10 Money Saving Holiday Shopping Tips

In my last entry I revealed my plan of evil genius proportions to save up all paid blog entry earnings for holiday shopping. This year there will be no credit cards bills, no hours agonizing over what I can afford to give and no worries about driving in yucky weather to get to the mall. All of my shopping will be done online, through Paypal. I have other tried and true methods of saving money during the holidays and if you are interested, you can read my article that includes 10 money saving holiday tips by clicking here: How to spend wisely on holiday gifts

PayPerPost.com

For those of you who haven’t notice yet, I have officially signed up for PayPerPost.com. I have only been a member for a week now and already the opportunities for paid blogging are rolling in. In fact, with the exception of Saturday, I wrote a paid entry every single day last week! PayPerPost has so many paid posting opportunities that, had I had the time, I could have written more (their limit is three per day). As it is I am simply posting on my otherwise boring lunch hour at work

So, so far I have made about $35 from PayPerPost, all from companies that wish to advertise on blogs. Not bad for one week! I will get paid via PayPal which is awesome for me because I plan to save all of my earnings until Christmas time and then do all of my holiday shopping online (probably from the same companies that are using PayPerPost to advertise on blogs, hah!) Thanks to PayPerPost and a few more online payment opportunities, I will not be going into a Christmas induced debt (or frenzy) this holiday season.

There are about a billion opportunities on PayPerPost, starting with this blog. Anyone who wants to can click on the “review this blog” icon at the bottom of this entry and get paid to write a review of my blog. I would LOVE to read a review on my blog. Unless it was a really horrible review in which case I would probably cry like a little girl...!

My Boyfriend Cut His Finger Doing Laundry.

Way back..waaaaay back I mentioned that my boyfriend cut his lip with a plastic spoon. I also tattled about the time he cut his tongue on a stick of gum. Well, he has officially topped himself. Last night my boyfriend cut his finger doing laundry.

He swears that this is not a pathetic ploy to get laundry on the list of chores better left to me but I am not convinced. See, he is still maintaining his innocence regarding poop patrol. In case you all missed that post, when we first brought home our Boston terrier puppy, Stella, my boyfriend threw up when he had to clean up a particularly potent smelling present Stella had kindly left for us. I immedately jumped to the conclusion that my boyfriend was trying to ensure that this nasty chore became the sole duty of me. Even though that was months ago, we still argue the authenticity of his girly reaction to puppy poop patrol.

Why I Love My Condo

As proven this weekend when family came to town, smaller is definitely better! With my cozy-chic condo being a measly 630 square feet, there was simply no chance in hell that my visiting family could stay here at my place! My poor mom, they are all over at her house right now. She does not have a very large home but it is a palace compared to my pad.

I felt a little sorry for my mom when I first found out that the entire family would be staying with her all the way across town instead of in any of the Cheap Hotels in my neighborhood. Not sorry enough, of course, to stop myself from performing a little happy dance on my mom’s kitchen floor. My mother, who in my opinion was acting like a very sore loser, grumbled about it being unbecoming to gloat. She then looked pointedly at my new haircut and gave one those insults disguised as compliments. I believe that she, and all mothers of adult daughters, must take online classes specializing in passive-aggressive wordplay.

Personally, if I were my mother and I was facing the prospect of having man, woman, and children (including one teenager (shudder)) staying three full days in my house, I would simply and politely direct them to HotelReservations.com. Hotel Reservations.com is one of those all encompassing websites that can help anyone anywhere in the world book Cheap Hotels, car rentals, even vacation packages. The HotelReservations.com website comes complete with online and telephone booking, a destination guide and a lowest rate guarantee. It is crazy how many discounts my family could get from HotelReservations.com! And those discounts are not only available on Cheap Hotels but also on motels, fabulous resorts, bed and breakfasts and even condo rentals.

As an added bonus of booking through HotelReservations.com, my family would not have to suffer through any of my mother’s compliments that are really insults. It would be a win-win situation for everyone, really!

Cub Picnic. Yep, this is how I spend my Friday nights now.

Tonight after work, my boyfriend and I are going to my little brother's cub picnic. It is their very last meeting before their summer so even though I will probably be starving to death by 9pm when it is over (kidcentric events tend to have very few vegetarian options), I am going to go. Joe is pretty excited about all of the awards he should be getting.

There is a lot of controversy going on in the States right now about whether or not girls should be allowed in the Scouts. There are already a bunch of girls in Joe's Cub troop and I really don't see what the big deal is. I have even written an article on shy I believe girls should be allowed in the Scouts.

Here is the link: Should girls be allowed in the Boy Scouts? It is by no means a literary masterpiece but I think I make a few solid points

Girl and Dog and Night Vision Goggles

Last night I took Stella for the longest walk of her short (3 ½ month) life. She was so excited about EVERYTHING. She wanted to eat whatever was on the ground – leaves, cigarette butts, whatever. We were having so much fun, instead of turning left and heading back to the condo, we turned right and headed for the boardwalk. I did not even notice how dark it was getting until it was pitch black out!

Stella is ferocious jumper and licker of the face but guard dog she ain’t. Still, she was seeing things that I couldn’t possibly see unless I had a pair of night vision binoculars. Stella would make me very nervous because we would be walking along with her nose to the ground and all of a sudden she would lift her head up and freeze, staring with great interest at God knows what lurking in or behind a bush. The whole experience made me think back to a site I was on the other day, OpticsPlanet.com. I had seen a wide range of night vision binoculars, night vision scopes, night vision cameras, and about a billion other things. They also have a full line of military and tactical gear . I can’t imagine any bush lurker bothering Stella and I if we were decked out in tactical gear . Of course Stella’s gear would have to be custom made... :)

Puppies; Never Let Them See You Cry

I am about to divulge a very embarrassing personal secret about myself. I am one of those types of people who cry over stupid things. Last night I cried because a little kid on American Inventor got shot down by everyone but George Foreman. The little kid started crying and then I started crying, much to Stella's horror and dismay.

Stella had been standing on the other side of the room with a big pink chew toy in her mouth. When I burst into tears, Stella's jaw dropped and the pink toy fell out of her mouth. She stood like that, staring at me with a horrified expression and her mouth hanging open for just a split second before dashing across the room, flying onto the couch and landing squarely on my face. She began frantically gunting and licking at my face like it was her personal mission to remove every last teardrop, not only from my face but also from the face of entire planet. Her reaction was so ridiculous, I of course went from tears to laughter! I guess she has just never seen me cry before, silly dog.