A Way to Get Freebies

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice the rising prices of groceries over the last year or so. It seems crazy to me that wages are frozen, jobs openings are down, and yet prices of food and services continue to rise. It's because of this that so many have started couponing.

There are so many sites out there that can help you find all those deals out there, so I won't go into that part of things. But I will tell you about a site you can join that will occasionally send you out coupons for free products or large value coupons to try products on the market (like salads, fruit snacks, breakfast foods and laundry products to name a few). If you haven't already, think about joining Vocal Point.

I joined up about two years ago, and haven't regretted it. I'm not as active in the forums over there as I could be, since I have my hands pretty full as it is. But I still get clued in on the freebies and other offers they have going on. They give you a place to talk about what you like and don't like about the products you're buying too. This is so the consumer can point the manufacturers in the right direction when making products.

And no, I don't get paid or rewarded for referring anyone there. I'm just here to help those like me who are always looking for ways to save. Though if they offered to pay me, I'd hardly turn them down! Haha! Anyway, I thought I'd let you know, in case any of you were interested. After all, every dollar saved means more in your pocket--no small thing in a down economy!

What Makes a Good Mom?

Somebody said something to me several months ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I think he meant it as a joke, though I didn't take it as one. I mean, I laughed, but that was because I didn't know how else to react. He really struck a nerve--not that he meant to--but it happened nonetheless.

So what was this statement that haunts me? Well, upon learning how many kids I had (five!!!!), he said that nobody with five kids is going to be a good parent. Okay, honestly, I'm biased here. Those may not have been his exact words, but that's how I heard them. I laughed him off, said something about I'm not doing too bad, in my humble opinion, and the subject was changed.

Anyway, it stayed with me. Everytime my teenager forgets about an assignment, I remember that comment and I think I should've made sure I asked him about every class instead of the idle chit chat about who he saw and what he did.

Everytime my tween shows her painfully shy side, I  remember what he said and think I should've done more to help her become more self-confident so that she knows how amazing she is.

Everytime my six year old shows her temper, I remember it and I think I should've done better in teaching her anger management.

When my preschooler cries over every little thing and acts out at her baby sister, I remember again and I think she's gotten lost in the shuffle and I need to give her more of my time and attention.

When my baby gets sick, I think that I should've done better at sanitizing the house and then maybe those germs wouldn't have reached her.

When I take the time out to write, read or watch a movie, I can't help but feel guilty because I know there's something more important I could be doing with my time. I just can't seem to do it all. The more I try, the more impossible it seems. And these are the moments that statement rears its ugly head once again.

I suppose most parents have doubts about the job they're doing--especially mothers. I mean, we're supposed to be wired to be these wonderful, nurturing, caregivers, right? We're supposed to know what everyone else needs before they do, right? Seriously though, I really have no idea how to guage what a good mother does.

I love my mother more than I can say. She made some real sacrifices to bring me into this world, when it would've been much easier for her to make another choice. She was fifteen when she got pregnant with me. Barely sixteen when she had me. I can't imagine how difficult that must've been for her. She was so sick she spent much of her time in the hospital. Her marriage to my father didn't last beyond the early months of my babyhood-- and then came the rollercoaster of different homes, fathers and a lot of other things I won't go into just now.

Suffice to say, that I had a different plan for my life. I wasn't even sure if I ever wanted to get married, let alone be a parent. I didn't even think I was capable of trusting a man. God had other plans for me though, and I met the only person in the world I could share everything with and not want to run away and hide afterward.

I sobbed when I found out I was going to have our first child. It happened on the same day I found out I got the full scholarship I'd worked so hard for. I was terrified! I didn't know how to be a mother! I wasn't one of those nurturing types that wanted to hold those tiny newborn babies. I hated babysitting. I didn't know the first thing about what to do with a kid. I only knew the extremes of what not to do.

