I feel so lucky not to be raising children when my parents did. While some things were certainly better–less crime, for example–other things had to have been the biggest mystery. Life today can certainly be much easier! Take being pregnant, for example. When I was pregnant with my first child, I had so many questions that I wanted answered. I know that my pregnant students feel the same way. Now, they can just get on the Internet and find out what the popular baby names are, when they will get to feel the baby move and how long morning sickness is going to last.
I recently found a site that I think is a great resource for expectant parents. You can ask all of these questions and more, and get answers from a community of experts–other parents! I got pulled in right away by the question on the front page that asked, “Who gets up first in your house, you or your kids?” I remember years of being woke up by my sons! This is the first year that my youngest actually sleeps later than I do!
ParentsConnect is a really fun site, and one that is definitely worth bookmarking, regardless of what stage of parenting you are currently in.
Yesterday, my dad told me that interest rates were dropping again, and that I might want to consider refinancing my house. I would like to have a new mortage with a lower rate, but I hate to have to ask my dad to stay on top of it. Since I am not in the habit of reading much financial news, I have to find sites on the Internet that have the information gathered in one place. The link above is a helpful site, and it covers much more than simply mortgages.
Another option I have is getting to know some of the bankers here in town better. The people I know who are investing in land and getting really good rates seem to know people. It’s like any other industry, you can get the lowdown on rates from people in the know. However, until I start having lunch with those folks (not likely to happen anytime soon), I’ll rely on the handy information at my fingertips!
I recently bought some Dining Furniture, and I am loving it. I bought a round table, similar to the one pictured, and it feels so much more comfortable than sitting at the rectangular table that we had. We love it so much that we are planning on having poker night every Friday. The circular table is just friendly like that!
I love the Dining Room Furniture I’ve been checking out because it has discounted prices from what you’d normally find in a store, or even most catalogs. The way that most furniture retailers really sock it to you pricewise is by offering one piece of furniture (a table or couch, for example) at a decent price, and then charging you an absolute fortune for each chair that you add to the set.
I like a site where you can see exactly what you’re getting for the price listed. There are some beautiful sets of dining furniture on this site, and the price listed includes the chairs, which is nice!
This furniture site also offers additional pieces of dining room furniture, such as Bar Stools, at a discounted price. All of the furniture appears to be of good quality, and there is certainly a lot to choose from! All in all, I’d say it’s a good resource for buying dining room furniture.
It is so easy to get bogged down in credit card debt. With the economy as uncertain as it now is, it is time to get rid of debt, however, with rising food prices and high unemployment, many people are now adding more debt than ever to their credit cards. It can be difficult to make a budget at the same time you are trying to pay a zillion minimum payments.
What’s more is that even when people make minimum payments, they can still get in more debt. The creditors can raise the interest rates on the debt and people can end up paying overdraft fees or late payment fees. It is basically a trap that can be very difficult to get out of.
That’s where using a Debt Settlement service comes in. A company like DebtExpertUSA can negotiate with creditors to reduce the overall amount of your debt, your interest rates and can arrange things where you only have to make one payment every month, as opposed to several.
The main thing to remember is to cut up your credit cards. In these times, it is too easy to rely on them. Work to find other ways to increase your income instead, or cut back on nonessentials. You may even want to reevaluate exactly what constitutes essential. Debt settlement can be a great way to get back on track, and you’ll want to make sure that you don’t get derailed by a combination of old habits and a faltering economy.
While word of mouth works well for some businesses, most need additional advertising to keep growing, especially in these difficult economic times. One of the best returns on your advertising investment can be purchasing something as simple as Yard signs for your business. In fact, you can get fifty percent more business simply by doing this one thing in some cases! The thing that’s great about using signs for advertising is that they are very cost effective. You can put magnetic signs on your car (put them on both sides and even the back if you drive a van or truck), put signs in front of your business, in strategic spots around town….the possibilities are endless!
It’s a great time to increase your signage and increase the amount of business you have coming in while you’re at it!
Around Christmas time, I ordered my son the cutest pajamas with little turtles on them. I ordered two pairs, and they were a bit expensive. I never got them. They were delivered, however. My mail carrier remembers putting the package in my box. The problem? They were stolen right out of my box!
Of course, someone else’s kid wearing turtle pajamas wasn’t my biggest concern. My concern was, “What else did they take?” Thieves are getting savvier these days, and the mailbox is a typical place for identify theft to begin. Think about all of those credit card offers you get. Someone else could easily fill those out and send them in. All they’d have to do is piece together information from other pieces of mail that you get. And how on earth are you going to know what you don’t get?
