Frost This Morning!

We had -2 degrees on the thermometer this morning with frost covering the grass on the front lawn.
Gerry took my clothesline down yesterday as the weather has just not been nice enough to dry outdoors anymore. 
Getting ready to head out of town in the RV about mid October and will head west first to see daughter and her boyfriend, then depending on the weather, towards the Fraser Canyon in B.C.. Plans CAN change though.
Need to get into the RV this week and do a little clean up before we start loading it up and heading to sunnier skies and warmer weather.

How To Save For a Special Occasion

No matter what point it is in the year, there’s always a special occasion right round the corner. Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary, wedding, christening or Christmas day- life is expensive. As fantastic as these kinds of celebrations are, they all demand money. With the festive season fast approaching, you’ve probably got your best budgeting hat on already. But regardless of what you’re saving for- here are a few ways to make your money go further.

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Save Up Your Loose Change

Any spare change you find in your purse or your pockets, dump into a container. You won’t miss it, but over time it can really add up. If you choose a tin or box that you have to smash or open with a can opener, you’re much less likely to dip back into it. Something like these from the site temptationgifts.com could be useful.

Open an Online Savings Account

Open up an online savings account with your bank, preferably one which gives you good interest rates. Then whenever you get paid, transfer some money into it. Whether it’s a little or a lot, just go with what you can realistically afford, and it will soon add up.

Sell Old Stuff

Most of us have things like old mobile phones, computer consoles and other bits of outdated technology sat in cupboards gathering dust. They might seem like old junk, but there are lots of companies out there who will pay for this kind of thing. Even if it’s just a few dollars, it all helps. Plus you get to declutter and free up some space. You can sell clothes on apps like Depop, and general bric a brac and other miscellaneous things at boot sales. If you’re not using stuff, sell it to someone who will and earn a little bit of money in the process.

Use Coupons

When you’re saving it’s important to keep spending down, and therefore only make necessary purchases. But if you absolutely have to buy something, don’t just go in and pay full price- look for bargains and coupons. For example, you could browse a site such as Manycoupons.co.in. The more money you can save on essential purchases, the more money you free up for saving,

Do Some Work Online

A second job online could earn you some extra cash, and means you’re putting your skills to the test too! It could be online questionnaires, writing, design work or something else. Setting up a blog is a good way to earn a second income. While it’s not something that will take off overnight (and you do have to put in the effort) if you’re passionate about a topic and on the lookout for a new hobby anyway, this could kill two birds with one stone.

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How do you save up for special occasions? Do you do any of these things?

7 Surprising Things That Could Leave Your Personal Finances in Ruins

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Personal finance can be a cruel mistress. We can go for years creating our perfect little pot of money, but it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye. There are lots of obvious ways this can happen. Death, for example. Divorce is yet another common one. But, there are some things that you might not expect. You need to be aware of them, and being on your guard is crucial if you want to avoid a nightmare scenario.

And, we’ve come up with a list of seven things that you might not have thought about. What would you do if you found yourself in one of these scenarios? Think about it.

Your Bad Habits

You might not think that your smoking habit is doing all that much damage, but it is. The same goes for your alcohol addiction, or your needless gambling habit. That money adds up, and before you know it, you could be out of pocket. It’s amazing how much money you can save when you put a stop to these. Of course, that might not be easy, so it might be worth looking at a rehab center to help.

Using Multiple Credit Cards

Once you start getting multiple credit cards, the world is pretty much your oyster. You can do whatever you like, and spend as much as you need. It’s an amazing feeling of freedom that borders on dangerous for some people. Once you start adding multiple cards into the mix, it becomes harder to track expenditure. If you lose track entirely, you might find that you can’t pay off any debts that you get into. Suddenly, you’re in a huge mess, and it’s all because of those damn cards.

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Using Credit Cards At All

If this 2011 article from Business Insider is to be believed, you probably don’t want to use credit cards at all. They mention that McDonalds observed transactions for both cash and card. The results came out that customers were more willing to spend money on their cards. It makes sense, really. I think we’ve all been in the position where we’ve spent a little extra on our cards. It isn’t real money in front of our eyes - we don’t have to part with anything. That’s quite scary, and potentially an argument to quit using credit cards as much as possible.

Your New Job

Wait, what? Am I saying that your new job could lead to financial ruin? Sorry to spoil the party, folks. To be honest, any job could do that. The obvious danger comes in the form of slips and trips. Workplace injuries are common, and a personal injury lawyer might be able to come to your aid if this happens. However, some jobs can put your finances in ruin based on their nature. I used to work in a cell phone store - I found myself spending far too much on cell phones entirely. The same thing could happen to you, depending on the circumstances.

