Episode #196 – Heroic Engagement – Randumb Thoughts Podcast

An update on a couple of items from the last episode. Congress members protesting in front of the Supreme Court. A good guy with a gun ends up threat. The housing crash saving you money and a whole lot more. And today's Randumb Thoughts.

Hello and welcome to episode number 196 of the Randumb Thoughts podcast that is spelled R-A-N-D. U-M-B Thoughts. Dot com online. I am your host, Darren O'Neill. On today's show, we have to start with a few updates and corrections from the last show.

The first would be that the New York Post story we quoted was incorrect. There was, in fact, a ten year old that was a rape victim in Ohio. So, I mean, we made fun of Joe Biden for quoting some stuff there. And so we apologize to Joe Biden. He got something somewhat right for once.

And in an update to the story of Jose Alba Jr, the bodega worker that was attacked and then killed his attacker. All charges have been dropped. Last week we told you that story. If you didn't listen to episode number 195, go back and listen to that. But I said even the mayor of New York was calling for the charges to be dropped. So even the ultra liberal D.A., Alvin Bragg, had to drop the charges.

Mr. Alba, now free as he should be and should have always been, because we have the right to defend ourselves. And we have a story about that in a moment.

But first, I wanted to talk about the fact that 17 members of Congress were arrested outside of an abortion protest, which was going on outside of the Supreme Court. The names aren't going to surprise anybody. They include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Alma Adams, Ilhan Omar among that group. And there's a lot of people that are streaming on social media like, oh, this was all fake. This was all a plan. Look, they're pretending to handcuff AOC.

And this is where the debates really break down for me, because you're talking about stuff that is irrelevant. The term used is a vulgar one, but it's about fornicating with an ant.

And this is exactly what's going on in this case. That do you really think the Capitol Police are going to handcuff a member of Congress? I mean, it would have to take a pretty big reason. I mean, now, if AOC decided to start attacking the Capitol Police or Ilhan Omar or Alma Adams or others, well, then they might actually have to restrain them. But in this case, they were just leading AOC away and her hands were behind her back.

And of course, everybody's like, Oh wow, she's just pretending that she's handcuffed and that she's so stupid. She raised her head their fist in the air. That's because she wasn't pretending she was handcuffed. I'm guessing the officer just said, you know, put your hands behind your back. We don't need to cuff you because, you know, you're a member of Congress. So the people that I'm worried about, like she was pretending to be handcuffed, are dumb.

You're missing out on what's really going on here. You're missing out on the big story. And people aren't talking about the one thing that I can't quite figure out.

And that is why are any members of Congress outside of the Supreme Court protesting? I don't get it. I don't think they understand how the system works because the Supreme Court has but one job, and that is to make sure that the laws of the land are enforced in a legal manner. That's their job. Whatever the laws are, their job is to make sure the laws on the books are the ones that are being followed and upheld.

Now, the people that actually make the laws are the Congress critters like AOC and Alma Adams and Ilhan Omar. So what are you out protesting in front of the Supreme Court for? It's your job to make the laws. You morons do your job. Your job to make the laws. The Supreme Court job is to make sure those laws are upheld. So you morons going out to protest the Supreme Court makes zero sense.

Get back to work and change the laws. Anybody that's mad that Roe versus Wade wasn't codified have only to look at the Democrats. This is their line of thinking. It's not the Republican line of thinking. The Republicans have always been more on the pro-choice side, and it to me is disgusting to live in a country where there are headlines saying, Oh, Coach Jim Harbaugh says outrageous things about abortion in the outrageous figures, let's have the courage to let the unborn be born.

That is the outrage. This thing. Let babies be born. Oh, my God, how outrageous can you get? But this is the world we're living in because the left has a nice foot in the door right now and they see that slamming in. They're getting more and more just really desperate to get their plan put into place. They see that's not going to happen and that's causing violence, including, you know, these protests and stuff going on and what these women were.

I mean, I hope I'm not misgendering AOC, Alma Adams and Ilhan Omar,

but what they were arrested for was blocking traffic, not for being out there protesting. And the police in this case were like, you know, if you continue to block the streets here, we're going to first give you a warning. And then if you keep doing it, we're going to have to arrest you. And they're like, Yeah, cool. So then they gave the warning and they kept doing it. And then they arrested them because that's what they wanted. That part is theater.

