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EvenSmallHouse- holds Can Save Big at Warehouse Clubs It's been several years now since my husband and I first began talk- ing about relocating to another state. At first it was only a dream, but soon idle chatter turned into seri- ous talk. That developed into a list of "must-haves" — things a new location would have to offer for us to even consider making the leap. What was at the top of the list? Weather. Hav- ing lived in Southern Cal- ifornia for most of our lives, we knew it would be impossible to beat the weather we'd come to love and had pretty much taken for granted, but finding the next-best weather was at the top of our must-haves. Next on the list: Costco. You think I'm kidding? They don't call me the Queen of Costco for nothing. I believe that anyone — a household of one or a houseful of many — can stretch the dollars by shopping at a discount warehouse club, such as Costco. But only if you are willing to stick to a very strict list of rules, some of which will be unique for your particu- lar situation. SHOPWITHCASH Hav- ing the complete contents of your checking account, overdraft protection plan and credit card limit available in the form of your checkbook or credit card could easily enable you to pop one of those big-screen TVs into your cart. Go with cash only and you'll avoid lots of temptation. SHOP WITH A LIST De- cide what you need be- fore you get there. If it's not on the list, don't buy it. If that 55-gallon drum of shampoo turns out to be a true need that you simply forgot to put on the list, you can always return to buy it later. JUSTIFY THE MEMBERSHIP FEE At $25-$35 a year just for the privilege of membership, make sure you will realize a net sav- ings in excess of the fee. DON'T OUT-SHOP YOUR STORAGE SPACE AND ABIL- ITY TO REASONABLY CON- SUME If anything will nullify your best inten- tions, this will be it. No matter how great the bar- gain, how terrific the deal, if you can't reason- ably use a 50-pound bag of flour, or 25 pounds of onions before they spoil, that was no deal at all. Never buy more than you are sure (not hope, think or feel) you can use with- out creating a false need. CREATE AN APPEARANCE OF SCARCITY Once you get home with cases of this and that — even pa- per towels or toilet tissue, you'd best find a place to stash your supply or it will disappear faster than Colorado snow on a bright sunny day. Re- member this: out of sight, out of mind. DIVIDE AND CONQUER Costco is notorious for its prepared entrees that are made in-store, ready to be baked or finished off at home — to serve up to 10. I buy these entrees routinely because they are fabulous and I can- not make them myself for anywhere close to Cost- co's price. And mine is a household of two! Here's what I do: the minute I walk in the door, I take the time to divide these big entrees into servings for two, transferring them to my vast collection of Snap ware containers (equal to or even better than Tupperware, but much cheaper). Sometimes I freeze the re-portioned servings, but most of- ten simply put them into the refrigerator. Works like a charm! Recently, I bought a container of Ravioli Lasagna with Beef & Pork Bolognese Sauce for $15.49 ($4.49 a pound) at Costco. I di- vided it into five 2-serv- ing portions. That works out to about $1.55 per serving. I could have just as easily re-portioned this into single servings, perfect for lunch or din- ner. Last, I snap a picture of the product label so I'll know what I bought, and how to prepare it. SHOPPING BUDDY Wor- ried that even with all of these techniques, you cannot justify ware- house-club-size quan- tities? Find a friend or neighbor who's in the same situation so you can split your purchases. You can't split a member- ship unless you are in the same household, but you can split the fee. Then one of you can be the des- ignated shopper. You will benefit from the high- qualify and low prices you'll discover at ware- house clubs like Costco, Sam's Club and BJs. By the way, our must- have list grew to eight en- tries. We visited lots of ar- eas and did even more re- search. Once we narrowed locations to just one (a somewhat rural area in northern Colorado) we made multiple visits hit- ting every season. We have concluded that in keep- ing with #1 on the list, the weather here is the world's best-kept secret. As for #2, we nailed that, too. Costco is a per- fect 1.5 miles from the front door. Wouldyouliketosend a tip to Mary? You can email her at mary@ everydaycheapskate. com, or write to Everyday Cheapskate, 12340 Seal Beach Blvd., Ste. B-416, Seal Beach, CA 90740. EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE Evensmall households can save big at warehouse clubs Mary Hunt CONTRIBUTED BYIRVCORBIN ThispictureisofabearthatIharvestedinNewMexicoinOctober.ThispictureincludesmeandmydogHarley. The Gila River that the bear swam is in the background. We were hunting over there since we can no longer use our dogs to run bear here in California. If you would like to submit a photo for publication, sent it editor@redbluff- dailynews.com with "reader photo" as the subject and include your name and a caption, or bring it by the Daily News, 545 Diamond Ave. in Red Bluff during business hours. READER PHOTO BEAR TAKEN IN NEW MEXICO By Jennifer Cooper Social Security manager in Redding With the holiday season in full swing, you may find yourself exploring those tempting online shopping deals. The day after Thanks- giving has nearly become a holiday of its own. "Black Friday" is the busiest shop- ping day of the year, with people lining up at mid- night for deals as they be- gin the busy holiday shop- ping season. The Mon- day after that has become a virtual holiday, pun in- tended. "Cyber Monday" is the day Internet-savvy people search for deals, all online. But, there's more than one way to find value on the Internet. For exam- ple, Social Security offers many online services to the public — and they're free and secure! Doing business online with So- cial Security will also save time. Now that's an offer you can't refuse! Here are some of the most popular online ser- vices you'll find at www. socialsecurity.gov. Each site is safe and secure. 