Keepin' Track of the Kids

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of TracFone for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I felt like we were so ahead of the time in High School.  I remember the age everyone seemed to be getting a cell phone was 16-18.  That seemed so young to me at the time, but I felt like it was fair. I got my first cell phone when I was 16 -- my parents wanted me to have access to it in emergency situations now that I had started driving.  I ended up in a horrible accident five months after I got my license, I guess that phone came in handy.

Now it's totally different, who DOESN'T have a cell phone? I have many friends who are teachers who say a majority of their fourth graders, even some second graders have cell phones. One even has an iPhone. REALLY?

This is where TracFone's are great I think. There are many young kids that I think it is safe for them to have phones. Think about the summer, when your kids are home and out and about.  It's nice to be able to have access to them and keep track of where they are. You have access to great smart phones with TracFone, or even a simple feature phone that just does the basics. There are simple phones for the simple needs with calling and texting capabilities for under $10.00. There are also great phones packed with so many features like camera/video recorder, web access, app capabilities, mp3 player, and full QWERTY keyboard, for $29.99! With a TracFone you get great coverage and reception and it's easier to monitor your child's usage.  You easily can pay online as you need the minutes or you can buy cards to reload the phone at many retailers.  It's quick and easy with no contracts, no credit checks, no activation or cancelation. So maybe you only want your child to have the phone in the summer? Perfect! No surprises from the phone company.

Here are some great monthly plan features:

-Pay as you go online or with a card that can be purchased at retailers everywhere.

-1 year service cards give you so much more. You get double the minutes for the life of your TracFone, and 800 minutes, for only $119.

-"Double Minutes for the Life of Your Phone" is a feature that you can purchase separately for $19.99 but some phones already include it.

-Choose monthly plans with 200 minutes for under $30, or 50 minutes for $9.99.

Some International Long Distance Features:

-This is the only wireless service where you can call internationally, for the same price as any other call.

-Call over 60 international destinations directly from your TracFone at no extra cost.

-With the International Neighbors program, you can provide family and friends in Mexico or Canada a local phone number in those countries to reach you at your TracFone in the U.S.

 Check out a real TracFone customers...

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Adios

Okay I'm not leaving, leaving. Just Happy Hour with a Housewife. And Blogger in general.

But no worries... like I said in earlier posts I just have a new blog!

I'm back and blogging now at my new blog, MeSooLaLa. You can click on that link or the image above to get directed over there. Be sure to subscribe and get me in your Google Reader because I will no longer be blogging here. Do it now because I might only do one more reminder over here before I'm done for good.

Thanks for makin' the switch!

I Used to Blog

Many moons ago I was a blogger... I felt like I had a good solid readership and would thrive on the multitude of comments I would get throughout the day.

Then I just started not having much to blog about. So when I did blog, not many were reading. Then I kinda just stopped blogging all together. And I stopped getting to catch up on all the blogs I typically love to catch up on.

It has now been one week without my smart phone, the Geek Squad actually just told me my new phone was in so I am finally back with a smart phone and will feel more part of the world. IT was pathetic how much I realized I rely on that thing. In the morning I check the weather on it. I usually read emails in bed when I first wake up. Send a tweet or two on the way out the door. Now it's like I only check my emails once a day and I feel swamped. I wasn't on Twitter for like four or five days. I felt lost, and when I came back nobody was even responsive.

So then I got sad. I found myself trying to respond to so many people I typically talk to regularly to get myself back in the group and not "feel left out". I seriously felt like I was in jr. high or something. I remember coming back from lunch at work yesterday seeing that nobody had responded to my tweets I had sent out and I was like bummed out. Really Laura??

I guess I realized I really do cherish the people I am friends with in the bloggy world. And I felt like if you don't put in your frequent effort you can be quickly forgotten. Kinda like in real life relationships, if you don't put in effort you drift. Like when I posted last week about my new business venture and a big sale I was having I didn't expect a bunch of people to make purchases or anything (Although a couple did and I'm grateful!) but I at least expected a good luck or something. Not one comment or message. Am I being totally dramatic about this? Absolutely, but that's really how I felt. And I told myself I needed to stop being so silly.

So if we used to talk alot, I still love you - email me.
If we used to gchat, I'm always there so gchat me.
If we are usually tweeting, say hi!
And if you want a new blog buddy hit me up, I'm clearly having acceptance problems. LOL

All I know is I can speak for myself and maybe a ton of you could honestly agree. But I blog for feedback. It's part a diary and venting. But it's hard to regularly blog when you don't feel like anyone is out there reading.

