Some Random Ideas for Better Living

Sometimes I come up with ideas.  I’m pretty sure they’ll never come to fruition, but it’s fun to dream.

Here’s one I really like.  I call it “Refill Barn”:

Picture a store filled with products in big barrels - dry milk, liquid milk, beer, spaghetti, toilet paper, soy sauce, toothpaste (is there some LAW it has to come out of a tube? I don’t think so).  You name it.  Nothing is in packaging.  Everything is sold by weight.  You bring your container of choice, and it gets filled up at the Refill Barn.  I think just about anything sold at the grocery store would be a good fit for The Refill Barn.

I like the Frugal Acres idea, too.  That’s a neighborhood of re-cycled houses.

Another thing I think would promote the use of the  powdered milk available at the Refill Barn is if manufacturers would offer a coupon for  free reusable milk jugs (heavy plastic or glass) along with a minimum purchase of the powdered stuff.   These jugs would have a fill-line for the proper amount of dry milk powder.  The lines  could be at the pint, quart, and gallon marks.  This would make measuring dry milk powder a no-brainer because I think that’s the hardest part of making it.

Speaking of powdered foods, why not expand the availability of the powdered items.  I love powdered milk, eggs, and potatoes.  And convenient? Don’t get me started. These would be great items to sell at the Refill Barn.

It’s fun to ride your bike, and cheap and healthy too.  But it’s still not quite yet there as a practical means of everyday transportation.  OK, how about this:  every freeway and street should have a protected bike lane. How hard or expensive could that be? It would be worth it.  Maybe there could be a law - every new road proposed can only be built if it includes a bike lane.  It would be easy to REALLY get places you need to get to if every road had a biking accommodation.

Municipalities are super worried nowadays about water.  I just read that Southern California is getting it’s supplies cut by 10%! Well, why don’t they GIVE AWAY rain barrels.  I have two myself, and they were not cheap.  The city I used to live in offered rebates for them, which is great, but my current city doesn’t.   On this house, I think I have seven or eight  rain gutter downspouts.  I would like to have a rain barrel for each one.  But at $100.00 a pop, that’s a lot of moolah for me. It will take a long time to “earn” that back, but I bought two of them anyway because I’m concerned about the world’s water supply.  I bet a city could get a volume discount to minimize the costs.

Health Insurance companies are mean.  I don’t care how sappy their television commercials are, extolling their love of the human race.  Only healthy people can get insurance, if they don’t get it through it an employer. If you’re sick, they don’t like to pay for treatment.  It seems to me, though, that these companies could save a lot if they would spend more on preventative maintenance beyond an annual well-woman exam.   And I mean - go to that pre-school and kindergarten, and PAY for a professional kiddie aerobics instructor to get those kids moving and sweating for an hour every day.  Paying a person like this even $100,000 a year has got to be cheaper than major surgeries for victims of heart attacks and cancer.

One time I had a problem with my cholesterol.  So this is the help I got: a many-times photocopied (one) sheet of paper with some diet tips.  The paper was really faded and spotty and the date on the bottom was about ten years old.  Yeah.  That really motivated me to get my cholesterol down.  Now, I believe in personal responsibility, but we all have areas where we need help.  This did not help. Really, they could have sent me a big salad everyday.  40 years of that has got to be cheaper than open-heart surgery.

Here’s my tea-bag, Sparky: I think people should have the option of saving, tax-free, as much as they want for retirement.  Practically speaking, it’s hard to save the currently allowed $16,500 401(K)+ $5,000 IRA, but why limit those who really want to go for the gusto?

Well, these are just some of my thoughts.  I know.  I’m just a crazy dreamer.