliff was soon moving back to the ‘Nati, but did not know any details of the when and the where. So I turn around and drive by him again. Slow enough for me to try and get another look at him, but hopefully not so slow to freak him out if it wasn’t him, IYKWIM.

I was looking for the tattoos. I had seen 2 tattoos on this guy when passing him, one on the shoulder and one on the leg. I knew Cliff had a tattoo of some building (I now remember it’s the Chrysler Building), so I was trying to see if I could spot it. I couldn’t remember what the other one is (but I’m thinking now it is an old-school microphone), and I also couldn’t remember which one was the building. As I drove by I couldn’t really tell one way or the other, so I figured what the heck and I stopped a little further up the road to wait for him to come by. I rolled down the window and waited for him to get up to me. As he came up, I thought “Hmm I don’t think that’s him” but I had already said “Cliff?”.

It was him. Crazy. We talked for like 10 minutes, just catching up on stuff. He moved back and is living in Oakley. But his stuff doesn’t get here till next week, so he is staying with his girlfriend who lives on Euclid (in Madeira). Crazy stuff. I got his number and am going to send him an email with our contact info. Maybe we’ll have them over for dinner or something.