On that note I'm done whining and I'll let you know the latest on my blog update. I have my new blog being worked on right now, and I've been out of town a lot so I haven't been able to do the revisions I've needed to do (Sorry Joy!) but I make an oath to you now. Once I make the blog switch, if you ever so kindly follow me over to the Wordpress side I promise to put in my effort of blogging again, if we can be friends again. :)

Hope all is well with everyone, the Hubs and I have just been so freakin' busy! This past month we visited our best friends in Arizona (who are having a little girl, Reese Michelle!), went to Vegas for the weekend (Sad we didn't meet up Ali!), and spent the weekend in Cambria where I realized I belong living at the beach. Here are a couple of pictures I posted on FB while we were there, we couldn't have asked for more gorgeous, high 70s weather.

Elephant Seals on the Beach

View from a house that was for sale... *sigh*

Vintage Couture

So a few weeks ago I joined forces with a company Vintage Couture (formerly known as My Vintage Baby). They are very much like a Mary Kay or Cookie Lee in the fact that you are selling their products and you host parties, etc.

Vintage Couture designs all of their own pieces and fabrics and have only a limited amount of each item in every size for each collection, coming out with a new collection for Fall/Holiday and Spring/Summer. Although starting this Winter it will be four collections a year, one for every season.

All of the training I've done and the women I've spoke to has been a great experience and I'm so excited to see where I can go with this company. Besides just hosting "trunk shows" I'm able to host online trunk shows for people where you have typically a 48 hour period where you can host one online if you didn't want to do it in person or we didn't live near each other and you would invite people to purchase during that time so any purchases made by spreading the word you would earn free and discounted items from Vintage Couture.

They started out as a clothing line that was babies only and sold at Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Bloomingdales but once the economy wasn't doing so well they decided to make some changes and went the route of direct sales. Now they have expanded from just baby clothes to chilren, tween, and even some women clothing with expansions planned over the next year to men's clothing as well.

Right now I'm hosting my debut trunk show since the Spring / Summer collection is coming to a close -- that means 50% off EVERYTHING! So for the next 72 hours you can shop starting at 5:00 AM PST on Tuesday, June 21 through Thursday June 23 at the latest. Please help me in my new adventure with not only any purchases you might want for yourself or for a friend or baby shower, but if you could tweet about this post or anything to help me get the news out there that would be great! Also become a fan of my FB page HERE!

There is also the opportunity of hosting an in-person trunk show party or an online trunk show so let me know if that would be something you would be interested in! Last but not least, if you think Vintage Couture is a company you would want to hear more about let me know and I can email you tons of details or we can even meet in person or chat over the phone. Depending on where you are at in your life you might find this is a great way to make some extra money on the side!

So that's the latest in my life at the moment, here are a few of my favorites from the Spring / Summer collection and click the link below to start shopping or to share with friends and family!

START SHOPPING HERE!

Thanks! xoxo

Happy Shopping & Thanks for Your Support!

Curly Hair & Pinterest

So I'm about to show you some fug pictures of me before I got to bed and when I wake up. So just be warned peeps, aight?

So last week I saw a few people pinning away on Pinterest (Seriously if you aren't on Pinterest yet or we just aren't following each other find mine HERE) about a no heat curl tutorial. Decided to check it out and it looked too simple for me not to try it. Here is the picture I kept seeing pop up on Pinterest...

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And here is the video tutorial on how to get some no heat curls in a very quick way...


Honestly the video is 15 minutes but I seriously fast forwarded a lot of it just to get the idea and it took me maybe around 2-3 minutes. I currently have a little bit shorter hair though but it is thick, so time can vary. Here is kinda some quick steps with pictures of the process.

Let your hair air dry, I completely forgot to put any product in it but from what I read, some spray in gel, moose, or something like that might help a bit. I went au naturel. Once your hair is pretty much dry you grab one of the sport type headbands and wear it like this:

Once that is done you start wrapping the chunks of hair over the band like shown in the video. I went for larger chunks (probably 8-10 total?) so I could have a lot looser curls then what she ends up with in the video. I would even go thicker next time like 6-8 because they shockingly still turned out very curly. Once you are done with the wrapping your hair should look like this:

Please excuse my burn mark on the forehead.
Don't drink and flat iron. My only Vegas battle wound this trip.

Here is an example what the back should look like once it's done being wrapped up.

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So I did it right before bed and went right to sleep. It's very loose and very comfortable, I didn't feel like it hurt at all and I never noticed it throughout the night. Actually had forgotten about it until I walked in the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror.

When I first pulled them out of the headband and removed it it looked something like this. Much tighter then I was expecting but still not too bad...


This is the picture I hate showing (gah!) but here it was after a little playing around with it. I really should have done my make-up before taking these. I just didn't want to forget.


