Hey there!! 

I’ve been MIA for a while.  I am on the road to recovery after giving birth to our wonderful new little girl!  Amanda Nicole was born on March 18th.  8 lbs, 3 oz. 21 inches.  She’s our 2nd girl, and she’s just gorgeous!  Her big sister is on cloud nine, and just loves her little sister to death. 

I’ve also been making plans for Easter dinner.  My oldest will be 6 on Easter Sunday this year!  So, we’re making it an extra special holiday. 

Our friends over at Dine Without Whine have put together some really great ideas for Easter – Be sure to check them out, and make life a little less complicated!

Cramming for Easter Sunday? Grab these Free Quick ‘n’ Easy Easter Ideas!

One of my biggest pet peeves is when you come across someone dead set against a product or service from someone who is not an eBay Power Seller. I’ve been buying and selling on eBay both full time and part time for over 9 years.  I’ve been a Power Seller. I know what sells, so that enables me the flexibility to control what I sell when. I can easily obtain Power Seller status again. It’s one of the many perks of eBay! Also, one of the many perks of working your own hours and being your own boss.

So, the next time you come across someone who is offering something, it may be worth it to give them the benefit of trying it out. 

I’m absolutely loving the spreadsheet from Easy Auctions Tracker. It’s amazing! I reached out to the creators and they’ve agreed to give a $5 discount through March 15th. I highly recommend it.

Easy Auctions Tracker is the Ultimate Excel spreadsheet solution for eBay sellers and Trading Assistants! This spreadsheet doesn’t calculate your fees, it actually COLLECTS your transaction information from your eBay account for you!!

If you take consignment jobs – this will make your life so much easier!

Very user friendly – if you need help, the support email is very responsive.

Use the paypal button on this page for the $5 discount
http://www.easyauctionstracker.com/psm/

If you pull your January transaction data in by March 30th – this will let you go back as far as Jan. 1st (since eBay stores the info on their servers for 3 months). This will enable you to have complete 2009 info. in your spreadsheet if you choose to purchase the full version.

I’ve been looking for an easy FAST tool for eBay bookkeeping and this does the trick. Have fun with it!

Hey there!   

I wanted to get into the St. Patrick’s Day Spirit a little early!  Our friends over at Dine Without Whine  have certainly been busy getting some awesome recipe’s together for us to share!

Inside You’ll Find:

• Luck of the Irish Potato Stew
• Boxty – Irish Potato Griddle Cakes
• Leprechaun Candy
• Ideas for green non-alcoholic beverages

Check it all out here:
Free St. Patrick’s Day Recipes

Have Fun!

I always love stuff like this because it never fails to trigger my memory on how well ‘dress – up’ clothing does on eBay – even if it’s not around Halloween.  Plus, I have a daughter (and one on the way) – so this is a really great guide to  have!
This complete free report is 12 jam packed pages of how to put together a gorgeous Princess Tea Party. 

All Complements of Mom’s Talk Ebooks.  

It shares how to organize and hold a sweet event for little girls, even sharing precious photos
of the day.

Complete with a shopping checklist – this is a great little resource that anyone with a little girl will enjoy reading.

Pick it up free, here:

Planning A Princess Tea Party

Have Fun!

9 Simple Ways to Save Money on Your Groceries

It never fails, we budget for our groceries, but the bill always ends up being more. We underestimate, run out of things faster than expected and overall, everything is becoming just too darned expensive! To make things a little bit easier, here are 9 simple ways you can start saving money on your groceries.

1. Go with a List: Yes, I know…it’s a pretty obvious suggestion, but it’s amazing how effective it can be. You can purchase only what you need and avoid all the other yummy distractions of the grocery store.

2. Meal Planning: Planning your meals in advance makes it easier to get your list together and ensure you buy only exactly what you need. You can get help with your meal planning at Dine Without Whine AND they actually put your grocery list together for you too.

3. Eat Before You Go: Another classic tip. If you’re hungry, you’ll want to buy (and instantly eat) everything! Have a meal or good snack before you go to avoid impulse purchases.

4. Stock Up on Staple Items When They’re On Sale: If you see ketchup or your family’s favorite sauce on sale, stock up. Or if it’s a certain type of soup or frozen vegetable your family eats all the time, buy a bunch of it. As long as it doesn’t spoil and you have space to store it, you will save money in the long run. The nice thing about this is if you continue to stock up on a variety of items, you’ll have a nice pantry full of food at any given time.

5. Cook from Scratch More Often: Yeah, yeah…it sounds easier said than done, but it doesn’t have to be too complicated. It’s no secret that pre-packaged items and convenience foods come at a premium price. They save you time in preparation, but they eat up your budget and let’s face it, time IS money. Plus, if you’re using Tip #2 and planning your meals, cooking from scratch more often is a whole lot easier.

6. Comparison Shop Before You Leave Home: No, I’m definitely not suggesting you go from store-to-store looking for the best deal. That takes too much time. Check the flyers that come to your door and see who is offering the best deals on what you actually need. If you don’t have any flyers at your door, visit the store website as they generally post flyers online.

7. Use Coupons Sparingly: Sure, coupons offer a great deal, but most coupons you’ll find are for items you don’t really need or use. Resist the urge to think, “Wow, that’s a good deal” and search for coupons based on items you need to purchase instead.

8. Keep the Little Ones At Home: If you have young children that want everything that they see, it’s easy to get into the trap of buying items you don’t need, treats that aren’t healthy and become victim to other grocery store distractions. Keep the kids at home with Daddy (it’s a good bonding opportunity) or a relative. You can even swap grocery store shopping times with your neighbor. Not only will you save money, but you’ll save your sanity too!