If you don't realize that is theater, you're a dummy because you're missing out on the whole concept here. All theater. They wanted to get arrested. They wanted to make the news cycle, and they wanted people to be outraged that they were arrested for standing up for reproductive rights or whatever term they're using.

It reminds me of baseball story that I read a few years ago in a book. They don't even remember who the manager was. It might have been Tony La Russa of the White Sox. It may have been Lou Piniella, but it was one of those kind of managers that was known to throw a tantrum every now and then. And as the story was told, the manager went out and he start yelling at the umpire and the umpires like, okay, I've heard you, if you keep going on, I'm going to have to throw you out.

And then they keep going on and they're like, you know what? If you don't, you know, and the guy's like, going to throw my hat in. Like, what if you throw your hats? I'm going to have to eject you. So the guy throws the hat because they wanted to get ejected. I'm sure I butchered all the details in the story, but I think you understand the manager wanted to go out there and get ejected, thus do hopefully get his players riled up that they threw our guy out.

And this is exactly what AOC, Alma Adams, Ilhan Omar and others were doing in front of the Supreme Court, because, again, they're the ones that create the laws. The House of Representatives and the Senate. They're the ones that write the laws, the presidential side, they sign off on them. And the judges at the Supreme Court and other courts, well, they decide if those laws are being upheld and being enforced properly.

So the idiots that are in charge of making the laws that are mad that the laws are being enforced, it's really doesn't make any sense to me. It really does not make any sense to me. Then go and change the laws. But the Obama administration had the president, they had the House, they had the Senate. Do they kind of like Roe versus Wade? Did they give us a national abortion law, which they very easily could have done? No, they did not. No, they did not.

So blaming the Supreme Court here is kind of a joke, but that is what the left does.

They throw tantrums because, again, I don't know how many times I've said this, but do a search here on Randumb Thoughts dot com for the episode I'm bias and you'll understand why this is all being done.

Emotional bias. You get somebody on your side emotionally way better than having facts, way better than having a very solid logical argument. No, you want to get people riled up and the Democrats and the left are very good at getting people riled up. So this is another story that that's what you should be talking about, the fact that it's their job to make the law.

It's the Supreme Court's job to enforce the law to make sure it's being enforced and protesting the Supreme Court when you're part of the group that makes the laws, makes zero sense. But what are morons on Twitter and the rest of social media and all over the comment pages of news sites? What are they talking about? Oh, it was pretending to be handcuffs to allow idiots the ultimate distraction for idiots to fall in to means nothing.

I really would not expect the Capitol Police to ever handcuff a member of Congress. I mean, unless they didn't know they were a member of Congress. But AOC, everybody pretty much knows. And I can see the police saying, well, we're going to lead you away. So put your hands behind your back and that's great, mate. Hold on to our arm. And they walk her out. They, you know, the pretend perp walk. Yeah. It's it's unbelievable that people don't understand what's going on as of yet.

But I'm guessing you do because you're listening to this show, and that is very much appreciated.

One of the other things we have talked a lot about was guns in the United States of America. And a story this week is one that people are really going off for a variety of reasons. This was the case of a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun. And the good guy with the gun was not a member of law enforcement.

And this is making a lot of people actually angry when I think this shows how the system is supposed to work by having a population of good guys who are able to step up when the time is needed for them to. And Goodell's don't want to just leave any one gender out here.

But this is exactly what happened in a shopping mall. 15 miles outside of Indianapolis in Greenwood, Indiana. This guy, Elijah Dixon, 22 years old, was hanging out in the mall, shopping with his girlfriend. When a nut comes out of a bathroom in a food court with a long rifle, don't know exactly what that was, but I'm guessing Air 1510 style comes out and opens fire. We've heard this story one too many times.

We saw what happened in Evolve Day where law enforcement just refused for whatever reason to go in for well over an hour or 2 hours, whatever it was. And a lot of people died in this case.

What you had was 15 seconds after the first shot of this loon that came out to kill a bunch of people in the food court, literally 15 seconds when this good Samaritan and people are mad at how my God, how could you call him a Good Samaritan? He killed somebody. Well, because he's saved countless lives, you morons. That's why he's a good Samaritan. But that's a lie. You should, DICKEN He pulls out within 15 seconds of the first shot being fired in the food court by the loon with the gun.

