Earn Money Online Shopping

I was NOT successful with my Cyber Monday shopping. I spent several hours going to different sites to compare prices. I went to my Shop at Home account to see what percentage of money I'd earn back on each purchase (last year, I received a check after Christmas for more than $100 after all the online shopping I did).

I finally placed two orders with Wal-Mart for a lot of stuff (with 7.5% earnings back through Shop at Home of my purchases) and went about the rest of my day, only to see in my email later that Wal-Mart canceled both of my orders. Why? No clue. I went back to try to reorder and found several items that I had wanted sold out but I tried to place another order with what was left in stock with a bank card (first time was with paypal).  Same thing. It wouldn't process the payment.

I'm guessing Walmart had a problem with processing payments on Cyber Monday. My entire morning yesterday was wasted.  My 7.5% cash back through Shop at Home gone. I'm sure they're still offering percentage back today but it probably won't be as high as 7.5%. That's a great cash back bonus to shopping that I'd be doing anyway.

If you are interested in signing up with Shop at Home, this is what you do:

1. Sign up here.
2. Once you get signed up, you enter the store you want to purchase from in their search engine. 
3. They will come back with the percentage back offered and any promo codes/sales that are going on now. 
4. You click the shop or activate tab and then go shop!  

What this does now is give a trackback so any purchase you make, Shop at Home will know and put that percentage of your purchase in your account. Once you reach $20, they send it to you.

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Enchantments: Jewelry (and coupon code!)

I just opened up a Kitsy Lane boutique (jewelry and more)! It's called Enchantments and includes oodles of jewelry and pretty scarves.

Since I love great coupons, I created one for anybody wanting to shop for some bling.  Right now, you can get $20 off a $45 purchase using coupon code TXHJL7GBKR.

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PeachSuite Hotel Supply Online

I have a friend in hotel management in Atlanta. I could not imagine the task of managing all the needs of a hotel like she does.  It's hard enough for me to manage my family of six, let alone staff along with rooms and rooms of customers and their varied needs. She says it helps if a lot of your needs can be met at one place at a Hotel Supply Online. She found PeachSuite looking locally for Atlanta hotel supply but PeachSuite ships anywhere within the United States and Canada.

PeachSuite offers most everything you need, such as supplies for: banquet room, catering, dining, equipment, furniture, janitorial, office, signs, kitchen, appliances, linens, disposable items, hotel bar supplies and more. The selection of knives was outstanding - - and kept me busy for awhile checking them out. They also free shipping on orders over $500. What a great deal in savings for shipping!

If you need supplies and equipment for your hotel, resort, or restaurant, take advantage of their free shipping on orders over $500 and stock up for the upcoming tourist season.  Vacations are being scheduled by families now. Get ready for the warm months coming our way!

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Personalized Gifts for Moms Like Me

What's on your Christmas list for mom?  I have no clue yet, myself.  My husband told me this morning that a friend of his was buying his wife a $400 flat iron for Christmas because it has some animal print on it that matches her curling iron.  *falls over*  I could never spend that much money on something like that - I tend to like the personalized gifts for mom. I saw this beautiful Celtic Knot Family Birthstone Necklace online at Personal Creations that I would love.  I am all about the Celtic knots and my four kids so it's one idea.

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Sports Team Apparel

School sports have started.  I have three girls in cheerleading and my son playing soccer.  I want to buy sports clothes in their school colors but buying them from the stands at the game is so expensive.  I looked online to see about designing my own custom football jerseys and soccer jerseys in their school colors to wear on game days to school and found Custom Planet.  This looks like a great place for teams or classes to order clothing in their school colors to show school spirit! You can make custom t-shirts, uniforms for basketball, baseball, football, as well as hats and more. They will help you with the graphic design or you can upload your own graphics.  I fiddled around with it and had a lot of fun designing a t-shirt for juniors.

These would be a great idea for youth teams for an affordable jersey for sports that aren't sponsored by a school or for team members to wear outside of game day - showing team spirit!

I need some "mom" sports clothes in my kids' school colors to support my kids from the stands. I'm off to design and shop!

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Summer Almost Over!

Wow, this summer has just flown by.  I can't believe school starts in three weeks.  It's time to hemorrhage money for school supplies, school clothes, school fees, sport fees, and lunches again.  I will do some online and some shopping in person.  I like to use Amazon online -- trustworthy.  For in person shopping, we'll be hitting Plato's Closet (first time - used clothing store I hear is great for teens), Forever 21, Hot Topic, JCPenney, and Wal-Mart.  Let the shopping begin!

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Technology Free Holiday?

I am really looking forward to my kids' holiday break to turn the alarm clock off for a couple weeks and spend time with the kids.  I'm tempted to turn the phones off and leave Facebook off and actually enjoy a really peaceful holiday this year.  Christmas always brings major dysfunction in the family and, on schedule, it has hit this year.  One of my sisters couldn't resist, I guess, and for some reason, she aimed it my way too.  No clue why since I don't talk to her ever...hmmm...maybe that ticks her off.  Oh well. 

