Archive for the 'Reviews' Category
Monday, June 30th, 2008
I read Kara’s blog while she was in the process of buying her house so I was expecting it to be time consuming but it is getting a little more overwhelming than I thought it would be right now. This weekend we dropped our loan officer who was not working very well with us and with another loan officer. Obviously I am annoyed with our first loan officer because we are just a couple weeks from closing and now we have to go through the approval again but dropping him was the right thing to do because someone who is not willing to work hard for us does not deserve our money. If you live in Utah I would advice not using Gold River Mortgage.
Posted in Reviews | 5 Comments »
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
If you live in Canada your dream of winning a free pizza each week for a year can come true! But hurry because the Ristorante Contest ends on June 27th, 2008. You may enter the contest once a day until the 27th which is when Ristorante will choose 12 lucky winners.
Speaking of lucky, Ristorante has some ideas on how to make your love feel lucky to have you. Check out their 12-Minutes to Romance ideas.
Ristorante is holding this competition in celebration of launching their website www.ristorante.ca where they showcase their mouthwatering products with ingredient and nutritional information. I am really craving a Ristorante Vegetale pizza. Hey Mom, can you head over to the Real Canadian Superstore and mail one over to me?
Posted in Contests, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Have any of you signed up for SocialSpark? What do you think about it? I joined when it first launched to select people a few months ago, now it is open to everyone and I am writing this post for SocialSpark to help share with them and others what I like and don’t like about this new blogging social network site.
It is just okay if you want to use it mainly for for paid blogging opportunities. In my opinion there are two ways that SocialSpark could improve in this area. First of all bloggers need to make a minimum of $20 before cashing out and I haven’t been able to make $20 yet because of my second reason. Second, I like how bloggers have 12 hours after they are given an assignment to complete it but for every assignment except two of them I have been given the assignment at midnight eastern time which means I would need to find out I have recieved the assignment and complete it by 10 am my time. I usually do not go online in the mornings!
However if you are looking for a social site to network with other bloggers and recieve ideas for topics to blog about during those ‘writers block’ times. Then this is a great site. You can add people as friends, prop (or drop) them. One thing I like is that I can find out on average how many people visit my site each day and how I rank compared to the other bloggers. To get an idea of what a SocialSpark profile looks like here is a screen shot of mine:
Posted in Blogging, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Monday, June 16th, 2008
I was just over at Wendy Culpepper’s website and blog and I am amazed at the beautiful handcrafted jewelry she creates. I am not surprised that celebrities such as Rachel Ray and Jennifer Beals wear her jewelry.
I love how she writes about the meaning behind her jewelry collections. For example one collection is to raise awareness for Parkinson’s disease which her father has had since Wendy was only 6 years old. Another interesting collection is one she calls ‘The Flower Of Life Collection’ which the rings pictured are a part of. With this collection she share’s her love of mathematics. I found her reasoning that mathematics has both religious and cultural values interesting. To learn more about Wendy’s jewelry collections visit her site at www.wendyculpepper.com.
Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 30th, 2008
- The stay at home mom who starts a small business using her talents to contribute to her family’s finances while caring for her children.
- The new immigrant who finds that thier degree or certification they acquired in their native country is not valid in their new country so they start a small business.
- The college student who starts a small business during their ‘off semester’.
- The breadwinner who realizes that their full time job does not pay all of the bills and so they start a small business.
The above scenarios are just a few examples of the many people who start small business every single day. One important aspect of successfully starting a small business is promoting it and making the business uniquely yours. VistaPrint loves to help small businesses with all of their printing needs. With VistaPrint you can customize business cards, stationary, rubber stamps, signs and magnets. In today’s world it may be essential to the success of your small business to have a website. With VistaPrint you can easily create websites (you don’t need any html or programming knowledge!) from $4.99 per month, sign up now for a free one month trial!
Posted in Finances, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
Save your money on those sunglasses that cost hundreds of dollars and be bold this summer with vintage sunglasses! Priced between $8 - $30 these sunglasses are easy on the wallet.
Of course I had to choose the funkiest picture I could find on giantvintage.com but whatever your style you will probably find something you like and bring back the styles of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. I can’t believe the 90’s are considered vintage now - makes me feel old and I am only 25!
Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 12th, 2008
I took business classes at a college in British Columbia as well as some at a college in Utah and at both schools I had teachers who talked about the benefits of Six Sigma which is strategy pioneered by Motorola that seeks to identify and remove errors within the business and improve its products and/or services. This strategy saves companies millions of dollars a year by reducing costs while improving customer satisfaction at the same time.
If you want to choose a smarter solution for your business; Smarter Solutions, Inc will soon be teaching the Six Sigma Black Belt Training and green belt teaching for those who are interested in learning more about this strategy to improve their businesses.
