Baby it's getting cold outside....

I did most of my shopping online through amazon. I scored an awesome guitar for my son, some great movies for my lovely other half (some of them he's already got to open- Dark Knight Blu-Ray Triology?) and some stuff for myself ;). It's so crazy to me to see so many "must-have" toys that are toy that I wanted/received 10-20 years ago! Furby anyone? Except this furby is much more creepy than the one I used to stuff in my back pack and get yelled at for bringing to school when furby suddenly woke up letting the class know he was hungry. OOPS.

My step-mom gave my son an original tickle me elmo. He's not too sure about it yet, I don't really blame him.

What are the must have toys on your kid's list this year? What are the must have gifts on your list this year?

We want a new vacumm, we are pretty sold on the new Shark vacuum so hopefully santa will deliver it:

I can't believe at 25 years old I am wanting a vacuum, that was never something I thought would be on my holiday list.

We've talked about what I want and I want to know what you want, but I'm also interested on what you do to really bring out the holiday season in your family. My personal favorite thing to do that my mom started with me is to go visit the Christmas angel tree and "adopt" a few kids/buy them things on their wish list. While we may not have much I know we have WAY more than others and I want to show my son that it is important to give back to those less fortunate. If you have a special way you share the holiday spirit in your family please post a comment and let me know, we are always looking for new things to incorporate into our family!

Superpoints Sunday

So, I know most of us are always wondering how we can earn money on the internet. One of my favorite websites is Superpoints. It's free to join and it's so SIMPLE. All you do is log in every day and click the super lucky button and see what points you win!

Superpoints also sends out daily e-mails that contain points in them. Once you get a certain amount of points you can trade them in for a huge variety of prizes such as Ipod nanos, gift cards, paypal cash! You can also earn more points by referring your friends to join, the more friends you have that join the more clicks you get on the button. Again this is 100% free, if you are already spending time on the internet why not do this?

http://superpoints.com/refer/ramelleleyva

"Slumber Parties"

So last night I hosted a "Girls Night In", my friend who is a slumber parties consultant came over and showed us what the company is all about. I was a little apprehensive at first but it was a night full of laughing, tasting, touching and spending money.

Slumber Parties are parties for females 18+ who are looking for things to spice up their love life. It is very professional and does not make you feel weird at all. You won't hear any "dirty" words at these parties, they refer to everything by different names (doorbell, mountains, his boys) so on and so forth. It's a fun time to be had. Some of the stuff I had never heard of and the names are the best, the favorite name last night was of a book called "tickle his pickle". I plan on hosting another party for my friend because I just had so much fun.

I will also look into becoming a consultant because it seems like a fun company to work for lots of opportunities! So if you are looking for a discreet place to buy new products for your love life I would highly suggest checking out slumber parties, they have lifetime warranties on some of their products! Also, if you are looking to just host a fun girls night in I would contact a slumber parties consultant near you. I promise you, you will not regret it and you will have a great night!

Anxiety

So I suffer from pretty bad anxiety, to the point where after arguing and fighting for about 3 years I finally have started to take medication for it. My insurance covered the first part of it 100% but then I ran out of money on my HSA and the medication is $42 a month! So being a one income family, we didn't have the money to afford it. I ran out on Friday and have been having horrible withdrawl symptoms, no matter what I've tried to do for it. I tried stretching, breathing excersises, so on and so forth.

I borrowed the money and just picked it up tonight after I had to leave work early and threw up a bunch. It's crazy to me that a supplement/medication can mess with your body so much that your body depends on it. I try to take my all natural vitamins and I try to stay away from medication in general, but my anxiety especially after having a baby got much worse.

Do you suffer from anxiety? What do you take/how do you deal with it? How do you feel about RX medication?

Selling on Ebay

First off Happy Friday from Lennon and I:

Secondly, I have recently started selling some of our old baby stuff on eBay for extra income. We have so many clothes that our son never wore or wore once and that are in excellent condition. I ordered priority and express mail packages from the USPS which they provide free of charge and give you a flat rate on the packages, you can even print labels from home and the post man will pick them up from your door step! Luckily one of my favorite mom's has given me so many tips to make my listings more appealing!

TIPS:
-Make the most of your package, see how much you can fit in your package! A medium flat rate priority mail box costs $11.35 to ship so I fit at least 25 items in the box, I will always try to include more for free!
-Offer discounts for second packages, especially if you can fit them all in one box!
-Ship internationally, just remember it will cost more to ship so make sure you calculate your costs.

 There are so many ways to make money at home/supplement your income. Don't miss out! You can click on the picture to view my link and get an idea of my listing tips in action

Wealthy Wednesday

So living on one income has proven to be difficult. At the beginning of the year we used our tax refund to pay off all our debts (other than my car) and got my credit score up to a good enough rate to get a home loan. Then came the job loss and we had to rack up our credit card, my credit score went down and we have been living mostly pay check to pay check.

I read a ton of blogs on how to save money, how to save living in an apartment, I cut back on our expenses, worked with our utility companies to lower our bills and just started budgeting more. But my favorite tip so far has been the dollar savings plan. We do a modified version of it because we can't save every dollar that comes into our hands, so we save dollars that have serial numbers starting with either: J, L, R or G. Those letter represent our initials for each of our first names and last name! Our son also has a piggy bank he received from friends of ours when he was born that has his initials engraved on it that we put all our change into.

His piggy bank looks something like this:


Now for the dollar savings method I suggest you set a goal, save all our dollar bills or every 10th dollar bill until Christmas Shopping or until our anniversary. Then put it in something that is not easy to get into, when you get tempted to go into your savings remind yourself of why you are saving in the first place. You'll be amazed at how many dollar bills come into your hand when you start using cash instead of credit and you'll be even more amazed at how fast your savings will add up!

Happy Wednesday!