Have You Made Your New Year's Resolution Yet?

Wow, 2009 has flew by so fast. Where did the time go? Isn't it funny how around this time everyone ask each other what their New Year's resolution is? The average person that makes a resolution very rarely acheives their goals that they set. A New Year's resolution is often forgotten within a week of the start of the New Year.

My personal New Year's resolution is to strive to make as much extra income this year that I can to reduce the remaining debt. I have had so much happen this year that threw my plans for the year off and I am back on track now and ready for 2010.

Do any of you have New Year's resolutions? Leave a comment and share it with all of us.

General Mills Commit To Reducing Sugars In Cereals

In my house, cereal is a quick and easy breakfast. My daughter's favorite is Lucky Charms cereal. She likes the colorful marshmallows that are inside and I like the fact that it has whole grain oats. I feel that after a bowl of Lucky Charms she is geared to start her day whether it is at school or at home. General Mills reached out to me through My Blog Spark to let me know of their commitment to futher reducing sugars in cereals that are targeted to children under the age of 12. This is exciting news for us parents that are concerned about nutrition.

I guess you can say that General Mills has been a staple in our lives since when she first started eating whole foods. As a toddler she would snack on Cherrios. It was a handy easy to carry around snack for on the go. Below is some interesting facts about cereal.

Here is the info that they sent me to share with all of you:

Did you know that ready-to-eat cereal eaters consume less fat, less cholesterol and more fiber than non-cereal eaters? Cereals also deliver important vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients, making cereal a top source of key nutrients in children’s diets.


Other cereal benefits:


Ready-to-eat cereals, including presweetened cereals, account for only 5% of sugar in children’s diets.


Ready-to-eat cereal is the No. 1 source of whole grains in a child’s diet today.


More frequent cereal eaters tend to have healthier body weights and lower Body Mass Index measures.


Studies also demonstrate the benefits of eating breakfast. A 1998 study showed that children who eat breakfast tend to perform better at school. Compared to children who skip breakfast, children who eat breakfast score higher on tests, are less likely to miss class or be tardy, have fewer reported discipline problems, and make fewer trips to the office.

For more information about kids and cereals, please visit Cereal Health and Wellness.

Right now if you visit here you will find a $1 off coupon for one of four General Mills cereals.






(Disclosure: All of the views and personal stories are solely mine. Through My Blog Spark, General Mills sent me 4 coupons for free General Mills Cereal. This in no way swayed my views or opinions. For more on my disclosure statement click here.)

It's Giveaway Roundup Tuesday!

If you are hosting a giveaway on your blog or website please share it with us below.

To make it easier to read, follow the below guideline to post the giveaway.

Prize-site-end date of the giveaway

Coupon Insert Tenative 2010 Schedule

This is a great tool for all of us Coupon Divas. For The Mommas has listed a tenative listing of the Sunday newspaper coupon inserts for 2010. If you notice on the list this Sunday's newspaper (1/03/2010) is slated to have 2 Smart Source inserts, 2 Smart Source inserts, and a General Mills insert. So this is a newspaper that is worth asking your neighbors and family for the coupon inserts if they don't use them. So click here to see the list over at For The Mommas.

It's Giveaway Roundup Tuesday!

If you are hosting a giveaway on your blog or website please share it with us below.

To make it easier to read, follow the below guideline to post the giveaway.

Prize-site-end date of the giveaway

Come And Get Them While They Are $5 For A 1-Year Subscription

Currently Amazon is running a few magazines until December 26 for $5 for a 1-year subscription. Click on the links below to take advantage of these today. These would be a great stocking stuffer idea.

Southern Living (1-year)

This Old House (1-year)

Health (1-year)

Sunset (1-year)

Golf Magazine (1-year)

Coastal Living (1-year)

Essence (1-year)

(Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Amazon. I receive compensation for any purchases made by using my affiliate ID. For more info on my Disclosure Policy click on the link in the left sidebar.)

Start Making Money For Christmas 2010: Volume 4

 Another way that I make Christmas money is to use a search engine called Swag Bucks. This site is a search engine, powered by Google and Ask, that randomly issues Swag Bucks for searches done by its members. Members can then cash in their Swag Bucks for a prize. They offer a wide array of prize options such as: gift cards (online & offline), band swag, music, Electronics, Video Game Systems, and more. My favorite prize is the Amazon e-Gift Card. I save these up and use them for gift buying for the holidays. I can find gifts for most people on my list there at Amazon and when I use my e-Gift Cards, the gifts did not cost my any money.

Some other ways to earn Swag Bucks are shopping from one of the stores in their database, by trading in video games, old cell phones, submitting an idea for a poll, and inviting your friends to join using your referral id. Swag Codes, which are like a promo code to get a free Swagbuck, can be found periodically in the Swagbucks blog and on the Swagbucks Twitter page.

