A sunshiny day like today is a great day for wine tasting. However, I got soaked for extra charges for wine at a restaurant earlier in the week. My best consumer experience: Tasting wine at local wineries Recently, I was lucky and won $25 in a drawing at the Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater... Read more →

While the huge settlement with five big lenders for wrongdoing in processing foreclosures is good news for consumers, it’s encouraging to see action taken against a company involved in the housing meltdown. eAppraiseIT, formerly one of the nation's largest real estate appraisal management companies and its parent corporation First American... Read more →

Looking for a good deal on an airline ticket for your Thanksgiving trip? Reasonable airfares won’t last long. Thanksgiving week tickets already are going up and more consumers will be traveling this year, increasing the competition for tickets, according to dealnews.com. While the best time to buy a ticket is... Read more →

More than 150 research physicians and scientists – including a former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – and 50 meat, poultry, and dairy producers are calling on the FDA and Congress to end the overuse use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. Each year, bacterial infections acquired in... Read more →

Virginia Cornue of Vaboomer.com is the host for this week’s Blogging Boomer Carnival #278. The carnival is a collection of like-minded blogs cooperating to share their best stories of interest to the Baby Boomer Generation. For this week’s carnival, baby boomers are writing about taxing the rich to pay for... Read more →

General Motors is recalling 2007-2010 Saturn Aura models and 2008-2010 Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac G6 models, which are equipped with four-speed automatic transmissions. About 426,000 sedans are involved in the recall. On these vehicles, the tabs on the transmission shift cable end may fracture and separate, the National Highway Traffic... Read more →

By Rita R. Robison When I figured out how to make progress with a tough yard project, I was happy. However, I’ve been working to resolve a doctor’s bill for months. My best consumer experience: Finding a way to separate rocks from dirt and weeds Since the weeds in my... Read more →

By Rita R. Robison Laura Lee Carter, also known as the Midlife Crisis Queen, is this week’s host for the Blogging Boomer Carnival #277. The carnival is a collection of like-minded blogs cooperating to share their best stories of interest to the Baby Boomer Generation. For this week’s carnival as... Read more →

Today, I ate zucchini and scrambled eggs for breakfast rather than rice cereal and rice milk. That’s because Wednesday I wrote about Consumer Reports’ investigation on arsenic in rice and rice products. Consumer Reports found significant levels of inorganic arsenic, which is a carcinogen, in almost every product category, along... Read more →

Due to allergies, I eat a lot of rice – rice milk, rice cereal, rice crackers, rice pancakes, and rice noodles. However, I’ll need to look at how much rice I eat because tests by Consumer Reports found rice products contain arsenic, many at high levels. Arsenic in rice The... Read more →