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Monday, December 26, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Living Frugally, Eating Well - How to Spend Less at The Grocery Store
This is a tip that most people seasoned in the timeless art of grocery shopping are fully aware of and no, we're not talking about clipping coupons.
We've all grown accustomed to opting for the familiar name brands for all of the products we use everyday. After all, things such as cereal, over the counter medications, cookies, laundry detergents, ice cream, soda pop and the like are things that are heavily advertised during various times of the day on various media outlets and which are the first to pop into our minds, with the help of catchy jingles, when in pursuit of such items.
However, consider this; at a particular national grocery chain, they might sell a two-liter bottle of name-brand soda pop for .60. In the same aisle, they will sell you their store-brand soda for the price of $.87 per bottle. That's a difference of $.73 per bottle; a savings of 46 percent!
Now, consider that this is the same across the board for all the other products with the option of either a national brand or a store brand. If you were to, say, not just opt for the Safeway brand soda over the Pepsi Cola and do the same for replacing your Tide laundry detergent, the Oreo cookies, buying the Malt-O-Meal instead of the Kellogg's cereal and so on, this will do quite a bit to stretch your budget to proportions you maybe never fathomed possible.
Don't believe it? Well, don't take our word for it; see for yourself. Next time you do your bi-weekly or monthly grocery shopping, pick out ten national brand items from your most recent grocery store receipt. Next time you make the trip, replace these items with their comparable store brand counterparts. You saved quite a bit of money, didn't you?
From then on, this proves that if just replacing a few items here and there with their comparable store brand counterpart will save you that much, imagine what it can do for you if you need to save a substantial sum of money when your budget is tight? And if you're still not convinced, at least it's better than risking the paper cuts of clipping coupons, right?
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Hidden Cameras and Nanny Cams - Unseen Surveillance
So you think someone is getting into your secret stash of Oreo's? Then a Hidden Camera (aka the infamous "Nanny Cam") may be just what you need. From keeping an eye on the babysitter to monitoring a sensitive area of your office, there are many uses for a hidden camera. As the name suggests, a camera is built into everyday objects so it is hidden. Some examples would be a smoke detector, lamp, air freshener, clock or just about anything else you can imagine.
There are basically three styles, if you will, of hidden camera. Wired, wireless and those with the DVR built in.
Wired Cameras
The system would consist of the hidden camera, cable and either a DVR of VCR. When purchasing the wired camera, the cable and recording medium are not usually included. You would normally have the extra expense of the cable and use your existing DVR or VCR. Trust me, the cable is not a budget buster. Typically, these cameras don't have motion sensors, so the recorder has to be running at all times. There are tapes available which will record for about 8 hours.
Another use for wired systems is body worn applications. These would include such things as buttons, hats or sunglasses with a camera built in. These would record to a mini DVR which could be in a fanny pack or backpack.
Wireless Cameras
This system would consist of the hidden camera with a transmitter and a receiver which would connect to the back of your DVR or VCR. The transmitter and receiver are usually included in the purchase of the camera. These cameras have a range of about 1000 ft. to about 2500 ft. depending on the transmitter. Again, these typically don't have motion sensors so your recording medium will be recording continuously.
One problem you may encounter with these cameras is interference. This can come from wireless internet, cordless phones or WiFi. Usually this problem can be solved by simply relocating the offending item, the transmitter or the receiver.
Cameras with Built-in DVR
These cameras are by far the most versatile. No transmitters , receivers or cables. Everything is built in, the camera and the DVR. These usually have motion sensors so they will only record when they detect movement. They also have a masking capability. This simply means that you can mask an area not to record even with movement. For example, if you have a dog, you could adjust the masking feature so it would only detect movement at say, 3 feet or higher from the floor. This way, the dog won't trigger the camera but a person would.