This guy pulls out his Glock nine millimeter motions for people to get out of the way to get behind him. And 15 seconds after the first shot was fired, Mr. Dickins starts firing fires. Ten rounds from 40 yards, which is a pretty good distance. It's a mighty good distance for a handgun. Eight out of ten shots finds the guy with the rifle and kills him. Eight out of ten rounds hits from 40 yards, all happens within 15 seconds of the first shot being fired.

Now, the people on the left, let's all understand, and their answer to this would be, oh, guy comes out of the bathroom in the food court, he starts mowing people down with his gun. Well, let's call the police and they'll be here in maybe 3 to 5 minutes. That's their answer rather than good guy, good gal with a gun, 15 seconds later, bam, the killer is dead. I don't understand it. I don't understand the mentality because I don't even think the people on the left are that stupid.

To think that you can actually get rid of all guns and make them disappear. But that would be the only thing logically that would make sense, because otherwise this has to be heralded as a beautiful situation beyond the fact that a few people died, that the deaths were mitigated greatly because there was a good person who had a gun legally who stepped up and took care of the threat. It's a tragic situation that anybody died here besides the loon that was going on a killing spree.

But if more and more people planning said killing sprees realize that they may be dead within ten or 15 seconds and they won't be able to fulfill their destiny of mowing down a bunch of people, then maybe they would do it last. This I've talked about this way more times than I would have cared to over the last year or so. The whole concept that there must be repercussions, that there must be punishment for people that commit crimes, never more clear than it is today.

And I think a lot of people before they go out and commit a crime, there's Austin Simons there. I think the guy whose name was that went in to beat the crap out of the bodega worker and wound up dead. You think if he knew he was going to wind up dead, that there was a good chance of that? If he listens to his moron girlfriend who is like the guy wouldn't sell me chips because my card didn't work. Go beat him up. Do you think that's going to happen?

If you think there's a good chance you're going to wind up dead? No. The more chance of repercussion, the more chance of punishment crime goes down.

Which is why we're seeing in Chicago. I mean, while Lori Lightfoot, you have to be so damn proud you're bringing NASCAR to Chicago. I wonder how many of those cars they'll have have their hubcaps or the cars maybe that way. You know what?

I'm waiting for somebody to get carjacked during that race. That was very well could happen in Chicago. They may plan for a pit stop and somebody is going to pull a gun and get out of the car. Wouldn't be a surprise in Chicago, but making national news on just how many less arrests are being made in Chicago while crime is going up because of the policies of the mayor, of the people in charge of the liberal district attorney, Kim Fox, which is, well, we're not going to prosecute those criminals,

too. You know what happens when the DA's decides they're not going to prosecute the lower level criminals? The cops don't arrest the lower level criminals because why should they risk their lives to go after somebody who's only going to be in the jail house long enough for them to maybe get a mug shot taken and thrown back out on the street and they're never going to be prosecuted. What's the point for a nation of law and order? You actually need to enforce the laws.

There actually needs to be punishment when people break the laws and in this case of this Good Samaritan shooter, because that's what he is. If you had more people like him, that any time somebody came out decided to open fire, that there was somebody else there to kill them, the world becomes a much more polite place, I believe the Greenwood Police Chief, his name is Jim Ice, and said of Mr. Dickens, I will say his actions were nothing short of heroic.

He noted that there was surveillance footage of all this. Again, within 15 seconds he took action saying Dick and quote, engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun, was very proficient in that very tactically sound. And as he moved to close in on the suspect, he was also motioning for people to exit behind him and, quote again, this kid, 22 years old, did everything right.

And this is what we need more people to be aware of, more people be trained to do this, know how to handle yourself in a stressful situation. This guy didn't go nuts. He didn't go randomly. Firing into a crowd was very calm, was very methodical, was very brave, and took on the gunman and saved countless lives. And the only reason this was possible, I'm guessing now, I don't know, Mr. Dick. And obviously I don't know if he was carrying a gun around with him

before July 1st, which was when a new law went into effect in Indiana. So just a scant two plus weeks ago, which allowed anybody who had a gun legally to carry it around to do a concealed carry. If that law didn't come into effect on July 1st, I don't know if Mr. Dixon is carrying his pistol with him or not. Maybe he is. Maybe he's not.

