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Archives for September 2012

A musical gift

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I need to buy a gift for my friends son. I’m trying to think of what to buy him. I’m not always the best with buying gifts unless I really know someone well. Are you like that or do you think you pretty much get it right every time?

I know that my friends son is very interested in music. Not just listening to music but playing it as well. He already has a guitar and even drums. I know that last year he was playing harmonica quite often so maybe I’ll check out the harmonicas guitar center and see if I can find a nice harmonica for him. I wish I knew what key his other harmonicas were in so I could get one he doesn’t have.

5 Ways To Reduce Your Food Bill

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There are 1001 different ways to reduce your food bill. However, in this article the focus is on the 5 most practical ways to save on food expenses. Of course, food prices have really shot up in the recent past. The economy is contacting and households around the country have to come to terms with such words as budgets, cut back, necessities among others.

Anyhow, food is one of the necessities one cannot do without. As a result it takes up the larger part of most expenses. The great thing, however, is that it is possible to use the following 5 ways to reduce your food bill.

1. Stick to a Food List

As you are shopping for groceries, you will come across lots of food that are on offer. Additionally, you will be tempted to buy some foods simply because they look tasty. This is especially the case when you go shopping on an empty stomach.

Therefore, the best thing you can do to cut back on these unnecessary expenses is to create a workable food list. This list should be adhered to irrespective of the temptations that come your way.

Also, you should never do your shopping if you are feeling hungry. In fact, research shows that this is one of the leading causes of impulsive shopping. Once you manage to stick to a list and shop on a full stomach, it will be easier for you to make cut backs on your food expenses.

2. Walk Away from Popular Food Brands

As you select food items, you will be tempted to pick those ones that have popular brand names. This is due to the unfounded belief that these products taste better or are more attractive due to their glossy adverts.

However, it is more prudent to stick to regular food and product names. This could help you save anything between 10 and 15 percent every time you go shopping. After all, it is common knowledge that in- house items cost considerably less than other popular brands. In a couple of cases, also, most of these products are manufactured within the same factories so you will still get high quality irrespective of the brand you choose.

3. Accumulate Loyalty Points

Most food stores will award loyalty points/ cards. Therefore, you can make great savings by building up on these points over a couple of months and weeks after which you will get good cash back or amazing discounts in return for the points.

4. Stock up on Lentils and Pulses

Lentils and dried pulses can be used to bulk out on meals. They cost considerably less than other foods within the same groups. Therefore, they will increase your protein intake without the added cost.

5. Use Discounts

Always double check any bill you get after buying food to see if you got a discount. Supermarkets will often advertise deals and discounts at the point of sale. Unfortunately, most shoppers do not enquire after these discounts meaning that they miss out.

All in all, the above 5 ways to reduce your food bill should work well for you irrespective of your physical location. Use them and you will end up making greater savings while sill eating right and living healthy.

Roger is a contributor for ppi claims where you can get some tips to help you manage your finance better.






No rest for me

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It’s been a busy week. I started taking my online college classes earlier this week and as it turns out I seem to have to do something for class just about every day. I can’t believe how difficult it’s been trying to get back into “school” mode. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since it’s been quite a number of years since I was last in college.

Along with doing things like getting my text books for school and figuring out how to get into study mode again I’ve also been doing plenty of other things this week. For example I’m still trying to work on most of my blogs – updating them and slowly changing the themes on theme for a more up to date look. I also did a WordPress update on all of my sites since WordPress did yet another upgrade. At least that takes a lot less time than it used to in the past when you had to do things manually.

My husband was also home for three days in the middle of the week. Very distracting as far as me getting any work done, so we worked on a bit of our home renovations. Can you tell I’m all over the place! What I really need to do is rest but that will never happen!

Tomorrow I’m supposed to go out shopping with a friend of mine. She’s expecting her first child and she wants only the best for her new baby. We’re going to a malls to look for the best bratt décor cribs. Hopefully we’ll find something at Yorkdale. It’s a big enough mall!

Perhaps after our shopping spree tomorrow I will rest. I’ve certainly been busy enough this week. I’ll deserve a rest. I know my abdomen will appreciate it. Yes the Crohn’s is acting up again too.

10 Cost Saving Ideas to decorate on a budget

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Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had as much money as necessary to decorate our homes any way we’d like? Unfortunately, for most of us, we have to scrimp and save for the furniture that we really want in order to make our homes feel comfortable and inviting.

