Anthropologie has some lovely navy pieces this fall. If you have been thinking about converting your go-to dark color in your wardrobe to navy, this might be your time to invest. Today only up until 3am EST (3/16), Anthropologie is offering 20% off clothes and accessories. Usually Anthropologie is not this generous this early in the season. I found out about this offer by subscribing to email from Anthropologie.

My picks include…

The casual reversible dot shirt. This top is reversible. The other side features a stripe print with the same blue on blue combination. I am particularly attracted to the shirttail hem on the back. It offers more coverage so if you are wearing yoga pants and would like more modesty, this will do the trick. Also as a reversible top, as such it will have greater longevity in your wardrobe. You will not become tired of this piece because essentially, it is two shirts in one. Moreover, if you have a stain on one side, no need to ditch the shirt, just reverse it and you have a perfectly fine shirt. The only drawback is that it is a bit pricey for casual wear. However since it is two shirts in one, the $88 price tag is really $44 per shirt. With 20% off it $35.20, which is not exorbitant.

Timeless work staple. At first glance it seems a bit dowdy but it is really a bit of a goldmine. Think long term on this top. Say you are pregnant and in your first trimester, your clothes are getting tight, but you are not large enough for maternity clothes. The cut in the tummy area will get you into month four without stretching out the shirt. Same thing after pregnancy…not slim enough for your regular clothes, no need to buy a new wardrobe on account of those 10 extra pounds you need to shed. This will be your “go to” blouse. It will also lift your spirits that you are back to your normal clothes. The top is featured with jeans, but if you substitute the jeans with a dressy grey or khaki colored bottom, you are all set for work. It is $62.40 with the discount–but do not fail to see the big picture. You can wear it to work, on the weekends, during early pregnancy and after pregnancy.

Perfection. Eleven people gave this top five stars. I can give it five just by looking at it. It is perfection. It is beautiful cut. It offers a feminine shape without being clingy. The v-shaped scallop neckline and slanted sleeves give the shirt points of interest. You do not have to be a size 2 to look amazing in this blouse. The cut alone means that any woman will look good in this blouse. The smocking embroidery on the front of the blouse doubles as a non-cling feature which means that if you do not have a smooth silhouette…say your unmentionables tend to be visible under clothing on account of design, not color, this shirt will hide it all. It is $70.40 with the discount and it comes in petites and for those petite ladies you know how hard it is to find petites in navy.

My favorite. I love this sweater. I am more of a sweater person than a blouse person because I live in a colder climate. It is just a more pragmatic way for me to shop. As much as I adore the blouse I call “perfection”, with my lifestyle, I will get far more use out of this mantilla sweater. I have some brown suede UGG clogs and I can envision running errands wearing this sweater with jeans and the clogs. At $98 without the discount, I am not purchasing this sweater, but if it ever makes its way to the sale section for $49.99 and then there is another discount for Anthro members–it’s mine!

Comfort loungers. Comfort wear is normally a no win battle. The pieces in your closet that are truly comfortable are probably not very attractive — admit it!  I would change clothes to go the the emergency room if a crisis developed, my comfort items are just that unattractive and OLD! Who updates their comfort clothes every year or two? I surely do not. I hate to admit this but these loungers might be the most pragmatic choice for me. If I owned these loungers my comfort wear would be attractive and I could easily pair these pants with all of my tissue turtlenecks. I would not purchase them at $68 even with an additional 20% off. It is just too much for casual wear.

Smart accessory. I usually do not think about purchasing accessories. I focus on actual clothing items about 98% of the time. Once I saw the loungers, I was sold on the headbands. I have long hair and it goes up in a ponytail far more times than I would like to admit. It is just convenient. If I had these headbands I would be able to keep my hair down longer and out of my face. Since the headbands all fall in the same navy color family they will be less noticeable in your hair. The will feel more like an extension of the clothing than a “pop” on an outfit. They are $14.40 with the discount.

The ruffle coat. I have mixed feelings on the coat. Since it is navy, it is automatically a pragmatic choice. Yet, I am a bit thrown by the ruffle. It is very feminine, do not get me wrong. I do not see it looking “professional” or “elegant”. It strikes me more as “whimsical” or “casual” which means that the jacket has limited uses. If the jacket is not pragmatic then I do not want it. It is $168 without the discount. It will not work for me, but if you have been looking high and low for any sort of navy trench. I hope I have solved your dilemma.

