Wednesday on Today 8/8

Today's Money started off the hour with Smart Supermarket Shopping. Robin Moreno from Women's Day Magazine offered up some advice for consumers. She says those with lists spend 41% more at the store. I find that hard to believe because I was always taught not to enter a grocery store without a list. If you don't have a list, how are you supposed to remember what you need? She suggested to factor in meals and weekly events into lists--so are you supposed to have lists or not? And maybe those going without lists and spending less money are doing so because they forgot half the stuff they needed--because they didn't have lists. Makes sense to me. What also makes sense is to always have the staples on hand, such as eggs and milk. By the way, the dates on those are for when to stop selling. They're not expiration dates, so eggs have two more weeks after their sell by date. Milk has about 7 days. And as Al Roker suggested, just give it the old sniff test if you have any doubt. Some more helpful suggestions: Stalk the markdowns and you could get up to 50% off. Don't over buy. Be realistic about what you'll actually use. And train little shoppers. Teach kids about budgeting an have them use their own money for treats. They'll feel more important that way. Also, get paper products at one of those big discount stores. And finally, pay attention to the scanner--a lot of people get ripped off and they don't even know it.

Next up was a segment titled, Pool Precautions: Keeping Kids Safe In The Water. Drowning is the leading cause of death of kids under five. That's a scary statistic. After seeing this, I'm going to give my kids swimming lessons. And I'll never move into a house with a pool--at least not until my kids are older. Former Olympic swimmer, Janet Evans, says you should start teaching them to swim around potty training age--which differs for all kids. She was in the pool with Natalie Morales and some kids who followed her instructions to float on their backs and kick. I guess you can teach your kids drills like kicking and floating and holding their breath under water. But mostly get them comfortable in the water. And don't rely on floaties, which are just floatation devices, not safety devices. And from today's page of the book of the obvious: always watch them while they're in the water. And know CPR.

From there, they went to a Then and Now minute with two swimming record breakers, Kate Ziegler and Janet Evans. I guess Kate Ziegler is the new one. Anyway, the summer Olympics start one year from today on 8/8/08 in Beijing, so they talked about it--a lot. This is also my daughter's second birthday, so a big happy birthday to her.

Today's Update featured an update on 21 year-old Gregory McCullough, a truck driver who was seriously injured three weeks ago in a steam pipe explosion in NYC. He's still fighting for his life in a medically induced coma to relieve his pain. Apparently there were several injured and one dead in the explosion. Junior Suarez came to McCullough's rescue and said his skin was falling off when he found him. He has more than 80% of his body burned. The McCullough family plans to sue Con Ed.

Garbage Couture: Designer Dumpster Duds. Catchy title for a story about law school graduate, Laurie Apple, who goes on daily "treasure hunts" to find designer clothes. It started off as a necessity while she was a cash-strapped student, but now she thinks of it as doing her part to save the environment. I can't believe people throw away perfectly good clothes. Mine don't find a dumpster until they're so worn a mouse couldn't use them. Are some people so lazy they can't even find a good will bin or the Salvation Army? How selfish can you be? Anyway, Laurie says she's not a dumpster diver. She doesn't do a lot of digging and most of the items can be found on the sidewalk. She even brought along some of her finds, such as an Ann Taylor suit, a little black dress and an Armani sweater. I really have to admire her and her efforts to keep perfectly good clothing out of land fills. Please, there is enough waste already. Give used clothes to people who need them. It's pretty easy to find those Salvation Army bins--they're everywhere. And she gave advice to other people who want to get their clothes for free--just keep your eyes open and check around dumpsters and sidewalks. You never know what people will toss out.

Today's Kitchen had, what else? Cooking Chinese Cuisine. Still on the Beijing theme and it's a whole year away. I can hardly wait to see how carried away they get when the Olympics are actually happening. I think they were cooking dumplings--whatever they were looked scrumptious. I couldn't really tell because my little birthday girl had just taken a header off a chair--luckily it was a small one. But her screams weren't, so I couldn't hear much.

And that's a wrap. Til tomorrow.