Frugal Friday

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Astrology Project: New Open Post

Regular readers here know that I post astrological predictions concerning politics and economics on SubscribeStar and Patreon, and every so often post something that can be read by anyone. The more experimental a post, the more likely it is to be open for the public, and the one I've just put up -- well, it's about as experimental as they come.

It used to be quite common to interpret comets as significant omens in mundane astrology. Unfortunately very little material seems to have survived on how this was done. I've gathered together what I could find, in Ramesey's 1653 classic Astrologia Restaurata and a few other sources, and given it a shot using the recent Comet Tsushinchan-Atlas as a test case.

Maybe it's just me, but I tend to think that the most important of the various purposes of astrology is accurate prediction, and the only way to see what works is to give it a try. You can find my tentative conclusions here on SubscribeStar and here on Patreon. Over the next two years, we should see just how accurate these conclusions turn out to be, and then put the results to work the next time a comet comes through.

Spoiler alert: comets, according to astrological tradition, are always bad news. This one isn't as bad as some, mostly because it was relatively small and wasn't visible for that long, but it has some unwelcome tidings.