With these cameras, video is stored on an SD card. To view your video, remove the SD card and plug it into the SD card reader on your computer. An SD card is usually included in the purchase of the camera and if you don't have a reader, they are pretty inexpensive. Other features which may be included are time and date stamp and scheduled recording. Over all, a pretty versatile piece of equipment!
Other Options and Caveats
You may have some other options which I will mention here. Many will give you a choice of color or black and white cameras. Most of the black and white will record in very low light conditions. (That is low light, NOT total darkness!) If cost is a consideration, wired cameras are the least expensive with black and white being less expensive than color. Wireless systems are mid to high on the cost scale with cameras having built-in DVRs usually being the most expensive.
Lastly, a word of caution. It would be wise to familiarize yourself with the laws in your jurisdiction concerning what you can record, where you can record and, as a few of these record audio as well, if recording the audio is legal in your situation.
So there you have it. Everything you need to make an informed decision on what you need to catch that no good Oreo rustler!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
How to Improve Your Child's Writing and Spelling
Writing. All kids love to do it, right? Wrong! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know most don't. Especially my stubborn child.
One week before school ended for the year, I told my daughter she was going to start writing every day.
Needless to say, she whined. BIG TIME!
"Mom, I HATE writing! It's boring and a waste of my time!"
"Too bad." I told her, "You're going to start by writing 40 to 50 words each night and I don't care what you write. Just write. You can even say you hate writing if it makes you feel better."
I knew I should have started her writing at home years ago. But like most parents, my husband and I assumed she was learning all she needed at school. Big mistake! When I saw how well one of her younger cousin's and one of her school friend's writing and spelling were, I knew she had room for improvement.
The first writing session was horrid. Her anger for having to write oozed from her pencil. She wrote,
"This is stuped! I hate this! I want to wach tv. Grrrrrrrrr! I do NOT want to do this! I WANT to play! This is sooooo boring! I want ice cream! I want a new DS game! This is sooooo stuped!"
I rolled my eyes when I saw how hard she had pressed down on the pencil for the words "stuped" and "Grrrrrrrrr!". I DID tell her she could write whatever she wanted, so I just bit my tongue and decided I better count the number of words first to make sure she met the 40 to 50 word requirement before I proofread it. My daughter, being the minimalist she is for anything she doesn't like, wrote one word over the requirement - a big whopping 41 words.
It was a start.
Next, I checked her grammar, spelling and sentence structure. There were many errors. Instead of telling her what errors she made, I guided her by asking her what was wrong with the spelling of a word or the punctuation of a sentence. She was grumpy, but we got through all the corrections and she went outside to play.
During the first week she learned how to spell "stupid", "almost", "very" and many other words. She also learned to apply the same pressure to the pencil so all the words were the same color. Basic punctuation and grammar guidelines were also learned. She already knew how to do most of this basic stuff, but it took her several days to get the grumpies out of her system.
Although almost four weeks into her daily writing she still occasionally writes, "I hate this!", she also writes nice things like:
"I need to get Oreo more cat food from the garage. He is taking a bath. He's so cute!"
My daughter doesn't complain anymore when I tell her to do her writing. What took her 20 minutes to do during her first few writings, now takes her less than 5 minutes. She knows if she does a good job and doesn't mess around, she's done for the day and can go play with her friends. One day she even seemed to enjoy her writing lesson by writing an all-time high 52 words! Yay! She also doesn't ask for writing topics, is less frustrated with her spelling, grammar and punctuation and her penmanship has improved tremendously. All in such a short period of time. It's amazing!
I plan to increase her word count in a couple weeks to 50 to 60 words a day and every now and then pick a topic for her to write about. But for now, I want her to be creative and write whatever is on her mind and not stress out because there are limitations.
While she still has a lot more to learn and improve on, my husband and I look forward to seeing her writing skills continue to grow. Maybe we'll even get some short stories out of her. She has such an imagination from all the books she enjoys reading.
