10 Ways to Teach Your 10 Year Old About Money

When it comes to having kids, it seems like the days go by painfully slow, but the years go by incredibly fast. That’s why there’s no better time than the present to start teaching your kids about money. Money lessons learned in childhood will stay with them through the rest of their lives.

One of the most important things you can do is to make sure you tailor your teaching to your child’s age. Ten years old is a great time to start introducing really exciting financial concepts to your kids in a simple, fun way.

Read "10 Ways to Teach Your 10 Yr Old About Money" at the FlexScore Blog here. 




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2 for 1 sale on eShakti dresses!

Need a new dress? Need a dress that doesn't show all your goods and then some?
It's time to check out eShakti and their awesome customizable dresses!

Here is what the Little Navy Sheath Dress looks like on their site -

 

And here is what it looks like on me- 

Not only did the color change (and I added a belt), but you might also notice it suddenly has sleeves, and is a little bit longer.

This is the magic of eShakti. YOU CAN CUSTOMIZE EVERYTHING (for just $7.50)!!!
You can add sleeves, change the neckline and/or the length of the dress, plus add or remove pockets, to make the dress suit you.

But that's not all folks!

You can also have the dress custom FIT to you!
Instead of picking size 2, 10, or 18, etc., you have the option of putting in your exact measurements, and having the dress custom fit precisely to you.

I have always had a difficult time finding dresses that fit me. I am short, but with long legs, and a very curvy torso. Finding dresses and skirts that reach my knee is a total joke. Finding dresses or shirts that fit me through the bust, and with my narrow shoulders? Never happened. All of my dresses are either too big in the shoulders, or the waist hits in the wrong place, etc. I usually just compromise with empire waist, or no-waist wrap dresses, and make do.

When I put my measurements in to eShakti I discovered my waist was a size 8, my shoulders a size 10, my bust a size 18, and my hips are size 12. No wonder nothing ever fits!

Which is why I LOVE my eShakti dresses that not only fit me, but actually hit at my real waist and hips as well. The measurements even take into account the distance between waist and hips, so the waist of my dresses actually are on my waist, and not around my hips (like what happens with most of my dresses).

Now, keeping in mind that I am a) not a model, b) not thin, c) not a photographer, d) not very good with any sort of photo editing service, I now share with you what I look like in my eShakti dresses, compared to my other regular clothes. (Also, I could really use a haircut.)

This is the "Ponte Knit Sheath Dress."  This is the same as my red dress above, but I chose a different neckline and slightly different sleeves.

And here is what I look like in a regular sheath dress that isn't custom fit to me.

Okay, so the picture isn't as bad as I want you to see. I'm really not photogenic so the good and bad are all just mediocre bad! Anyway, in this second dress, the black one, it's too curvy, with fat rolls. I look much thinner, and have a much better silhouette in the eShakti dress.

This next dress is the eShakti "Virginia" dress ($74.95). I LOVE this dress. I have never been able to wear a dress with a full or pleated skirt before, because the waist is usually around my hips, and therefore too wide, and really just looks BAD. I still have unfortunately wide hips, but it helps a lot to have the waist fit just right to make it look much more flattering than the alternative.

And here's the closest thing I have to a similar cut dress-

I like how the eShakti dress has a less revealing neckline, but is still a slimming v-neck (important to us full-figured girls). You can see in the second dress that the waist is right around my hips, making me look considerably wider than necessary.

And this last dress is the eShakti Havana dress. I bought this one for my 20th high school reunion. It got tons of compliments. It's just the right combination of modest/not too revealing, and party/sexy. I LOVE this dress. (I just wish I had a better picture in it.)

I don't have anything to compare this dress to because I've never dared to wear anything like it before. It definitely shows off my curves! (A lot!)

Here's a few more details to know- these dresses are VERY comfortable. As in, I'm still sitting here in the Havana dress right now because it's probably the most comfortable dress I own. I love it.

Did I mention it has pockets? And a side-zip?

And they are not dry-clean only. You can wash these at home and hang dry them.

I love them.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Because eShakti is having a 2 for 1 sale.

And they have free shipping.

So in 10 days from now you could own 3 custom-fit, gorgeous dresses, for less than $150. And you know you want that. You want it a lot.

Full disclaimer- I like eShakti enough that I am excited that I just got accepted to be an affiliate marketer for them. (But I've been talking them up long before I even applied to be an affiliate for them.)

So go get yourself some awesome dresses for the holidays. YOU KNOW YOU WANT ONE!!!

