Mothering Many

Today’s Great Discovery: www.ZenniOptical.com

First, I have never ordered from this company before, so I cannot speak to their customer service, or speedy shipping or any of that stuff. However! They have complete glasses as low as $8, and since Country stepped on hers a few days ago, I may be ordering shortly. I am going to see if hers can be repaired, since they were only a month or so old, but I’m not holding my breath. They look a great deal like the ones in the picture these, so I know she’ll be satisfied with the style. Shipping is $4.95 per order.

Now here’s my question. Nobody works for free, right? So there guys are obviously making a profit, even at $8 a pair. How do they do that? And why does the optometrist office charge so much more? I kid you not, I don’t have insurance, and I paid over a hundred for an exam, and I bought the cheapest kid frames I could find. Yeah, for me, they are cute, let me show you:

They cost another $100plus. Let me see if I can do the math— 100plus - 8 + 4.95shipping = darn near 90 bucks I could have spent on stuff like food. Or shoes. Or, or, or.

Just a couple of things real quick this morning, before I tackle the couch of disaster, write yet more lesson plans and take kids to the doctor. Oh, and shower. Must shower.

Happy Tax Time, and if you have a new baby, it’s even better. If you have a cute new baby (and aren’t they all?) it could be almost fantastic. Yeah, a fantastic tax time. Amazing thought that, huh?

It’s a contest from TurboTax called “America’s Cutest Last-Minute Tax Deduction.” Parents with children born in December 2007 are invited to upload a photo of their newborn to the contest’s web site, where their fellow taxpayers will vote for the cutest and most original photo of the baby. The winner will receive a $5,000 savings bond ($10,000 upon maturity). The site is www.CutestTaxDeduction.com. The contest ends January 9.

That’s today, so hurry up! Good thing we live in the digital age, huh?

Moving on to the food part, my friend Amy showed me this site, and I thought you would all enjoy have a peek at this. The article is on food for a family of four in 1952. Be sure to click the picture, because the full version is awe inspiring.

Hehehe! Oh yeah. I am thrilled with this turn of events. You know I have posted about the floors we have, and that I want to replace them. Many flooring companies want to limit their warranty and not cover flooring that you buy online–mostly because they don’t want you getting the flooring at a discount. We’ll leave behind questions of price fixing for now, and just say that stinks.

BUT! Look at this:

iFLOOR, America’s largest online flooring retailer, today announced a $1,000,000 limited warranty designed to protect its customers from predatory manufacturer policies that exclude warranty coverage from online purchases.

The policy, which goes into effect immediately, offers up to one million dollars of coverage in the event that a customer’s warranty claim is denied specifically because they made their purchase online. It is complimentary for every iFLOOR customer, and protects the buyer under the same terms as the original product warranty.

iFLOOR, Inc. CEO, Steve Simonson, came up with the program to combat “scare tactics” used by manufacturers of hardwood floors and laminate flooring. “Their idea is to discourage you from buying at a discount!” wrote Simonson in his blog “It’s About Flooring”. “This is not right! You deserve to save money! So we’re going to take care of this problem once and for all.”

And it would appear that federal law is on his side. Section 108 of the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Act, states that, “In general, tie-in sales provisions are not allowed. Such a provision would require a purchaser of the warranted product to buy an item or service from a particular company to use with the warranted product in order to be eligible to receive a remedy under the warranty.”

Under iFLOOR’s new warranty, a key provision allows for iFLOOR to “seek justice” on behalf of the customer in the event of legal action. According to Simonson, “I’m putting iFLOOR’s money where my mouth is.”

About iFLOOR, Inc.
Since 1998, iFLOOR.com has been the leading online and retail flooring company, with 36 local retail stores nationwide offering more than 70,000 products, including hardwood floors, laminate flooring, bamboo flooring and cork floors. iFLOOR.com is the largest online flooring retailer according to Internet Retailer Magazine, and was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States for the past three years. Committed to quality customer service, superior selection and friendly expert advice, iFLOOR.com enables customers to buy flooring both online and in its retail stores at a substantial savings over traditional retailers. For more information about iFLOOR, please visit www.iFLOOR.com.

Sweet, huh? iFLOOR has just guaranteed itself a huge chuck of the internet flooring business. I know when it comes time to do my floors, I’ll check them out, just because they are standing by their customers.

It’s been almost three weeks! I cannot believe all we’ve accomplished in school in that time! I’ll be writing more plans this week, believe it or not. I”ll post a littl eon it, but nothing like the in-depth series I did when I charted the term. In fact, I plan to use those posts I wrote befre to help keep me on track when I write the next 3 weeks worth of plans.

Things are a bit tighter for us this period, what with the sports and all, so I’m glad there isn’t much to buy. The way the term falls on the calendar, I won’t need anything except art/craft supplies until after Christmas. And that’s good, because I really don’t want to deal with private student loans at this stage of the educational game, ykwim? We all know that leads to student loan consolidation later, and with the number of students I have, I don’t think even student loan consolidation would help us out of that debt spiral.