LESSON LEARNED: Don't rely on ONLY the school to teach your child.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
4 Terrific Gifts To Make For Father's Day
Going to a store to buy a gift for dad this Father's Day may be the easy route to take. However, you should take a look at these terrific gifts to make for Father's Day so that it is personalized and so dad feels super special:
A Father's Survival Kit - Take a box of any size. Cover the box with dad's favorite color construction paper. Decorate the box in any way you want, with crayons, stickers, glitter glue, markers, stamps...it is up to you how you want to decorate the box! Once the box is decorated, you can keep it looking nice by covering it with clear contact paper. Now, fill it with everything dad needs to survive: A picture of the family, a band-aid, a mini screwdriver, a bag of mini Oreo cookies, a video or DVD telling him how much he means to you...what you include is limited only by your imagination. You can make the survival kit out of any kind of plastic container, as well. Use puffy paints and glitter glue to decorate.
Special Father's Day T-Shirt - On the computer, create a picture all your own. Include "Happy Father's Day Dad" and pictures of his favorite hobbies, like golf, baseball, grilling, fishing, boating, etc. (All these can be found on free clip art sites online.) Print out your creation on special iron-on paper found at your local discount store (in the craft area). Now, iron-on your creation to a special shirt just for dad!
One of a kind paperweight - Find a big rock or shell. With paints and glitter, write "Happy Father's Day Dad" on the item and then decorate as you want. This will make a great paperweight for dad's desk, either at home or at work.
Don't forget Father's Day coupons - Create your own coupons, or find templates online, for coupons for dad. Offer anything you like: one "mowing the lawn" coupon, one "breakfast in bed" coupon, one "empty the dishwasher" coupon, one "do your laundry" coupon. Great Father's Day gift for teens!
Anything you give dad for Father's Day is special, but when you personalize the holiday with terrific gifts to make for Father's Day it can be even more special.
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011
5 More Ways to Make Money at Your School Carnival - Updated For 2010 School Year
A carnival is one of the best and most fun ways you can raise a significant amount of money for your school. The amount of work that goes into turning your carnival into a real, money-making machine, however, can be intense. Here are five suggestions you can use to really crank up your revenue-producing potential.
1. Use the latest technology in your marketing campaign
A basic principle of marketing is to get the message out to your audience in the ways that they consume information. Since your primary market is families with young children, you can safely assume that a large percentage of these parents are active online. Therefore, you should make sure that you are utilizing social networking outlets as a primary means of spreading the word.
Create a Facebook fan page for your school and fill it with quick posts such as:
· Important dates/times for the carnival
· Notifications on wristband sales
· Cool activities you've booked, like a bungee run or inflatable jousting
· Popular entertainment acts you've scheduled, such as local bands or the high school cheerleading squad
· Incentives like shaving the principal's head if 80% of the students in the school pre-buys wristbands
· Any specialty food items you'll be selling at the carnival, like deep-fried Oreo cookies
Get this information out in real-time and specifically ask your readers to pass the word on by sending email links or suggesting their friends should check your school's fan site out.
I would also suggest recruiting a handful of students who are big-time texters. Ask them to start a "text-tree" where they text ten of their friends and family members. Then, those ten each text ten more friends of their own and so on, until the numbers explode. It can be a simple message like "don't forget to buy your carnival wristbands by today". This can be a very powerful tool for you.
Don't forget to ask your school district if you can use their automated phone alert system, if they have one. This is the phone system that calls you at home to alert you of a school cancellation or something similar. Many times, schools use these systems to tell parents about school plays or performances. Request permission to use the system for your school carnival announcements to parents on their home or mobile phones. This is a very effective means of communications at your disposal. If you've got it, use it!
2. Be more truthful in your marketing
Face it, it's tough getting people to spend money on charities, which schools are, in a bad economy. People are scared and want to hold on to their money. That's understandable. However, it's also true that schools need to raise money for things, important things, that the budget won't cover anymore. Therefore, I would suggest two very important messages to really hammer home in your carnival marketing plan.
