But wait... there's less!

They were in a few different places so we didn't realise until today that we had 22 towels. That seems a lot for two people. So we had a cut session. It's a bit like the sports coach who has to pick the final team from a squad of players. In that spirit, we picked our final line-up of 4 bath towels, 2 guest towels, 4 beach towels and one guest beach towel. As I write this, even 11 sounds like a lot. But we're making progress. Also, we know of someone in need who could use a towel or two - so that's also a great incentive to lighten our load. PS. As I wrote this I assumed that 22 was an unusually large number for two people. It just seemed big. Perhaps it's normal. What do you think? How many do you have?

I do 3 days of paid work per week. I find it to be a good balance between earning some income and having free time to do the things I enjoy. Today I discovered another advantage. An average 5-day worker pays around 18% tax. An average 3-day worker pays just 9%. Here's why. The more you earn the more tax you pay. Here in Australia we pay no tax on the first $18,200. But after that each chunk of money is taxed at higher rates. Tax-free Mondays Think of it this way. The average wage is $231 a day. Working just one day per week, that would be tax-free. Work a second day and you lose $20 in tax. By the time you get to a 4th or 5th day the tax (on those days) is about a third of what you earn. I think this is partly why some new parents work fewer days. After paying all that tax and then childcare fees, it's just not worth their time to do a fourth or fifth day - because their true wage is hardly anything on those 4th and 5th days. The same goes for people who just have ot...

We buy way more stuff than we need. Advertising plays a big role in that. I reckon they're quite tricky, and sometimes more than a bit manipulative, in getting us to buy more stuff. So I was stunned to see these survey results on Planet America . Only 1 in 9 Americans trust Census data while the majority are happy to swallow what they are told in an advertisement. That should, at least, be the other way around. By definition advertisers have every reason to give a biased view of the whatever it is they are advertising. I'm struggling to think of any information source LESS trustworthy than an ad. What do you think? How would you rank these information sources?