Your money is coming in slower than it’s going out. You already work full time and the thought of picking up a second job that would work around your “8-5-Er” is practically impossible without falling asleep on the job. You have extended your credit to the max and you are still short.

Did you know that over the past 12 months in 2008, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 2.8 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 1.7 percentage points, per the U.S. Department of Labor’s statistics???

Obviously, you are not alone in what feels like a never ending battle to put a little cash back in your pocket.  Change things up a bit this year and go personalized with your gifts.

Do you have a computer, scanner and printer and do you know how to use them??? Great! let’s get started!!! If you don’t have a scanner or printer look on the free section of craigslist.com, they always have them listed there!!!

Easy one to start out with is Calendars. Get pictures of your family or yoru friends. You will need 12. On an 8×11 sized paper you will need to print out each month’s calander in landscape or length wise. Then on a blank page you will need to print out your first picture in landscape. Face the picture up on a table and grab the january calander. You will then print on the back side of this the second picture you will want to use, also set in landscape. FAce the picture upside on top of the January and continue through the months. To add some fun to the caldendar you can always type or write in special birthdays and holidays that are personalized to you. Then take a hole punch and punch 3-9 holes at the top of your calendar. Cut small pieces of ribbon or string and loosely tie them together for easy opening of the pages. Office supply stores that have a printing department in them do this and change anywhere from $10-$15 a piece for these. Great present for the person who never knows when anyones birthday is!!! Here is also a link for easy and free  Calendar templates.

The next holiday project is a picture slideshow! If you have microsoft office, most of the newer versions come with powerpoint. You can add music and audio clips to lots of your favorite moments. If you are unfamiliar with powerpoint, you would need to familiarize yourself with how to do use the program before you consider this option or you will just frustrate yourself!

Another fun christmas present is iron on transfers. If you go to your local stores and for about $15 dollars you can purchase printable iron on transfers. Take photographs you have scanned into your computer and print them on these laserjet type iron on pages and all you need is some cotton item to iron it onto as a personalized gift! T-shirts, pillow cases, nurses scrub pants, etc. If you don’t have a scanner you can always type out someones name in a word document and print it on the transfer page too!!! Iron-on the item and your set!

Another fun project is a personalized mirror. Great for friends that enjoy certain hobbies. Go to the dollar tree and pick up a cheap framed mirror usually located in their dollar section. You will also need either glue or rubber cement depending on the type of frame you are getting and the width of the fame. I like the thick framed ones that are wood. Print out pictures of the hobby and cut them like a collage and start gluing them all around the mirror on the frame so that way there is no empty areas. Once it is dried you can use decoupage or clear nail polish or a clear sealers paint and paint over the top of it to seal it together! It’s fun and intresting to hang on your wall!!!

If you have more suggestions on fun and super cheap creative crafts, please leave a comment and share your ideas!!!

My husband got ordained on the Internet a few years back, mostly for entertainment value over anything truly useful. I still don’t remember what company he did it with, but his ordainment was on-line and they sent him fancy papers laminated saying he was now a Reverend.

My best friend and her fiance are not what I would say very religious in their beliefs, but they have a belief in a higher power and they are very spiritual at heart. Knowing my husband being ordained they decided they wanted him to preside over their wedding administering their wedding vows.

So after researching Oregon State regulations and county regulations we found that particular counties in Oregon do not require you to register with the county to preside over a marriage. Their only requirement is you have an organization that will ordain within the state.

We were told by one of the county record keepers that most individuals seeking to ordain often use UCL.net which is a free service to use.

Then all they have to do is submit the marriage licence to the county after the individual performs the ceremony. How easy is that?!?!

A friend of mine, who just so happens to be a stay at home mom had been racking her brain on how to come up with a little cash and have a little bit of entertainment on the side. After she did her research she began mystery shopping on top of taking care of her kids! Sounds like a lot of work, but it has become a very fun game for her and her family.

Now be forewarned, this is something to take serious and realize it’s not easy as pie, because you need to keep accurate track of what you are doing, don’t be sloppy, and even spell check yourself to make sure you are doing what you need to do to make it happen in a timely fashion.

I am thinking this is going to be an on-going blog, so today I am telling you about my experience getting into it or getting started and then later I will get into how to do it.