But in this case, you see why it is important for good guys to have guns, because the bad guys who want to kill people, they know they're going to jail or they know they're going to be shot dead. So they're going to go do this anyway. You're not going to stop it from happening without having good people with the tools and the ability to stop it once it starts. So kudos to Mr. Dick and we need more people to be the good guy to be the Good Samaritan and to step up when they're needed.

Unlike AOC, who just goes out and yells in front of the Supreme Court, I mean, who really did more for this country, this guy who took a gunman down in a crowded mall or AOC who went and screamed and blocked traffic in front of the Supreme Court when she's part of the group that makes the laws. It's a beautiful country. It really could be. But we have a lot of work to do.

Mortgage demand falling to its lowest level since 2000. This is really a bad sign. Remember when Joe Biden told us all this inflation stuff was just temporary? Not so much. Not so much. A 30 year fixed mortgage just within the last week has gone from 5.74% to 5.82%, which is quite high to give you the baseline. One year ago, when Joe Biden was also just starting to get this thing rolling, was 3.1% last year was the mortgage rates now up to 5.82 were nearly doubled.

Moody's chief economist says housing's already in a recession. We're seeing things absolutely crashing and burning.

Our buddy Larry from that Larry show was trying to escape from L.A., was getting the house ready and the whole housing market just crashed, burned. Nobody's buying. It is not a good situation. Everybody out there, I mean, I don't know. Pray for a miracle that somebody just knocks on Larry's door and offers him a lot of money for that house so we can get out of Los Angeles and get out soon.

But fuel costs way up. Yesterday, the wife and I were out coming back home. It was time to refill the tank and the Buick lightsaber. Yeah. With that thing rides like a dream. I tell you, it's an old car, but 90 bucks about to fill the tank. It's absolutely insanity. Joe Biden. No, don't worry about that. The guy from Dick Durbin, the guy from Illinois here, I know with the green initiatives, way more important than worrying about inflation, lowering gas prices and all that stuff.

I don't think the people of the country think that. Mr. Durbin. I really don't know. I'm thinking that barring some massive voting irregularities, we're going to see that in November with the midterms, because when people can't afford to put food on their table and they can't afford to gas up their tank, they're angry and rightfully so.

Diesel fuel, a big part of this is now $5.52 a gallon on average nationwide. That's up 68% from one year ago, where it was at $3.28. Now, most of you don't drive a car with diesel. Some of you may drive a truck with diesel. And that's exactly who's getting hurt are the truckers, the over the road truckers and the farmers with the diesel prices going up,

which means it costs more to produce your food and it costs more to get that food into the supermarkets where you go to buy it, which is why food costs are also skyrocketing. No question about that. Watching things go up, I guess it's great that we have been doing most of our shopping for a while. When COVID hit, we were getting it delivered from the local grocery store.

But now we've been doing the pickup service, which I think is great because it's free and you just do all of your shopping online. You show up to the grocery store. They have an area now in the back where you just pull up the text them that you're there and they bring your food out and they put it in your trunk for you. And it's a beautiful thing. It takes like 5 minutes.

But because of that, I can go back and see the prices I've been paying on stuff over the past couple of years and even simple things like the little Chobani flip yogurts. I mean, it's kind of healthy and it's kind of a little dessert. It's only four and a half ounces. So, I mean, if you want a little something sweet that's not horrible for you. I kind of like those.

Our local Meyer here quite often had them on their specials for ten for $10, and then you get the 11th free, which means a little bit under a buck. Of course, the regular price item was a buck 29. I went and looked this week when we were doing our ordering up to a buck 79, a yogurt, so almost doubling in price from the lowest price to what this is. And an interesting thing is these are exactly the thing.

Another grocery store here just sent out an email today right before I started doing the show with some big inflation busting specials. And they have the variety pack, the eight pack. So you can't necessarily choose your favorite flavors, but they're selling an eight pack for 399, which is about $0.50 apiece, which is a great deal.

You know, if you're looking to save money, you have to kind of pay attention now to what's going on here. But you also have to understand what these stores are doing, which is something I learned about a long time ago when working retail, which was the stores have the loss leader, which means four stores back in the day like Best Buy in Circuit City. They would have CDs and they would sell them for way cheaper than the music stores.