I know that I want this one- (I just added it to my Amazon Wish List.)
Retro Plaid Shirtdress- $129.  (I would change the sleeves to elbow length, take the "remove embellishment" option, and make it knee length. And of course have it custom fit to me. That would only be an extra $7.50. Oh and every time you buy from them they send you coupons for your next order, so I'll be taking at least $25 off the price to start with.)

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How to Open a Stuck Jar Lid- from Your YouTube Mom

Get more helpful and great tips from Joni Hilton, "Your YouTube Mom," on her YouTube channel- http://www.youtube.com/user/jonimhilton

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50% off Night-Out and Cocktail Dresses

Who needs a new dress for all the holiday parties coming up?

Who needs to find a good deal on a dress because they have to save a few bucks for all the expenses at Christmas?

Look no further!

50% off party dresses on Amazon until Monday!

For instance, this gorgeous dress normally $143, on sale for $51. Plus it's Amazon Prime eligible, so FREE SHIPPING!

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Christmas Craft

The problem: Too many different styles of Christmas decor. The answer: re-purposing and revamping it so it all fits my style & donating what I know I won’t use. Enter: the DIY Christmas garland from scraps of ribbon.

Check out the solution over at a Frugal Lifestyle Blog. 

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Christmas Crafts

Looking for a fun, inexpensive, and easy Christmas craft?
Check out Housewife Eclectic: Canning Lid Ornaments

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Kid Thanksgiving Crafts

Looking for some fun, easy, and adorable kids Thanksgiving crafts?
Don't miss this post over at Simplistically Sassy - "8 Kids Thanksgiving Crafts"

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Magnetic Ironing Mat

How cool is this? A magnetic ironing mat that turns your dryer into an ironing mat. Best part? It's only $8.99 on Amazon. And ships for free if you are an Amazon Prime member!


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Money Saving Tip for All Holidays #1: Amazon Prime

If you have not yet discovered the awesomeness of Amazon Prime, now is the time to do it.
Let me explain.
You get free 2-day shipping on millions of items.
Unlimited instant streaming of TV shows and movies (many of which you will not find on Hulu or Netflix).
And even more free Kindle titles.
And here is why you care right now-
You can get a free trial of Prime during October. So sign up now, get all of those free awesome benefits, buy and ship yourself lots of cool things for free, and you don't have to pay for Prime. (Normally costs $79 for a year. Or at least that is how much I paid a year ago. And I can assure you, I have more than made that money back saving on shipping and streaming shows.) 

So go get yourself a free Prime trial account and start saving NOW!

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The holidays are coming

The holidays are coming! Yeah!
And so I will soon be gearing up and bringing you lots of daily deals, recipes, crafts, goodwill, and great ideas. If you have a blog, a craft, a pin, a recipe, or just a really happy thought you would like to share with others, now is the time to start sending those ideas my way.
I look forward to sharing with you very soon!

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Your YouTube Mom - Uses for Cornstarch

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Easy Safe Way to Kill Weeds

My friend Joni Hilton has launched a great new series called, "Your YouTube Mom," with fun household tips, cooking ideas, etc. Check it out! 
 

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Pinching Off Tomato Suckers- an Analogy for Life

This morning while working in my (container) garden, a life lesson hit me in the form of a gardening analogy. (I suddenly understand why the scriptures are full of so many gardening analogies.)

I'm growing a berzillion tomato plants (in containers) on my deck. (A post on just container gardening coming soon.) If you have ever grown tomatoes you know you have to pick off the suckers. This is my first ever attempt at any sort of gardening (with the exception of putting a blueberry bush in the ground last year and telling it to fend for itself). The concept of picking off the suckers was foreign to me. I heard about it from several people, and even watched a YouTube video ("Pinching out" your growing tomato plants) on it, before I finally gave in and tried it.

I'll be honest, the idea of breaking off what appeared to be perfectly good piece of the plant did not seem reasonable to me. It didn't matter that everyone kept telling me that by pinching or picking off the "suckers" that the rest of the plant would flourish. Many of the "suckers" already had blooms on them, and appeared to be putting out good fruit. Why would I want to cut those off?

If you have never done it before, here are some pictures.

On a tomato plant you have the main stem, and then branches. A "sucker" is the little branch that grows out between the stem and the branch (making it a tripod, in a way).

It is hard to see the sucker in the picture above until you get more familiar with the concept. If anything, the picture above looks like a healthy, blooming, fruit bearing branch. 

But if you look closer, it is easy to see the sucker. It's that little branch my finger is pointing at, that grows out of the middle.
But if you look closely, you can see it has potential to be a fruit-bearing stalk. It's furry and has the right kind of leaves. It can be really hard to convince yourself to pinch that stalk or stem off.

