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I recently got some free sample packets of True Lemon, True Lime and True Orange. They are used to flavor your water and they are 100% natural, 0 calories and have 0 grams of carbohydrates. They do not add any sweetness to your water, since they have no artificial sweeteners. They do offer another flavor, True Raspberry Lemonade but it is 5 calories and is made with stevia. The lemon and lime were a bit tart as expected, but the orange flavor reminded me of the taste of an orange peel and slightly of the pulp. You might get a similar taste from letting a bunch of peels sit in water. It really wasn’t for me, but if you need to make the switch from soda or some other sugary drink, I would suggest to go to lightly sugared Kool-Aid or tea, then to these true flavors before going to plain water.

Figured something I’ve known for awhile and that’s how to pick black denim jeans that won’t fade that bad and how to wash them so they won’t fade as fast. When you wash them, put them inside out, wash in cold water and don’t put them in the dryer. When you buy a pair of jeans don’t get the solid black ones, because they seem to fade much faster than the black jeans with a small bit of white stitching showing up. If you buy Levi’s, then they are often called Black Diamond, Dusted Black, or Tumbled Black.

Here are 3 pictures to give you an idea of what I mean by the white stitching.

And here is a picture of the solid black jeans to avoid.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has noticed that more and more people seem to use the road as a dumpster. I was behind a car awhile back in a residential neighborhood and saw someone set down a empty 44 oz Big Gulp in the middle of the road while they were at the stop sign. They then closed their door and drove off. Is it that hard to keep the trash in your car until you reach your destination? It’s not like their aren’t any trashcans at gas stations, places of business or at your house. And do people really need to drop a dirty diaper into the middle of the road? Come on that is disgusting. Take a little pride in where you live or at least keeping your neighborhood clean. Even if you don’t like that place or city you are in, you can still take some pride in being clean and keeping things neat. To me this is really trashy. I’ve seen people throw a trash bag on the ground rather than walk another 10 or 20 feet to another dumpster that isn’t full. What makes it worse is when the trash bag isn’t tied up and then the wind blows the trash all over the neighborhood.

If you have a Citi Card you might be familiar with their Extra Cash program. However, its really anything but cash. The way it works is that you get $1 of extra cash for every $10 spend, similar in some ways to rewards cards or points you can get for other credit cards out there. It sounds good, however, in order to use the “extra cash” you have to spend more money. When you first sign up for a card they will give you $100 of “extra cash” and as you can imagine it builds up fast if you use your credit card to pay all your bills. Which is what I do and then I pay it all off at the end of the month, so I write less checks and get out of the checkout lines faster.

For instance you can get gift cards with extra cash, but the extra cash only gives you a discount on the gift cards, meaning you will have to spend the rest. For instance they give you $5 off $50 gift cards, $10 off $100 gift cards and $50 off $500 dollar gift cards. Now this is good if you know you are going to go on a shopping spree, but the stores they offer the gift cards for are ones you probably won’t use very often. They have gift cards for Old Navy, Gap, Land’s End/Sears/K-mart and several others but you won’t find any for Target or Wal-Mart.

You can also use your extra cash for discounts on car rentals, local stores, airline tickets, etc but don’t expect to save more than a few dollars and the selection of outlets is kind of limited. The extra cash program also has deals on selected merchandise (clothes, electronics, etc) that you can get discounts on. Most of the discounts aren’t very good and the items they feature usually cost too much anyway, but it’s really there so you think you are saving money and spending the extra cash you earned, but its just their way of getting you to spend more money.

They have a deal of the day every day at 1pm EST, where they offer a higher discount on certain items and sometimes the item is rather good, but the quantity is very low. So you have to login for that 1 day its offered right away and hope you get one of them. Probably the most popular offer they do every month or so is a $50 Wal-Mart gift card for $25, assuming you have another $25 in extra cash, but its very limited, so expect it to be gone in 10 minutes or less.

So basically the extra cash you have will keep building up and up and you probably won’t be able to use it all. But this is on purpose, they really don’t want you to use it, they want you to feel as though you need to keep your credit card with them, because you have earned so much. They had to offer some kind of rewards card, because their competition is doing so. And they could argue they do offer good deals, but they are so limited they are making their customers fight over that small quantity.

Don’t be fooled, even if you have had this credit card for awhile, you need to shop around again to get better deals. And sure most reward cards out there really don’t give you much money back or decent items for whatever points you earn. But there are some out there will at least give you something more usable, without having to spend more money on top of what you have already spent.

Seriously is it still the 1990s? Or has basketball fashion influenced men’s shorts? It seems this year’s fashion are cargo shorts which seem bulkier and slightly heavier. And why do men’s shorts have to go down to the knees or mid-way behind them? Shorts today are too long, they feel like capri pants that shrunk. I’m not looking for the 1980s too short shorts or skinny shorts, but ones that go a little above the knees and are slightly tapered. I have been able to find a few pair, but they go for like $20-$35 a pair. And why do we need shorts that are straight leg (baggy on the leg holes)? They should be slightly tapered at the end.

Believe or not these images are from 2010, not 1995.