All posts by Anne Younger

Anne is a 30-something full-time SAHM mom of 5 ranging from 3 to 17 and grandma of 1 who resides in Ashwaubenon (Green Bay) Wisconsin. She started blogging in 2008 as a way to regain her sanity. She enjoys coffee, chocolate, cheeseburgers and vodka along with spending time with her husband and kids.
Finances

Things to Do to Improve Your Family’s Financial Status

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If you’re reading this, then you’re probably thinking of improving your family’s financial situation. Keeping your finances is not easy, especially if you’ve fallen on hard times. But don’t worry. You’re not the only one, and you probably won’t be the last.

Most couples know that you need to consider many things when it comes to building a family, most importantly how to handle your finances. However, not too many of us realize that we should already know how to manage our money even before we decide to get married.

In a perfect world, it would be great to see everyone become financially literate, so they won’t find themselves go through any kind of hardship. Luckily, there are steps you can take to improve your current financial situation. Here are some simple and quick tips brought to you by Alpha Car Finance. We hope you find them helpful somehow.

Work on Your Spending Habits

Take a long, hard look at how you spend money. Sometimes, we tend to overlook some bad habits we may have developed over the years. How we decide to spend or not spend our hard-earned cash can make or break our daily, weekly or monthly budget.

Sometimes, it just takes plain old common sense to help us avoid getting buried in debt. You can start by spending less than you earn. Another effective tip is to track your spending. It helps when you know where your money is going so you won’t be surprised by the end of the month and wonder where all your cash went.

Get on the Same Page with Your Spouse

We all come from different backgrounds. Your parents may have raised you to be money-conscious. However, your partner may not have been brought up the same way.

Your partner might like to splurge on things, and you might be a bit of a penny-pincher. These contrast in personalities may cause some friction and misunderstanding on how you should best handle your finances.

It helps when you have family meetings and be open to discuss your finances. Just have an open and relaxed discussion about what makes sense financially and make sure you also agree on setting financial goals.

Enforce a Family Savings Plan

As your family grows, so does your needs. You may need to move to a bigger house or an apartment. You may need to get a family car. You may start to think about saving for your children’s college fund.

Even if money is tight, you should still find ways to save even if it’s just a small fraction of your monthly income. A few hundred dollars saved over the course of a couple of months can go a long way, especially for unexpected emergencies.

Watch Your Credit Card Spending

Credit cards are handy if you know how to use it wisely. They can help you when you’re a bit short on cash. However, you can easily fall into temptation, especially with all the constant promotions from businesses.

To make sure you don’t dig yourself into a deep hole, pay only in cash as much as you can. It’s also good to keep in mind this saying that goes, “If you can’t pay for something in cash, then you can’t afford it.” Not having outstanding balance on your credit card can save you a bunch of money over time.

Having the right mindset and putting in a sincere effort to achieve your financial goals will benefit your family in the long term. Get your kids involved. Teach them at an early age about financial literacy, so everyone in the family can all work together for a stable and brighter future. Do you have some tips to share? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.

Shopping

5 Ways to Find Coupons That Actually Save You Money

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No matter if you’re a frugal shopper or just someone looking to save money to better balance your budget, there are all sorts of ways to cut costs on groceries, clothing, medications, home services, and more. Thanks to the booming popularity of coupons, consumers are able to purchase the items they need without breaking the bank.

Looking for Cialis coupons or savings on other prescription medications? Want to cut your grocery shopping expenses in half? If so, knowing where to find the right coupons is a must. Keep reading to learn how to find coupons that will actually save you money.

  1. Sunday Newspaper

Remember the days when you’d ruffle through the Sunday newspaper to read the comics or to complete the crossword? The newspaper is for more than just staying in the know and for entertainment. If you flip through the newspaper, you’ll find all sorts of coupon inserts.

Three of the most common inserts include Procter & Gamble, Red Plum, and Smart Source. Depending on your location, you may also receive other popular inserts such as General Mills, Unilever, and Keebler. These coupons are generally for grocery store items, though you may also find savings on body care, hair care, and even pet products.

  1. Magazines

Another coupon hotspot are magazines. Magazines are the ideal location for finding coupons, especially for new products and medications. You can also expect to find grocery, personal care, and retail store coupons. To get the most bang for your buck, be sure to purchase or subscribe to home and garden magazines as well as lifestyle magazines.

To save even more money, check online to see if you can locate any free or extremely cheap magazine subscriptions. This allows you to test out several magazines to see the quality and quantity of the coupons.

