Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Make Your Own Easy Bake Mixes!

So my oldest daughter got an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas a few years ago. At the time, we bought several mixes to go with it and payed little attention to the portion size or cost. Well, she liked it, but it wasn't something she could do by herself back then, so after a few uses it was put in the cupboard with the leftover mixes and mostly forgotten about.

Well, she found it last night. I was busy taking care of the baby, and she begged to use it. I finally said she could, if she could do it all by herself (she's ten now). She readily agreed to those terms and I listened with half an ear to how she was doing with the whole process from the next room. She did great! In fact, she loved it so much, she declared after using all the mixes up that she wanted more for Christmas.

I've been trying to figure out what to get her anyway, so I jumped on the idea. Well, after spending a part of my morning searching for Easy Bake refills, I'm very disappointed. Are they serious? Sure these mixes have a long shelf life, only need water and are very convenient, but are they really worth $6-$15 for what amounts to only a few cookies and tiny cakes (okay, so I'm not counting the learning experience)?

Maybe I'm just cheap (the economy has certainly contributed to that) but I just can't do it! Still, I don't want my daughter's budding interest to fly out the window either. Though she does bake with me quite a bit at this time of year, she felt a real sense of accomplishment in doing it by herself and I didn't have a heart attack at the idea of her operating my kitchen equipment. LOL

So I did a search on whether or not you can make your own Easy Bake recipes and I found a website that offers a ton of them! They even rank them as to how easy or hard they are. That's awesome! So I quickly saved it in my favorites and decided I had to share that link for 250 Easy Bake Oven recipes with all of you.

So if you decide to get your little one an easy bake oven (lots of fun, and pretty inexpensive by itself), don't go broke buying up all those mixes! Let your child keep on learning and make your own mixes. It's a great way to save money!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Homeless Dilema


I just had to write an article after the experience I had leaving the store today. I thought I'd share it here with you. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue.

The Homeless Dilema

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Sam's Club's Black Friday Offer


If you've been tinkering with the idea of getting a Sam's Club membership, but couldn't quite decide, you might be tempted to do it this Friday. Their doors will open at 5 a.m. and they'll even give you free breakfast. If you decide to get the membership, or upgrade your current membship to a plus membership (which is guaranteed to save you at least $200 a year, and is 100% money back guaranteed), then they will give you a $25 gift card. Apparently they're doing this offer from November 26-28.

I don't know how crazy they get on Black Friday, but it all sounds like a good deal to me (especially since I often find some great deals on toys, games, movies and clothes there for my kids for Christmas there every year, even when it's not Black Friday).

It's definitely worth checking out :) Click here to select your local club for the details.

Great Deal on a Stand Mixer on Amazon!!!

I'm always browsing on amazon to see what the current deals are, just in case something I've had my eye on for a while gets cheaper. Sometimes I get lucky, but mostly I just kill a little time in between my many other mommy duties. Today though, was a good day!

I've been wanting a KitchenAid Stand mixer for a few years now. I bake a lot of cookies, make a lot of mashed potatoes and mix a lot of various other doughs. It would really cut my workload in half. But I just couldn't drop that kind of money. The one my hubby wanted was $500! No way! I can just get mixing elbow! Haha!

But today (and I don't know how much longer) you can get the Professional Line, 6 quart stand mixer in either caviar (fancy name for a black color) or meringue (fancy name for white) for only $249 after a $50 rebate (the form in on the product page). That's 50% off!

If any of you are in the market for this, it's a great time to jump on it. It would be a great Christmas gift too (I got mine early haha).

Monday, November 22, 2010

I'm Not Wicked, I'm Just Crazy

We all heard the fairytales growing up, and enjoyed hearing the antics of both the heroes and villains. Have you ever wondered though, what the other side of those stories would sound like?

Well, now you can find out what the wicked stepmother says really happened in Snow White. You might be surprised at how it all went down!

Check it out! :)
I'm Not Wicked, I'm Just Crazy

Don't Go Broke Buying Those Books


If you're thinking about buying books for Christmas gifts, or any other reason, be sure to check out my tips on how to get them cheaper in my newest article:

Don't Go Broke Buying Those Books

It will not only save you money, but will give you more bang for you buck!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Save Money Shopping Online


Have you ever noticed on some of those online shopping websites that when you get to the checkout there's a space for a coupon or promotional code? When you saw this, and didn't have one, didn't it make you wonder how much you could have saved if you did? I know that happened to me. But not anymore.

I've discovered the coolest website that has promocodes for just about any online retailer you can think of. It's called RetailMeNot. So now, any time you're getting ready to check out your cart and you see that little box giving you the chance for additional savings, make sure you go to that website to see if you can get that discount. It's saved me hundreds already!

Are Parents Really Just Addicts?



It seems I'm finding all kinds of reasons to write lately, and today is no exception. When I logged in to the internet this morning I saw the headline to an article I just couldn't ignore. What was it? Parents Are Junkies. Did that just capture your attention in the same way it did mine?

I read it and had such a problem with several things stated in it that I did something I've never done before, I wrote a rebuttal. So a positive came out of the experience and I got to vent with my writing.

If any of you are interested in what I had to say, you can click on the link below here. Let me know what you think of my view.
Are Parents Really Just Addicts?

Monday, November 15, 2010

Free Offer for Family Circle--Hurry!


You can get 2 free issues of Family Circle with no cost or obligation by going to the ValueMags site. All you have to do is go to this website and tell them where to send your free issues. You will never receive a bill and no credit card is required. I just ordered mine, too! Hurry! Quantities are limited!