Well, I made a decision. I decided to put college on hold and see what this new life would bring. I knew I wanted to be the one to raise my baby and be there for all of the important things--and to protect him from all of the horrible things I knew all too well were out there.

I was sure I didn't know what I was doing, but I figured that knowing the things I wasn't going to do would be a good start. I got a subscription to every parenting magazine in existance and I did what I do best--research.

Fast forward to more than fourteen years and five kids later and I love my life. Yes, I know that sounds cliche, but that's something I never thought I'd be able to say. I'd certainly never said it in the years before my family. I love my children. I can't breathe when I think of anything happening to them. I miss them when they're not here, I want to know everything about what makes them who they are.  I want to help them overcome every obstacle that comes their way. And more than anything, I don't want to be an example to them of what not to do.....

I make a lot of mistakes. My body and my mind can't always keep up with all the demands that are put on me. But despite that, I'm happy. I have a good husband and I have very good kids. Are they perfect? No. But they're mine-the good and the bad.

I need to stop measuring myself by those perfect TV moms...or even those moms in my neighborhood who seem to have it all together. Maybe I'm not the perfect mother, but I love my kids more than life. I'd give anything for them. Just maybe that's enough. I hope it is..............

Deciding on My Focus Here

It's been hard to decide exactly what I want this site to be about. When I first started it, I wanted to help people avoid some of the financial pitfalls that we've learned about the hard way. I also wanted to help people become more thrifty and save money. It seems though, that there are plenty of sites out there that can tell you about all of the good deals a lot better than I can (mainly because they're a lot more dedicated to the task of looking for all these deals). I have no idea how I could find that kind of time with five kids to raise--at least not if I wanted to have time to enjoy my family!

I've thought long and hard about what I wanted to do here. Do I want to earn money? Sure I do! Who doesn't? Do I want to help others avoid some of the mistakes I've made? You betcha! Do I want to share some helpful tip I've learned to get through hard times? I'd love to!

But I also don't want writing to feel like a chore. It's always been a sort of release for me. It's something I love to do. I think that burying myself in coupon, saving and freebie deals (and other such things) and then focusing my writing on mainly that would suck out any excitement I get when I sit down to blog. Does that sound terrible? I'm sorry if it does, but that's how I feel.

I want to enjoy the time I spend here. I figure that if I'm enjoying writing what I do here, then it's more likely that people will enjoy reading what I've written (at least I hope that's the case). I like talking about my family. I like talking about what we're doing in our lives to survive in this tough economy. But I don't really like talking about each and every coupon, freebie or other such deal. Haha! Go figure!

So I think I'll leave most of the couponing know-how to the professionals like The Thrifty Couple, Freebies4Mom, Freebies2Deals, CouponMom and the many others out there who are so much better at it than I am. Though if I find out about something that's too good to keep to myself, I'll be sure to share it. But that isn't going to be my main focus here. My focus here is about family life, trials, successes and failures. They say to write about what you know best and my family and our lives together are what I know best.

I hope that works for my readers (few they may be right now), because that's what I do best. So there is my new focus! God Bless :)

My eHow Divorce...

As some of you know, I started writing for eHow a few years ago. At first it didn't pay anything, since it all has to do with ad-generated revenue, and you have to have traffic to make anything off of that. Anyway, eventually I started making a little money off of the articles there, and even mentioned that I wished I'd written more before the changeover to Demand Studio's new program of only on-staff writers and flat pay rates for articles.

The way they first handled the changeover was that you were still paid off of ad revenue for your initial articles, but had to become a staff writer and accept the new payment terms to have any other articles published on the site. I believe that they made this change to improve the quality of articles published on their site.

They did initially accept me as a staff writer, but I hesitated to accept these new terms and so I never did become a part of their staff. I still received payments for my original six articles though, until early this year when they discontinued even that part of their terms. They offered me a dismal amount of money for the rights to my articles (it wasn't even an amount I'd have accepted for one article, let alone six) and said if I didn't accept the purchase terms, then I would retain the rights, but my articles would be removed from their site. Well, I refused the terms and kept the rights. So, I'm no longer an eHow contributor. Ah, well, life goes on.