 Why do you pinch the suckers off? What's the point?
Well, the general idea is that they 'suck' the energy from the more important branches. You want the plant to be sending all of its goodness to the right place. And the more suckers you have, the more the energy gets sucked up. The suckers can put out good fruit. You can leave them there. But the fruit you get won't be as good. It's a choice between quality and quantity. Do you want really good tomatoes? Nice, big round ones? Or just a lot of them? That's the choice you have to make. Quality v. quantity.

 Your suckers can even have suckers. The picture above is a great example of suckers within suckers.

If you aren't familiar with tomato gardening, it can be hard to recognize what a good stem or branch looks like. You want your fruit or blooms to be coming off the branch like in the picture above. When you see a good branch, it is easy to tell. But they are often hiding beneath all of the suckers. Here is the first picture I showed you. Did you even notice the good fruit? Or did you only see the sucker branches?

Here is the life lesson or analogy I picked up along the way today-
Our time, energy, and efforts, are often split and divided in a dozen different directions or branches. Some of the branches are good, some just appear to be good, and some are time sucks that are easy to spot.
But sometimes it can be hard to cut the suckers out of our lives. They can put out fruit, and be hard to cut out. Why would you want to cut something out that produces something good? Even when you know having more time and energy to put into the truly good things would be good for you, and make things grow and flourish, it can be really hard to do.
It can also be hard to identify which things you need to cut out. And you'll find yourself justifying not cutting out some of the suckers, because they do put out good results.

This sucker is so big and strong that it was hard to convince myself to cut it off. It already had blooms on it. But I could see the healthy, good blooms right above it. I knew if I removed the sucker (no matter how big and healthy it appeared), the blooms would benefit from it.

It's all a choice.
I do know this much-
I picked off dozens of suckers a few days ago off of my plants. Just 3 days later my plants have grown tremendously in size, and more of the good blooms have really gotten bigger and healthier.
After I witnessed the improvement in my plants after trimming off the suckers, I got the courage to cut off even more of the suckers - the ones I had left on the plants because they looked so big and healthy, and were putting out fruit already.
I don't feel guilty about it anymore. In fact, I'm excited to see how much more improvement my tomatoes will make. They should all be coming in and ready to harvest in about 2-3 more weeks. (It would have been 3-4 more weeks if I had left the suckers on.)




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Container Gardening by a Rookie

I finally live in a place where I can do some actual gardening. Or, at least it appears to be the kind of place you could do some gardening. But it's all a lie.
I live on top of a mountain, with a large yard and plenty of land.  Each of my neighbors have plenty of land as well. We can't see each other, and we all like it that way.
So what's the problem?
Nature. All that dang nature. It comes with a catch.

My next door neighbor's view

It starts with "on top of a mountain." Our yard is extremely steep. So steep in fact that there is no reasonable way to put a vegetable (or flower) garden in the backyard. And try as I may, there just isn't a good spot in the front yard for a vegetable garden either.

What space I do have in the front yard is a magnet for raccoon and deer. (Not to mention a very passive and friendly bear that lives in the woods between my house and the next house over.)
And so I have resorted to container gardening, greatly aided by ideas garnered on Pinterest.
About 8 weeks ago I bought a starter kit and planted several seeds- tomatoes, jalapenos, snow peas, and sunflowers. I followed the directions, and planted "2-3 seeds per disk." This is something of a joke to me now. It said that because many of the seeds will not take, that it is important to plant 2-3 seeds. I planted 15 disks of each type of plant.

As luck would have it, ALL of the tomatoes took! Not 15 of them! 45! 45 tomato plants! Heaven help me!
Naturally only about 2-4 of the jalapenos actually worked. ALL of the sunflowers (roughly 30) took. And a good 20 of the snow pea plants grew.
That was a problem. I did not have the time nor space nor money to buy that many containers! So I got inventive. (This is where Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/erinannie/gardening/) came in handy.)
Oh wait, I almost forgot to tell you the funny part of this story! Back in early April I hired a teenage boy to come over and do some yard work and clean up for me. He found a topsy turvy I attempted to grow some tomatoes in last year, (It never worked.), some old potting soil, and a bag of seeds. I told him to just toss it all in the topsy turvy, and totally forgot about it. A few weeks later I came back to find a good 20-30 tomato seedlings growing! OOPS!
So there I was with a potential 80 tomato plants, and dozens of other plants needing a bigger home.
I read up on vertical pallet gardening and originally thought that would work perfectly for me. What resulted was just wrong, and pretty funny if you had been there to witness it.
After some diligent dumpster diving for a pallet, I found 2 that I thought might work. (I also just happened to find several really sturdy grocery crates and nabbed them too.)
The instructions seemed simple enough, and the final product was supposed to look like this-

As seen on Pinterest...