I have enough left to do this holiday season so she can just stew in her own rage.  I have some shopping left that I want to get finished before my kids get out of school on break (Santa can't be shopping at Walmart or other stores in front of the kids), some gifts to get ready for shipping, and tracking down a Kangol hat for a friend.

I wonder why dysfunction always becomes amplified during the holidays, especially from people who you have no contact with whatsoever. What's the point of that?

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Other People's Kids

It's hard to grocery shop through Wal-Mart anymore because they have point of purchase displays for toys everywhere on the way to the food aisles, outside the toy department.  Don't these people have kids?  Don't they know that it starts the whining in the stores other people can hear from aisles away?  Of course they do.  It's the same reason they put a bunch of goodies next to the register - so kids can whine and parents can throw the food/toy onto the conveyor belt to stop the whining.

I'm pretty immune to whining for kids to get their way, thankfully, and my kids know better.  Listening to other people's kids cry though isn't a pleasant shopping experience.

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Christmas Ideas from Zappos

I am on the lookout for great deals on boots for Christmas.  I want to get each of my four kids a great pair of boots (plus give myself a Christmas present as well).  My husband could use a pair of work boots as well.  I am thinking for my husband, a pair of work boots from Dr. Martens.  For my girls, I am looking at the Jenny Pull-On Dr. Martens boots or the white lace-up Dr. Martens boots.  My son would probably like the Blake 3 boots.  I found them all on Zappos!
Zappos also carries clothing, handbags, housewares, watches for women, men, and kids.  They also have a great return policy and free shipping! 

If you order from Zappos.com, order before 1 p.m. PST on December 23, with free shipping, they guarantee delivery by Christmas!  That's great for those last minute shoppers! 

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Kids Christmas Lists

What is on every kid's list for Christmas?  Usually some type of video game system like the Nintendo Wii. I know it always is in our house!  We have both the Nintendo Wii and XBox 360 and now the kids want that Kinect system that turns the XBox 360 into more like the Nintendo Wii plus a bunch of games for each. 

I still limit their video game time for both but at least they get some movement out of systems like this instead of just sitting there zoned into the television like little zombies.  My girls love the cheerleading video games and are constantly bouncing around the living room playing the games. 

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Bickering Girls!!

It's been one of those frustrating afternoons with the kids.  The trip to the pediatrician for my daughter's sprained ankle resulted in a referral for physical therapy.  Not a huge surprise and that wasn't the problem.

The problem came when I took four kids into Wal-Mart with me.  My three girls bickered, bickered, bickered.  No bickering from my son (of course).  Not what I wanted to deal with when my allergies have been bad since I woke up (Claritin isn't working).  Why can't females get together without bickering? 

The highlight of my afternoon:  My 11-year-old son wanted to spend some of his birthday money while my teenage daughter needed a bra so he walked through the lingerie aisles with us with his eyes covered.  His five-year-old sister steered him through aisles every color and size bra until we were done.  He gets that embarrassed.

I ended up so frustrated with my girls that I didn't finish shopping.  I wanted to look around at baby gifts but decided to come home and look at personalized baby gifts online instead for a better selection of gift ideas without bickering kids.  The kids are all outside playing and I get some peace and quiet to finish shopping for baby stuff.  Between the bickering and my allergies, I could not get out of that store fast enough.  It will be a long time before I shop with all the girls at the same time again.

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Dreaded Birthday Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will be 39 years old.  One year away from 40, which I dread SO MUCH.  I am really hating this birthday.  I didn't want gifts or anything but as usual, the husband said too bad and took the kids shopping this morning for me.  I know they bought me a digital camera.  If I had the receipt, I could even tell which digital camera he bought me from what the barcode scanner scanned onto the receipt. As it is, he didn't give me the receipt like he usually does. Kind of a "no peeking" thing I guess.

Of course, when he goes to work tonight, I could easily find my present downstairs.  I could be sneaky that way.  However, I won't.  I don't think. 

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Monogrammed Baby Gifts on Sale at Baby Stuff Gifts

Baby Stuff Gifts is having a really great sale right now.  If you order now through September 15, 2010, you can get 15% off your entire order!  That's a really good discount for personalized baby gifts.  I love the monogrammed baby gifts, like the monogrammed receiving blankets.  The little monogrammed hooded towel for after baby's bath would look so cute too!

I just love babies - baby smell (well, the good after bath smell, not the dirty diaper smell), cuddling the little babies, watching their little fingers curl around your own, the tiny clothes and gifts.  I LOVE babies.  I was just telling my husband this past week that I needed to hold a newborn baby again.  He about freaked out because he thought I meant I wanted another baby.  I had to carefully explain to my almost 45-year-old husband of six kids that I meant I needed to hold someone ELSE's newborn baby for a little while to get the baby fix in and then give him or her back.  Geez!  Almost gave my old man a heart attack. 