I'll be moving those articles I wrote over to HubPages soon. My earnings there have started to increase over the last month or so, and so I have the motivation to get back to work! Now that the kids are back in school, I'm hoping to have more time to write. We shall see.

I'm loving these chicken eggs!

I've been meaning to update you all on how our adventures in chicken raising are going. We did get the coop and yard all finished and it looks great. I would say it's more of a chicken palace than a coop. Tony has really done a fantastic job.

Also, I'm so happy to tell you that it's going great! I love my hens. All 14 have grown up healthy and are laying eggs for us regularly. We average about a dozen a day now, and have even had 14 twice this week so far (a first!). They're about six months old now and so funny to watch.

We let them out of their yard daily for a while so they can scavenge around for bugs and what not (this adds to the nutritional value of their eggs and also lessens the amount of feed they go through (we still keep their feeders full though, just in case). We bring them out scraps now and then, and so whenever they see us step outside, they assume we've got a treat for them and all come running. It's funny how important you feel when you see 14 hens excitedly running towards you with their wings partially extended whenever you step out on the porch. Yes, we really do love all our girls.

We have a few hens that will lay double yolk eggs a few days a week. And can I tell you how good these eggs are? There's nothing like fresh eggs from healthy and happy hens! They are yummy! We're producing more than we thought we would, so we've been selling the extra eggs to friends and neighbors (making it so that it's virtually free to maintain these chickens! Yay!)

So I guess you can tell that we have no regrets. This is one learning adventure that's been a pleasure to go on thus far :)

Freebie Deals on Amazon!

Amazon is giving away a free $5 credit for on-demand movies for those with Twitter accounts who will tweet about it. If you want to Tweet for $5, they make it easy by providing the link and the tweet for you with just the click of a button. Thank you, Pinching Your Pennies, for the heads up on this one. But you better hurry. This deal is only good until tomorrow, July 19.

Also, you can get a free $25 credit to My Habit, which is a branch of Amazon that specializes in men, women's and children's clothing, shoes and accessories. Their deals change daily, so if you don't see what you want today, check back again. With this credit, you can get some things for free. You have to be quick though, since these deals go fast. They refresh at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time. The promo code is SUMMER25, and is only good until August 1. Thank you, The Thrifty Couple, for sharing this one.

So go save yourself some money!

Bye, Bye Dish!

I finally did it. I made the jump. For some, this may not be such a big deal, but for us, this is major. In all of our married life we've had either cable (for the first four years) or satellite (for the last 11 years). Now we have neither. It's not like we're couch potatoes or anything (at least not all day, haha). But we do like to sit down, relax and watch something just about everyday in the evenings.

With times being tight, we'd talked about getting rid of our service quite a bit. But Dish Network has been so good about giving us discounts everytime I'd call to talk about turning off our service, that we've always changed our minds. Well, this time we didn't!

I came close to wavering when talking to customer service, I'll admit it, but in the end I held firm. We can always get service again later if we so choose. But right now, I feel like we need to give life without TV a try. Not just for the money savings, but to see how much more productive we can be as a family.

Anyway, we haven't made the jump to Netflix yet. I don't know for sure if we will, but we're playing with the idea. I don't think we will for  a while though. Let's just give this TV turnoff a chance first. :)

Have any of you tried this? Are you thinking about it? Share your thoughts here!

Get a Free Coupon for Fresh Express Salad!

I've been a member of Vocal Point for a while now, and as a result I've enjoyed free samples and coupons occasionally. Today I got an email from them about another great offer, a coupon for a free salad kit! Get yours now!

Goodbye, World?

