Things You Can Live Without

You are probably bogged down with junk mail from all sorts of places. You get those annoying postcards asking you to sign up for a fly by night college or a deal at your local gym, which you also probably won't be visiting anytime soon. Credit card offers pile in.

The majority of junk mailers get your personal information from the credit bureaus, who always have updated information about you. You will also get junk mail from companies who purchased your information from your current creditors. The next time you apply for something, put a small variation in your name, such as an "D" where a "P" should be. If you start to get junk mail from people with that name then you know exactly who sold your information to them.

Did you know that you can just send junk mail back "return to sender"? Instead of tossing them in the round file, write "Return to Sender" on the mailpiece, cross out your name and draw an arrow back to the return address. Not only will the company get their own annoying junk mail back, they will probably have to pay for it twice on their postage accounts. At some point, those junk mailers may just decide to take you off their list for good.

McMansions

McMansion is a clever term coined to describe a type of house that has been popping up all over the United States. It is a cookie cutter type of house that is designed and built in the fashion of an assembly line, sort of like what is done at McDonald's, the fast food chain. They are larger than normal and are usually purchased by upper middle class people who can't really afford actual mansions, yet want something bigger than a standard sized home. Many people are unhappy with the existence of McMansions because they feel that it symbolizes the greed and selfishness of Americans who want a huge home with excessive features regardless of the consequences or lack of aesthetic appeal to the neighborhoods and communities where they are being built.

Hernias

A hernia is a very unpleasant condition that occurs when the the abdominal wall bulges or tears, creating a sac that becomes engorged with either part of your intestine or other abdominal tissue. As you can probably imagine from the description, it is extremely painful. Most people get hernias because of unusually heavy lifting, straining too hard with bowel movements, and obesity. Because of our bad diets, obesity and constipation is common, which eventually can lead to this annoying condition. It's most frequent when your inner abdominal walls are already pretty weak. So wanting to avoid a hernia is a good reason to tighten up your mid section.