 Have you purchased anything navy lately?

CIRCA is the crown jewel of the secondhand jewelry market. The gist of this market is shopper buys or receives a piece of fine jewelry as a gift. Eventually the owner no longer wants the piece of jewelry and wants to unload it and receive more compensation than merely selling it for the weight of the gold or the grade of the diamonds.

This is where CIRCA comes in. CIRCA appraises fine jewelry. They consider every element of the piece such as…is it signed, where it was made, and is it a prestigious designer like Cartier for instance. CIRCA then makes the client an offer and in turn, CIRCA sells pieces to international collectors. CIRCA also sells to Bluefly.

Here is a sample of the current inventory at Bluefly. I will start with my favorite first…This is a piece from Cartier. It is elegant and timeless. It makes a great substitute for the engagement ring/wedding band combination or a lovely “right hand ring” choice.  You can also view this piece at full price online at Cartier. The price savings of over $4,000 to bring the total cost for the ring under $10,000 might be a selling point for someone who has a specific price point in mind for a wedding band. As I write this post Ebates is offering 8% cash back on Bluefly purchases. That is $773 off this ring. Plus,$30 off your first $150 order plus free shipping at Bluefly.com so that will increase the additional savings to over $800. This means that total price point for this item will now be under $9,000.

My second choice is a simple wedding band from Tiffany & Co. The endless diamonds make this a complimentary addition to any wedding band. Moreover, I would presume that if you wore this for a couple of years and became tired of it, you could sell it back to CIRCA to recoup part of your cost since these pieces never go out of style. With the Ebates discount the savings total is 35% off the retail price. This piece is can be purchased online at Tiffany & Co.

Some of you may not have heard of Bulgari name in conjunction with jewelry but as a fragrance. The history of the Bulgari fragrance collection began in 1992 when the jeweler offered the fragrance as a gift with a jewelry purchase. Since few pieces of jewelry are less than $1,000 it was only available to few individuals who were able to afford this price point. It gained notoriety and Bulgari decided to take it mainstream making it available to the general public. Bulgari has expanded the fragrance line to include Eau Parfumee White Tea. (You can purchase it at Sephora.) I have worn this scent at least once a week for the past several years. I adore it. The Bulgari company has been around for over 100 years. I am not surprised that Bluefly is selling a piece with a simple and classic design. This piece is available for sale on the Bulgari website.

 Would you rather purchase one of the items above for the prices listed or put the money towards a new piece of jewelry?

I lived about fifty feet from the bank. I hoped by walking in and talking to the manager, I could get the fine waived or at least part of the fine waived. Seven years later, I do not recall if the manager waived the fines at first. My conversation lasted awhile and it was stressful. So, even if the manager did waive the fine, it did leave a sour taste in my mouth.

When I decided to have a separate account for blog expenses and income, I opted for Ally. I knew I would have better rates at Ally since the bank has no store front. They have an immediate cost savings not having physical locations. Nearly all of my transactions are electronic so I did not need a place to drop off checks or have something notarized. (Did you know that you can have documents notarized at a bank for free?)

It was easy to set up. I do not have any checks, just a debit card and I transfer money via PayPal. It is a very simple set up. Fool proof right? Not exactly. I made an error. I keep very little money in the account. I do pay my web hosting fees to Page.ly each month from that account. I have never been hacked. Moreover, when I had trouble with my template and host, Page.ly came through and helped me solve my problem. I pay a little more, but peace of mind is priceless in my opinion.

Last month I made a purchase and forgot that I was billed each month for web hosting. I have been delaying posting on my blog. (My kiddos have had some health issues and I always put family before blogging.) It was at least three weeks before I noticed that I had a negative balance in my Ally account. I immediately made a transfer from PayPal.

It took a couple of days for the PayPal transfer to post. I expected a fine to be the next line item. Perhaps $20 or $30 dollars? Yet, there was no fine listed. A couple days later I was having difficulty with another transaction. A company had called to tell me that my card was declined. However, the total cost of my purchase was less than $98.68. It was at that moment that I figured that a fine was pending and that was causing my card to be declined.