Every Friday they have "Mega Swag Bucks Day". That means that if you are not a member of Swagbucks, today is the day to join. MEGA Swagbucks happens every Friday. You will have a chance to get 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 Swagbucks on random searches.

Check it out at Swag Bucks today and start earning toward your Christmas 2010. To check it out, Click here or click the banner above.

(Disclosure: I am a member of Swag Bucks and will earn Swag Bucks from my referrals that I have. For more info on my disclosure statement, click the link in my left sidebar.)

It's Giveaway Roundup Tuesday!

If you are hosting a giveaway on your blog or website please share it with us below.

To make it easier to read, follow the below guideline to post the giveaway.

Prize-site-end date of the giveaway

Start Making Money For Christmas 2010: Volume 3

As Christmas grows near people are running to find the perfect gift at an affordable price. Stores are racing to be the one you choose to shop with in store and online by offering deals. Did you know that you can make money by getting cash back on your purchases? There are sites that offer you a percentage of your total back if you shop at your favorite stores by linking through their website.

Ebates and Big Crumbs are both sites that are setup like an online mall. Once you become a member of either, you can start shopping. With Ebates there are two ways to find the store you want. First you can click on the type of merchandise in the right side bar of the site and it will give you a list of stores that have the category that you are looking for. Next, you can click on the Select A Store menu and look for the store alphabetically. There are major retailers such as: Land's End, eBay, Disney Store, Walmart, Walgreens,  and many more. You also will have access to any coupon codes the retailer currently has. Big Crumbs is also easy to find your desired store. You can click the shop tab at the top and choose the online retailers page or you can enter the store name in the search box that is at the top of the page. Big Crumbs has stores like Lane Bryant, Lego, Walmart, Target, and more.

As you can see they are quite similar websites. I would say belong to both since they are free in case there is a store that you want to shop at that is not listed on one of them and it's listed on the other.

There are many online cash back shopping websites, these are the ones that I use. There is no reason not to use sites like these if you are going to shop online, if you don't then you are cheating yourself out of money.

If you use another site to earn cash back share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Start Making Money For Christmas 2010: Volume 2

As promised, here is the next installment of Start Making Money For Christmas 2010. Today let’s talk about ways that you can make money offline. With the growing concern over the current job loss in the country, Christmas gifts and family meals are a luxury instead of just a tradition.

Do you have unused textbooks? If so, sell them. College students are always looking to get the best deal on their books for school. If you have ever went to college you know how expensive it can be. People sell textbooks on sites like eBay, Amazon, Half.com, and even at some campuses they have a bookstore that will buy them back.

Do you love to bake? Why not put out the word that you will bake for profit in your neighborhood. A lady in my community makes cakes on request from her customers. Granted it is a small operation, she still makes extra cash doing it. Last I heard, she was making around $100 extra a month. You can advertise your services amoung your friends and church members.

If you don’t mind cleaning houses, there is always someone looking for people to come clean theirs. You can advertise amoung your friends and family. A cousin of mine now cleans 4 houses a week and makes an extra $800 a month. She cleans them while her kids are in school and is home by the time they get off of the school bus.

You can make extra cash by having a yard sale. Post signs in the neighborhood to direct traffic to it and post an ad in your newspaper in town.

Become a tutor for extra money. There are parents that look for people who can help their children in math and English when their child is struggling. You can advertise in your local newspaper and get the word out by posting on local bulletin boards of your service. A friend does this and charges $15 an hour. It won’t make you rich but if you get a few clients you can make enough to make it worth the effort.

If you like kids, offer a babysitting service. If you put out the word in the neighborhood that you are available, they will come to you. Post a flyer on any bulletin boards and if you belong to a church or a mother’s group, tell them about it. I baby-sit for a few families in the neighborhood on the weekends. I don’t do it every weekend, but a couple times a month.

These are just some of the making money ideas that I have. I will post some more tomorrow. So stay tuned…

Start Making Money For Christmas 2010: Part 1

It is the Holiday Season and everyone's budget is screaming. There are gifts to be bought and meals to be cooked. Money seems to be in the forefront of everyone's mind this holiday season. In January I vowed to try to make extra cash to pay for the holiday expenses this year so that I wouldn't have to take any out of my household budget. I managed to make enough to pay for all of the gifts that I need to get this year. There are numerous ways to make that extra cash, on and offline. So for the next few days I will be posting some of these ideas to share with you.

For today I am going to talk to you about freelance writing to make extra cash. You can write articles and get paid for it. There are sites that are known as "Content Sites" that allow anyone to post informative articles and earn for their performance. You don't have to be a pro writer, just follow their article guidelines that each site has. You can write How-To's, product or website reviews, and informative articles.