What I know some people are like, what's a CD that used to be the way you got music before Spotify screwed the world? But the concept of having the cheap CDs for Best Buy and Circuit City was We don't really want to make money on the CDs. We just want people to walk in the door and then hope that if they're going to buy a whole new audio system or if they're going to buy a new refrigerator, they're going to buy it from us.

So be aware when grocery stores do this, it's like, wow, I can go get my yogurts for $0.50 a piece. Well, you want to make sure that whatever else you're picking up isn't way more than the price at other grocery stores, because that's just the way they're getting you in the door. And I think people are going to start looking more and more at being able to conserve as much as they can, save money where they can.

And our buddy Bill O'Reilly over at his show has been trying to give some money saving tips, some better than others. I will say a lot of it has been, well, don't order an orange juice when you go out for breakfast or if you go out for lunch or dinner, just order a glass of water rather than a soda because it's cheaper. It's like, well, it's also a lot better for you. With that said, I normally go with the unsweetened iced tea because I like unsweetened iced tea, which I've also learned.

Make that on your own making the unsweetened iced tea is the easiest thing in the world, and I know it's easy to just grab a pre-made tea and some are delicious. But overall I found that the two quart container that you're buying now is anywhere from 3 to 4 bucks around here. And I realized I could just go buy a two quart glass container. We did not have one, but I bought one of those for like 20 bucks and realized that all it takes is five black tea bags that sit in the water overnight.

And you've got yourself a really good unsweetened iced tea for a grand total of about $0.15 for two quarts. That is a no brainer there. Now, if you're going out okay, if you like water, that's fine. But I don't think the cost of a drink is really going to kill you. But I think there are places people can save money who just don't even think about. We've covered a few of them here on the show

in the past, including your cable bill, which has always been something that I've done, which is every year, because they usually give you a one year term on these things like, Oh, we'll give you a great deal. Like it's a new sign up thing, we'll give you a great deal and then your price goes up after the introductory period. Well, you could stay on that introductory period nearly indefinitely if you ask. They just know most people aren't going to ask.

So the best thing you can do and back in the day, it was more of a song and a dance because you had to go and ask for the retention department and pretend you were going to quit for them to lower the bill. Now, the cable companies in on it, they know what's going on. You can just call them up and like, hey, I need a better rate. They're going to try to upsell you on some things, but if the upsell doesn't work, they will most likely give you a better rate.

And I've had really good luck if you have infinity by just going to their customer cares people on Twitter, they can do it all right there through Twitter and you just tell them you want a better rate, tell them what you're looking for. It's best to do your research and know what they're offering new customers, ask them for what you want. Most likely, you'll get it. And if you don't, which the most recent time I did, they're like, Well, no, we don't have that in our system.

They're like, Well, try back in a week, right? Back in a week. I did in the plan that I wanted was magically there and that's what they switched me do.

Now, if you have cell phones and you don't use a lot of mobile data and this isn't a commercial for expanding because they're not paying me but infinity, if you don't use a lot of mobile data and you have them for Internet service, very cheap family plans, check them out.

And if you still have a home phone, I finally got my parents switched over to Ooma within this last year. They were paying me 150 to 180 bucks with AT&T for two phone lines.

No, it's like 15, 20 bucks with Alma, with all of the high fangled things, like having the ability to block certain numbers, the voice mail, going directly to your email address, to be able to do all sorts of fun things and way cheaper if you're still on an old fashioned landline and again, you have an Internet connection, which I guess and you do, that

is definitely a way to go for groceries. Have a few different choices. One, I would highly recommend joining a loyalty club, and there's a lot of people who hate joining the loyalty club because they ask you for your information and you don't want to be tracked. Get a Google Voice number. Most of these things are only tracked to a phone number. You can get a Google voice numbers or none of it actually has to be tracked. Back to your main phone number.

And the other main thing with groceries is use a credit card to purchase your groceries and find one that gives you a higher percentage back on groceries. For us, it's been an American Express card that we only use for groceries because they give you a 3% back. They keep trying to up us to their next level, which gives 6% back on groceries, but they charge you like 100 or in 150 bucks a year. But at this point, with the way groceries are going up, that may be something I'll have to look at.