I called Ally and my representative informed me that I was not going to have a fine…the amount was so small. She figured out the reason that my card had been declined and fixed the situation. Thus, the purchase went through. I thought perhaps on account of the negative balance I would lose some of my other benefits like interest checking, etc. My interest for July was something mibiscule like .03, but I was not penalized with my interest free checking. Then I thought that I might lose out on my Ally perks…

Ally perks are something that I happened upon by chance. Every retailer has some sort of “deal” attached. You know buy groceries and get 2% cash back or click through the bank site for cash back, etc. Come to think of it…I do not think our primary Chase debit card has any deals attached to it.

I noticed that my Ally account had a new $5 credit. I had made $5 for doing something. After some research I learned that the $5 came from a Sephora transaction. There was a Sephora promotion going on–$5 back on a $50 purchase. Unbeknownst to me, I earned this credit when I made a purchase from Sephora on July 17th. The offer was valid from July 16th to July 29th. I really lucked out on this deal since I did not know it existed. I also lucked out on some iTunes credits too.  I purchased some apps for the kids and received .50 back—on top of my Ebates cash back of around 3%.

Initially thought that my .50 Ally perk was something related to my interest bearing checking account. I did not realize that I was getting extra perks for using my Ally card. It was not until I saw the line item on my account for the $5 that I realized there must be some offer or reward that I received. So there it is…my $5 credit!

There might be other online banks that have better offers and rewards than Ally. However, I am really happy with Ally and cannot justify investing the time to review other banks.

Do you have a favorite online bank?

*I received NO compensation for blogging about Ally.  I just like sharing good deals.

So many toys to choose from…so many toys for mom to clean up!

Instead of dwelling on the inevitable time crunches of summer, I decided to find a better way of coping with kid issues…my solution was kid-swapping. I asked a friend of mine who has children of similar ages if she wanted to “swap kids”. I would watch her kids while she either did work around her house or ran errands and in turn, she would watch my kids while I was able to work around my house “kid free”.

I was not sure how it would work out when we discussed this arrangement. I wondered if our kids would play well. I considered that my friend and I might parent differently and that could cause some strain in our friendship. I wondered if it would be really productive or if executing this endeavor would take more time than the benefit I would receive from not having to watch my kids. I also wondered if my kids would behave and if they did not, would my friend would want to stick it out?

The benefits I reaped from this experience were far more than I anticipated.

When my friend and I got together, we usually wound up gabbing a bit…okay, it was more than a bit sometimes. It did cut into my productivity, but…I realized how much I enjoyed her company and it made the summer even sweeter to have girlfriend to talk to. Our friendship has really blossomed and it would not have happened without all of these “swapping” experiences.

I realized that I could get still some work done even with five kids in the house. The infant slept much of the time and the remaining four kids played so well together that I rarely had to intervene. The kids looked so forward to their play dates and to help encourage good behavior, I threatened to cancel play dates if the kids were naughty. I did spent a wee bit more time preparing lunch and snacks on “swap days” but I still got work done on top of that which was a pleasant surprise to me. I enjoyed playing will all the kids too.

And yes…I did get work done. I did blog once. I mainly made telephone calls and handled other miscellaneous tasks that would be challenging to do surrounded by my loquacious kids. It seems I cannot do anything longer than 4 minutes without some sort of dialogue from one of them. My biggest endeavor was organizing the toys. I left my kids at my friend’s house and headed home to a completely empty house. This has never happened before.

I took three extremely large bins of toys and divvied up the contents into 9 smaller bins. Five of the bins had specific contents while the remaining bins had nonspecific toys. Two of the bins were devoted to items with wheels and wing…basically cars and airplanes. Boys collect small cars like women collect shoes. They have tons of them. Even though we have about 50 small cars there is a decent amount of contention as to who has what car. By ensuring that the cars are all in 2 bins, there are no longer “missing” cars because the cars are at the bottom of one of the large bin of toys. Moreover, the large bin is no longer dumped over to attempt to locate “missing” cars.

The boys are playing more frequently with their trains and train tracks in addition to their blocks all because they do not have to “hunt” for all of the components. Clean up has never been easier. Each child is only allowed to play with one bin at a time. Therefore when it is time to pick up toys, it is very clear to each child the toys that he is responsible for cleaning up.

