cash

The average amount expected to be spent on the holidays by Illinoisans is nearly $1,000.

I used to ponder why I have never won a prize from the lottery. No big jackpots, no little ones, either. Why, I wondered, are all these people walking off with free tickets, hundred dollar, or thousand dollar, or million dollar prizes while I've gotten exactly jack squat? Short answer: I don't buy lottery tickets.

I don't know about you, but for my family, signing up for the National Do Not Call Registry did not give us the relief from telemarketers that we'd hoped for. As a matter of fact, we've barely noticed a drop-off in call volume at all. And we've been on the Do Not Call list for over 10 years.

The Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants series is officially over. The Cubs won game 4 in dramatic fashion but there's a server somewhere in Chicago that was wishing for the Giants to come back to Chicago for game 5.

This isn't a big shock to me. A new survey from bankrate.com has found that about 10 percent of Americans don't carry cash anymore. While I'm not quite there yet, you'll rarely find more than $10 in paper money on my person at any given time...