  1. Money Saving Websites

Want to make couponing and saving money as easy and convenient as possible? If so, consider following some of the top money saving and couponing websites. Some of the most popular sites include:

  • Krazy Koupon Lady
  • Hip 2 Save
  • Passion for Savings
  • Money Saving Mom

The best part about these sites is that they take on the hard work for you. There’s no need to sift through newspapers, magazines, and online coupon sites to find the savings you’re looking for. Instead, you can use the sites above to keep tabs on current and upcoming sales. Many of the sites allow you to search for coupons and other discounts by topic. This means you can find savings on groceries, clothing, and much more!

To ensure you don’t miss any deals, sign up for each site’s mailing list or RSS feed. This way you can be notified when a new coupon or deal is posted.

  1. Online Coupons

While newspapers, magazines, and other prints have their position in the coupon world, the Internet has made it so simple to find and use coupons. In fact these days, most stores allow customers to scan their coupons from their mobile phone. This alleviates the need to clip coupons and carry them around with you. Using your mobile device, all you have to do is locate the coupon and either take a screen capture of the barcode or provide the coupon code to the cashier.

When using online coupons, pay close attention to the fine print. Stores won’t accept coupons that are expired. Be sure that you meet all of the coupon requirements such as spending a certain amount of money or purchasing a specific product. It’s also important to be aware of fake coupons. Scammers are known to create fake coupons and then share them on social networking sites.

As a rule of thumb, ensure the online coupons you’re using are from a reputable site. If the coupon seems too good to be true, it likely is. If you come across a coupon that seems questionable, you can always contact the retailer or manufacturer to confirm.

  1. Mobile Apps

One of the biggest benefits of a couponing app is the fact that you have access to hundreds, if not thousands of coupons in one central location. These apps make it so easy to save money and to get the best deals on hot products. Some of the top coupon apps include SnipSnap, Retail Me Not, Ibotta, and Checkout 51.

If you’re really lucky, you can find pharmacies that can even deliver your medication that have mobile apps, like Medly in Brooklyn. This can save you tons of time, and everyone knows time is money.

To further your savings, some stores and manufacturers allow you to stack a mobile app coupon with a printed one. This means even more money that you get to keep in your pocket!

Conclusion

These days couponing is simple and convenient, making it a money-saving hobby that works for consumers of all ages and lifestyles. No matter if you’re 24, 44, or 64, knowing where to go to find coupons makes budgeting and saving money easier than ever before.

Parenting

Are Video Games Good for Your Kids?

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Video games are perhaps more prevalent right now than ever before. So this can create challenges for parents, grandparents and carers of children. What should you do about this issue? Are games safe for your children to play as much as they like or not? It’s something that a lot of people worry about, but that worry is often handled in the wrong way. So let’s break down the problem and look at what this means for children.

Games Can be Educational and Improve Coordination

There are some games out there that can actually teach your kids a lot. They can teach them about culture, about sports, about cooperation and many other things too. And I’m not just talking about the games that are specifically designed as educational games. It’s also thought that many games can improve the hand-eye coordination of many young people too, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Some Games Offer Harmless Fun

As well as being educational in various ways, the vast majority of games offer simple and harmless fun that passes the time. As long as children don’t spend all day playing games, there is nothing with them having fun in their down time. Whether it’s Super Mario Odyssey on Switch of the Final Fantasy 15 mobile app, there are many ways to have fun. It’s not something that people should overreact about.

Be Careful With In-Game Payments

One thing that has become more common in games over the last few years is in-game purchasing. This is when the game gives the user the chance to buy extra content within the game that’s already been purchased. If you have young children with access to your card details, this should be monitored carefully. Some kids have spent a lot of money this way without really knowing what they’re doing.

Control is Possible for Parents and Grandparents

Banning games never really works because kids find other ways of playing, and it simply makes gaming more attractive to them because it’s something they’re not allows to do. Instead, you should aim for control, which is now more than possible for the vast majority of parents and grandparents. There are parental control settings on all the major consoles and devices, so make use of them.

It’s All About Achieving the Right Balance

In the end, what it all comes down to is balance. If you can encourage your kids to spend some time outside doing active and social things with other people, there’s nothing wrong with them also playing some video games when they’re at home. A healthy balance like that will end up being very positive for most children.

Video games, in many ways, are a natural force. The hype and bluster on either side of the debate can usually be ignored. Video games aren’t going to save the world and they aren’t going to cause any major problems. As ever, the real issue here is parenting and how best we can all deal with that challenge.

For the Home

Tips for Buying Trees Online

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Once you get the gardening bug, you have it for life. It becomes practically impossible to walk past a new plant without stopping and finding out what it is. If you really like it, the chances are you will end up seeing if you can buy it for your garden. In the not so distant past that meant visiting every garden center you passed. Today, you can buy practically any plant or tree online.

Companies like The Tree Center have made even quite rare plants and trees easily available to the general public. Nowadays, provided you have the budget, you really can create the garden of your dreams.

