A program you can't afford to miss...

Whether you are a mom or just have a friend or family member who is...you simply cannot afford not to be apart of upromise. Upromise is an absolutely free, absolutely wonderful program that allows you to save for your children's (or niece and nephew, or godchild, or just a child of a friend or coworker) college. With college costs as high as they are, why would anyone not want to store away money by doing the everyday things we already do? Once you sign up for Upromise you will be given the opportunity to register your credit/debit cards as well as your grocery and pharmacy cards. In my neck of the woods, the stores participating are CVS, Bi-Lo, Food Lion, Harris Teeter and Netgrocer. So essentially when I make my grocery run to the local Harris Teeter (all the while earning money cuz I do mystery shops there too) and use my coupons (that are doubled every single day and tripled about once a month here lately) I can also save even more on select items. When I say select I dont mean just a few; there are hundreds of items and brands that contribute a portion of their sales to your child's college education. Just a sample of what these companies are: Huggies, Cottonelle, Nestle Toll House, Fisher Salad Buddies, Marzetti Frozen Breads and salad dressings, Nestle candy bars, Snyders of Hanover products and the list goes on and on. Any of those products get purchased in your house??? If so, why on earth not let them pay you to purchase them?

In addition to the grocery and drug store savings that you get you also earn money for dining out using your credit or debit card and shopping online through their website. The online shopping is much the same as it is with Mr. Rebates, Ebates, and Cashbaq except with the money going directly into your child's college savings account rather than back to you right away. Whatever way you decide to do your online shopping make sure you are at least using on of these methods to save the most money. As for the dining out part, certain restaurants participate and to find out what restaurants participate in your area you will have to log on and enter your zip code.

Also, you can currently link your Sunglass Hut and McDonald's Arch cards to your account and save money that way too. My personal thought is that if you know you are going to be eating at McDonalds or shopping at Sunglass Hut, go ahead and purchase the gift card, register it on your account and then use it to make your purchase. You didn't spend any extra money to get the giftcard but you did save money for college. Currently these are the only 2 giftcard option available but the site does say that they will be adding more soon.

Finally, you can link your child's school to your Upromise account and help them earn money while you save too! You'll have to check to see if your school is participating (my son's is not currently but hopefully this upcoming year they will start) but if they are go ahead and link up and start helping your school make up for the budget shortfalls.

First step towards productivity

I bought a laptop! Ok, yeah, I bought it the 30th of May but I took the plunge and whipped out the debit card and bought the thing! I must say...I LOVE IT!!! Why, you might ask, did I buy it when the goal is to save money and prepare for the future. Well, the reason is that this lil baby gets me closer to my goal. I can tote it around with me when I go places and even better than that I can use it while I sit right beside my lil boy on the couch watching our favorite shows, checking out him kick butt on Monster Jam or while he does his homework. It's great!!! However, it is further incentive for me to actually do this blogging thing and do it right. The things I learn on the blogs I read are going to be used to pay for my laptop.

The things I am going to use the laptop for...

Taking Surveys
Reading emails
Doing mystery shops
Finding deals and sales
Printing coupons
Doing online offers

Maybe even doing a few more online classes (after all I did get my Bachelor's in Business Management through the University of Phoenix).

Each week I am going to do a post telling how much money I made that week (with the laptop) and how I made it.

So...how much money do I need to earn to be turn a profit off this laptop...$545.00. I wonder how long it will take me...guess it depends on how dedicated I am.

Bye now...off to get started reading emails and doing surveys tonight...while I catch up on my DVRed stuff from when we were on vacation (Trajan is at granddaddy's so I have the house to myself).

Jennifer

I have a confession to make...

I suck! Suck at what you might ask. Well, lots of things but let's start with the most obvious... blogging. You see, I started this blog somewhere around September or October of last year and had the best of intentions of actually keeping it up and blogging regularly. Simply put, I just didn't have (or make) time and honestly, although I can talk a person's head off when they are standing right there in front of me I just didn't know what to say...what does the blogging world want to hear about? Then one day (I admit one day awhile ago...I think you already get the point that I am slow lol) I read on my favorite blog here that you should blog about what you know, what interests you and what is important in your life. So what do I know? Hmm...thinking...still thinking, how about I get back to you on that one. What interests me and what is important to me? My son, church, my family, my friends, reading blogs, saving money and providing a better future for my son.

What else do I suck at? Being "domesticated". I just don't have a homemaker gene in my whole body. Cooking, cleaning, sewing, arts and crafts...all of it...it just passed right by me. Now I realize that you probably have a picture in your mind right now of a pigstye messy home...well, being as though I never cook and we are never home, the house isn't "pristine clean" (you know that clean that makes you scared to sit down on the couch or touch anything with your grubby lil hands) but it isn't "dirty" either. Now back to the statement about never being at home and never cooking, that's where the real "undomesticatedness" comes in. As much as I hate to admit it about 95% of our meals come through a drive-thru window and the 5% that don't either come from us eating at my parent's house or by me cooking some out of a box type dinner. Ok...I heard the gasp of horror now please take your hand and physically push your jaws back together. You see this is a confession, which means that I realize that there is a problem and that I need to make a change. That change is already in the works and I am going to chronicle it here on this blog. For those of you reading (or hopefully the masses that are going to start reading since I am actually going to start talking), my desire is that either my blog help those kindred spirits out there who also find themselves wanting to be domesticated but not quite sure where to start or that those of you who are already domestic divas can help me find my way to a more homemaker like haven.

So, back that that question from above about what I know...I'd like to believe that I know a thing or two about being a single working (outside of the home) mom. I need a lot of help but we have certainly improved over the past 6 years we've been practicing this whole setup. However, with that being said, my desire is to take the knowledge that I have gained from the blogs that I faithfully read and use it to continue to improve our life in the present and our lives in the future.

So, what might you ask is the difference between my blog and the thousands of others out there that tell the same money saving and making methods? I'll tell you...although I will attempt to bring new methods of making and saving money that I didn't find on someone else's blog my main goal is going to be to attempt to show those of you who might find yourself a single, working (again outside of the home) mom or simply just a working mom find the time to actually use the methods you find on here. You see, I have been reading these blogs for months and the ideas are SO great and I really want to put them to use but once I get home from working an 8 hour day at the office, picking up my son, running by the gym, grocery shopping, picking up or occasionally cooking dinner I just don't have the time. Well, I don't have the time unless I stay up extremely late or I spend the little bit of time I actually have alone with my son sitting alone in my bedroom putting those ideas to use. As much as I love the blogs I read, sometimes they seem so intimidating. I could be wrong but every blog I read is either ran by a stay-at-home mom or by a working woman without kids. Although I love the things they have to say, most of their lives are very different than mine...it's simply not an option for me to sit down in the middle of a weekday and blog, or look or money making or saving methods online (hence, the reason I am SOO thankful for these dedicated ladies whose blogs I love so dearly). I want to use this blog to not only help others but to also keep myself accountable to actually making the most of my time and resources so that the work these ladies do doesn't go to waste in my life.

So...with that all out of the way...here we go...again. This time, I promise to keep at and work hard at making this blog a blog that people want to read as much as I want to read the blogs I check out daily.

Yours truly...the new and improved Jennifer