Lost Time


I spent a part of the weekend polishing up more of my fiction. I've got another one on Hubpages for those who are interested in reading it.

I might not be making a ton of money by putting these up, but I love sharing them. They're likely to get more attention this way than sitting in my desk drawer, right? Plus, I really love going over it all again. The nostalgia is great! :)

Lost Time

If you like this, or any of my other short stories, feel free to share them. It's really easy to link to them :)

Get the Best Deal on a Used Vehicle



Some of you may remember me saying that we bought a truck this summer. We ended up paying over 50% off the dealer price for it. Though it came with some issues that cut into our overall savings, we still came out ahead.

A lot of people have asked me how we did this. I decided to write an article about it to share exactly how we did this. If you or someone you know is thinking of buying a car in the near or even distant future, don't do it until you've read this:

Get the Best Deal on a Used Vehicle

I wrote this article on Hubpages so that it's easier for the general public to find and won't be buried by other blog posts. Also, I've decided to take part in the 30 Hubs in 30 days challenge. Wish me luck!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Check Your Credit For Free! No Catch!

I've already told you about how to get your free credit report from Annualcreditreport.com. But it turns out there's another way to get not only your credit report, but also your credit score, profile and other extras for free. No, I'm not kidding.

I stumbled on this site by accident after my husband won a year of free credit monitoring from Quicken Loans. They're currently doing a sweepstakes, which I found on Freebies4Mom. Anyway, I decided to see who this company was who was doing the credit monitoring. It's called Quizzle.

They do offer other optional upgraded services for a fee (including helping you with a budget and giving you credit improvement tips), but you get quite a bit for free and you don't have to purchase anything or give them your credit card number. You don't even give them your social security number. How then, do they look up your credit report? With your name, address and birthdate.

You can find out more about the company in their FAQ section. Go check it out and stay informed!

Forgive Me, Daddy


Here's another story I put up on Hubpages today. All-in-all I think it's been a very productive day. It's felt really good to pick up my fiction again for a bit. Even just polishing it up and then writing a short history on it is a great release. I think I'm learning from this experience too.

Don't worry though, I promise not to stop doing articles;-)

Forgive Me, Daddy

Shadow Of a Man


First of all, Happy Veteran's Day! I'd like to thank all the men and woman who have and are serving our country and protecting our rights. May God be with you always!

I decided some time in the middle of the night last night that I wasn't going to let my short stories sit in a drawer, gathering dust anymore. So I decided to put them on HubPages to share them, along with a little bit of the history behind them. There's even a chance that I can make money from doing something else that I love! So if you want to read some short fiction, the link for the first one is below here. It's an appropriate read for this holiday :)

Shadow Of a Man
*The picture here is of the war veteran this story was written for*

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Another Avenue for Revenue


After much research today, I've discovered another way to make money writing. If you like to share your experiences and wouldn't mind making money doing it, check out HubPages. You can also make money by referring others. It's a pretty straight forward process to write articles and then link your adsense, amazon or other affiliate programs to your page; therefore generating revenue for your pocket.


Here's the link to my first Hubpage:
How to Modify Your Mortgage

Another great thing about this is that I get the word out on how to be successful in modifying your mortgage. Two birds, one stone (not that I'm into killing birds, now that I think about it. Whoever came up with that saying anyway? Hah!).

e-How Writers change to Demand Studios

I starting writing for e-How last year, and was quite excited about it to begin with. After writing six articles though, and realizing that the only way I would make money off of any of them was if people clicked on the ads displayed on my articles' pages, I quit writing for them. I kept my account open though, and basically forgot about them.

Then, this year, e-How stopped accepting articles through their website and switched everything over to Demand Studios. I received notice that I had been approved to write for them, but the way things worked would be quite different as far as article submission and payment.

For starters, there is now a copy-editor involved. This copy-editor can tell you to rewrite your articles and even outright reject them. That's an intimidating thought, but not a deal-breaker. The fact is, most people could use a copy-editor and I'm no exception. In fact, if I could get one for free right now, I'd have them go over everything I write, so that I don't make myself look like an illiterate idiot with some of the typos I make. Yikes!

But then there's also the way payment works. Apparently it's a flat fee (some say it's only $15 per article). That might not seem too bad for some people at first sight--especially considering I had stopped writing for e-how after only making $12 the first six months on six articles--I must tell you that I now wish I'd written more for e-How before the change-over. Why? Because those articles are still making money and I'm not having to do anything now but watch it happen. Though the amounts are still quite paltry, it's increasing over time and will eventually surpass that $15 flat fee per article. That's what you call passive income.

So, I'm unsure on whether or not I'll follow through with the Demand Studios account. I can't rule it out entirely as a possibility to make money writing. They have a great reputation for paying each friday with a transfer to your paypal account. Dependable income can't be overrated.

I'm sure I don't know all there is to know about this company, so if I discover anything new, I'll let you know.

Bad Blogger! Bad!

Okay, I know I've been neglectful, but I'm hoping you'll be forgiving and realize that it does take quite a bit of time to raise a family with five children. Gee, who'd have thought it? ;)

On a positive note, I am continuing to learn of more great ways to make money and save money. This is, of course, my mission in life. I'll never tire of that, and so I'll always have fodder, I should think, for writing helpful posts for my readers here. The only hard thing is getting the time to sit down and organize my thoughts and information so that you can get the most out of it. I also have to make sure it's not gibberish and the obvious product of a sleep-deprived brain! Haha!

So on that note, I'm still here, and I'm still willing to help those who can use my experiences to better their own lives.