Blog Posts by Reader s Digest Magazine

Interviews by Michelle Crouch

1. Of course I look familiar. I was here just last week cleaning your carpets, painting your shutters, or delivering your new refrigerator.

2. Hey, thanks for letting me use the bathroom when I was working in your yard last week. While I was in there, I unlatched the back window to make my return a little easier.

3. Love those flowers. That tells me you have taste … and taste means there are nice things inside. Those yard toys your kids leave out always make me wonder what type of gaming system they have.

4. Yes, I really do look for newspapers piled up on the driveway. And I might leave a pizza flyer in your front door to see how long it takes you to remove it.

5. If it snows while you're out of town, get a neighbor to create car and foot tracks into the house. Virgin drifts in the driveway are a dead giveaway.

6. If decorative glass is part of your front entrance, don't let your alarm company install the control pad where I can see if it's set.

By Timothy Gower

For years, doctors have been begging patients to skip the sirloin and order the salmon now and then. Yet Americans still consume seven times as much red meat as fish. Only about one in five eats the recommended two servings of seafood per week.

Why don't we take the plunge more often? We're confused -- and a little uneasy -- about fish. By now, you've heard that seafood offers far-ranging health benefits, but you've also heard that some fish contain high levels of toxins, leaving you to wonder if any of those gleaming fillets at your grocer's seafood counter are truly safe.

Salmon Entree

Here's the biggest reason medical researchers love fish: It combats the top health threat in the United States. "If you eat a modest amount of fish, you dramatically decrease your risk of dying from a heart attack," says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, of the Harvard School of Public Health. Findings from 30 large studies conducted

Written by Janice Lieberman

Now is the time many parents of high school juniors will take their kids to look at colleges. My friends are on the hunt for the best school, with the best college town, and of course with the best academics. But take a look at what tuition runs and all those dreams of attending the fantasy college may be squelched. Bruce G. Hammond, a former managing editor of the Fiske Guide to Colleges and co-author of four additional volumes in the Fiske series, most recently Fiske Countdown to College: 41 To-Do Lists and a Plan for Every Year of High School, says: "Comparison shopping is the name of the game in today's college market. College costs continue to rise, but more aid than ever before is available to help soften the blow." Hammond recently released his picks for the best bang for your tuition buck.


©2009 Jupiterimages Corporation

Top Financial Finds of 2010:
Cooper Union (NY) - One of the best deals anywhere if you want to study art, architecture

© 2009 Jupiterimages Corporation

"Why isn't she married?" That's what people used to say about me. I'll admit it.

Are you someone people say that about? Do you know someone like that? Then you have to read my new book, How to Shop For a Husband, which comes out this week. I spent years crossing guys off my potential dating list because I didn't like the way they ate their yogurt or I hated the shoes they wore. Then I would date all the wrong guys: you know, the cute ones who had no interest in settling down. And I would cry, cry, cry to my friends and relatives: "Why can't I find a guy?"

Well, I finally figured out why I couldn't find a guy, and I want to save women out there the years of agony I went through. Ironically, I learned that if I shopped smart-just as I had always taught American audiences to do through my work, as a consumer reporter-I could land a great guy. It worked for me: Steve and I have been married for seven years now, and we have two little boys to boot.

So

Discover insider tips from consignment shop owners and become a more savvy consumer.
Interviews by Amy Maclin

1. We love an economic downturn. Some of us are seeing sales up 35 percent from last year.

2. Our margins are shrinking like everybody else's: Consigners want higher prices, and shoppers want lower ones.

3. Your items need to be in nearly new condition. Don't bring me a cookie sheet with crumb-and-grease sludge in the corners. You don't even want that thing, and they're your crumbs.


Photo: Comstock.com

4. Check out my store before you bring in your loot. If I don't take large items, your Foosball table will have to go back home with you.

5. "Trendy" and "cool" (i.e., salable) are not always one and the same. Mid-century modern furniture is still hot, but no one wants those Hopi-print cow skulls you collected during your Desert Southwest phase.

6. People shop consignment stores because they want a bargain. That Russian samovar may be worth $250 at an antiques auction,

Those free medication samples may not be the best - or safest. Find out what else doctors shared with Reader's Digest when we asked them to tell it like it is.


© 2009 Jupiterimages Corporation

We're Impatient
• I am utterly tired of being your mother. Every time I see you, I have to say the obligatory "You need to lose some weight." But you swear you "don't eat anything" or "the weight just doesn't come off," and the subject is dropped. Then you come in here complaining about your knees hurting, your back is killing you, your feet ache, and you can't breathe when you walk up half a flight of stairs. So I'm supposed to hold your hand and talk you into backing away from that box of Twinkies. Boy, do I get tired of repeating the stuff most patients just don't listen to.
--Cardiologist, Brooklyn, New York

• I was told in school to put a patient in a gown when he isn't listening or cooperating. It casts him in a position of subservience.
--Chiropractor, Atlanta

• Thank you for