Plants are delicate

However, when shopping online for your garden there are a few things you need to bear in mind, especially when buying plants or trees. They are nowhere near as easy to safely transport as an inanimate object like a jumper is.

You know that, but sometimes I swear the courier company forgets this. Some are great. They take very good care of all of their packages. Others, not so much, some seem to ignore “this way up” and “fragile” labels.

Check out the returns process

Sadly, there is no way of knowing whether the courier is going to take good care of your plants or trees during the delivery process. Nurseries that sell online do their best to hire good firms. However, inevitably, every now and again, a delivery person will not follow protocol and will damage the trees or plants they are delivering. In that situation, you need to know that you can return the item or get some or all of your money back. Therefore, before you buy, check out the firm´s returns policy. They are usually excellent.

On delivery, try to video the unwrapping process. That way, if there is damage you will have proof that it was done in transit. You just need to prop your phone up on a table with the plant in-shot and hit record. Or, get one of the kids to do it.

Only buy from trusted sources

Before buying, see if there are any reviews about that firm´s service. If they are mostly bad, move on and buy your plants elsewhere.

Double-check the description

It is also worth checking the product description twice before you order. That way you will not end up buying a tree that you expect to be a meter high only to discover when it arrives, that it is just a few inches high. If details like the height or maturity of the plant are not included in the description ask via email or live chat. Keep the response and complain if the plants that arrive do not measure up.

Plenty of TLC

Even a plant that has been carefully packaged and taken care of during transit will be a little fragile. This means that you have to give it a little extra TLC for a couple of months. To do this, just follow the advice in this article.

 

 

Beauty

Dark, Blonde, Red: Tips to Prevent Your Colored Hair from Fading

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Colored hair fades, it’s the natural order of things and there is nothing you can do to prevent this. However, you can extend the ‘lifespan’ of your color and have your locks vibrant, shining, and beautiful longer. Some of the hair care tips for color-treated hair will require using specialized solutions. However, they’ll be more cost-efficient in the long run than re-dying your locks. And less frequent treatments reduce the damage to your tresses.

Haircare Tips for Color-Treated Hair: How to Make Your Color Last

Red Hair

First of all, you need to know that red hair dye isn’t as long-lasting as other colors. The reason is the difference in the molecule formation of the red pigment. Therefore, your burgundy or ginger locks can’t remain that way long by default. You can learn more by studying the composition of hair dyes.

The only way to extend that time even a little bit is to focus on color protection. This means using only specialized shampoos and conditioners. You’ll also need to get extra protection from UV rays. It will be best to wear a hat or a scarf to cover your locks while out in the sunlight.

It’s also very important to reduce your contact with water to the minimum. When swimming in a pool or the sea, wet your locks under the tap and condition them first. You should also wear a swimming cap or at least braid your hair. Tying it up into a topknot will work as well.

Deep moisturizing is essential for maintaining the color of red hair and keeping your locks shining even as the color starts to fade. You also should cut down on the number of washes. If you need to wet your hair every day, use shampoo every other day and only condition on alternates. As hot styling is as bad as washing for the vibrancy of red pigment, choose a hairstyle that will allow you to minimize it.

Blonde Hair

The first rule of bleached hair care is to use tinted products whenever appropriate. For example, you’ll need to wash and condition your locks with products containing a violet pigment if you choose platinum blonde. You can see some available options if you click this link.

If there aren’t suitable tinted products available for your shade of blonde, you’ll have to resign yourself to the eventual yellowing of bleached locks. You also won’t be able to ‘hide’ grown out roots by anything but regular treatments.

Unless you tint your locks afte4r bleaching them, the haircare tips for color-treated hair you’ll need to use are all about deep-conditioning treatments. Colored blondes can’t have too much moisturizing and nourishment because bleaching is extremely damaging.

Due to the fact that this treatment makes both your locks and scalp very dry, you’ll need to cut down the washing to 2-3 times a week at most. If you want your tresses to feel their best, you’ll stick to 2 or even once a week. Using dry shampoo will help you keep your locks looking fresh.

Dark Hair

The exact color of dark hair dye you chose will affect how you care for it as this factor depends on the composition of the pigment. Dark shades of brown tend to fade rather fast. While this doesn’t mean your locks will lose all color, they can turn dull. Therefore, to preserve these shades, you’ll need to use the deep-conditioning color-preserving treatment regularly. Usually, you’ll only get it after getting the treatment in your salon. So, you’ll need to stock up on the best product.

Like with products for platinum blondes, there are tinted conditioners for dark colored hair. However, their shades are limited, so choose wisely. It might be best to simply stick with neutral products. The rules of less frequent washing and maximum color protection apply the same way as they do to red colored hair.