But with the one we have now at about 3%, I could have sworn I just redeem the money because it just sits in there and it adds up. And any time you want to redeem that towards your bill, you can go in there and do that. And I think it was about a year since I checked on that and hit 350 bucks in there just from buying groceries. So it'll pay for a couple of weeks of groceries.

It's the one time that credit cards are better than cash if you're getting a percentage back, especially if it's more than the 1%. I thought 3% was pretty good. 6% would be damn good.

Electricity usage around your house is something you can take a look at. If anybody is still using incandescent bulbs out there, get rid of them. If you're using halogen bulbs, get rid of them. Very inefficient. The new LED bulbs are great. I hated those little compact fluorescent bulbs, but the LED bulbs now can't tell the difference between those and the incandescent.

They use very little energy and they don't heat your house up, which is good when it's 90 plus degrees, as it has been here in the city of Chicago again. So think about that. Unplug devices you're not using by a kilowatt meter. These things are about 20 bucks. And it's an interesting thing to take a look at. You can plug it in to the wall and then plug whatever device you want into there and see exactly how much power is being used at any given point.

So if you want to know what your washer and dryer are using, if you want to know what that panel like is using or that portable air conditioner or that computer or your television, and you want to know how much power that's taking, you can find out exactly how much power it is by getting a kilowatt, which you can buy at Amazon or wherever else for like 20 bucks and see exactly how much power that you're using and where it's going, because it could be hard sometimes to figure out

if something's using a lot of power or not. This gives you that information at your fingertips and then you can figure out what you want do with that. Be very wary of your power company, your power supplier offering you variable pricing. It's a scam. It's a trap. This is like, hey, well, if you get the variable pricing, you can run your whatever air conditioner, washer dryer in the off hours and pay almost nothing.

Yeah, but then if you want to run your air conditioner in the middle of the day when the pricing is way up, you end up losing. I'm guessing at some point you're not going to have a choice. But don't opt into the variable pricing on your electricity unless you really know what you're doing and how you use your electricity. And when you use your electricity, be very wary. Bill O'Reilly recommended an app the other day

called Honey, which I've seen online a bunch of times. I think American Express does stuff with them. A lot of companies do stuff with them, but be very wary of any browser extension that you have to use because the main thing with the browser extension is if they're like, Hey, we're doing this for free, they're not. They're using your data, they're tracking where you go. Some people may be okay with that tradeoff, but just understand that's happening with honey.

I think a majority of it is also that they have affiliate deals with a lot of merchants, which means if you go to buy something, say, on Kohl's and I don't know if they have a deal with Kohl's, it's just an example. But the way this app allegedly works is you go, you get to the final page and then it tells you if it can save you money on that site. Well, if they have an affiliate deal with Kohl's, what ends up happening is, oh, well, yeah, Kohl's will pay them with these affiliate deals.

Most companies will pay somewhere between five and 10%, maybe a little less, maybe a little more, depending what it is for companies to bring in customers to them. So they're basically cutting you in an affiliate deal. And in the long run, you are saving money by using that. But understand that there are tradeoffs to that as well, where you can just simply go look for the best prices yourself without using a browser. Add on browser add ons are dangerous because one you could be tracked in.

Two, I've seen this multiple times where good browser add ons that are put out there by honest people or honest companies to do something good are then bought up by somebody else who then starts doing other things with your data.

So be very aware of any add on that you're using who owns it, if there's any changes in who owns it, if there's something that you really want to use, I would install that, add on, do your shopping and then either disable it or remove it or have a browser strictly for doing that kind of shopping. But there are many ways that you can still get the best price without having to install anything.

The first I would recommend and I know people are going to cringe because it's a Google product, you know, the ultimate in tracking people Google. But if you go to shopping dot google.com again news may be a different browser. Use your incognito mode. Don't let it get tracked back to your Google account if you have one.

But if you go to shopping dot google.com and put in any product, it will magically give you a list of everybody who carries that product more or less I mean, not everybody, but you'll get a list of a lot of people that carry that product locally and online and what the current pricing is on that, which is really helpful if you're trying to get the best price on a product, if you know what you want, that's one way to try to assure that you get the best price on the product.