Honestly I was really happy with the results. Especially the thicker side that had the majority of my hair. Curls tended to be larger and more flowy while the other side had some tweaked parts. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a brush or curling iron though. Honestly I'm going to continue trying to perfect the best way to do this because in the time it takes it's a great hair style to have for mornings that you don't want to have to wake up so early to do your hair because in the morning you kinda just fluff and go.

Anybody else find any fun tutorials or recipes they've found through Pinterest that they ended up loving? I've been getting so many recipes through Pinterest lately, I will have to share some with you sometime!

Sponsor: Just Because Your Sick Doesn't Mean You Can't Help Others

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens. All opinions are 100% mine.

Walgreens is the hubs and I's go to drug store.  Not only for our over the counter prescriptions but for Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products.  Being on a budget and trying to save whenever possible we have always tried to go towards the bargains if we feel it is a good fit.  For example, last time I had a horrible cold I was told by the doctor to get some Mucinex.  Well for a small box it was going to cost around twenty plus dollars or so.  After already having to pay for my over the counter prescription I was not looking forward to dishing out another $25.00 so I decided to go for the Walgreens brand which was going to save me at least $10.00.  I've also loved their nasal spray for $2.99 when my nose is just too stuffed up to function and that price beats the name brands by a landslide as well.

Not only do you save but you can help others with Walgreen's contributions to the Walgreens Way to Well Fund™.  Every Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products purchased goes towards Walgreens annual $3 million contribution which provides free preventive health tests as well as other health and wellness services and education to local communities.  Some of those services will include preventive health tests through the National Urban League Health & Wellness Tour and vouchers redeemable in select stores.  For more details, visit HERE.

Now for some more good stuff... there are over 10 blogs with giveaways for Walgreens gift cards and you can try your shot on each blog to win! HERE is a list of all of the blogs currently giving away a Walgreens gift card!

I Feel Good

Well since I last blogged about our new saving and debt pay off plan we have done some serious ass kicking and really gotten the snowball rolling. Talking about it is one thing, but putting it into action is another.

Last night I sold my car, I was actually really sad. I haven't been super in love with my car in a really long time. It was sort of an impulse purchase. Well buying a car wasn't an impulse but buying THAT car was. I went looking for something totally different, the dealer had me test drive that one and since the price was under what I was expecting to pay I couldn't say no. My car payment was $150 for five years after my down payment (what I got from insurance from my bad car accident)! Couldn't beat the price so I took it.

Now I went from being a hip old person, to kinda a sporty still old person. I don't know about where you are from but 97% of the people that drive PT Cruiser's are old. So I was a unique one in the bunch. Now I'm driving a huge Chrysler (have no idea what type) but I kinda like it. It has a sun roof which I've always wanted and has all of the upgrades inside which is nice. It was kinda fun driving it home last night.

I ended up getting $3,000 for my car. Based on what I researched on Kelly Blue Book as well as the Auto Trader for what my car with the same stats $3,000 seemed fair. For my car they private seller was maybe around $4800 and trade in was closer to $4000. I needed some work done to the car and we figured we'd have to put in at least $100 detailing it before trying to sell it plus any money going into advertising it other places besides CraigsList. Rather then dealing with the hastle we thought $3,000 was fair since I had a banged up bumper from the day before my wedding (mom hit my car!) and some other things that just brought down the value.

So last night we made the trip to Carmax and sold the PT. I surprisingly cried. But putting $3,000 into my checking account today felt awesome... and you know what felt even better? Spending it all towards the snowball when I got back to the office!


This is me doing the James Brown dance. We have been doing our snowball plan for a total of eight days now (Started June 1, 2011) and with our starting debt at being around $60,200 with eight debts against us we are now down to five debts against us and have our total closer to about $56,448. We are obviously still a long way from our ultimate goal but that's enough to get me excited and motivated to continue on this journey.

So good... soooo good... I got you! HEY!

Fake N Bake

Who the hell let me look like this for over a year. This is like in the heart of winter in like 2003 or 2004 I think. Oh lordy... I just found this picture in an old Photobucket account.

Tanning FAIL.

On that note, I just want to make note that I'm not going to an 80's party. This is apparently something I would wear out seven or eight years ago. Someone get me to Jersey Shore, stat.

Talkin' Pooch

I have to say, this is one video that still makes me give at least a little out loud chuckle. This video was pretty much all over the place, and if you follow me on Facebook I posted this a few weeks ago. But I just saw someone post it again on Facebook and I just wanted to see if at least someone hasn't seen it they must, too cute not to share. Enjoy!

"You kiddin' me!"

