Favorite Fall Traditions

Every family has fun seasonal traditions, regardless of what Baby Step they're currently on. Dave's Facebook and Twitter fans shared some of their favorite traditions that make this time of year great. Check out what they had to say and share your own!

Twitter

@kale26: College football!

@PurelyElegant: Fave fall pastimes include decorating the house, apple picking and lots of baking! It's a great time to revisit the budget, too!

@danimamma: Getting ready to peel apples for apple crisp! Kids get their hands sticky playing with the peel laces, and the house smells delish!

@pappasmurg55: Football, football and more football! Oh yes ... and the start of FPU season.

Facebook

Annette: My favorite fall tradition is a family trip to the cider mill for fresh cider and warm donuts. We usually take a walk in the apple orchard and take new pictures of the family.

Linda: Pumpkins everywhere, decorating the house and both my kids were born in the fall so it always brings back good memories!

Richard: We make a yearly trip to a local farm or market. We enjoy the fresh goods and purchase some pumpkins, hay bales and stalks to decorate our house. I just love a cool, crisp fall day, especially on the weekends.

Karen: I always wait until just the right time as the maple leaves fall on my walkway and front stoop. Then I take a yearly picture of my front walk with pumpkins and mums. That's a signal that my husband can finally blow the leaves off. Every fall, we have the discussion, " Is it time yet?"

Tina: Fall festivals and hiking!

Paul: Making apple butter over an open fire with homemade doughnuts and cider.

Debbie: Firepits in the back yard, hot dogs and s'mores. Now that's the good life, America!

Brandy: Pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin spice latte.

Gregory: High school football and parched peanuts.

Wanda: Cooling off! Sweating less often. In fact, that may be my favorite tradition of all time.

Vicki: Football, apples and bonfires, hot dogs roasted in the fire and marshmallows. Family snuggled together watching football and cheering on our favorite team!

Adam: Making a pile of leaves and jumping in them. Yes, I'm 22 and I still do that!

What are some of your favorite autumn traditions?

Be a part of Dave's social media community by friending him on Facebook and following him on Twitter!

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Source: http://www.daveramsey.com/article/favorite-fall-traditions/lifeandmoney_other

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When Should I File Bankruptcy?

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Bankruptcy should certainly be your last-ditch effort. A bankruptcy lowers your credit score by hundreds of points and will remain on your credit report for 10 years. This article will shed some light and help you determine if you should file bankruptcy.

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Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6597852

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How a Law Costs Draftsman Can Help You

Are you currently in a legal case where you want to recover costs? Are there certain damages inflicted to you or your loved one? To regain the price of the damages that you've dealt with you can get advice or hire from talented costs lawyers who will help you with your case. A costs lawyer [...]

Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2011/10/03/how-a-law-costs-draftsman-can-help-you/

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Why The Heck Does Microsoft Keep Investing In Hotmail? (MSFT)


Chris Jones Windows Live Microsoft

This afternoon in San Francisco, Microsoft showed off some updates to Hotmail that will help users get a grip on so-called "grey mail" — things like like daily deals notices and updates from social networks.

The highlight is a "Schedule Cleanup" feature that will delete all messages from a certain address that are older than a certain number of days (say, all messages from my local jazz club that are older than a week).

There's also a Hotmail app for Android for the first time.

The improvements look good, and address some real problems for users.

But here's the bigger question. Why is Microsoft even in the email game?

This isn't just a rhetorical question. Hotmail costs lots of money to maintain. The volume of mail goes up every year — Microsoft has had to add six times the amount of storage (from 20 petabytes to 120) just since 2007, and a rep at the event said that the average user can expect to get 1,000 more emails in 2011 than last year.

Yet, Hotmail is insignificant to Microsoft's business — it's part of Windows Live, which had an operating loss of $560 million on revenue of $520 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009. (Microsoft doesn't normally break out Windows Live finances separately, but it moved the Windows Live group from the Online financial segment to the Windows financial segment starting in FY'10, so it gave some rare one-time insight into Windows Live performance as part of that move.)

There's also a Windows Live Mail client that ships as part of Windows. That makes sense — the Mac has an email client, so Windows needs one as well. Windows is a highly profitable business ($13 billion a year on $19 billion in sales) and a lot of that money comes from consumers. Consumers love email. They need to be able to log on and send and receive email as soon as they set up their new computer. All good.

But the Windows Live client can connect to almost any e-mail system — Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Exchange Server. So can Microsoft's Windows Phone mail client.

So why the heck does Microsoft keep investing in the Hotmail service?

I asked Windows Live VP Chris Jones if there was a business reason for the update.

He told me that Hotmail is still the leading email service worldwide, with more than 350 million users. But the service faces a perception problem — Microsoft has added a ton of updates since 2006, but a lot of people haven't even noticed. They still think of Hotmail as an old, slow, HTML-based service that requires you to pay if you want to access it from your phone.

If Microsoft keeps adding features that people find useful, the company hopes that it will change that perception, and people will begin using Hotmail as their primary email service again.

But still — where does Microsoft make money from this? What's the end game?

Eventually, Jones and other Hotmail spokespeople basically admitted that Hotmail supports other businesses like Office — for instance, Hotmail ties to Skydrive, which is part of Microsoft's answer to Google Apps. Hotmail and other Windows Live services also drive a lot of users to Bing, where Microsoft ... also loses scads of money — but at least while keeping Google honest.

It's all a bit of a head-scratcher.

But it seems that Hotmail has too much momentum to kill — nobody wants to throw away 350 million users — so the company has decided it might as well do as much as possible to make it competitive. Meanwhile, users benefit from competition among free email services.

At any rate, the updates take effect later this month. If you've got an old Hotmail account lying around, log in toward the end of October and check them out. It might even make you a full-time Hotmail user again.

 

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/5-rGaUFudVU/microsoft-updates-hotmail-but-why-2011-10

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Yahoo Worth $18 But Would Jack Ma Pay That Much?

With the Alibaba Group touted as one of the leading contenders to buy Yahoo, the China-based e-commerce giant could gain back control of its 43% stake held by Yahoo and make its splash in the U.S. market in one fell swoop. We have a revised price estimate of near $18 for Yahoo stock, which is about 30% above the current market price.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/10/03/yahoo-worth-18-but-would-jack-ma-pay-that-much/

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Slim But Safe Pickings Among Municipal Bonds

With Treasury bond yields down to levels not seen since the 1940?s, it has become more and more difficult finding safety and income in other bond sectors. Municipal bonds are no exception to the downward spiral in yields. Retirees and wannabe retirees are laser-focused on having a large portion of their funds in tax free [...]

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/10/03/slim-but-safe-pickings-among-municipal-bonds/

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