1. The online Social Se- curity Statement is a hot service that is a big hit with the millions of peo- ple who have used it since its launch. Your online Statement provides you with a record of your past earnings, and it uses those earnings along with pro- jected earnings for fu- ture years to give you ac- curate estimates of future Social Security benefits. Open your personal my Social Security account to get your Statement today. Just go to www.socialse- curity.gov/myaccount/. 2. The Retirement Esti- mator is an easy way to get an instant, personal- ized estimate of your fu- ture Social Security ben- efits. Just enter some ba- sic information and the Estimator will use infor- mation on your Social Se- curity record, along with what you input, to give you a benefit estimate on the spot. You can even exper- iment with different sce- narios, such as changing your future earnings and retirement date. Check it out in English at www.so- cialsecurity.gov/estimator or in Spanish at www.se- gurosocial.gov/calculador. 3. The online Retirement Application is the most convenient way to apply for Social Security retire- ment benefits. You can ap- ply from the comfort of your home — it's conve- nient and secure. In fact, you can apply online in as little as 15 minutes. In most cases, after your ap- plication is submitted elec- tronically, you're done. There are no forms to sign and, usually, no documen- tation is required. Social Security will process your application and contact you if any further infor- mation is needed. When you're ready to retire, apply at www.socialse- curity.gov/applyonline. 4. Business Services On- line is our one-stop shop for small business owners. The site allows organiza- tions and authorized peo- ple to conduct business with and submit confiden- tial information to Social Security. Employers can use it to file W-2s for their employees the fast, conve- nient, and paperless way — online. Visit Business Ser- vices Online at www.so- cialsecurity.gov/bso. SOCIAL SECURITY Cy be r Mo nd ay v al ue a t so ci al se cu ri ty .g ov By John Minton Over the past two years I feel things have turned heavily in favor of my fel- low veterans and me. I feel the Board of Supervisors and the County Adminis- trator and his staff have all been involved in improving the state of veterans affairs in Tehama County. A lot of the citizenry have also seen and felt these improvements. Pro- grams and veterans ser- vices organizations are busy with various projects for next year and several of them have already com- pleted a few projects and I feel pretty grateful about all of this. But is there room for improvement? I feel a possible next step is for each of the veter- ans services organizations to get together on some shared project that tells our community that we are still ready and willing to do our part in the fight against terrorism. We can do this here in our com- munity by everyone sit- ting down and putting dif- ferences aside and maybe even do a little conflict res- olution even if only on one or two issues. We all talk about ISIS and other evil groups com- ing to America. What do they see in veterans and their organizations? Are these organizations split because of ego and lack of understanding for each other? Or do they look strong and mighty because they all fly the same na- tional colors? I hope it is for the latter. Evil is here. How do we destroy it? How do we protect our American values here at home? Are they even visi- ble? Do we practice them in our daily lives to the best of our abilities? I know I've missed a few steps along the way. But I am working on them because, as a veteran, I am counted on by our community to do the right things. I feel we all have some basic under- standing of what this is. It's about a lifetime of commit- ment to our values. There are five branches in our military and hun- dreds of veterans services organizations throughout America. Veterans want to join one or more of these because they understand that they made a lifetime commitment to that sym- bol of freedom, our Ameri- can flag. Why would a vet- eran join one of our organi- zations? What do they see in us? Are we able and will- ing to serve them and to get them involved in this community? Will they feel welcome in an organiza- tion? We were them once, coming "back to the world" from doing our time some- where else. What made it look welcoming to join an organization when we wanted to join one? They are us now as we were them back then. We are similar but different. We are Americans that share more than we realize. How do we open our arms, minds and hearts to each other? What about our oaths and preambles to our organizations? As I said, I know I have missed a step or two along the way but it sure would feel awesome to be ac- knowledged in a courteous way by any veteran when seeing them around our communities. I feel it could be a start to some kind of healing that so many of us need. A simple nod or wave to each other. Let's get together and find one or two projects for 2016. Our true ene- mies are ourselves. We can overcome ourselves for the good of this commu- nity that we call Tehama County. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Air Force, now we are one community. Veteran John Minton served from 1973 to 1984. His email is JarusHeadus5@gmail. com. VETERANS CORNER Standing together to defend our flag Salestaxpaidinout-of-Countystores goes to support those cities, not yours! NOV. 28 STOVEJUNCTION The TheNorthState'spremiersupplierofstoves 22825 Antelope Blvd., Red Bluff 530-528-2221 • Fax 530-528-2229 www.thestovejunction.com Over 25 years of experience Tues-Sat9am-5pm• ClosedSun&Mon Now Carrying! 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