And if you are an Amazon shopper, there's one site that everybody should be using and is a site camel. Camel camel dot com. Yes, camel camel camel dot com. We have no affiliation with them and they're not paying us again, just to be clear. But this is the site that I used that if you cut and paste the address of an Amazon page.

So if you're looking at an item on Amazon, you go to the URL of that item, you put it into camel, camel, camel, and you will magically see what the price has been on that item over a period of time. So you can now tell, is this price higher than normal? Is this price lower than normal? Is this the lowest it's ever been? And you can get a good idea of how often it goes on sale and whether or not you're getting a good deal at that particular point.

Again, all of these things you can do without installing any browser add ons, they're not all that hard. You don't need to have a degree in computer science to figure out how to use them. And it's all just about thinking, are you getting the best deal? A lot of people, including me, never really think that you might be able to beat the price on Amazon at Wal or something else. And if you have Amazon Prime, maybe you never really think about it, but it's always possible.

And there are some add ons to your browser that will automatically tell you if you're on a page at Wal Mart or Amazon, what everybody else has those for. Again, use those knowing that they're tracking your data and be careful with that because your data is worth a lot of money, which is why all of these free products exist is so they can just harvest your data and sell them to other people.

Now, if you're getting work done around your house, get at least three estimates. Understand What the work being done entails. Make sure all the professionals putting that in their quotes tell you the same thing. I had a buddy of the family come out to look at our air conditioner because it's been having some issues and we realized that there was a leak in the air conditioner and the local people that we had come out because the friend of a family was out in Michigan at the time.

So the local company came out, charge us an arm and a leg to put in some new freon. And once this guy came back, he look at he's like, well, did anybody look for the leak? He's like, Cause I don't know if you really need a new machine. The leak can maybe be fixed, you know, 200 bucks, 500 bucks rather than buying a whole new unit. So be smart and get multiple opinions on what needs to be done and also get multiple estimates on what it's going to cost to have the work done.

And if you have a great idea or a way to save some funds during this time of Biden inflation, feel free to reach out and let me know what they are there at Darren at Randumb Thoughts dot com it would be greatly appreciated. Help everybody out because I understand everybody has a little less in their pocket at this particular point.

So if we can just help you save some money, that'll be good. And maybe you could roll that money into a donation to help support the Randumb Thoughts podcast. We are a value for Value Podcast, which means we put the shows out there. You decide how much value that you've gotten out of this episode. You put a number on to that. You go to our website Randumb Thoughts dot com slash donate. You click the donate button to do a one time or monthly donation.

You can use the QR codes, wallet addresses to do the crypto thing. You can use our P.O. Box address if you want to go the cash money route, whatever, and you can even go over to Patreon Dcoms slash randumbthoughts. We don't really put extra content there, but if you're in that, it's another easy way to donate to the show and thanks to by inflation. Thanks, Uncle Joe. Thanks, Cousin Hunter. Nobody today with support for the Randumb Thoughts podcast.

I would feel bad if it didn't just cost $90 to fill the tank of gas. I get it. I get why podcasts aren't first on your list. I do. But if we help you save a little money, say thank you. And when things get better and you do have a little money in your pocket, I mean, that may be it may be a long, long time from now. But remember us and enjoy these shows. I hope they bring a little bit of sanity.

I hope they let you know that there are people out there who are still trying to come up with sane coverage on all the news stories out there. I mean, I'm fine telling you what my beliefs are, and I know I'm biased to the right when it comes to the political sides, but I'm not going to fall into blasting AOC. Oh, she pretended to be handcuffed. No, she didn't really pretend to be handcuffed to the cops and put your hands behind your back.

That's not pretending to be handcuffed and just start dealing with what's really important. Whether AOC pretended to be handcuffed does not make a difference.

It is all a distraction and don't fall into it. And that's the kind of stuff I hope you're taking from this, is to look critically at what's going on and understand that a lot of the way things are covered are meant to be nothing more than a distraction, nothing more to take your attention from over here and bring it over here.

And once you know that, you can look at things a lot more critically, understand what's going on, and hopefully that should enhance your life and help you do better in the tough times than the people who are just oblivious and clueless to what's going on. With all of that said, I will be back next week on Wednesday with another edition of the Randumb Thoughts podcast. But until then I am Darren O'Neill, thanks for listening

The End.