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Healthy and sustainable living is a trend on the rise. More and more Americans today are adopting a healthier lifestyle to improve wellness, help the environment, and just overall feel better. And a healthy lifestyle starts with healthy eating. In the past, Americans were all about the quick and easy meal. After all, a cheeseburger and soda from McDonalds was a staple in the average diet. Many people today are substituting the grease with healthy and clean eating today. It’s definitely one trend that is here to stay.
We all know the benefits of eating healthy and nutritious foods, but we also know it can be tough on the wallet. Fresh and organic foods can be double the price of processed foods, making it very difficult to fit it into our budgets. But if you are committed to healthier living, there are definitely tips and tricks to help you eat well for less: [ continue reading… ]
With my son beginning his junior year of high school in the fall, the cost of a college education has been in my thoughts a lot lately. I’m saving each month in order to help defray the skyrocketing cost of his post-secondary education, and he’s saving money from each of his paychecks from his part time job as well. In addition to saving up our own funds, when the time is right I’ll encourage him to seek out and apply for as many scholarships and grants as he possibly can.
My son and I attended a college informational presentation recently, and one of the topics was scholarships and grants. The presenter told a story about a young woman who received a scholarship by default because she was the only applicant. In fact, that particular scholarship had not been awarded for the three previous years because there were no applicants. Scholarships and grants are out there for the taking, college hopefuls just need to go find them. Here are a few places to find such information. [ continue reading… ]
Everyone already talks about how expensive having a baby is. Still, the reality can be even more costly than you originally imagined. Most expecting parents already know to budget for a crib, clothes, and diapers, but many other expenses pop up during the infant stage that many never thought about. Here are a five I felt caught me off guard.
Many Types of Bottles and Nipples
If you choose to formula feed or even feed your baby breast milk later, then you already know you will need a bottle. At most baby stores and major chain stores, there is a whole aisle devoted to the different types of bottles and nipples. What you need to prepare for financially is that you might need to try out three to four different kinds of bottles before finding the one your little one likes. My niece refused so many popular brands of bottles, even the ones that were promoted for breastfeeding babies when she went back to work that my sister-in-law spent hundreds of dollars trying to find the right bottle.
I thought I got lucky because she gave me all of those bottles to try out. My second daughter loved the Playtex bottles, so we bought a package of them. Fast forward two months later, and my daughter had a hard time with the next level up nipple. We ended up getting a completely different set of bottles and stage 2 nipples just so she would drink milk again. [ continue reading… ]
My awareness of the importance of eating organic, as-natural-as-possible foods has increased the last few years. The dilemma of this awareness is being torn between choosing more expensive groceries or compromising what I put in my body. It can be hard to remember that the benefits outweigh the costs when they come in the form of long-term health I can’t see, versus the immediate, visible hike in my grocery bill. This conflict has increased my drive to find ways to save money so I can still make conscientious choices about my produce. In addition to a few tricks I’ve learned along the way, a recent discovery has alleviated the pressure I’ve felt to buy everything organic: the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15. [ continue reading… ]
I had $20,000 in student loans when I graduated from college. That’s certainly not a huge amount compared to others but the amount is still significant. It took a lot of discipline and hard work, but I was able to pay it off in two years. This is despite me taking some wrong turns along the way. It goes to show that if you generally make the right choices, paying off your loans can be much more manageable than it seems. Here are 4 rules to follow to tackle your student loans: [ continue reading… ]
My wife and I hosted a neighborhood 4th of July party complete with food, fun, and games. The weather was perfect with highs in the 80’s and plenty of sun, so part of the plan was to have a water balloon fight. We didn’t want to manually fill and tie hundreds of balloons so we went out to look for a more efficient solution.
We had seen commercials on TV for a new product that fills and seals many water balloons simultaneously. Essentially the product has a group of balloons each attached to a stem, and all the stems lead to a single hose attachment end. When the hose is attached and the water turned on, the balloons fill up simultaneously. With a jerk of the hand the balloons are detached and seal themselves. It seemed like exactly what we needed, so while shopping for party supplies we searched for and found the product at Toys ‘R Us. Actually, we found two similar products. We didn’t know which one would be better, so we bought some of each product.
The two products were called “Bunch of Balloons,” and “Balloon Bonanza.” We thought it would be interesting to compare the two water balloon filling devices and see if one was noticeably different. The following are our findings: [ continue reading… ]
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