Stayin' & Savin'

Wow have things changed since the last time I've done a serious blog update. In the midst of those three weeks I was in Jury Duty the hubs and I did a lot of discussing and number crunching and researching and we have decided to stay in our townhouse that we currently own.

Why? We want to be debt free.

There is a large number of bills we have that we don't have to have. There is a personal loan that got a little charged up from our wedding and honeymoon. We had two credit cards that slowly have escalated (one was paid off with part of our tax return, woo-hoo!), our car that we purchased in September, two furniture bills from when we bought new bedroom furniture, and then the biggest ones - the school loans for the hubs.

All of that added together is $60,000! That is a freakin' lot of money. Paying minimums on all of this would take a lifetime to payoff. With a little help from our financial mentor and some research with some of Dave Ramsey's programs we have decided that why add in another $2000+ a month payment with a new home while we have all of this to pay off when with a lot of structured and strict hard work we could have that $60,000 paid off in three to four years. Letting us be financially free to purchase that new home and only have the monthly essentials -- utilities, cell phone, etc. We then have a goal to only purchase things when we can save for them -- and without those bills like the car and student loans we could pretty much save for something almost within the month. Just our one car payment and the hubs student loans is $700 a month!

So we have done lots of excel work and number crunching and we have made today, June 1, the day we start to get debt free by using Dave Ramsey's Snowball Plan. I'm about to really through out our debt to you and show you a little of how we plan to accomplish paying off $60,000 in three to four years.

Here is a list of our debt starting from the smallest amount owed (rounded) to the highest:

Furniture Store #1 -- $647.00
Furniture Store #2 -- #681.00
Personal Loan -- $2,422
Credit Card -- $2,950
School Loan #1 -- $7,146
Car Payment -- $16,441
School Loan #2 -- $14,117
School Loan #3 -- $15,738

Dave Ramsey suggests that you find a way to save some money every month trying to do $200 but less if needed. Since we eat out so much it shouldn't be too hard if we make a more strict eating at home plan to save $50 more a week -- it will take some work. He also says if there is anything you can sell - DO IT. Give yourself that jumpstart to paying something off because it will just feel good. So we are going to add in an extra $200 a month to paying off our bills and we have figured out what we will sell to jump start our payoff.

We are selling my car. No we aren't going to a one-car home... that just isn't possible with us. But my in-laws have an extra car that just sits in storage and they have graciously given it to us so I can sell my car. Although it's a few years older then my car it has over 50,000 miles LESS then my car. So we are getting my car all cleaned up, we've checked out Kelly Blue Book, and looked at comparables. We are going to go to Car Max and we have the least we are willing to accept ($1,000 less then what we will sell for privately hopefully), if we can make a deal then great and we won't have to worry about trying to post and sell it on our own. If they won't give us enough we will try to sell it on our own and we will get it detailed and see how that goes. We will then use all of the money we get towards the bills. Let's say we get $5,000 for my car. That will already knock out the first three and start chipping off from the next one.

Furniture Store #1 -- $647.00
Furniture Store #2 -- #681.00
Personal Loan -- $2,422
Credit Card -- $2,950
School Loan #1 -- $7,146
Car Payment -- $16,441
School Loan #2 -- $14,117
School Loan #3 -- $15,738

Dave Ramsey says not to worry about interest rates. So we aren't. What we did do though was call all three loan companies and ask if the hubs is eligible for a forbearance or deferment. All but one gave us one. One is for six months and the other is for a year. So basically once a month there will be the $200 + the minimum payment on the bills and for six months or a year we will add what would be going to that student loan onto that next bill in line as well. So for example- On the credit card my minimum payment is $70 + my extra $200 + the minimum payments for those two student loans is $250. So rather then paying the typical $70-100 I would pay towards my credit card I will now be paying $520. That's a lot quicker payoff for the credit card isn't it? So you are just paying the minimum on all other bills until you pay off the next one. So once the credit card is paid off that $70 minimum payment will now go to my next bill, School Loan #1. Does this make sense? I feel like it might be hard to explain this on the blog. Hope you're up to speed. Here is a little what his worksheet looks like:

I kinda made my own version in excel with some additional columns and some formulas so I could play around with it but that's a good starting point. As long as things go as planned for the most part we will have this paid off in 3-4 years. Of course it can be less because of additional money coming in say from a tax return and it can be more because you never know of a big emergency where you might need to pay for something that you can't help.

I feel like we are being so responsible in making this decision and to think that we would have over $1000 extra per month AT LEAST once this is paid off is amazing. It will be so easy to just save for different things, like a vacation on a whim and we might have a little extra money to not have to compromise as much when we are able to purchase a new home.

Have you made huge sacrifices in order to stay on budget, save, or get something paid off? What are things you've given up?