Free Agave Plant by Mail

Photo: Agave "Century Plant", Free Plant of the Month by freeplantsbymail.org

Free Plants By Mail (freeplantsbymail.org) was started by local growers as a way to use the surplus plants from nurseries and also as a way to support The Nature Conservancy.  Free Plants By Mail offers a new free plant each month.  This month they are offering Agave "Century Plant".  It takes 100 years for this agave plant to bloom!  Although the plant itself is free, you do have to pay a small shipping and handling fee of $6.95.

This organization also has over 100 plants available for sale on their site.  100% of the proceeds from the sale will go to The Nature Conservancy.

Click here to view Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

Make a Worry List

Photo: 365 Health and Happiness Boosters by M.J. Ryan

Take a tip from M.J. Ryan, and boost your happiness by creating a worry list.  Just put your pen to paper and write down any and all worries that come to mind until you have flushed them all out.  It really is incredibly effective.

M.J. suggests rating your worries from a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the extreme so that you can gain perspective on your everyday worries.  I also found it helpful to write down what I could do to mitigate my concerns.  For example, one of my greatest worries is dying before I get to do all the big things I wanted to do in life so I created a Bucket List (i.e., a list of all the things I want to do before I die).  The years are still flying by and it does not change the fact that tomorrow is not guaranteed, but the bucket list does give me something to actively work on. 

Track Down Lost Money

You may have unclaimed property waiting to be returned to you!  Below are some sources to help you start your search:

State-held Money.  State treasuries hold unclaimed property from uncashed dividend checks, returned utility deposits, uncollected insurance benefits and more.  Visit the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) at http://unclaimed.org/ and click on your state to start tracking down possible unclaimed money.

Old U.S. Savings Bonds.  Visit www.treasuryhunt.gov to start searching for old U.S. Savings bonds.  There are billions of dollars in old savings bonds that have stopped earning interest, but have not been cashed.

Missing IRS Tax Refunds.  If you have not received a tax refund check, you can search for it by using the IRS's Where's My Refund? tool at www.irs.gov.

Other.  For some other possible sources of unclaimed money, please check http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Government-Unclaimed-Money.shtml.