So my attempt to generate some more time during my day to keep up with the laundry has produced greater rewards–a deepened friendship, more completed housework, happier kids and a quicker evening toy cleaning up ritual. I am really grateful for all these accomplishments and “free childcare” became the highlight of my summer.

What was the highlight of your summer?

Fast forward thirteen years. Thirteen more years of problem skin. Thirteen years until I discovered Proactiv. Specifically thirteen years until I discovered the glycolic toner in Proactiv. I have been consistently pleased with the results from this glycolic toner. My skin has never looked better and I have contemplated if my skin could actually look better even if I opted for a pricey laser treatment.

I started researching current laser treatment options online. I found that some chemical peels had comparable results to laser treatments. This led me to researching chemical peels. I found that chemical peels tend to be cheaper and more easily accessible than laser treatments. Many spas offer chemical peels but do not offer laser treatments. I started to peruse through the skin treatment section on Sephora to see if any of the products caught my attention.

I decided to do a bit of research into the at home peel area for skin treatments. I have used Philosophy products in the past and decided to start reading reviews. The Microdelivery Peel received five stars from almost 1,500 women. With a rating like that from that many women, I definitely wanted to investigate the product.

A couple of reviews struck me. All of these reviews are from the Sephora.com website. The first was titled “Miraculous Results – 2.11.12″. The reviewer (who is somewhere around 50 years old) said that this peel was comparable to a peel gotten at a spa. Another reviewer at Sephora titled her post “Worth every penny – 11.25.11″. In her review she said sayonara to expensive spa facials. A third reviewer claimed “Professional Results – 6.27.11″. She had professional peels done by a doctor and in her opinion, this product was just as good. There are naysayers in the reviews…you can’t please everyone. However, the glowing positive reviews far outweighed the negative reviews.

According to the reviews you can get 12 uses of the 2 oz size if you use the product sparingly. However the product is listed at $68 a kit. The majority of the reviewers use this product regularly. Most of the reviewers use it once a week. A few use it every day and some use it several times a week.  For $68, I was not tempted to purchase it.

Yet, I wondered if I went to Ebates if I could obtain this product cheaper by getting cash back or if there was some promo code out there in cyber space just waiting for me to reduce the cost and tempt me. I did some searching and when I was able to reduce the price to $47.15 instead of $68, I decided to order it. The reduced price was a combination of a 20% off promo code from Beauty.com and 13% cash back from Ebates.

When the peel arrived, I followed the directions. I elected to massage crystals in alone and to continue to massage the crystals when I applied the activator. It was a very quick process. It took about 5 minutes in all. Then the moment of truth arrived when I washed off the mixture with a wash cloth. I was impressed. My skin looked better than it normally did with just using the glycolic acid toner from Proactiv. My skin looked so good that if I had this peel done at a salon I would have priced it at $75. I am not stating that this peel cost $75…or that I am willing to pay $75…just that the service would have been worth $75 in my opinion. My skin was radiant.

I wondered if the peel was a one shot wonder. If I used it again, would my skin really look that good again. Yep. A week later I used the peel and was equally impressed with the results. My skin glowed and was so, so, so soft. The next day when I went to apply blush, I still noticed the glow from the night before.

I am no longer considering any sort of profession chemical peels for the future. The Microdelivery Peel has satisfied my curiosity and enhanced my skin the way I would expect from an expensive in office or salon chemical peel. If I consider any sort of profession skin treatment in the future, it will be from a laser.

What is the most that you have paid for skin care? Did you obtain the results you desired?

My next call was to the local Coach store. I read the number code inside my bag and the sales associate said that she had the identical bag and would put it aside for me. When I arrived at the Coach store I showed her the clear plastic tubing that was poking out from the handle. The manager agreed that the bag was defective. I simply removed the contents of my old bag and inserted them into my new bag and within five or so minutes, I had left the store. I could not have been more pleased with this process.

My next debacle occurred with a crib sheet from Pottery Barn Kids. I had purchased the crib sheet back in December of 2011 yet it sat in a closet since I did not need it right way. It was the same organic white sheet with blue stars pattern that matches the bedding for my other sons. I decided that by having matching bedding for all four kids, it would not matter if the kids switched rooms at some point since all the bedding would match. I did have one set of sheets “run” from the ink on the the blue stars sheeting set. Some of it got onto a Mr. Super Frugalette shirt and left a faint blue star. When I called Pottery Barn Kids regarding the situation, they promptly replaced my sheets.

