Weeds and Gardens

Time to start thinking of planting the garden, and getting rid of the weeds, so that every summer when you  wage a war on weeds you win the natural way. The following is from Lifehacker and is an interesting read in the dead of winter. 

Instead of using commercial weed killer to eliminate those pesky weeds, we looked for more eco-friendly and cheap solutions and put them to the test to see which was best. Here are the results.

In this experiment, I tried 3 solutions: boiling water, white vinegar, and vinegar with some salt mixed in, and sprayed these to two areas with different kinds of weeds.

Boiling water worked to cook the tops of the plants but as soon as boiling water hits the giant concrete heat sink, it becomes a refreshing lukewarm bath for the roots. In the case of the crab grass, the dead top resulted in dead roots. Great job! In the case of the black medic, not so much. The cooked part stayed cooked and the uncooked part stayed alive.

In the case of vinegar, it had no effect on the crabgrass because crabgrass is extremely hydrophobic meaning it sheds water. Plain water beads up and rolls off or evaporates before touching the actual plant. If you want your vinegar to touch the plant, it needs to be "wetter" than water. Put a few drops of dish soap or shampoo in the vinegar before spraying. Molasses will work, too. Experiment with the amounts until you see the water/vinegar sticking to the plant instead of beading up. Vinegar should kill any plant it actually touches. If you can find 20% vinegar at a garden nursery, it will kill most plants in 20 minutes. 20% vinegar is fairly dangerous - don't get any in your face/eyes. Fortunately it is so strong you won't want it in your face.

Baking soda will kill crabgrass every time if you apply it right.  WARNING: Most grasses will die with that much baking soda. 

Corn meal, or more appropriately, corn GLUTEN meal, has no weed killing effect on living weeds. I personally believe, after extensive experimentation, that it has no weed prevention effect on weed seeds, either; but the University of Iowa believes otherwise. Corn gluten meal does; however, have an excellent fertilizer effect at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. I get it at the feed store in plain brown bags.

Yes, dogs do like the flavor of corn gluten meal, but not that much. After licking it off the ground a few times, they give up.

Source: LifeHacker

Boomers haven’t saved enough

The following is of interest to myself and to my friends who are on the leading edge of the boomers. It is also important for younger boomers who have the luxury of time to save. To read the source go here

 First published by Canadian Press on June 28, 2012

As the leading edge of the baby boom approaches retirement they are confronting a big challenge—there has seldom been a worse time to live off savings.

More than 60% of Canadians have no company-based pension plan and with interest rates at rock bottom, the payoff on safe government bonds may not be enough to even keep up with inflation.

That means it may take $1 million in investments to generate the same retirement income today as $500,000 would have generated five years ago, analysts say.

Canadians instinctively know they are headed for choppy waters. Independent polls reveal a common theme of growing anxiety, with more Canadians expecting to delay retirement, believing they will need to lower their standard of living and a majority fearing they will one day run out of money.

Susan Eng of CARP, the advocacy group for Canadian seniors, says the problem is that boomers have simply not saved enough, and many that did saw their nest egg devastated in the 2008-09 economic storm.

On top of that, the post-recession landscape of high risk, volatile markets, and low-yield investment expectations is not a good time to do catch-up.

“We get calls when things go bad,” said Eng. And there’s plenty of examples of things going bad, she added.

These include seniors with unreasonable expectations of the lifestyle they can expect in retirement, trusting their finances to unqualified advisers, or retirees hit by bills they had not expected, such as the high cost of chronic care or residential care.

“A full 25% of people in the middle income group, not the poor but those in the $50,000 to $80,000 income group, will have a dramatic drop in their standard of living on retirement,” she said.

“The low growth environment is changing a lot of financial plans,” said Steve Shepherd, vice president of equities with the Bank of Montreal. “People have to accept that they are going to need to save more, work longer or perhaps re-evaluate their expectations for retirement.”

According to Statistics Canada, someone retiring at 65 should expect to live another 20 years, and thousands will make it to their 100th birthday.

That’s a lot of time to live off savings, and retirees must also calculate that inflation is eroding assets with each passing year.

