Monthly Archives: November 2010

Need a TV? Buy now

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There’s good reason why Black Friday shoppers zeroed in on TVs this year.

There were great deals to be had.

TV prices have been declining over the past several years. But prices on flat-screen TVs have been slashed more than usual this holiday season because manufacturers and retailers have high inventories, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Demand for televisions was lower than expected in the first half of the year as Americans continued their frugal ways with lingering high unemployment. The result was inventories built up.

So enjoy the deals!

Good one, Mayor

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I was sitting at the Lorie Line concert in Duluth the other night, wondering if it was worth the $47 ticket price.

Line, a pianist who got her start playing at Dayton’s department stores, has been bringing her holiday show to Duluth for 21 years. I’d heard mixed reports about it over the years. Some people adore the annual show, like the older lady who wore socks and a top in a piano keys print to Friday’s show and gushed, “I just love Lorie!” Others think the show is a bit corny and find Line’s husband’s multiple roles in the show, from master of ceremonies to Santa to Elvis, a bit amateurish.

I  figured it was time I found out for myself.

Some of the arrangements played by Line and her “Fab 5” chamber group were excellent (key word here is “some”). Lulls in the show were spiked up with Miss Line’s often glitzy costume changes, compliments of Donna Karan, Gucci, and Jimmy Choo and others name-dropped in the program.

But the jury was still out in my mind.

When Tim Line sought a couple from the audience to swing dance to “Rock Around the Christmas Tree,” former Duluth Mayor Gary Doty and his wife, Marcia, were volunteered by those with them.

Tim Line remembered Mayor Doty from the show’s first years in Duluth and recalled getting the key to the city from him.

Mayor Doty likewise recalled being at the first show. And he recalled that “tickets were a lot cheaper” then.

It was the best line of the night, I thought, one that brought a round of laughter from the audience.

While I couldn’t find out what those 1989 tickets cost, they were likely less than the $18 to $24 ticket price for Line’s 1995 holiday concert in Duluth.

Twenty-four dollars? Well, that’s more like it.

A Thanksgiving bargain?

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The American Farm Bureau Federation is boasting that Thanksgiving dinner is a bargain this year, because it costs less than it did two years ago and is up only slightly from last year.

(Hang in there, I’ll  get to the “but” in a moment).

A traditional Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people costs $43.47 this year. That’s $1.14 less than 2008’s cost of $44.61. This year’s price tag is just 56 cents more than last year, thanks to relatively stable food prices, according to the federation.

“At $4.35 per person, our traditional Thanksgiving feast is still a better deal than most fast-food value meals, plus it’s a wholesome, home cooked meal,” said John Anderson, a federation economist said in a statement.

Granted, we’re talking about a turkey dinner with all the trimmings — bread stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, relish tray, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, beverages with enough for plenty of leftovers. And that beats fast food any day.

But what isn’t mentioned, is that the 2008 prices were the most expensive since the federation began its annual price surveys in 1986.  And this year’s cost for turkey dinner is the second highest  recorded.

The survey’s low point came in 1987, when Thanksgiving dinner cost just $24.51. The price has gradually increased over the years.

Here’s a closer look at 2010 Thanksgiving dinner prices:

What’s down

– 16-pound turkey costs $17.66, down $1

– Green peas, down 14 cents a pound

– Cubed bread stuffing, down 1 cent for a 14-ounce package

What’s up:

– Milk, up 38 cents per gallon

– Pumpkin pie mix, up 17 cents for a 30-ounce can

– Pie shells, up 12 cents for two

– Whipping cream, up 15 cents per half-pint

– Three pounds of sweet potatoes, up 7 cents

– Relish tray, up 5 cents

– Brown-n-serve rolls, up 4 cents a dozen

Total cost: $43.27, up 56 cents

Johnson Bros. Furniture is not closing

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Don’t be fooled by those big signs announcing  “Calling It Quits! Retirement Sale” on the sides of Johnson Bros. Furniture in Duluth.

Ditto for the “You Win! We lose! Calling It Quits!” banner in the front of the store at 1832 W. Superior St., with announcements of 40, 50, 60 and 70 percent off.

The furniture store, long a fixture on West Superior Street in Lincoln Park is not closing. Nor are the family-owned company’s other stores in Superior and Cloquet.

I checked it out in September when the signs first went up. There’s been a big sale going on there ever since. While the store manager I talked to then said the store was, indeed, closing, other store staff said they had not been given any notice that they would soon be out of jobs.

Skeptical, I tracked down owner Larry Johnson at the Cloquet store.

“None of the stores are closing,” he said.

And the big retirement? That would be his father, co-owner Don Johnson, who’s retiring at age 83.

But the 93-year-old business will go on.

If the store was closing, after three generations of operation, that would be news. But since it wasn’t, I let it go.

But people continue to be misled by the signs and wonder why the News Tribune hasn’t done a story on a longtime Lincoln Park furniture store closing.

Cause it’s not.

MCCU is making green pay off

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A Twin Ports credit union is paying more than just lip service to help the planet.

Members Cooperative Credit Union has made changes at its buildings and business practices in an effort to reach a zero net balance in its carbon emissions.

And it’s resulting in big savings.

“We’ve discovered that making changes that are friendly to the environment are also friendly to our bottom line,” said Ralph Hamann, MCCU’s vice president and chief financial officer. “We have more work to do, but we are on our way to becoming a carbon neutral organization.”

To that end,  MCCU has:

–Switched to more efficient lighting at its Cloquet branch office. Savings: $1,800/year in electrical costs.

–Switched from battery-powered hand towel dispensers to manual ones. Savings: $600/year, plus batteries are kept out of landfills.

–Switched from compressed air keyboard cleaners to vacuum-style keyboard cleaners. Savings: $800, plus harmful hydroflourocarbons aren’t released into the environment.

–Installed a sophisticated heating, ventilation and cooling system in MCCU’s 8,000-square-foot call center. The system pulls heat from its large data servers and sends it to employees’ work stations, cutting heating costs to less than $150 per month in winter. Savings: $10,000/year.

Although MCCU started making sustainable practices a priority in 2004,  it boosted its efforts this year after staff completed seven months of training with Sustainable Twin Ports, a non-profit grassroots group dedicated to furthering sustainability through education, networking and action.

Are you driving a ticket magnet?

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Besides price, reliability and financing, there’s something else to think about when buying a car.

The likelihood of getting pulled over.

A recent study has shown that drivers of some cars get more traffic tickets than others, according to the Wall Street Journal. Many are flashy, high performance cars that tempt owners to see how fast they can go on the open road and cause police officers to take notice.

Topping list is the Mercedes SL, an expensive two-seat roadster that costs $100,000, more than most Northland households make in a year. With four times the tickets as the average vehicle, it’s especially popular with successful men in their fifties, the Journal reports.

Also high on the ticket list are the Toyota Camry Solara convertible, Pontiac Grand Prix sedan, Acura Integra, Volkswagen GTI, Toyota Camry Solara convertible and Hummer SUVs.

Least ticketed vehicles tend to be sedate, bland vehicles driven by cautious drivers. Getting the least tickets was the Buick Ranier SUV, whose average driver is 61 years old, followed by the Kia Spectra, an economy sedan.  Both models have been discontinued.

The study by Quality Planning looked at records of two million cars to determine which models got the most moving violations.