However, there was a bit of a hitch to the crib sheet. The blue ink ran, but not from natural causes. Frugalette #3 in the queue had an “accident” which cause the crib sheet to get wet. The dye ran in the location of the accident. I sprayed the sheet with stain remover, but alas, stain remover does not remove dye. I called Pottery Barn Kids, explained my son’s incontinence issues (or shall we say “diaper malfunction”…then again, this is a crib sheet so this “accident” is not really unexpected) and inquired about possible solutions. After I performed the requested laundering steps from the customer service associate which yielded zero improvement, I called back and Pottery Barn Kids informed me that I would be receiving a replacement sheet. Problem solved.

Plastic Jungle came to my rescue last week. I recently purchased 3 Gap gift cards with a $50 face value at a discount rate of 18% which is a smashing deal. I purchased some kids clothes. I only needed 2 out of the 3 cards to complete the transaction. So, when I received confirmation that my order had been shipped, I threw out one of the gift cards that had been used up…except…I threw out the wrong card. Yes, I confused the card with $37 on it with the card that had $0 on it. I was so angry with myself. I wondered why I just did not “keep it around” until the order arrived.  I initially called the Gap and inquired if they would be able to provide me with the 16 digit code and pin number if I provided them with the last four digits on the used card. No such luck. Plastic Jungle was my last hope to retrieve the remaining balance on the card and I only needed the numbers since I shop online 99% of the time.

I sent an inquiry to the Plastic Jungle and within 24 hours I received an email inquiring about a time when a team member could contact me by telephone. I replied with my telephone number and a three hour window when I could be contacted. I was contacted during that window and the team member provided me with the 16 digit code and pin number. On a side note, I was so glad that I purchased $150 worth of gift cards because I made one purchase around $50 and a couple of days later the items I purchased were further reduced so I “re-bought” the entire order with the intention of returning the first order. Since I was able to reduce the cost of my initial items, I was able to sneak in another shirt for #4 Frugalette. Hence the total cost, including the addition of the shirt below was nearly identical to my initial order.

 Have you had any surprisingly positive customer service experiences?

I started visiting Online-Sweepstakes everyday. For the year 2010, I won around $2,500 worth of prizes. I was not incredibly lucky. I was determined and resourceful and the fruits of my labor paid off. Online-Sweepstakes is the “mega site” for sweepstakes. When I stopped by the site today it has 6,373 current sweepstakes available online. Those are pretty impressive numbers. Not all of these sweepstakes are for $10,000 or a new car but a prize is a prize. OLS offers a free membership as well as a premium membership which is around $30 a year. The premium membership offers you access to more impressive prizes. For example, say Jeep is hosting an online giveaway for a new car, that sweepstakes will probably be listed in the “premium section”. A blog hosting a giveaway for the game Monopoly will be listed in the free section.

Successful sweepers implement 5 strategies to increase their chances of winning.

Conversion or Substitution

Successful sweepers look at prizes differently. They do not look at just the prize itself…but what the prize could be. For example, a successful sweeper might enter a contest to win a $50 gift card to Cold Stone Creamery. The sweeper is not really interested copious amounts of ice cream but knows that if she wins the gift card she can sell the gift card to Plastic Jungle for 73.5% of the face value. For the sweeper, the real prize is $36.75. Since the $50 gift card to Cold Stone Creamery will not generate the same interest as $50, the sweeper has an advantage since fewer people will enter this giveaway on account of the prize. A sweeper may enter a giveaway for an iPod touch with the intention of selling it to Gazelle in order to convert it to cash.

Quantity

Successful sweepers enter tons and tons of contests. I had entered over 6,000 contests when I “retired” from sweeping. I won about 1% of the contests I entered. I never won thousands of dollars, but collectively, I won about $2,500 worth of prizes including an iPod touch and iPad. Some of my prizes included hooded bath towels for my kids and steel water bottles. Not super exciting, but it saved me around $50 since I would have purchased these items anyway.