It seems the world is abuzz with news of Judgement day, the Apocolypse and even....zombies? It's been on TV, all over the internet and even the kids came home from school talking about it today. When is this all supposed to happen? Tomorrow! Don't ask me what time though, as I haven't a clue.

I don't know about anyone else, but I plan to just go about my day as usual tomorrow: weeding my flower beds, getting our garden in if the weather allows (assuming there's no earthquake knocking us off our feet and lifting those little plants and seeds out of the ground as soon as we plant them), and taking my 6 year old to her last soccer game this season. Doesn't that just all sound so exciting?

Should zombies start roaming the streets though, it seems the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has us covered here in the good ol' United States. They've been coming up with a Zombie Preparedness Plan to keep us safe. No, I'm not kidding. I came across a news story link from The Wall Street Journal floating around on Facebook and it clued me in about this plan. I was all for checking it out. You should too!

Okay, okay, so you've probably figured out by now that I don't believe the world is coming to an end tomorrow, and so it seems that opinion is shared by those agencies whose links I just shared (gotta love their sense of humor!).

But still, this whole thing has got me thinking. What would I do if the the world was ending? Would I do anything differently? Do I even want to know when our/my time is up? I guess the short answer is: I would want all my loved ones to know how much I love them (I hope they know that already, but I could always do better, I'm sure). I would want to keep living in a way that wouldn't make me too nervous to meet our maker (there's always room for improvement there too). And as for knowing when the clock stops--no, I wouldn't want to know when that day is (I'm sure I'd obsess and fixate and that just wouldn't be fun for anyone!).

Anyway, I guess my point is, none of us really know when our time is up--apocolypse or no. We all have a number that's waiting to be called. So we don't need to quit our jobs (unless we can afford to) or start freaking out about some magic number on the calendar (even the Mayan one). We should just go on with our lives, live them the best we can in a way we can feel proud of so that we don't have to worry about feeling ashamed when that final day should come. Oh yeah, and we should make sure to thank God for each day we're given. :)

God bless you all and may you have a fantastic weekend! And make sure you're always prepared for an emergency, as you never know when one will come up! ;-)

A Note for the Toothfairy

So my six year old, Ashlyn, lost a tooth last night. The Toothfairy was not prepared for this, as she had no idea that the tooth was so wiggly. But alas, an hour before bed that tooth popped out. Ashlyn was so excited, she scrambled for a sandwich bag to put it in under her pillow and then went to bed with no fuss at all.

So the Toothfairy scrambled in her purse for something to exchange for that tooth. Finally, she found seven quarters and happily put it them in a sandwich bag to make the switchout go more smoothly (a lesson learned after getting caught in her earlier years of making the exchange using the same sandwich bag).

She put her hand under the dreaming little girl's pillow, and carefully felt for the bag with the tooth. She found it! She pulled it out slowly, trying not to wake the sleeping child, and then just as carefully slipped in the bag of quarters. She cringed as the quarters jingled together, but Ashlyn slept on. The Toothfairy gave a sigh of relief as she tiptoed out of the room after a job well done.

She noticed something odd about the bag she now held in her hand. Something was in the bag with the tooth. She couldn't make out what it was in the dark so she tiptoed into the bathroom, closed the door and turned on the light. It was a note. How sweet! Ashlyn had written her a note!

She took it out of the bag and started reading the kindergartener's thoughtful words. She'd expected something along the lines of "Thank you for giving me money" or "Are you real?" or maybe even "I love you" but that was not what the mischievious little girl had in mind. Nope....instead what was scrawled out on that small piece of paper was "Dear toothfary, ples giv me 10 dolerz." And under that short little note was a smiley face.

The toothfairy had to clap a hand over her mouth so as not to wake the sleeping household with her laughter. She hadn't seen that one coming! Well, Ashlyn, you might not have gotten the ten dollars you wanted, you dear sweet girl, but you will get an extra hug, kiss and chuckle in the morning.

You've got to hand it to her though, it was worth a try!