Though when I start shopping for other people's babies, and seeing all the tiny clothes and personalized toys, the baby urge hits.  It goes away...but then it comes back.  It always comes back.

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Good Deals: Is high speed satellite internet better?

We are going to change our television programming to try to save some money with the way the economy is right now. Hopefully it'll mean companies are more ready and willing to deal a little on the prices. While I'm looking around, I'm wondering if high speed satellite internet is better than what we have now.

Have you been able to negotiation costs on things like Internet and television services? It seems to me that everything should be negotiable if companies want to gain customers.

I wonder what else is negotiable that we don't know about? Grocery deals? Boy, wouldn't that be nice! It seems to me that the utility companies wouldn't deal because we're limited on who we can switch our service to so they have us right where they want us...just like gas prices. Are retail stores willing to negotiate? I just bought four winter coats for my kids. I sure would have liked to have a break on those prices. Would one store give you a cost break to get you to buy from them over another store?

Where are the best deals?

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Behind in Thanksgiving Plans

Boy will I be happy when Friday hits, but that also means it is that much closer to Thanksgiving. I haven't even started figuring out what we're eating yet. I've been busy with work and grounding kids that it's not been a priority.

My husband mentioned today about going shopping on Black Friday. Is he nuts? I went out ONCE on Black Friday and I was so disgusted at every store I went to by people's behavior that I walked out of every store empty-handed and finally went home. He has no idea. I think he means for ME to go out shopping but I think he should go. It was his idea after all! My preference is checking out the Black Friday ads for online shopping. It's my favorite kind of shopping!

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Hugh Hefner Files for Divorce

Hugh Hefner just filed for divorce from his long-time estranged wife, Kimberly Conrad. They've been separated for more than ten years (were living together as man and wife for nine years previously). He is also asking that his $40,000/month spousal support be reduced to $20,000/month. Either way you look at it, that will buy a woman a lot of womens shoes!

They also have two sons together (learn something new every day). If his sons were born in 1990 and 1991, which is what I found online, his kids are now adults. How long is a man expected to pay spousal support? No clue.

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Great Review on Playmobil Toys

I recently posted about Playmobil toys on my Facebook page and a former classmate talked about how much her son loved his Playmobil toys. It was a good review and helped me decide to add some of their toys onto my kids' Christmas lists this year.

It's hard to know which toys are going to go over well with kids and which ones will be tossed aside. These toys are in the "play with them" category so that's great for me. I don't like to spend money on toys only to see them not played with.

I'm glad I posted about them on Facebook. Having friends who can vouch for purchases, before you spend the money in this economy, is a bonus.

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Vegetarian Magazine Shocker

I received this vegetarian magazine in the mail recently. I thought it was going to be about how to become a vegetarian eating all the proper food groups, but it was more of a "let me show you what they do to the animals with full-color pictures and see if you can live with yourself" magazine (at least that was as far as I got which wasn't far). I didn't get past the second page. I love bacon! I didn't want to see more. My husband looked through it and told me I probably wouldn't like bacon after seeing the pictures in the magazine.

I buy organic food when I can afford it and if my kids will eat it. I found that some products, like organic milk, they can't stand. I haven't seen organic clothes sold in the stores I frequent so far but I heard that there are good lines of organic baby clothes available.

I haven't picked up the magazine yet to finish reading it. It's sitting on my table staring at me, waiting for me to pick it up.

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Back to School Shopping: First test for the economy?

It's time to shop for school clothes. Like a lot of people, back to school shopping this school year will be on a tighter budget than usual. I am really glad my pre-teen hasn't gotten into the "I can only wear it if it comes from a mall" mindset yet. I can still find her budget-minded clothes and she'll be happy with them. This will probably be the last year I can do that though.

I was looking for cute clothes for my younger two girls and found these girls dresses that would be cute alone when it is still a bit warmer and then with a pair of capris or stretch pants under them for the winter months. They are affordable and adorable.

I think the back to school shopping this year will show if the economy is rebounding or if we are still on a downward slide. I've seen bits of news from President Obama who says his stimulus package is doing what it is supposed to. I think the first test of that will be in the sales for back to school shopping. We shall see.

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American Academy of Pediatrics Vaccination Schedule

I was looking up the 2009 vaccination schedule that the American Academy of Pediatrics has online, and I noticed that they show the vaccination for Gardasil as being called HPV. I guess since HPV is what it is for, it makes sense but it threw me a bit. I hope parents realize that the HPV vaccination will most likely mean Gardasil and that there have been a lot of problems seen in girls who get this vaccine up to and including death.

We need to be knowledgeable patients when it comes to our health. Just because people wear lab coats and have degrees on their walls, it doesn't necessarily mean that everything they say would be best for us. Be informed! Be mindful. It's your health. I think medical care is a must but I think we have to play a part in our own care as well.

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