One of my prizes was a shark towel from The Company Store

Consistency

Successful sweepers enter sweepstakes every day. Many sweepstakes allow one entry per day. If the sweepstakes is “open” for 60 days, there are people who will enter every day. In order to facilitate entering sweepstakes every day, sweepers often use software programs that can quickly enter the necessary information for entry thus bypassing manually typing in a name, address, phone number, etc.

Searching

Successful sweepers enter the sweepstakes listed on big sites such as Online-Sweepstakes and scour the internet for sweepstakes not listed on these sites. They realize that finding sweepstakes that are not listed on big name sites will have fewer entries and on account of this, they have better odds at winning a given prize. For example if you type in the phrase “win a $25 Amazon gift card” on a search engine site, tons of giveaways will appear.

Many sweepstakes are advertised on Twitter or are exclusively for twitter. Many successful sweepers use twitter just for entering sweepstakes. Many of the winners on Super Frugalette have won on account of their tweets.

Time of the year

December is the best month for entering sweepstakes.  In the spirit of Christmas and as a marketing tool, many blogs like to host giveaways in December. Some blogs are unfamiliar with advertising their giveaway and may not think to promote the giveaway on giveaway sites. Thus, these blogs often have low numbers of entrants. Moreover, on account of holiday commitments and shopping, many people have less time to spend on entering sweepstakes. The result of this combination is more prizes and less competition. In 2010, my best sweeping month was December. I won $1000 in prizes out of a total of $2500 in prizes over twelve months.

Sweeping may not sound very appealing. However, if you enter sweepstakes daily, you will win some of them. If you are only concerned about winning a big prize, I would suggest that you do not get involved with sweeping–you will only be disappointed. However, if finances are tight and the prospect of winning say $150 in Amazon gift cards over the course of six months to ensure that there are Christmas presents under your tree, then sweeping may be worth your time.

NB: If you win a large prize you will be required to pay tax. Prizes valued over $600 are taxable. Therefore, if you win a vacation package worth $5,000 and if you are in the 15% tax bracket, you will have to pay $750 in taxes on account of your prize.

Do you enter sweepstakes and contests? What have you won?

]]> http://superfrugalette.com/2012/07/how-to-win-at-online-giveaways/feed/ 1 http://superfrugalette.com/2012/07/back-from-maternity-leave/ http://superfrugalette.com/2012/07/back-from-maternity-leave/#comments Mon, 09 Jul 2012 04:37:50 +0000 Super Frugalette http://superfrugalette.com/?p=5234 For any of you who did not know, I gave birth to my fourth child at the end of March and went on “maternity” leave from my blog. It has taken me a little less than four months to get back on track. I thought I would come back “sooner” yet, it was recurring illness [...]]]> For any of you who did not know, I gave birth to my fourth child at the end of March and went on “maternity” leave from my blog. It has taken me a little less than four months to get back on track. I thought I would come back “sooner” yet, it was recurring illness that kept me away. My other children had strep throat twice (six courses of antibiotics in all) and I battled a virus for nearly four weeks. I am grateful that everyone is feeling well. The baby sleeps for a good evening stretch so I am getting sleep too.

I have learned a couple things from having four kids….

Time Management

The reality is that you will never have enough time for everything you want or feel you “need” to do. You need to make peace with that reality and then go forward at full strength. I have learned to do things “right away” and plan “far in advance”. I try to do things as fast as possible too. I use the kitchen timer from time to time to keep me on track. I put it on with the mindset that I have fifteen minutes to get the kitchen clean. Most times I don’t get it done in fifteen minutes, but I do get it done quickly.

I may get less time for personal relaxation, yet I find more peace staying on top of things. I one time heard the saying “if you want something done, give it to a busy person to do”. It is dead on with a mom of small children. I feel that I get more done with four kids, than I got done with three kids…but then again, I do not really have a choice. However, I realize that I do have to make more sacrifices. Take blogging for example, I just could not devote time to it for sixteen weeks. If I had devoted time to it, it would have taken away time that I needed for the needs of my family.

Outsourcing

My six year old is amazingly helpful. Instead of trying to do everything myself, I give him jobs. He can find pajamas in the laundry basket and bring them to his room. He can buckle the four year old into his car seat. He can also assist the four year old in washing his hands and drying them. I ask him to do these tasks when I am feeding the baby or in the middle of a diaper change. Giving my six year old these tasks also teaches him the lesson that in a family, we all help each other get jobs done.

