Free Magazine Subscriptions - Business Week and Forbes

Here are links to two free magazine subscriptions from Rewards Gold.

• Business Week
• Forbes

I've gotten several subscriptions from them and they are always completely free, no credit card required. You just complete a short survey and give them your shipping info for the magazine. That's it, easy as can be.

Grocery Spending

Last night I did a bad thing. I needed to stop and pick up some graham crackers so I went in to the grocery store without any coupons. My plan was just to get the graham crackers and get out. Well, I wound up spending $33.26. It's crazy how that happens. I know better and yet I still do things like this. Planning is everything when it comes to saving money on groceries.

Oh, and to top things off, one of the items I picked up was a bottle of Pom Pomegranate Blackberry Tea because I was thirsty. Well, apparently Pumpkin was thirsty too because she drank almost the whole bottle. She left me a very little bit. If I'd have known she was that thirsty I would have bought something in a larger bottle. The stuff is good, but she could at least leave a little more for the person who paid for it.

And yes, I realize that there is nothing frugal about buying single portion drinks while you are out, but believe me, it's better for everyone if my daughter and I don't get thirsty. Just ask my husband.

Quick Update

I wanted to post a quick update because I had made it a goal to blog every day this week. I had a post started for today and had planned to finish it up and get it scheduled last night. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. Instead of spending my time blogging, I got to clean up after a carsick toddler and deal with a migraine. It was not a fun evening. Hopefully tonight will go a little smoother and I will be able to put something together for tomorrow’s post.

Cell Phone Craziness

I've had a Motorola Z9 Razor cell phone for about 11 months. For the last two months now the buttons have not been working properly. Sometimes they work fine and other times you have to press them repeatedly, say bad things, press the buttons some more and then they finally work. To make a long story short, AT&T refuses to replace the phone under the 1 year warranty they offer because of the little chip you can see in the picture. This left with me a piece of junk cell phone and over a year left on my contract. I was not happy.

Luckily for me, my husband (the poor soul who has to live me with and hear me complaining about my cell phone and AT&T) decided to be super nice and let me use his cell phone upgrade to get myself a new phone. So I am now the happy owner of a new iPhone. So far I love it and the best part is that it's touch screen so the buttons can't get stuck. And yes, we did invest in the protective case and screen cover. So far I absolutely love the phone. There is just so much that you can do with it. I think there is an app out there for everything. Now I just hope that the phones lasts for the 2 year term of the contract.

Finally, I wanted to note that I know of other people that also have the Motorola Z9 Razor cell phone and have the same problems with the keys. So my advice to anyone out there looking at cell phones is to avoid this phone. I loved it until the buttons started acting up, but seriously, what good is a cell phone without working buttons? Besides, a cell phone that won't even work for a year isn't worth a 2 year contract. I could continue on this rant, but I will spare you. I'm getting worked up just thinking about it. Ugh!

Wordless Wednesday - Annie's Playground

This past weekend my daughter wasn't feeling very well because she has some more teeth coming in. So we decided to take her to the playground and distract her. This time we took her to Annie's Playground. This playground is huge and my daughter absolutely loved it.

Here she is on the swings:

And here's a view of most of the playground:

Crawling through a tube:

Playing the crocodile:

My daughter loved this playground. We will definitely be going back. This park is in Fallston, Maryland and if any of you are near there, I recommend checking it out.

For more Wordless Wednesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom.

To Do Tuesday - July 7

Well, last week was crazy and completely off schedule. I'm hoping that we can get back to more of a normal schedule this week. The buyers for our house also backed out of the contract so we have to relist our house. That means that we need to do another good cleaning. Ugh! I really hope that we can get another contract soon. I'm not the most patient person and once I've made up my mind that I want to do something (like move) I'm ready to do it NOW. Yeah, I really need to work on my patience.

Here is my To Do List for this week. I tried to keep it fairly light since the last weeks have been so crazy.

√ Put away laundry (I have 2 weeks worth in baskets)
√ Write daily blog posts
√ Clean out email inbox (as of 2 seconds ago my inbox was empty!)
Balance my checkbook
√ Clean house for possible showings
√ Complete Menu Plan for next week

What do you need to get done this week? To see more To-Do Tuesday lists, head over to Crazy Adventures in Parenting.

Cleaning Out The Car

Every month Org Junkie has a monthly organizing challenge. In June the challenge was cleaning out our cars. I did participate in this challenge, but I didn't get the time to write my post before the end of June. Very bad, I know. Since I did do all that hard work of cleaning out my car, I figured I should still post the results for everyone to see.

The first picture to the left shows you what the second row of seats looked like before I started cleaning my car.

The second picture is what the back of my car looked like. The third row of seats were folded down to make room for the "stuff" that didn't need to be there.

While my daughter was taking her nap one day I decided to go through my car and clean out all the junk. It was such a relief to get it all out of there. I didn't get to vacuum the car that day, but that weekend we did manage to take my car to the car wash and wash and vacuum it. After that it was almost like driving a new car.

Here are the after pics:

Pic #1: I managed to put the third row seats back up and just use the very back cargo area for storage. There I have my reusable shopping bags, an emergency car kit, a stroller and a towel.

Pic #2: The second row seats are all cleaned out. Look, you can actually see my car mats now.

Pic #3: In the driver's door cubby I have a stash of Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons. Since these never expire and you can use multiple coupons in one transaction (1 coupon per item) I keep a pile of them in the car. This way I always have a coupon with me. The little plastic organizer holds other coupons to restaurants and such.

Pic #4: The door cubby at my daughter's seat. This one holds a few stuffed animals, a book, a cloth diaper and a few of those disposable plastic place mats for when we dine out.

My car is unbelievably cleaner now. I even cleaned out the glove box and the center console for the front seats and the second row seats. I love it.

For more Tackle It Tuesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom.

To find links to other car cleaning posts, head over to Org Junkie.