First, be very specific in your material. Tell parents exactly what the money you raise will go for. Work with the school principal and teachers to come up with a list of all the items that are dependent upon fundraising. Tell the parents that these items will be cut if your goals aren't met. Even go so far as to create a priority list- name the item that will be cut first, etc. You message might still be ignored by some, but for others, this reality check will be good incentive. And at least, you can say, they were warned.
Second, make sure you start advertising your carnival a LONG time before it happens. I'm talking six or seven months before. Then, after you've told them what their money will go for, specifically suggest that families should SAVE for your event. If you give them six months (24 weeks) and ask them to put away just per week, that's by the time of the event. If your school has 250 families and just half of them (125) save up to spend the , you'll get ,000. 75% at that amount would equal over ,000. Would that be helpful for your school?
I would even go as far as to launch a school-wide project where kids get coffee cans or milk jugs and decorate them into personal savings banks for the school carnival. Even on tight budgets, many families can find ways to scrape together per week. That's only 43 cents per day! But, you're going to have to lay out a plan for them.
Unless families know the specific need and are given a specific plan on how to meet the goal, you won't be able to raise the money your school needs.
3. Pre-sell activity wristbands
In the sections above, I made mention of pre-selling activity and game wristbands. Basically, this is a concept where people get a discount for purchasing their all-access game tickets ahead of time. If a person decides not to pre-buy the wristband, he or she would have to pay more at the door on the day/night of the event. Usually a discount for pre-buying is enough of an incentive.
I would suggest setting a school-wide goal for sales of the wristbands. This will mean that you or the school principal will have to make a big deal with the kids about tracking their progress. Once per day or once per week, the calculations should be made and announced to the school about how close to the goal you are getting.
This can be done with a simple "goal thermometer" that you make with a couple of thick Sharpie markers- black and red- and a sheet of large poster board. It doesn't have to be fancy to make the point. Really get the kids fired up for it. Of course, that will mean you'll have to offer them something pretty good in exchange for their effort.
Even though it's an oldie- the school principal getting his head shaved in front of the school is a great motivator (unless the principal is already bald or is a female who refuses to undergo the clippers). But things like an assembly, a free day at school, a day off from school (if private), or anything else that doesn't cost you any money would also be good.
By pre-selling a lot of activity wristbands, you not only front-load your income, but you also get a good start on estimating on how much food you will need to have on hand. By adding the goal/reward system to the pre-sale, you're pro-actively pumping up your revenue.
4. Be Smart about spending on prizes- use prize packs
It's easy to want to splurge on the prizes you give to kids for the games they play. Some schools get really into it and set up a "prize redemption" station, where kids trade the tickets they won from playing games in for various prizes, very similar to the way arcades do it.
I would suggest staying far away from this system. While the kids love it, it presents a logistical nightmare for the organizers of the carnival. You have to figure out all of the mathematics of how many tickets each child could possibly win on each game, for each time he or she plays it. Then, you have to determine how many of the small, medium, and large prizes you should buy based on how you think the kids would actually do. And you better not screw up by not having enough "big" prizes. You could have some disgruntled youngsters on your hands ...
Plus, it takes an incredibly long time for kids to decide which prize(s) they want. Have you ever stood in line behind a seven year old at the prize counter at Chuck E. Cheese? It takes eons for them to figure out how to spend all of their tickets. You'll have a line snaking all around your school, trying to manage this!
The solution, although it's not the most fun for kids, is to go with pre-packaged prize packs that are all the same. You can create separate packs for boys and girls, if you like. Good prizes are pencils, coupons to McDonald's, small candy, a homework pass, a few small toys, a rub-on tattoo, etc. In the long run, a child won't be disappointed by this bag of loot and you've saved a lot of grief for everyone involved.
5. Merchandize like crazy with money-making add-ons
Ok, so you've got people buying their activity wristbands and some food, but how else can you get them to part with some of their hear-earned dough?