Get Creative

In order to have some minutes of quiet which is rare in a house with four boys, I have the kids go on “quiet time”. My friend Christine taught be about quiet time. The kids go to their respective rooms and play quietly for an age appropriate level. My six year old and four year old play for roughly forty-five minutes. These forty-five minutes enable me to accomplish tasks such as scheduling doctors appointments which are difficult with the normal ruckus going on at my house. My four year old packs up his backpack with cars and then heads up stairs to his bedroom and plays cars during that time.

Another tactic I use is providing my six year old and four year old with school work to do over the summer. I almost opted to home school my children so I never viewed learning as something that only occurred from September until the beginning of June. By giving my six year old reading and math workbooks, I am able to ensure that he will not lose what he gained over the school year and provide him with new learning experiences at a very relaxed pace. His assignments take him about thirty minutes to complete. I use books from A Beka. I love these books because you can use them without having to invest personal time in explaining the activity to your child. My son is working in Letters and Sounds 1 and the book is introducing suffixes. I would not know how to “teach” suffixes. However, the workbook presents a definition and then has the child circle suffixes and write suffixes. I would not say that my child loves his school time. He often hurries through it so that he can play which causes him to make mistakes. I guess he is developing his own sense of time management…the faster the school work gets done, the more time for play.

Sample work book page from Letters and Sounds 1

Having my six year old engaged in seat work every day has set a precedent for the four year old too. The four year old is now doing his own seat work in his own workbook. One of his assignments last week was to color the apples in his A Beka workbook the correct colors…some apples had a green outline, some had a red outline and others were outlined in yellow. This seat work will prepare the four year old for “4K” this coming September. He will participate in a full day program at the same school as the six year old.

I managed to reduce the time it takes to dust the house by giving the six year old and four year old Swiffers. I just discovered the “Swiffer” within the last year. It has changed my attitude toward dusting. Instead of lugging a vacuum cleaner all around the house, I just take out my Swiffer and quickly dust the place. When I give each kid a Swiffer, they set out to “dust” the house. They do get some of the dust. The dust “sticks” to the Swiffer so I know they have been working and it reduces the time I spend dusting.

Sleep

I can get by on less sleep…but I shouldn’t. When I get less sleep I am not able to move as quickly during the day and stay as focused. I get less done, then I must stay up later to complete my tasks. Since I am up later, I am more tired so I start getting hungry because I need more fuel to stay up. Then I eat late at night. This is thwarting my weight loss. I have nine pounds which do not want to budge. The baby sleeps for a good chunk of time in the evening and I need to make it a priority to get in a couple hours of sleep during that time to feel fresher and eliminate the need for eating later in the evening.

Do you have any kids? If so, what did you learn from having them? If not, have you experienced a change in your life which you learned from?

I actually left it at the grocery store. When I called the store and the store confirmed that I left the card there, I called my bank and terminated the card. What appeared to be a “hassle” was actually a blessing in disguise. Thus, whoever hacked my account would be in for a surprise–he or she would not be able to purchase anything since the card was terminated.

As long as Swag Bucks is not hacked, I will be giving away $25 worth of gift cards on July 4th.

Entry Options:

Answer either question: Have you ever been the victim of identity theft? If you have not been the victim of identity theft, do you take any specific steps to prevent identity theft? (+1 entry)

-Join Swag Bucks because these Amazon gift cards come from Swag Bucks. Here is my referral link:  Super Frugalette sent me! (+1 entry)

-Subscribe to Super Frugalette via email. (+3 entries)

-Follow @Superfrugalette on Twitter (+1 entry)

-Follow @365creditscore on Twitter (+1 entry)

-Tweet the post directly below, leave a link. (You can tweet this once per day.)

Win a $50 Amazon gift card from @superfrugalette  http://ow.ly/bLCCc

You must list a separate entry as a separate comment. This giveaway will end on 7/4 at 11:59 pm CST.  Open to US residents 18+.  Winners chosen by “The Winner Is” WordPress plugin and are posted. All winners will be notified via email and have 2 days to respond or another winner will be chosen