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The hunt is on this week for microwaves.

IF your weekday mornings seem to zip by and the after-work evening traffic frazzles your nerves, the last thing you would want to do is stand over a hot stove making elaborate meals from scratch for your family.

With some advance planning, you can prepare nutritious meals (recipes courtesy of Thursday Food) once per week and freeze them for use during the workweek. And with the back-to-school rush on, both breakfast and dinner can be pre-made for the older children to help themselves by simply reheating. Of course, some people prefer to heat up their meals over the stove, but when time is against you, the microwave can't be beaten for meal preparation and as such has become de rigueur in many Jamaican kitchens.

History of microwave
These days when we go shopping for microwaves, we tend to look at things like the size, the cost and the features. But less than 50 years ago, the microwave, then called the "Radarange", was a six-foot tall, 750-pound unit that fetched prices of up to US$5,000 each. The Radarange, introduced in 1947, required its own plumbing set-up. The device, however, never became popular among consumers according to www.gallawa.com.

Of course, engineers and marketers got their act together and by 1957, mircowaves became countertop-sized appliances, making them more suitable for residential use.
The cost in 1957 was US$500 at a time when the pound sterling was Jamaica's official currency. Even as microwaves became more popular, the myths surrounding them also grew. By the '70s, however, the fears about radiation, poisoning, blindness, sterility, and impotency subsided and by 1975, sales of microwave ovens exceeded that of gas ranges and 52 million US households owned one.

Microwaves today
While there are no official figures for microwave ownership in Jamaica, it is safe to say that this appliance has found a high level of acceptance in the home. And so, this week Thursday Food went shopping for microwaves at Khemlani Mart's newly opened Tropical Plaza store.

Speed up your retirement plan
As we speak about speeding up your cooking, why not speed up your retirement plan? Beyond simple savings, an investment plan in hard currency such as US dollars can help you reach a comfortable retirement (however you define that). One good alternative is US dollar mutual funds. The mutual fund managers take investor's money and purchase US dollar stocks, bonds and money market assets. Right now, brokers such as Dehring Bunting & Golding, Scotia Jamaica Investments, RBTT Securities and NCB Capital Markets offer these types of mutual funds with minimum investment ranging from US$200 (J$13,100) to US$500 (J$32,750).

Once you jump that hurdle, additional investments are only US$50 (J$3,275) per month.

So, consider this: With an initial investment of US$500 and monthly investment of US$50 at eight per cent, your money would grow in the following manner:

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