Online "Free" Credit Reports Not Always So Free

American Public Media's 5-minute daily tech show Future Tense did an episode yesterday about Freecreditreport.com and similar websites (link goes to site where you can stream this episode). Several years ago, the U.S. federal government required credit agencies Experian, Equifax, and Transunion to put up the website AnnualCreditReport.com, where you can actually get a free, annual credit report. Since then, these same credit agencies have put up other websites with similar names. These other sites often include "free" in the web address, but they actually exist to try and sell you unnecessary, additional credit services that the average consumer doesn't really need. So, despite the advice of the singing pirate guy, you should probably stick with AnnualCreditReport.com if you want a report that is easy to get and actually free.

Saving on Regular Monthly Expenses

I'm a believer in taking stock of your regular monthly expenses and thinking seriously about what could be cut or reduced. What you find and the action steps you choose to take will vary depending on your situation. What my wife and I found a couple of years back is that it made no sense to keep a land line phone when we had a cellphone plan. We also found that we are people who can live without cable television and never really miss it. (In fact, we know that if we did have cable, we would be unable to resist the lure of watching pure garbage. I just can't take the risk of seeing more than one episode of VH1's Rock of Love.)

More recently, we found a way to cut our high-speed internet bill by $20. We're honest with ourselves when it comes to the fact that we are people who need the internet. A good deal of our information and entertainment comes from the web, and it's also rather important when it comes to our personal correspondence and shopping. We had been paying quite a bit for cable internet, and while researching other options we realized that our cable company offers a lower tier of broadband internet at a significantly lower price. This is still broadband - just slower than the 11 mbps he had been paying for. From the research I did, all of the things we use the internet for (YouTube, email, research, news) should still work fine. I just called them yesterday to make the switch, and I'm already feeling about $20 cleverer.

"Benign Neglect" versus Overstimulation

This morning I listened to a recent edition of the BBC 4 radio program Bringing Up Britain (available to stream online here). The topic was one that I think all of us modern parents think about a lot when comparing our own childhoods to today's world: what is the right balance of free play (running around the yard, exploration without guidance, sitting around, thinking, "hanging out" with friends) to structured time (piano lessons, sports, band, speech team, baby swim lessons). This brings up a lot of other questions that I've only begun to explore on this website.

The First Windows-Open Day of Spring

Pictured above: A view of My Fair City, April 2004

Today was the fairest day so far this spring. It was sunny all day and the afternoon temperature reached 74 degrees. The only negative thing was a bit of a stiff wind, and even that - considering that every other aspect of the day was on its best behavior - was merely an exhilarating tousle of the hair. After picking up my son from daycare, doing some banking, shopping for groceries, and having a little snack with him at the dinner table, we both settled into the sort of afternoon nap a person remembers fondly years later. I found myself meandering easily in and out of consciousness in my sunny bedroom, intermittently aware of the sound of birds and my son breathing in the next room. A profound calm came over me. I realize this is something I feel every year, but only fully understand when I'm in the midst of it. This is the true beginning of spring. This is human life becoming easier, lighter.

While the boy still slept, I went to the kitchen to brew some iced tea.

Buying Toys From Consignment

I cannot put enough emphasis on how great it is to buy toys secondhand, be it from consignment stores, thrift shops, online auction, classified ads or what have you. I've mentioned before how babies grow out of things so quickly that used supplies and toys are often in great condition. Recently, realizing that our son wanted some independent practice in the art of walking, we stopped by a local consignment superstore and found a cute toy ice cream cart, which was the perfect height for our baby and had just the right amount of stability to help a beginning walker keep his face off the floor during those afternoon constitutionals around the living room. This was five dollars well spent, and it's in equal or better condition that the toys he plays with during his mornings at daycare.

Encouraging Independence

Something that I've had to actively remind myself to do, being a person who often wants things done a certain way, is to allow my child to do things for himself. This includes recognizing when he is potentially capable of doing something and then giving him the opportunity and plenty of time to do it. Eating with a spoon is an example of this. It is going to be a long time before my son is proficient with a spoon, and for now he mainly just makes a mess. However, I think it's important that he be able to play around with it, getting a feel for the spoon in his hand and a sense of what he can do with it. To do this, I have to temporarily set aside my need for things to be neat, tidy and done efficiently. It is absolutely worth it, though, when I watch him making a terrible mess with a bowl of applesauce and I look at his face to see how much this is challenging and entertaining him.

Sparks Will Fly

Here's an interesting science experiment that I recently conducted entirely by accident: Did you know that green beans will spark in your microwave? Supposedly, the veggie is so dense and the mineral content so high that you get a similar effect to that which takes place if you accidentally leave a fork in a bowl before heating it up. This is not a safe experiment to intentionally carry out in your home, so if you are planning to microwave some green beans, make sure you add some water to the dish, which seems to eliminate the weird effect.