Now, I had bought a Garmin GPS for my Dad for a Christmas present in 1995; it was one of the connect-the-dots, mapless kind, but the thing worked like a charm. The 7 years newer GPS V was and is a vast improvement over that one and works like a cheap Street Pilot; it comes with North American maps on a CD, you put it on a mount on your dash and lock it up when you park your vehicle. All I can say is that every drive in my old Jeep is pure A to B, no getting lost, no wasted time, no wasted gas. I could mount this GPS unit on a Ford Model T or a Horse and Buggy and it would work just as well; the device simply provides drivers with an economy that most people have yet to realize. I paid $500 a few years ago, but you can get one for $200 today!! And you can impress people who will ask you, "how the hell did you get here so fast?"
2. Grocery Delivery - Conventional wisdom on this is that you have to be rich or a super-busy professional to make grocery delivery worthwhile. I disagree. Reality is that if you order your items online from Vons and are willing to take delivery within a 4 hour window, say 7-11pm on a weeknight, then the charge is only $7.95; and one of their drivers told me that they are not allowed to accept tips.
When you order online, your grocery purchases are kept in the company's database, which can make repeat-shopping for your usual stuff fast and easy. I can usually place an order for 7 days worth of food in about 15 minutes and there's no lines and shopping cart congestion, no parking lot dings and wrestling for parking spaces, no searching for things, no finding a cart and putting a cart away, no carrying 4 bags in each hand walking up three flights of stairs (Von's drivers wisely use crates, dollies and elevators to move deliveries around). Better still, Vons even has a fairly good selection of deliverable office supplies. Sure, I'm a Trader Joe's guy, too, I know, I know, but TJs needs to cut a deal with Vons to do home delivery for customers.
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