Believe me, people want your identity! When I moved, one of the day laborers I hired stole a passport out of a dresser drawer! What a hassle THAT was to fix!
So you need to take precautions to stop people from using your papers in order to steal your identity. That means that all of your papers have to be safe. You probably already know that you should shred anything with personal information on it before putting it in the trash, but have you considered how secure your mailbox is?
In these times, everyone should have a locking mailbox. The thing is, though, you don’t want to have just any locking mailbox. You want a mailbox that cannot be broken into easily. A good bet is the Mail Boss mailbox. It is made out of welded steel and has a unique patented anti-pry lock on it. Potential thieves could hit it with a crowbar all day and still not be able to grab even a corner of an envelope!
You can find them pretty easily. My favorite hardware store carries them, and you can always go to their website and look at their store locator.
It can be really difficult to choose a web host. If you look at the different sites, you’ll see that they all have different promotions, different amounts of storage, varying numbers of email accounts and of course, widely varying prices. So how do you decide which web host is the best for you? If you check out web hosting choice, you’ll find a handy table that breaks down what is available from some of the top-rated web hosting companies. You’ll be able to see at a glance how much each one costs per month, whether or not a free domain is included, if they have a money back guarantee and much more. It’s definitely a real time saver, and a good resource to bookmark if you think you’ll be in the market for a hosting service anytime soon.
Last month, my auto insurance company raised my insurance rates for no discernable reason at all. So now I’m shopping around for new insurance. If I lived in the UK, I’d definitely be talking to the folks at AutoNetInsurance.co.uk about Van Insurance for my 1999 Dodge Caravan. I’m currently paying over $60 just for liability! It’s absolutely ridiculous.
If you check out AutoNetInsurance’s site, you’ll find that they are serious about offering discount on car insurance. For example, they offer up to 70 percent off on van insurance! It really makes me wish this company was in the US!
They are also a one stop shop for insurance. You can purchase pet insurance, travel insurance, home insurance, insurance for your bike, and much more. I know I’d rather go with one company for those needs rather than keep track of several different companies.
So how do you know you’re getting the best deal with AutoNetInsurance? What they do is check the prices of 40 of the leading insurers in the UK every single day. That way, they can stay competitive and beat those prices. In fact, they offer a money-back guarantee if they don’t have the lowest prices after all. I certainly wish my current insurance company did that! I’d certainly have some cash in hand at this very moment.
To top things off, their site is very informative, so if you have technical questions about insurance, it’s a great resource in that way as well!
If you had to get a defense attorney, who would you want defending you–someone who had always done defense, or someone who used to be a prosecutor? I would definitely choose the former prosecutor. That person will know both sides of the fence, and likely have connections that can help your case.
A law firm that employs former prosecutors is San Fernando and Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyers, a great resource if you live in the San Fernando Valley area. Check out their website to find useful facts about what to do before court, and also to find out what areas they specialize in.
Oh, and this is completely irrelevant, but a couple of those lawyers are pretty hot. I love when you can see who you’ll be dealing with in advance!
I’ve been thinking about the Ph.D. thing for a few months now. I was very close to applying for the program (Education), but changed my mind at the very last minute. My husband told me that it was way too much work considering the small amount of enthusiasm I had for getting it, and he was right.
The real question for me, though, was money. Would getting one help me increase my skills? The answer was no. Getting a Ph.D. in education does nothing to increase hard skills. It turns out that I’ve already read some of the books assigned in the program on my own! Also, I noticed that the program promoted an ideology that I don’t always agree with. And jobs for Ph.D.s, even in education, are few and far between. I even considered that I could do all of that work and end up finding myself without a teaching job at all!
If I was an engineer, though, I suspect that my answer to this question would be far different.
Actually, at this point, I am taking a second look at college education in general. It seems that we need some people with hard skills that cannot be exported at this point.
I’ve read quite a bit about green tea helping with weight loss, and apparently, it’s not all hype. It’s not going to make anyone slim instantly, but burning even 30 to 50 extra calories a day wouldn’t be a bad thing! I’ve bought a gorgeous aluminum water bottle that I can fill with green tea to sip on all day. The only negative here is that I need to work on enjoying the taste of green tea without sweetener. Too much artificial sweetener surely isn’t good for you, right?
One caveat, putting it in a clear bottle invited snide comments from my students about what I was drinking, as it has a yellowish cast to it. I think I’ll stick to my new bottle!
Yesterday was so embarrassing. My parents, brother and sister-in-law were all over for dinner, when my mother told me that she had found the perfect thing for me! It turned out to be a girdle, of all things! Why she chose to say this in front of my sister-in-law with the perfect figure I’ll never know. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight, but apparently, in my mother’s eyes, it’s not quite enough.