Instead, my results looked like this-

DIRT EVERYWHERE!

So I went back to the drawing board and decided to recycle the crates I had found. I originally had a different project in mind for them, but they seemed like a good "container" for my plants.

All I did was put a large black trash bag in the crate, throw in a bunch of potting soil, and transplant the plants into them. I knew the dirt would slide out of the crate if I didn't line it with the bag, hence the trash bag.

This is where I faced my first interesting challenge. The roots of my seedlings had all started to intermingle and intertwine with each other. This was a problem. I was afraid that if I pulled them apart I would kill too much of the root system and kill my plants. (I was okay with a few of them dying, but I didn't want to kill ALL of them!) With little other choice, I kept them in little groupings, and planted them that way.

Meanwhile, in the front yard I did some homemade ghetto "topsy turvy" planting. I got 2 buckets from Home Depot, punched out a hole in the bottoms, and made my own topsy turvy planters. In these buckets I planted actual store-bought seedlings, and not seedlings I grew from seed.

The trees in my yard are ridiculously tall. We're talking redwoods tall. The lowest branches are still way above my head. I tried buying a shepard's crook to hang them from, but they just bent right over and fell. So I spray-painted my buckets green to help them blend in, and hung them on a dead dogwood tree right by my front door.

In one I have strawberries on the top and bottom.

In the other I have green peppers on top, and tomatoes on the bottom.

All of these plants are doing quite well. I've already had 2 strawberries out of the topsy turvy. (Another thing about living on top of a mountain- I've learned I have to wait longer for things to grow. All of our plants seem to be a good 2 weeks behind in growth what I see happening in yards in the valley.) And today I was very excited to see that I FINALLY have buds coming in on both the tomato plant and the green peppers.

Now back to my containers on the back deck. I haven't mentioned that yet, have I? In order to keep my plants safe from the raccoons, deer, etc., I am growing them all on the back deck. Except for the sunflowers- I planted those safely in the ground, way down in the backyard, in a very sunny spot. However, all 10 plants appear to have died. One of these days maybe I will hike down the backyard to inspect them. But they should have grown to at least 2 feet tall by now, and I can't see them, so I assume they didn't make it.

My crate containers have turned out really well! Natural selection has thinned the herd some, but I still have several very strong plants (more than I know what to do with). If it is true that one tomato plant can yield about 10 tomatoes a piece, I'm in for a bumper crop of tomatoes soon! I may only have 6 (7 if you include the bucket in the front yard), containers, but each one holds 2-4 plants each. There are easily 20 very strong tomato plants growing, and a weaker 10 additional plants.

Today I finally spotted several little buds popping up on the tomatoes, which is reassuring. I was starting to worry I was growing some very strong weeds!

The snow peas are a different story. I admit, I had no idea what I was getting into with these! I bought the seeds because they were less than a dollar. That was about the extent of my forethought. Little did I know that these plants can grow to be about the size of tomato plants! Mine are certainly not that big yet, but they are getting quite long and thick. This past weekend I started a new container, separated a few of the plants, and gave them some more room to grow. (The snow peas had the same problem as the tomatoes- the roots were completely intertwined.)

Which brings me to my pepper plants. Oh those fickle little plants! Out of a good 30 seedlings (from seed), I have maybe 3 still growing. They are getting strong and healthy, and are showing a few buds as well.

As you can see,  they are not in crates. I saw this big green bag at a local nursery and bought it. It was about $30. It has worked out very well for me, however, it has not worked any better than the free crates. Also, it took two very large bags of potting soil to fill it up. It is now so heavy I can't lift it. I will continue to use the bag in the future, but I wouldn't recommend buying one. There is a mix of green peppers (store bought seedling), banana peppers, and jalapenos growing in there. To be honest, I'm not even sure if those are my jalapenos that I started from seed. All of the pepper plants look the same to me. (and my markers fell out) I will just have to be surprised when they finally grow in.

Here are my plants 2 weeks ago-

And my plants yesterday!

I'd say my container gardening experiment is working out just fine!

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I'm Back!