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
As I was packing a few boxes getting ready for our move next month I found some leftover thankyou cards that I gave out to people who gave gifts after our baby was born and I wondered how many people actually kept the card.
I wish I gave out custom made Photo Cards out as thank you cards for wedding presents and baby gifts. They would be worth the extra effort as people would be so much more appreciative of a card that showed the wedding couple or a precious little baby that they gave a gift to and more likely to keep the card as well.
Many people use photo cards for holiday greetings or birth announcements but there are so many other wonderful uses for them. For example, I had a friend who gave out photo cards that showed a picture of her daughter as invitations to her daughter’s baptism.
If you would like to have a custom made photo card created for you, Cardsdirect.com is a great service that provides you with high quality photo cards. You can have one of their verses on your card or you may have whatever you would like written on the front and inside of your card. There is no extra charge if you would like to personalize the words on the card.
Posted in Holidays, Online Shopping, Reviews | No Comments »
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
If your laptop is lacking sufficent memory to perform the tasks you need it to you can give it a laptop memory boost. At Memorystore.com you don’t even need to know what memory configuration your laptop is (which I would never be able to know without the instruction manual.) all you need to do is just connect your laptop online, click on a button on the site and easily find out the configuration needed to increase your laptop’s memory!
Posted in Online Shopping, Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Filing online with a product like Taxbrain or TurboTax you can file your taxes by yourself for less than an hour well, with a toddler and a baby competing for my attention it took me about 3 hours. Still that is a whole lot better than confusingly staring at the tax forms for days and then paying $110 to an accountant to do your taxes for you.
I tried both of the products I mentioned as you can actually complete your tax return for free and only pay to print or e-file your taxes. I choosed Taxbrain to ammend last years taxes since it was cheaper than buying turbotax’s 2006 product however I went with turbotax for this years taxes since it was over $40 cheaper as I was able to use TurboTax’s Deluxe product ($29.95) to input self employment income and deductions where as I would have had to use Taxbrain’s Premium product ($69.95).
I would totally recommend TurboTax their guidance is excellent and they make doing your taxes a little less boring with their colourfully illustrated questionnaires. They also let you know what your audit risk is. If you need your tax refund super quick though, you may want to go with Taxbrain and pay the $110 to receive your refund within 2 days.
File your taxes by the 28th if you want to use TurboTax because their prices are going to go up after then (for all the procrastinators).
Posted in Recommended Resources, Reviews, Saving Money | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
During a trip to the dollar tree I spotted a huge bottle of shampoo and conditioner for only a dollar. Of course with my budget savvy mind I decided it was worth a try. I ended up regretting the $2 I spent on this shampoo and conditioner as it ended up leaving my hair feeling dry and my scalp itchy. I desperately wanted to throw this stuff out and buy another brand of shampoo but I could not bring myself to waste something I had just spent $2 on.
I was excited (to get a br
eak from the generic dollar tree stuff) when a week later I found samples of naked naturals awaphui & Lavendar shampoo and conditioner. The sample lasted me 3 uses and after only the first application left my hair feeling soft again. I don’t usually like the smell of lavedar but combined with awaphui I loved the scent! I even threw out the generic dollar tree shampoo and conditioner! My only complaint with my sample is that I did not receive a whole bottle to sample - I would love to see the keravis in the shampoo make my hair 7X stronger!
Naked Naturals is made with all natural ingredients which was very noticeable while shampooing my hair as it did not get all foamy like the shampoos with Laureth Sulfates do.
If you want to give your hair a treat then go to walgreens and buy a bottle of Naked Naturals for $8 a bottle. I know my husband would have a heart-attack if I spent $16 on shampoo and conditioner, he comes close to having a heart attack when I come home from walmart with a $13 box of 103 diapers. So it may be awhile until my hair receives the naked naturals treatment again.
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
While I was a student at LDS Business College a few years ago I attended a seminar that the school sponsonred about identity theft. I was surprised by the extent that some people will go to steal someones identity. I know the person giving the presentation named off a long list of ways to protect your idenity but I can only remember three. 1. Don’t carry your Social Security Card with you. 2. Don’t leave documents with your personal information lying around at work and 3. Have anything that may have your personal information such as bills and even some junk mail shreaded up really well.
It is kind of scary that there are dozens of other ways I can protect my identity that I cannot remember. If you do not want to take risks there is a service called life lock that alerts you every time someone tries to do anything with your credit to make sure that you are the only one applying for that credit. with life lock you are also removed from junk mail lists and pre-approved credit lists. Not only does that help protect your credit it also helps the environments and cuts down on the annoyance associated with junk mail. They also offer support if your wallet is stolen and a $1 million service guarantee.
The cost for this service is $10 a month - not bad for advanced security and peace of mind!