“The question is how much can I safely remove from that portfolio every year. Anything over 3% in today’s conditions starts to nickel and dime you and you wind up taking out too much for the amount to time you will live,” said Adrian Mastracci, a portfolio manager with KCM Wealth Management.

While most retirees will have some secure income through the Canada Pension Plan and possibly Old Age Security, Eng said the government should do more to help individuals entering retirement years. Her key suggestion is for an expansion of the CPP to lift the maximum benefit from $12,000 annually to about $16,000.

Gens X & Y blasé about retirement saving

The following was written by Margarida Correia and posted here on February 5, 2013

How many Gen X and Gen Y consumers are saving for retirement? Not nearly enough, according to LIMRA, an industry-funded research group.

In a new report, titled “Sowing the Seeds for Retirement: Gen X and Gen Y Markets,” LIMRA finds that younger investors are not giving retirement the attention it deserves. Less than half of Gen X consumers (46%) selected retirement as their top reason for saving, with vacation and travel the top choice for 38%. Younger Gen Y consumers were even more delinquent, selecting vacations over retirement as the single most important reason to save. More than four in 10 Gen Y investors (41%) cited traveling as the biggest motivating factor compared with 31% who were saving primarily for retirement.

LIMRA sounded warning bells for younger generations of Americans who have to rely primarily on their savings to fund their retirement as traditional pension plans for these demographics groups disappear.  LIMRA estimates that only 16% of the 116 million Gen X and Gen Y consumers in the U.S. have defined benefit retirement plans.

 “Unfortunately, without guidance, the financial harvest ahead of these generations may not be as bountiful as they expect. Despite their current confidence in obtaining their desired retirement lifestyles, most Gen X and Gen Y consumers have not achieved even modest savings levels,” LIMRA writes in the report.

LIMRA bemoaned the fact that younger investors are not maximizing their contribution to 401(k) retirement plans and in many cases missing out on company matches. The median deferral rate is 6% for both Gen X and Gen Y consumers, according to the report.

Women especially need to be encouraged to save more than their male counterparts to compensate for the likelihood of extended longevity and fewer working years, LIMRA said. Only 43% of Gen X women and 27% of Gen Y women listed retirement as one of the top three reasons for saving, lower than levels registered for Gen X and Gen Y consumers overall (46% and 31%, respectively).

LIMRA pointed out that Gen X and especially Gen Y consumers are conservative investors, making them ideal customers for risk management products targeted at retirement. Nearly half of Gen Y consumers (47%) have little or no tolerance for investment risk, with Gen Y women being especially risk averse.

The report is based on a study conducted in May 2012 that polled 5,296 Americans ages 20 to 84. Of the people surveyed, 884 respondents were Gen X and 720 were Gen Y.

Margarida Correia is Associate Editor for Bank Investment Consultant, a SourceMedia publication.

Do we speak the same language?

English is not simple even for those of us who are native speakers even though (in this case) one of us was from Canada and one of us from Australia. 

We were talking about communication and I relayed the following story. 

 I was at the counter, the server was busy at the back, and she asked me to wait a few minutes. In Australia the response to this kind of request is usually “No worries”, in Canada the response is slightly different and I responded “Not a problem”. Wrong response, when she was finished the work she were doing the woman came over to me and very aggressively said to me” What is your problem then?” I realized I had made a mistake and quickly said,” have no problem, it’s a Canadian response similar to your No worries.” She looked at me and laughed and said “Your from Canada then?” The atmosphere changed and she took my order even though the kitchen had just shut down. 

My friend said, “Rob (her husband) almost was in a fight because of lack of communication.” It turned out that Rob was in a discussion with a customer whose position he could not understand, so Rob said to him “I don’t know where you are coming from” but before he could say anything more the man started yelling about Rob being prejudiced and not liking where the man was born and the words became very heated. I understood what Rob was saying as would most of us who grew up using similar idioms and slang—Rob was saying to the man, I do not understand your position on this subject. The issue did not go away although Rob did lose the sale as the issue became more about perceived prejudice rather than misunderstanding of one’s position.

.Small things make for big understandings, so I think it is important to listen and not react too quickly to what you hear. What was said, may not have been what was meant