Hotmail Problems and Bored at Home

Filed Under PPP, Random, Shopping | 2 Comments

I can get into my account but can’t open any new emails or compose an email… anyone else have Hotmail and have these issues right now?

Oh and by the way, Bailey is still snotty and coughing but acting happy. I feel fine but have no voice. So we are going to spend today at home resting and trying to REALLY get better. Ug. I hate being stuck at home and I have to miss my fun lunch plans with Jen. *Boo*

I have the best of intentions to clean my house today. At least part of the house. Something I haven’t done enough of lately. But now that Bailey is back asleep my guess is that I will waste a lot of time shopping/browsing online and sleeping. I keep finding new websites for free stuff or coupons or free samples to be mailed to our house. Yes, we are even trying Glucerna cereal for free this week. But one of my favorite coupon sites for online shopping is Coupon Chief because I can find codes to save money while shopping online. Not that I spend tons and tons of money or anything like that. I am totally a bargain shopper, and I mostly look for stuff like Target or Kohl’s coupons.

Also I am telling myself that I am going to update Bailey’s baby book today. I have done a good job (I think) of at least getting some hospital pics in and having it updated all the way through like the first month of her life… except I need to add some more family pictures and pictures of our house… and later I need to go up to the library and pick up a book Jonathon needs for a book discussion.

Clearly, my day is going to be terribly exciting.

Pay Per Post Direct

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I have been trying to get more into doing some advertising and stuff like that to make money from my blogs. Now that I am staying home with Bailey, I need the extra cash. It’s pretty easy to do, and it really does pay (through Paypal) and I never get any spam or junk mail from it. With sites like Pay Per Post, you just go on their sites and select the opportunities you are interested in, write about them, and then give them the URL for your post. They check it out and approve your post, and then Paypal you the money.

I have told myself I won’t advertise anything I disagree with or think is dumb. I try to keep stuff in line with what I blog about, but occasionally I get random stuff here and there. I figure if people don’t like me advertising on my blog, they don’t have to read it But I also know that a few people have signed up with Pay Per Post through my blog, so apparently some other people think it’s interesting!

PPP has started a new thing called Pay Per Post Direct. Advertisers can find you on your blog (instead of you looking for them) and then use a link to send you job offers. You can negotiate with them and take assignments that way. Pay Per Post claims to have a lot less “overhead” than other services that do this, because they only charge a 10% fee (5% of which goes to Paypal and credit card services).

I am thinking about attempting to use this at some point in the near future. Another thing on my to-do list is to get my own domain. Not that I don’t love Blogger… ha…

Forgive Us Our Debts

Filed Under Home Sweet Home, Money, PPP | 3 Comments

We don’t have too many of them, but man does it drive me crazy to think about the stuff we owe on. Mostly it’s just normal stuff like home mortgage loan, Jonathon’s student loan, and one car payment. We have one credit card that we use, and we pay it off each month. Now we have some medical bills and stuff from Bailey’s birth that weren’t covered by my insurance. For one thing, the epidural. $600, none of which was covered. Funny, that’s the one thing I don’t mind paying for at all. It was worth every penny. I made an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the stuff we are paying on, because the medical bills are from a few different places. Yeah, I’m a nerd with stuff like that.

Sometimes I think we would have a lot more money right now if we hadn’t bought a house already. I was reading about how younger people are rushing into buying houses but I don’t really think buying a house was a mistake for us. We’ve been here for two years and we already have *some* equity in our house. We didn’t pay a whole lot in closing costs. And we like it here.

The thing that I am really glad we didn’t do was get an adjustable rate mortgage. I know quite a few people who did that and now they are rushing to refinance. I also know a few people who made the mistake of buying too much on credit at some point. When we first got married we financed some furniture, a mattress, windows, a computer, and a bunch of other junk. We paid them all off before we got any finance charges but it was a pain. I am glad to be out of that trap. Anyway I guess I am rambling but I have been scurrying around today trying to straighten out some bills and stuff.

This post was sponsored by Pay Per Post.

Pay Per Post

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So I have a new obsession. I have become addicted to Pay Per Post. I found out about it through Kittymama and I have figured that I can make a little extra money doing this. Since I love blogging anyway, and I update my blog all the time, it’s not so hard just to do some blog reviews of different things and make some cash while I’m at it. It’s actually pretty fun.

So far I have only done two paid posts, both of which have now been approved so I guess my grand total so far is $12.00, but I hope to get more into this and get a little faster at it. Plus, it seems like the more experience I get, the better opportunities I will be able to take. The money will be great for supplementing Jonathon’s income, now that I’m not going back to work

If you want to try it out for yourself, there is a sign up form in my sidebar right now.

Registry Stuff

Filed Under Baby Gear, PPP, Shopping | Leave a Comment

So people have been asking us if we are still buying tons of baby stuff. We are really lucky, or blessed, or whatever you want to say, because we were given almost everything we needed at our showers and from my parents. We have only bought one pack of diapers so far because we got so many at the diaper shower- and we even have about 300 or so Size 1 diapers when she moves up to those, and also a bunch of Size 2’s.

The only thing from either or our registries that we still want is our exersaucer (which I figure I can always buy a used one) or this nightlight:

The nightlight is only available online anyway, so I will have to order it from Target. Hopefully I can use some Target coupons. I found a coupon site where I can get free shipping anyway so I’m sure I’ll end up clothes shopping for Bailey there too. This site also has coupons for Kohl’s and a bunch of other places so this is an exciting new discovery for me

Speaking of clothes- one of the moms from our playgroup gave me a bunch of really cute girl clothes and I can’t wait for Bailey to be able to wear them! If you are reading this, thanks Linda!

Vacation Time

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I am really wishing we could go on a vacation sometime soon. Not that I want to leave Bailey, but our goal was to take a vacation at least once a year. Last year, we did well and made it to Canada, Mexico, Memphis, and probably somewhere else that I’m forgetting. This year, so far we have gone nowhere. Our friends Jen and Aaron are going to Punta Cana next month and I’m slightly jealous.

Part of the problem is that I am now officially a stay at home mom, so I’m thinking we don’t have a lot of extra money for vacations right now… at least until we figure out what our money situation is going to be like. The only time we have really been on one income before was last summer for a few months while I was off work.

I have still been browsing web sites and trying to find good vacation deals to see if it’s possible. I have been looking at Cheap Hotels and they guarantee the lowest rates. You can book hotels, airfare, and cars from there. It is really tempting to splurge and just book a “mini vacation” but I think I would be in trouble if I did that today, considering that it is my first official day knowing that I’m not going back to work!

I think our first real opportunity to take a vacation will be this fall. My mom offered to watch Bailey for a long weekend or even a week while we take a trip. I wanted our next vacation to be to the Dominican, but I’m not sure that’s in the budget right now. We might be looking at something more like Vegas or Florida Of course I always appreciate input on cheap vacation ideas. Not a big fan of road trips or driving, but I will do it if it’s not too far and can save us a lot of money.