Well, to be honest, I agree. I’m working on reducing my waist size, which is where the excess weight wants to be at this moment in time. I have smaller legs, a smaller butt, smaller everything except for the waist. I’ve lost a few inches there, but I definitely have work to do.
I’m still feeling a bit jealous about my sister-in-law, though.
I don’t know why more people don’t do this. I know so many people who are absolutely struggling with mortgages that are way too high for them to manage. My solution to this dilemma was to find the cheapest house I could in the best neighborhood that I could afford. What I ended up with was a charmer that was built in the 1920’s but that needs to be updated quite a bit.
It works for us because we can very easily pay the mortgage, and then fix up things here and there AS we have the money, instead of it being part of a loan that we might not be able to repay. The best part? The bank doesn’t get interest on the money we are spending fixing it up.
I found my house on realtor.com, which I had been perusing for two years, showing that I do have the capacity to be patient, contrary to my husband’s assessment…
I am about ready to make my husband’s cat do a disappearing act. First the problem was with the dog and a leaky bladder. That problem has been solved. Now the problem is his cat, and its apparent dislike for doing its business outdoors, never mind in the litter box. This is a cat that pees where it darn well pleases, including right on top of my husband one morning because it was mad!
There’s a lot of things you can do to get the odor out–Borax comes to mind, as does baking soda, but I’m getting tired of the need to constantly be dealing with pet stains. This is a subject that I’d prefer not to be an expert in.
I know that a lot of teens want to make money, and make money fast. The thing I’m wondering, is where ARE all of these teens? I have zillions of leaves in my yard, visibly, that need to be raked. No teens have showed up to offer their services. I have never found a flyer on my door advertising babysitting services. No one has ever offered to wash my (frequently filthy) car.
So what is up with this? If I was a teen in my town, I’d plaster the town with flyers advertising my services and prices and then go door to door. In fact, that’s exactly what I did, starting when I was ten years old and selling greeting cards. I honestly cannot remember a time when I have not been trying to make money. The kids around here are pretty complacent!
I’ve been looking at Eurorail maps and passes lately, and I’m telling ya, if I didn’t want central heat and air so badly in my house, I’d be tempted to take that particular chunk of change and spend it on Eurorail passes for me and my son. Of course, at 10, I’m not sure how well he’d handle it, and I know I’d want to get one of the passes that was good for at least a month of travel! The idea of seeing the European countryside and getting off the beaten track a bit is really appealing. The only European countries I’ve been to are Portugal and Greece, and even then, only in Lisbon and Athens. I’ve never seen the countryside.
Maybe it would be a good goal for two years from now. Definitely something to shoot for! I just hope the dollar doesn’t fall any more against the Euro!
I don’t get depressed often, but when I do, I can link it directly to the weather. Fortunately for me, my town has mild weather, and is sunny much of the time, especially in the summer. However, this week, we’ve had five gloomy drizzly days in a row, which left me lying about in a pool of unmotivation. I know without a doubt I could never live with my older son in Portland, Oregon, or in any other place that has lots of clouds and rain.
I have lived in some wonderful places for people who have tendencies towards SAD, like me, though. Phoenix, Arizona was great, unless traffic makes you depressed. So is Albuquerque, except for the depressing crime rate. Both of those places had pretty much nonstop sun, and my motivation was really great when I lived there.
The best place I ever lived, though, was Guanajuato, Mexico–the city of eternal spring. Sunny days coupled with a low crime rate and NO traffic was just bliss.
Sage’s birthday is coming up on the 17th, and once again, I am left trying to figure out how to throw a party during Spring Break. This year, we’re going to have a family shinding with a cake and presents, and then invite his school friends over for pizza and cupcakes well after Spring Break is over with. I’ve had it with planning the kiddo’s party and then having no one show up because they were all in Cancun or wherever.
Back in the small country town where I grew up, no one really traveled much, so it really wasn’t a big deal that my birthday was in the summer. I remember zillions of kids coming to my birthday parties. It seems as though everyone wasn’t quite a busy then. I miss those days!
One way I’ve made extra bucks in the past is to rent out a room in my house. Admittedly, I did it when I was fairly desperate to pay the mortgage. As an adult, it wasn’t my first choice to make extra money, but it was literally all I had time to deal with at the moment.
The easiest way to do it is to rent it all bills paid, so there’s no bickering. When I did it, I did a terrible job of checking references, and paid for that with people moving out without notice, stealing things. Out of four roommates, I only had one that was what I would consider ideal. If I did it again, I would be much more selective, and not give in to economic desperation, because it doesn’t pay off in the long term!
