Inflation Watch -- Apple's Air Tags -- 25% Off -- March 31, 2024

Locator: 46878APPLE.

Without question, with inflation the big story this past year, I have made four huge changes:

• we have really, really cut back on dining out;
• I watch sales at our local grocers like a hawk, as they say; I may or may not save much money -- our grocery bill is the least of our concerns -- but I find it fascinating to see how prices change -- on a percentage basis, significantly -- from week to week -- and I've learned some great price points
• when things go on sale, I pounce -- particularly coffee (K-cups), detergent, paper products (Bounty, e.g.)
• non-perishable household products? Have almost completely replaced Target with Amazon (particularly toiletries)

Apple's Air Tags on sale, link here. These Air Tags go on sale every so often and at the same price price, around $75 vs $100. I grab them at $75. Incredibly useful. Put them in your dog's collar, but especially put them in your cat's collar. Put them in the shoe of your toddlers. Shoot, put one in my shoe, LOL. In Toronto, Ontario, everyone should be putting one in their car(s).

By the way, another great example of Apple's price points, which we've talked about before.

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Amazon Is Amazing 

I ordered a hard-to-find item from Amazon several days ago. Yesterday, I got a note from Amazon updating the expected delivery date -- not sooner than April 1 - 2, 2024.

This morning, I got a note from Amazon: that item is now out for delivery and it will be arriving today, Easter Sunday. Amazing. 

I have several items on order; they could have arrived today but I asked Amazon to delay delivery until Monday. As a rule, I don't like Sunday deliveries in a gated community. And, Amazon cuts the price every so slightly if I delay deliveries by one or two days so they can "bundle" items, saving shipping costs. 

Link here.

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The Book Page

I continue to read The Blue Machine: How The Ocean Works, Helen Czerski, c. 2023.

I finished Max Boot's The Road Not Taken. Incredible. Brought back so many memories. 

I'll probably go back and re-read some sections of Gavin Menzies' books. 

The Annotated Emerson: Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by David Mikics, c. 2012, arrived earlier this week; yet to get started on this one. Maybe now, while watching the PGA in Houston.

Billy Wilder: born, 1906; died, 2002. Almost exactly the 20th century. Alfred Hitchcock, almost an exact contemporary, born the same year as my maternal grandmother, 1899; died, 1980 -- at age of 80.

My maternal grandmother? Died at age of 90 in 1990. We were stationed in Germany at the time. When we got the note that she had been admitted to the hospital and not expected to live more than another 24 - 48 hours, the USAF flew me and our younger daughter Laura back to the states so Laura could see her great-grandmother at least once. We made it and less than twelve hours later, Reka passed away.