While you’re waiting to win the lottery or for a designer friend to find you some cast of bargains there are a few things you can do on your own – inexpensively – to make your home beautiful.

1. Use a few splashes of bold color in your decor. Now I don’t mean go nuts and paint your whole room red and only have red furnishings. No … I’m suggesting that if you’re current decor is basically earth tones, perhaps white or beige carpeting and white or cream walls and beige or light brown colored furniture then a splash of bright bold color would brighten that room right up.   It’s as easy as simple painting one accent wall a bright color, or adding a large colorful painting or print to the room.  You could even buy a colorful throw rug or area rug to the room.  It will make a difference.

2.  You can make or buy textured or colorful throw pillows for the room that you are decorating.  Pillows of different shapes, sizes, colors and textures can add to a rooms look and feel.

3.  If your furniture is a worn and you can’t afford to replace it at this time you might look into purchasing slip covers to give your couch or chair a new look or to cover both pieces to unify their look.  There are some very cool slipcovers out there these days. You can really change the look of your furniture.

4.  If you want to give the room a touch of romance or a softer look adding a few well placed candles is a budget worthy idea.  If you enjoy scented candles you might use one or two in the room.

5.  There’s nothing wrong with going out to yard or garage sales to do a little shopping. You can find some lovely lamps, light fixtures, side tables, coffee tables and other furnishings. Sure sometimes you might have to clean them up, sand or paint them but it’s worth the work.

6. Just cleaning up a room can make a huge difference! You might decide that it doesn’t need a change in decor once you clean and organize the clutter if it was really bad.  Perhaps purchase some wicker baskets or hideaway storage boxes for your nick nacks and mementos.

7.  One thing that I enjoy doing when I’m bored with the look of a room is to simply rearrange the furniture. It’s amazing how moving a bed or a chair from one side or a room to another can make a room feel so different.

8.  If the room you are redecorating has a TV perhaps think about putting the TV in a cabinet so that it’s not the first thing everyone sees when they walk into the room.  TV’s seem to become the highlight of the room that they are in and frankly they aren’t all that pretty, are they. Find ways to minimize their impact on the room they are in if possible.

9. If you’re feeling creative you might try a new painting technique or applying a wall covering to either all of the walls of the room or as I stated above just one accent wall in the room.  There are many different types of painting techniques that you can try. There are even some interesting plastering techniques such as Venetian plaster which makes an interesting feature wall.

10.  If the room is dark or if you have dark curtains or drapery by all means open it up and let the light in. Your room will feel larger when you open things up.  Now if you don’t like bare windows try sheer curtains, they will allow quite a bit of light in and still give you that nice open feeling.

Started my college courses

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I went shopping yesterday but I was shopping for things that I don’t normally shop for – well things I haven’t shopped for, for a number of years anyway! You see I started taking two online college classes on Monday and once I started my nursing courses I received my list of text books that I’d need to purchase so off I went on Tuesday trying to find a place to buy my books.
George Brown waterfront campus
You would think that the college that I’m going to would have the text books that I needed in stock but they only had one of the three books. I ended up calling several other college and university book stores to see if they had the texts that I needed in stock and they didn’t either and I also did searches online.

I finally ended up ordering one of the books from Chapters Indigo. While I was browsing online for text books I got side tracked and ended up on a site with rfid wallets and ended browsing that for a while. I never knew how insecure the new credit cards could be!

Now .. lucky for me, a nurse from my workplace has also been taking courses and she took one of the courses I’m currently enrolled in so she was able to lend me one of the books I needed. So she’s saving me money and saved me quite a bit of time searching for a hard to find text book. I’m so lucky to have such nice friends and people in my life.

Now I just need the book I ordered yesterday to hurry up and arrive. I put a priority delivery on it which means it should arrive within two to four business days, but it hasn’t even shipped yet! I’m not confident now that it will show up by the end of the week and I’d like it by the end of the week because I think I needed for next weeks “classes”. Plus, I did pay for it to arrive fast and if it doesn’t what was the point of paying extra? It was my first time ordering online from Chapters Indigo so we’ll see how that goes.

I still can’t believe I’m back in college! At least I’m already getting student discounts again. I got a discount on the text book I bought at the college store. I’ll have to get my official student card so that if I buy tokens for the subway I can get a discount too and maybe find other discounts that I might qualify for as well.

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