Anyone still out there?
My schedule has finally changed, and my life is free to write more again! Look for new posts and content in the very near future. I've caught the gardening bug, and I can't wait to share and post about some of the lessons I've learned this year about container gardening when you live in the country. 
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Christmas Gift Ideas for Men

Need gift ideas for a man?
Why are men so hard to shop for?

Kindle- prices range from $69 to $499 for a Kindle now. A perfectly adequate e-reader is merely $69, but you can get a slightly fancy, HD, tablet designed for computing, internet usage, and maybe even reading for $499. 

The GoPro HD Hero2: Outdoor Edition - $269.
That would be a camera that can be mounted on a helmet, worn on your head, and gets the proof of all those crazy stunts your favorite daredevil has always wanted. Also, when not mounted, can also be handheld and serves as a perfectly good, normal camera!

Inexpensive Gift Ideas

A guest post from Adrian at http://www.adrianscrazylife.com/

I know this year we are all looking for inexpensive gift ideas, which I think is a wonderful idea.  Every year, we all spend so many hundreds of dollars on presents.  I love Christmas as much as anyone, but it gets to be too much.  Some years it just feels like a big long to-do list for me.  I'd love to simplify things a bit and I think this year is a good time to do it.  That's why I always go on a diet in January - everyone's in the mood to diet and that makes it easier.

So, in the spirit of watching our pennies, here are a few great gift ideas that are practical, inexpensive, and unique.  Look at this cute candy jar - .88 cents at Roberts Craft Store!  Throw in a couple of rub-ons, some ribbon, and a couple of bucks worth of chocolate and you have a nice gift for a teacher, neighbor, or co-worker.  Easy peasy!

This is a great idea! They showed me how to do this at a neighborhood Supercraft Saturday and I just thought it was the coolest thing.  I didn't have a sandblaster, so I figured out how to do it with etching cream.  I've invited all my customers to come over and make these for free as my Christmas gift to them.  All they have to do is supply the dish. You just need any glass dish or plate, some cheap contact paper, and some glass etching cream. 

I used my Cricut to cut the letters, but you could use a stencil and a kraft knife.  The most expensive part is the etching creme, which is why I'm offering to do it for all my customers.  It goes bad after a while and I could never use it all up by myself.  Might as well share the love.  One of my customers came over with a whole assortment of Pyrex baking dishes and made about eight of them as gifts for her friends and family.  I think that's awesome and makes for a very practical and often used gift.  

Look at this gorgeous plate I got at the last Diva dinner.  They are awesome and easier to make than you would think, and because the etching is all done on the bottom, they are still food-safe.  

I just love these notebooks.  They are simply those Composition books that you used to use in school, covered with some pretty paper and ribbon.  They make a wonderful gift.

Here's another cute and easy gift idea.  So simple and probably took 15 minutes and a little bit of ribbon and some rub-ons on a little clay pot.  Throw in a pretty flower or a plant and that would make such a lovely gift for someone.  

Here's another pretty notebook (sorry about the blurry picture).  This is an actual composition book that I found in this striped pattern, so all I had to do was add a bit of ribbon, some cardstock to cover the label, and a pretty flower with a rhinestone.  I think just about anyone can do this!  

Give Nets. Save Lives.

GUEST POST FROM Lindsey at http://www.linzlinzlinz.com.


This time of year, my husband and I don't see each other much. Between his job and extra projects and my job and extra projects, we connect after 9pm, chat for a while, then collapse in front of something on television.

Recently, we happened upon a new late-night Discovery Channel show called Jungle Gold. The whole premise of the show is to follow 2 guys from Utah (George Wright and Scott Lomu) looking to strike gold in Ghana, Africa, in order to make ends meet for their families that have been struggling after the real estate industry fell apart.

Obviously, being a community junkie - I was thrilled to see a couple of locals out doing this. These emotions were quickly followed up with the sheer intensity of the show and the fact that I couldn't even stand to blink during a single episode. Talk about intense.

After watching one episode, I hopped online to learn more about the guys and their project in Ghana. I quickly found the two of them on Twitter, and sent a quick message to one of them:

This was followed up a week or so later with a quick message that looked like this:

Needless to say, this exchange was followed up with an email, which was then followed up with a phone call, which was then followed up with a few text messages, and then followed with a plan. So, here we are.

During our phone chat to sort out what I could do to help, George mentioned that mosquito nets are of great need in the remote villages of Romaso and Nktumso. They're expensive for the locals, relatively speaking of course, but can protect them from facing the terrors of Malaria. (He also mentioned having it a couple years ago - and how horrific of an experience it was for him - and he was even able to afford the proper medicines.)

Here are some things you may not realize: