Choosing a beverage can be a complicated decision.  In this economy, every decision is complicated!  You need to squeeze every benefit you can from every penny you spend.  This got me thinking about what is in my fridge to drink.  Really it was based on a comment that was made earlier in the week about not having enough milk on hand.  I countered the complaint with “milk is too expensive!”.

I am a firm believer that food = fuel, and that health care starts in my own kitchen and in what we put in our mouths.

Unfortunately, as firmly as I believe that, I am like everyone else who succumbs to packaged foods and fast meals, and I have for years.

Something got me thinking about that this morning.  I was trying to figure out WHY I was always giving in…and I realized that it was just EASY. Too easy, in fact.

Growing up as a kid, my parents worked every day and Saturday was our ‘chores day’.  We ate out occasionally – and by that I mean once or twice a month.  There was no McDonalds in my home town (circa 1960- 1973).  The only “fast food” were a few burger joints in the 15 mile radius that actually cooked REAL meat on a grill. Stopping at a place like that was a major treat – usually reserved for a summer night, after one of my little brother’s “away” baseball games.  Otherwise, we only went out for a “fancy” dinner on Easter Sunday.  I didn’t know how lucky I really had it back then.

That is what got me thinking this morning.  I have fallen prey to buying a couple 2-litre bottles of soda when I shop (usually amounting to 4 a week) as an alternate beverage to the standard glass of water in our house.  It seemed cheaper than, say, an extra gallon of milk.

Today, I decided  to really VERIFY that was true.  So, while making a speedy run to the store this morning, I first checked out the prices of other things I tend to buy for my family to drink other than the water I push continously with each meal.

The soda aisle:  my experiment today proves that this aisle can, single-handedly, rob us blind – both financially over time, and nutritionally.

What I discovered this morning at my favorite store was:

2 litre bottles of soda today were priced at $1.79 (brand named).

Milk was priced at $3.19 a gallon.

I don’t know about your family, but if I am going to buy soda, I want the name brand.  If I want Coke, then “cola” will not do. $1.79 for a 2-litre bottle seems like highway robbery to me for a bottle of water and sugar mixed with chemicals.

One 2-litre bottle of soda = approximately 2 quarts.

Thus, two 2-litre bottles of soda = a little over a gallon.

$1.79 per 2-litre of soda x 2 bottles = $3.58

I gallon of milk = $3.19

Value for my dollar:  Sugar and water with zero nutrients  vs. calcium and protien and lots of nutrients?    NO CONTEST!

From now on, if we crave a soda, we will have to go buy one from the $1 menu and enjoy it like fine champagne. My house will no longer include soda and my  family is getting milk, water, real fruit juice (I squeeze myself) or ice tea (I brew myself)  for their choice.  Yeah, it takes work on my part, but then so does scheduling dental and doctors visits and driving to them!

Hey Pete – YOU WIN!

Next up:  COMPLETE elimination of “packaged foods” from my house.  THIS should be interesting – and it seems a daunting task, so check back with me the next 6 successive Fridays!

Kwedit is currently only for digital goods, however, their partnership with 7-11 Stores will create a new payment method that changes the landscape of online sales, especially using Kwedit Direct!

In the New York Times article “Buy Now, Pay Later (Maybe with your allowance), Kwedit bring online purchasing to the under-13 crowd, as well as a tipping point to add new buyer personas to e-commerce.

Currently, Kewdit is being used strictly for digital goods in children’s games, where they can make purchases of digital goods in the game using a promise to pay.  As they do pay for the goods, their “kwedit” score goes  up, allowing them to purchase more on a promise.  Kwedit is reportedly seeking the “sweet spot” where the kewdit limit is not too high, but not low enough to discourage the purchases.  At the same time, the digital goods sellers suffer no real loss for non-payment (except obviously their time in creating them).

The cooler part of this new platform is the potential in the future availability to add “Kwedit Direct” as a payment form for all other online transactions.  According to the New York Times article, the buyer will be able to make a purchase online using the Kwedit account, then print out a bar code and take it to 7-11 to make a payment in person using their cash, or their credit or debit card.

This potentially increases online sales to those who have avoided buying online because they do not want to expose their bank account, credit or debit cards – or they simply do not have one.

This is an exciting opportunity for online merchants and worth watching as it rolls out!

Located throughout the United States – no restrictions – food stamps accepted. Restaurant Quality Food!!

Click the banner to ORDER & PAY ON OR BEFORE 2/18/10 for pick up at end of Feb. Buy online or in person, pick up locations throughout the U.S.

CAFFEINE, THE NEXT BIG GOOGLE UPDATE WILL SOON TAKE PLACE:

Why is that important to YOU?

Similar to the major changes that took effect when the “Florida Update” was done in 2003, this update is significant because it hearlds in the time WHEN LOAD SPEEDS BECOME A RANKING FACTOR!

Google has made a concerted effort during the last half of 2009 to speed things up and improve processing. Speed, or the time it takes to process information, has become a consistent theme as the company began work on the next version of its search architecture, Caffeine.

Google began previewing Caffeine to webmasters in August. Last year, Matt Cutts wrote on his blog to expect Caffeine after the holidays, confirming that speed will become a ranking factor on Google.

Reliable-SEO Founder David Harry tells of Google’s need for speed in organic search results that affects not only page-load speeds, but Google DNS, updated analytics code, ability to incorporate new signals, social search, real-time search, deeper personalization, Google Wave and more.

Read the entire article at Media Post’s Search Blog