Back to the art stuff: The kids seemed excited in a rather vague way about a couple of projects in the DaVinci book, but not enough to remember the projects when I asked what they wanted to do. However, frescoes were covered in the history I do with Batman and Spidey, and they were quite intrigued with that, so that’s what I bought supplies for. Not having to go to BigTown to get what I needed did weigh heavily in my decision, considering that Sunday was the only day I could do that, BUT the brakes on the van were gone to the point that I could hear metal on metal, and Sunday was also the only day dh could do that, and so, brakes win. Anyway (darn those rabbit trails), I got pie pans, plaster of paris, pipe cleaners, watercolors and brushes. We will make a mess and have great fun, and perhaps some art will even occur, as if by accident.

I mentioned not too long ago that I was considering giving the children an allowance, and I’ve done that. We’ve had three weeks worth of allowances, and I have docked Batman 20% of his new shoes (he lost his other pair), and I have docked Country 60% of a set of blinds (she broke the old set). Luckily for her, I charged her based on the replacement cost of plain vinyl blinds and not the nice wood blinds that I’d like to be getting. Interestingly enough, those charges came out of the first week’s allowance. It seems that once the kids figured out there was money to be had, but that I would withhold it for negligence, it became worth while to be paying attention. Go figure!

Believe it or not, I think I’m actually saving money!

I was just looking back at the post I made Saturday evening, and all the helpful comments I got. Except the one about my shoes. That one wasn’t helpful at all, and it just made me mad, LOL! I’ve decided that I might need to do some shopping. I very rarely buy clothes for myself, because it’s hard to find stuff that fits, but….yeah. Maybe it’s time. Perhaps I can find something to match my hot air balloon shoes! As much as I hate shopping for clothes for myself, that would make it worth it.

Speaking of shopping, I found a place to get discounts on products for your baby. It’s a site you want to check frequently, because all the deals are “while supplies last”. That means you may or may not find what you are looking for (hehe, just like when I go shopping for me), but if you do find it the price will definitely be right (which may or may not be the case when I shop for myself).

What has all that got to do with the title of the post? Well, according to my kids, I’m a clothing loser (at least sometimes), but I bet that site right there makes you think I am the baby shopping winner.

You know I am all about the sale. Life is too short, and money is too tight, to pay full price when it can be avoided. One way I save money is by using promo codes when I shop online. KeepCash.com is updated daily with the latest coupons and deals. I found some sweet free shipping coupons for dELiA*s there, and combined with the sale prices on the site, you can have a little cyber-shopping fun without breaking the bank. dELiA*s specializes in things for teens and young women. I’ve decided that can be construed to apply to this 40 year old mom, too, LOL! I’m as young as I feel, right?

I am thisclose to just ripping up my living room carpet. Seriously. I vacuumed yesterday, and….the thing is filthy. I’m scared to try to clean it, because it’s already bare in spots, and I am afraid that cleaning it would make it worse. Unfortunately, there’s just plywood underneath, and I am afraid the kids would get splinters.

I looked at Coupon Chief this morning to see if they had coupons on flooring. I found discounts for Home Depot, but the cost is still more than the amount of loose change in my pocket. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be laminate flooring once I finally get around to doing anything. I have about 340 square feet, and the Pergo is roughly $50 for 20 square feet, so I’m looking at $850, even with the coupon. *cough, choke, sputter* BUT! Pergo Presto is warranted against wear, staining and fading for 25 years, so while I could get cheaper flooring, I really think it would be worth it to splurge on the Pergo.

Technorati Tags: flooring, Pergo, Coupon Chief

We had something for dinner last night that was so good, I have to share. While I was doing the grocery shopping, I bought 3 of the 16 inch pizzas from the deli area in Wal-Mart. Those things are huge, and they are good. And they are inexpensive! I think I paid about 10 bucks for a meat one, and it had plenty of toppings, and yet the pizzas were not greasy.

My kids love to eat “out food”, but it can easily cost $50 bucks for us to get dominoes. This is a quite reasonable alternative. And 16 inches is a ton of pizza. Admittedly, we’ve been off our feed lately, but the 9 of us could not finish 2 of these.

Technorati Tags: pizza, Wal-Mart

Remember I said that I had reached a new stage in my parenting journey? I’m a bit different from most parents, though. Because of the age range of my children, I still can’t look ahead and see a time when there are no little people here, and I’m thankful that the empty nest is still some time away. But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t look to the future now and again.

Accordingly, I was over at uTango today. They have a utango rewards program for single, engaged and recently married people. Basically you earn rewards for shopping at participating merchants, and the payouts after 10, 20 or 30 years are pretty significant. Here’s the catch, though I think it’s a good one: once you are married, you have to stay married to earn the rewards! They are actually rewarding people for staying committed to their life partner!

Signup is easy, and free. And you earn rewards for buying stuff you need anyway, like computers or housewares. Here is an picture of the uTango life stage rewards plan chart, so you can see what I am talking about.

Now, you know I have been married for longer than three years, but I still think this is a great idea. I know that some of my readers are quite a bit younger than I am, and perhaps they make the cut-off. And this is something I will share with my oldest daughter.