HINTS FROM HELOISE

DEAR READERS: Everybody wants to feel safe, encouraged and loved. Sadly, some kids aren’t blessed with an ideal living arrangement; the teenage years especially can be a time of trial and disadvantage.

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children is working to make kids’ lives better. Programs include teaching life skills for the 15- to 18-year-old crowd, pregnancy help and new mommy training, help with homelessness (including keeping siblings together) and healing from exploitation, among many others.

Education completion assistance, job training and housing support are all available. There’s even a scholarship that kids can earn to help with educational expenses.

Would you like to help? You can mail a check donation to:

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children 200 Wilson Circle Boulder City, NV 89005 Any amount will aid the kids.

— Heloise P.S. Another way to help is to send the Ranch the fronts of your holiday and birthday greeting cards! The cards are repurposed into new cards and then sold. The Ranch accepts the fronts of cards with no handwriting on them (no Hallmark, American Greetings or Disney cards due to copyright laws) to provide teens with life and work skills.

Please send card fronts to:

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children 100 St. Jude’s St. Boulder City, NV 89005 DEAR HELOISE: Traveling is different these days, but my family and I are taking a short road trip. I asked my kids, ages 13 and 16, to write up a little report about the small towns we will be traveling through.

There is a ton of information online about these places, so they had plenty of sources to work with. Nothing fancy, but they learned a lot about where we are going to travel through, and everything will make more sense to them.

— Evan T. in Indiana EVAN, GREAT! A small town’s website also might be a good source for information.

— Heloise DEAR HELOISE: I read somewhere where wealthy people avoid temptation to spend money by avoiding going to stores, online sites or catalogs.

Today it’s important to support small businesses with the economy and COVID, but I keep my wits about me. I don’t spend crazily.

— Danielle S. in Texas DEAR HELOISE: I have sight challenges. Let’s just say it — sometimes I’m blind as a bat! A lot of commercials have special discount codes, and the announcer will say, “Mention this code (code flashes on the screen) for your 50% discount!” Ugh — so aggravating! If I’m by myself, I can’t see the code well enough to write it down!

— Aunt Edna in Pa. EDNA, I AGREE, that can be annoying! If you call the company (keep a pen and paper by you to jot down the number), the representatives can probably assist you and apply the discount to your order.

— Heloise DEAR HELOISE: When I’m memorizing numbers, it helps me to break them into three digits: 604541 becomes 604 . . . 541. Easy!

— Kathy W. in South Carolina KATHY, THAT’S GREAT for two-factor authentication. More on that next week!

— Heloise