From the time a family walks into your carnival, they should be overwhelmed with opportunities to spend money. The games and activities are inviting, but you can set up a bunch of other money-making stations that are very appealing, as well.
For instance, you can sell "cascarones". These are decorative egg-shells that have been hollowed out and stuffed with confetti. Once they're stuffed and decorated, you paste a small cover over the hole to keep the confetti in.
Have volunteers make these by the dozen and then sell them individually at the carnival. One a person buys a cascarone, he or she sneaks up behind a friend and smashes it over their head, raining confetti down on that person. It's a good laugh for everyone. Just makes sure the person buying the egg knows not to hurt their target by smashing it down on the head too hard.
There are many articles online, giving instructions on how to make and decorate the eggs. Do a simple search on Google to learn more.
Another good idea is to set up a jail at the carnival. For a fee, like 2 tickets (approximately ) you can hire one of the jail guards to "arrest" one of his or her friends. The "arrested" person has to stay in the jail until he or she pays 4 tickets (approximately ) to get out.
The jail should be in a conspicuous location where everyone can see who has been arrested.
If you really want to ratchet up the embarrassment factor, make the inmates sing for the crowd while they are incarcerated. I once had to sing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" while waiting to get out of jail. It was very embarrassing, but a lot of fun!
One more idea to make some extra money at your carnival would be to get a volunteer who is handy with a camera to take candid shots all evening of friends having fun together. With a digital camera and a portable color printer, you can print off copies for sale. Price the photos to move and make sure the photographer is also a good salesman to motivate people to buy.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the many strategies you can use to make more money at your next school carnival. The most important piece of advice is to make sure you are giving people what they want. The more ways you can tempt them, the more money they will spend.
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Saturday, November 19, 2011
The Dairy Queen Blizzard Turns 25!
Happy Birthday, Dairy Queen Blizzard! Did you know that the Dairy Queen Blizzard is now 25 years old? I can remember the day that the DQ Frozen Blizzard Treat was released to the public. That makes me feel a bit old! But I have great memories from those days, and I remember the excitement everyone felt when they were on their way to buy their first DQ Blizzard. The week the Blizzard debuted, some parents brought Blizzards to school for their kids at lunch time while the rest of us looked on with envy and disappointment that our parents hadn't brought us Blizzards. Today in 2010 it is difficult to imagine the hype surrounding the Blizzard in 1985, but perhaps the sales figures will put things into perspective: in 1985 Dairy Queen sold 100 million Blizzard Treats. That's right, 100 million.
The Blizzard is the greatest success in the history of Dairy Queen. What makes it such a success? Well, it was the first treat to blend soft serve ice cream with crushed candies or chocolate bars, cookies, nuts, or fruit. Nowadays every fast-food chain has some kind of copycat version of the Blizzard, but in 1985 those did not exist. Dairy Queen was the innovator. Another reason is that Dairy Queen always works hard to make a wide variety of flavors available. Over the years more than 75 flavors of Blizzard have been released. Some of them are extremely popular staples like Oreo Cookie, M&Ms, and Butterfinger; and others are seasonal, like a pumpkin flavor released around Halloween time; and others are innovative and experimental and whether they become permanent fixtures depends on how popular they are with customers.
This year, to keep that tradition of variety alive in celebration of the Blizzard's silver anniversary, a menu of "25 Flavor For 25 Years" has been released. That means that every Dairy Queen will be equipped with 25 flavors to choose from. These twenty five represent the most popular of the 75 flavors that have been released. 2010 is your big chance to experience all of the classic flavors that have resurfaced for the Blizzard's birthday celebration. I plan to try a couple flavors each month, and by the end of the year I will have sampled them all. I won't eat more than a couple per month because I don't enjoy getting fat, but once or twice a month is no problem. So if you love frozen treats, why set a fun goal for yourself of trying all the flavors by the end of the year? I dare you!
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