The first site that I want to talk about is eHow. eHow is a site that offers how-to articles that are posted by people just like us. You can write about how to do most anything from cooking to household repairs. The article submission template is an easy step by step process that gives you the option of adding images or videos to your article (although you are not required to). It is free to join and has an easy sign up process. They offer payout by Paypal once a minimum of $10 has been reached each month. One of the things that I like is that you don't have to remember to cash out, they do it for you. Another thing is that your articles go live once you submit it, there are no waiting periods for your articles to appear for others to see. Another is that I have found personally that their articles rank well with Google (not scientifically proven, just my opinion), which will help you get traffic to your articles and earn more. eHow offers a feature for its members to request others to write about subjects that are not covered. This is a great feature for someone who is looking for something to write about. I suggest before you sign on to submit articles, go to eHow and check the site out. For more on eHow check out these post.

My next favorite site is Associated Content (AC). It is a content site that allows you to post articles about your neighborhood events, how to's, reviews, and more. The site is easy to sign up and is free to join. As a writer with Associated Content you can submit articles and choose to either get an upfront payment with performance pay or just submit it and receive performance pay only. The difference in these options is when you choose to get an upfront payment for the article you will have a waiting period before it gets approved and viewable by others as suppose to if you choose to just get the performance pay it will be published fairly quickly. Performance pay (otherwise known as PPM) is based on page views of your content. The more page views, the higher PPM payout. It is based off of every thousand page views. When an upfront payment is selected, AC will give you the option to accept the offer or decline it. The offer can range anywhere from $1 to $20. If you have writers block or looking for a place to get started writing, check out the "Assignment Desk" ticker found on your account page. It offers subjects that AC is looking for articles on. These are usually time sensitive assignments but can help earn more page views. Again, if you are thinking of joining check out the site first and explore some of the existing articles. This way you can become familiar with the site format. To see another post I have made about Associated Content check out this post.

Now there are other writing sites out there. These are just the ones that I write for currently. As with anything, remember to read terms of service and submission guidelines on the sites before you jump in and start writing. I am in no way a pro at either site but definitely think that it is a great way to earn extra income. Do you write online for extra income? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next installment of Start Making Money For Christmas 2010.

(Disclaimer: This is just an informative article about sites that I have used before. Neither offer compensation to me for this post or referrals made to them. See more of my disclosure statement by clicking the banner in the left sidebar)

It's Giveaway Roundup Tuesday

If you are hosting a giveaway on your blog or website please share it with us below.

To make it easier to read, follow the below guideline to post the giveaway.

Prize-site-end date of the giveaway

Freebie Roundup!

Get A Free Aveeno Tote

25 Days of Free Christmas Music at Amazon**

Free Sample of Excedrin Extra Strength

Free Splenda Sweetner

Breast Feeding Freebie From Enfamil for Moms

 Free Sheets of Shipping Labels for eBay Users

Free Letter From Santa - This can either be printed or mailed to your child- read the directions on the site for more info.

(Disclosure: The above link that has (**) behind them are links to Amazon, of whom, I am an affiliate for. The other links in this post I am not connected too in any way. For more Disclosure info click my link in the left sidebar at the top.)

It's Mega Swagbucks Friday!

What does that Mean? Well, it means that if you are not a member of Swagbucks, today is the day to join. MEGA Swagbucks happens every Friday. You will have a chance to get 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 Swagbucks on random searchs.

For those of you who don't know what Swagbucks is, Swagbucks is a search engine that rewards it's members by giving Swagbucks to random searchs. As a member you can take your Swagbucks and trade them in for Swag. There are gift cards to popular places, band or artist swag, video game stuff, airline miles, Amazon e-certificates, and more. Click Here or Click the Banner to Join today.

(Disclosure: I am a member of Swagbucks and will receive point compensation if you join as my referral. For more details on my disclsoure click on my disclosure banner in the left sidebar.)

Here Are Some Can't Miss Deals

Are You Going Shopping At Old Navy? Print these Coupons to Save At The Register.

Amazon has $5 Mp3 Album Downloads. This deal includes new albums from Lady Gaga, Switchfoot, Kansas, Bonnie Rait, Lily Allen, Everclear, Vanessa Williams, Toby Keith, Lenny Kravitz, and many more. **

Get Entertainment Weekly for only $10 for a one-year subscription , hurry because this deal ends on December 5th. This will be a great gift subscription for the magazine lover. **

Get Hannah Montana Toys Up To 60% Off**

Get High School Musical Toys Up To 60% Off**

Get Kid's DVDs Under $10**

Find Girl's Dresses (Sizes 2-16) 20-50% off select styles**

Get Up To 70% Off of Women's Clothing**

Check Out All of the CyberWeek Specials at Walmart.com

Free Shipping on Orders $40 and over at Avon.com when you order online

(Disclosure: The above links that have (**) behind them are links to Amazon, of whom, I am an affiliate for. The other links in this post I am not connected too in any way. For more Disclosure info click my link in the left sidebar at the top.)

Giveaway Roundup Tuesday!

If you are hosting a giveaway on your blog or website please share it with us below.

To make it easier to read, follow the below guideline to post the giveaway.

Prize-site-end date of the giveaway