Times Change

Times Change was Originally Posted on January 26, 2012 by lavarock

How tuimes change.

It used to be that you were elite to have a telephone in your car. Now you have a phone, reading device, GPS, TV, radio, camera and more, all in one handy package. If you work it right, it is free (service extra).

Then there are checks. A check is a piece of paper that brings you money, or takes it away from you, depending upon whose name is on the top and bottom. years ago you paid your bank or credit union for checks and got a box or two of them. You may have gotten your first set free. Now you can use a company like INGDIRECT or Fidelity or many others to actually send out a check on your behalf for free, and you may not even pay postage!

Address labels. I used to get them free from Readers Digest ads, non-profit companies hoping I would donate, the Olympics organization and so on. Now you can easily print your own at home and add photos if you want.

As for postage, you can print USPS postage at home for packages and actually save money over what the post office charges.

Speaking of photos and stamps, the Post Office came up with a service that allows you to place your own photos on US Postage stamps (restrictions apply). Search PHOTO STAMPS for companies that have this service.

You used to get a tax consultant to do your taxes and now you can do them online or by a program that asks your questions.

If you wanted to write a story and have it published so others could read it, it was expensive. Now you can write a book and self publish. You can create a PDF or text version, set up your own website with shopping cart and sell your own book with no publisher. The same could be done with music you performed. No longer do bands have to find a record producer to cut a demo, they can post one on YouTube for free.

There are many other examples, but this shows you just a few things that have changed in recent years.