So my friend was telling me about her desire to do something a little different to make some ends meet. She had logged onto this web site filled with forums about mystery shopping that give you the real story of the ups and downs of mystery shopping. I was intrigued so I asked her to send me the website information.

The next day she sent me the information to my email box and I eagerly opened it up to find this new treasure she had been talking so much about! She had sent me some referral information and then I just sloppily started entering my information around and I rushed through a few things and if you can’t tell I have terrible spelling so I basically disqualified myself from a couple of mystery shop companies within 20 minutes. The sad part is that she had even warned me to be careful and I didn’t. I was sloppy.

So, I lost interest in it for a couple of months and then upon visiting with her brother over one weekend he shared with me the story that his sister had made a heafty profit within her first month of mystery shopping so it is really worth giving it a shot. Now, not only was I intrigued again, but I was jealous and I wanted on that money train and fast!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always start very fast though as I have learned. It’s a bit slow to start as pay out can take a while depending on the company, and you need to be fairly aggressive and focused on what you are doing.

So, step one to get started set up a free pay-pal account. Step two, set up a free and separate email address that is linked to your pay-pal account. Step three, define your schedule of when you are free to be able to spend approximately an hour per each shop and make up a calendar.

Once you are set up with those first three steps we will talk about where to go from there. Let this sit for a while and later after I complete my first assignment I will do a full blog on how to jump in.

I have two chihuahuas that stay in my kitchen all day while my husband and I are at school and work. Their food is on the floor and we have been constantly having to change out the dog food due to the ants keep invading our home.

Most of you might tell me to pick up the dog food before I leave for work, but my doggies eat only little bits at a time and I don’t want to take that luxury away from them. Silly, I know, but I am wondering if there is a safe and alternative way to get rid of ants without having to change the pattern of how and when they are fed.

So after doing some research i found on www.ehow.com I learned that the tiny invaders in my home, often known as sugar ants are just the run of the mill household ants that tend to leap out between the months of march through September. They are often known as sugar ants due to their interest in food particularly sweet tasting.

first tip is to do a deep cleaning. Use white vinegar (not cider vinegar) to wipe down the counter tops and other mess. clean the sink completely and even try running some vinegar down the drain to get the smell of food out of the kitchen. Make sure to clean the garbage can and other areas on the floor. Looks like the feeding time for the puppies is going to change after all.

I found a good debt management tool to understand debt to income ratio that is like a spreadsheet; the ones credit services use to help people look at their debt. While yes, its a bit of a dinosaur technique, it’s truly the simplest way to start mapping your way out of debt!

Monthly Income & Debt

My Best Friend and I are on a new workout plan to get to feeling and looking better before her upcoming wedding in August. We are eating right and making our portions just a little bit smaller and increasing the times we eat a day to keep our calorie intake at just the right level.

She recently asked a very good question though! How many calories am I suppose to intake each day and how many is safe to cut back on in my diet and how many is it really safe to burn off.

“If your goal is to lose weight by burning off excess body fat, aim to eat 500 fewer calories per day than your daily caloric needs, and maintain or increase your exercise activity. Do not go below 1200 calories per day unless you are on a medically supervised weight loss program or after consultation with your doctor.” http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm

So, what is the lazy man’s way to figure out what you are burning and what you are in-taking? Well, you just have to look on the back of the box silly! Each product you buy is going to have the percentage of calories on the ingredient label and you will just need to add them up! Do a little grade school math. Next up figure out what you burn with out that little extra exercise with this very very handy calculator from Ahealthyme.com http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/calburncalc I highly recommend their site in understanding a safe and healthy lifestyle.

I was reading in some health forum and I can’t remember where that if you safely cut back about 250 calories out of your regular diet (so maybe skip the fries) and work out with a pedometer and burn 250 more calories a day, that it would be a safe way to loose a pound in a week. Like I said, I don’t know just yet how valid that really is, but I will investigate it further and edit this when I get the research on it done more professionally.

So, last night I spent hours apon hours on the internet searching for ways to get outside my box of creativity! And I think I found it!!! Blogging is my new found power and enlightenment.♥

In this blog I will be discussing all the many ideas or thoughts that pop into my head. Random questions and answers about weightloss, fitness, money, event planning, family, debt management, shopping and much more! All on a budget in this sweet thing we call life! ♥

If you have a desired subject matter please comment so I can do the appropriate research and assist on the matter.