9. Make Quick Stops for Fresh Ingredients: This may not be easy if you’re on a tight schedule, but if you can work it in, it can save you a bundle. One of the biggest culprits in grocery budgets gone bad is spoiled food. If your fruits, veggies and other perishable items are always going bad, consider shopping for them more frequently, but in smaller quantities and restrain yourself from buying items you don’t need. If you have any teenaged kids, this would be a great chore for them too.

There you go – 9 ways to save on groceries. But in order to make these tips work, you really need to have a plan in place. You need to know what your family needs and what you’ll be eating. To make your meal planning a whole lot easier, sign up for you 1 ¢ no-risk trial at Dine Without Whine. You and your grocery budget will be glad you did.

Hey there!

I’ve been running around lately getting ready for our new baby to arrive.  My days are full of doctors appointments and organizing the house.

It’s a beautiful thing when you can work on eBay and be able to do what you need to do from home without worrying about things!  Although, I’ve slowed down with my listings I still have sales!

I have some wonderful Easter items up.  Since Easter is late this year, there is still plenty of time to shop.

Hope to be shipping out your package soon! 

Check out my Store for great deals!

Boy, oh boy!  I am finally done preparing everything for the Accountant.  I just prepare what he needs, drop it off, and wait for the phone call of its completion.  Don’t shoot me for being on top of things.  I tend to want to get everything out of the way as soon as I can, every year.

My hats off to Accountants this time of year.  I seriously don’t know how you all manage to stay sane every year.  I totally don’t mind paying to have them done.  Keeping up with the latest tax laws is hard enough! 

Tallying up my expenses is a job in itself!  I have an eBay business, personal and a website business to tally and keep organized all year.  It takes me a couple days to get everything organized.  Not too bad, as long as I can keep up with it all year.  This year I was especially careful due to our baby arrival next month!  I didn’t want to get caught going into labor with the taxes not complete before the April deadline! 

One thing I am going to do different this year with my receipts is get an alphabetical acordian file.  I have noticed that I’ll print a receipt out from the computer, and then when I get the package in the mail it will also have a receipt.  It’s such a waist of time to find both and staple them together – so I’m going to file them starting this year.  That way it will be right in the appropriate letter when I get everything and I can staple it together right away and not worry about a duplicate total in my figures.

In any event, good luck this year with your taxes!

Limited Time 1 Month for 1 Penny Offer (Expires Jan 31, 2009)

Meal Planning: Save Time, Reduce Stress, Eat Healthy & Enjoy Your Family

The children are running around the kitchen. The dog is barking it at the door and dinner should have been on the table thirty minutes ago. It’s a common scenario in many households come dinner time.

The reason that most meal times don’t always go smoothly may because dinner the last thing on your mind and when it’s time to get food on the table, everything else goes haywire in your house.

We have all been there, but with a little bit of meal-planning, you can be serving up delicious meals the family will be glad to gather around the table for.

Meal planning can make it easy to get dinner on the table in no time on a busy night. Not only do you save time, but it’s economical too. You buy only what you need, avoid the drive-through line up and you can concentrate on using fresh ingredients – instead of prepackages items from the grocery store. Every mother should have a set way to plan all of their meals in advance for the week…it’s a true life-saver.

The first step to successful meal planning is to sit down before you head out to the grocery store for the week (or sign up for the affordable Dine Without Whine Menu Planning Service & they’ll make that plan for you) .

It is best to plan what food you will need to have on had before you head to the grocery store when planning the week’s meals. Meal planning will make good use of a well stocked pantry and will only need a regular amount of grocery shopping. By having your meals for the week planned out, you will be able to write a grocery list that you can stick to (Dine Without Whine actually puts your grocery list together for you too). This will help you to save money by keeping you from not buying extra food that you will not use.

As you plan your week’s meals, make sure that you think about ways you can cook once and make two meals out of it. It’s easy to do a lot of cooking on the weekends so that you can do minimum cooking on busy week days. You can grill up chicken breasts on Sunday and use them in pasta on one night and then in fajitas another night. There are many ways that you can reuse the cooking from one night to make the next meal that much easier.

Meal planning can also help to cut down on your prep time in the kitchen when you are cooking. By knowing the meals that you are going to cook in advance, you can wash and cut vegetables when you bring them home from the grocery store. The simple act of pre-measuring the vegetables that you would need for a meal will cut out a lot of additional cooking time.

To be successful with your meal planning, you will want to take into account a lot of factors when you plan your meals for the week. One of the most important things to keep in mind is your weekly schedule of evening activities. The nights when your family has many activities planned are not the evenings to make meals that take along time to prepare. It will be those nights that you will want to use the meals that use the food that you already prepared on the weekends.

Meal planning is a skill that will take some getting used to. The first couple of times that you attempt to plan out your meals for the week, you will have some missteps along the way. After awhile it will become second nature to plan all of your meals in advance and you will wonder why you did not start to do it sooner.

To make your meal planning a whole lot easier, sign up for you 1 ¢ no-risk trial at Dine Without Whine. You and your hungry family will be glad you did.

Happy Wednesday! 

Remember my post last month regarding the JJ Cole Bundle Me Baby Bunting?  Well, I’m officially sold out!  I scooped these up on a special discount from a store mentioned in my Boutique Bargains Alert service.  I made $10 – $20 pure profit on each one.  I’m hoping y’all took advantage of it!  I love it when it works out to a nice profit, and happy customers.  These were all sold directly from my eBay store.  Some had free shipping, some did not.  It didn’t seem to make a difference!  People were paying full retail either way.

I’m totally buying these when I can get them at the right price again.