A Traumatic Event

We’re not talking about the financial costs of a funeral or divorce with this one. Instead, we’re talking about the emotional aspects of a traumatic event. It plays havoc with your mind, often leading to overspending to try and ease the pain. Before you know it, your finances could get very much out of hand. The act of spending is often thought about in relation to personal finance, and the emotional side of it is just as potentially damaging.

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Ignoring Your Credit Score

It’s commonly thought by many that checking your credit score will lead to it worsening over time. In some cases, like consistently failing to get a contract, that might be the case. However, ordering your report to check isn’t going to do any damage in most cases. In fact, it might even do the opposite, improving your report. Ultimately, ignoring your credit score entirely isn’t your best bet. Of course, doing the right things to bolster that score is also very important.

Your Bachelor’s Degree

You don’t need me to tell you that getting a bachelor’s degree is an expensive thing. Ultimately, you’re doing it to get a higher paid job at the end of it all. But, that isn’t necessarily guaranteed. That aforementioned Business Insider article mentions that 2 million fresh graduates were out of jobs at that time. That’s a lot of people, and you might just find that your personal finances take a huge hit until you find something. Hopefully, you’ll get your money’s worth out of it!

Mrs. Freshley's and Tastykake's Fun Halloween Treats For The Classroom

In just three simple steps you've got yourself a Tastykake Ghoulish Ghost Pop for your child's Halloween class.

 All you need is: 

• A family pack of Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpet
• Cake pop stick
• Icing (orange and black)

Directions: 

• Insert a cake pop stick into one end of a Butterscotch Krimpet. 
• Using black icing, draw on the ghost's mouth and eyes.
• If you want to dress up your ghosts, give them a bow tie or hair bow with orange icing.

Plus try:

Mrs. Freshley's Batty Pops

Ingredients:

Mrs. Freshley’s Peanut Butter Flavored Swiss Rolls

Popsicle sticks

Wax Paper

1 pkg chocolate candy bark / candy melts

Piping bag

Large Yogurt Chips

Toothpicks

Directions:

Insert one popsicle stick in each of the Peanut Butter Swiss Rolls and place in the freeze to harden.

Draw a stencil of the wing shape on a piece of wax paper; be sure to make the wings wide enough to accommodate the Swiss Roll.

Melt a portion of the chocolate candy bark or melts and pour into a piping back with a small tip.

Pipe out the outline of the bat wings. In the center of the wings pipe a chocolate rectangle approximately the size of the Swiss Roll.

Place the Swiss roll on the chocolate rectangle and put in freezer to harden (3-5 minutes).

Remove bats from freezer, use a little chocolate to place the large yogurt chips on the bat for eyes, put the pointed side of the chip into the Swiss Rolls. Use a toothpick and chocolate candy bark to apply pupils on the flat side of the yogurt chips to finish the eyes.

Use the chocolate candy bark to pipe the mouth and fangs.

Allow the bat pops to set and then serve.

Gerry's Review: Clearly.ca

Review by: Gerry

Need new glasses?  Check out clearly.ca where you can find wonderful styles at super cheap prices.  Any person who wears glasses will tell you that it is super important to have a good source for good quality glasses and clearly.ca is perfect. 

Clearly.ca makes it super easy to find the perfect style and fit with their online My Fit Tool.  The process is very easy to use and ensures that you will receive a pair of glasses that will fit you perfectly every time. 

They feature a ton of different styles and colors, something for everyone.  They have both glasses and sunglasses on the site for you to choose from.  The glasses are all great quality and made of high quality materials.  They have great features you can choose from like scratch resistance, transitional lenses, and progressive lenses.  

Not only do they have a great variety, their prices are top notch.  They offer great quality glasses for half the price it would cost you at the optometrist’s office. So why spend your day in a stuffy office when you can easily shop online from the comfort of your own home, get a great stylish pair of glasses with all your favorite features, and pay half of what you would in the store??  Clearly.ca is the best option when ordering your next pair of eye wear.

Gerry recently used Clearly.ca to order a pair of Joseph Marc 4121 glasses.  He was very happy with the quality of the glasses.  They are very stylish and fit perfectly.

Was very impressed with Clearly.ca’s speedy delivery as well. Can't say enough good about this company.. really!

Spread Betting: Bitter-Sweet Trade

What is it with Spread Betting?

Spread betting has been one of the most attractive business ventures among the people of UK due to the lucrative profits with what most people assume to be a simple operation of a spread betting software. It involves speculating the rise or fall of a market value of a product, or a currency and bet on it, without necessarily buying or selling the shares or a commodity in question. If a player makes a right bet, their value of money used in the bet rises. Since there is no exchange of ownership of any goods, there is no form of tax that is involved. This fact has made this sort of trade attract very many people. The flexibility of the business makes it even more attractive to those who do not want anything too serious, such as avoiding some tax, or with a bureaucratic process involved in the change of ownership of shares. The two points make the practice similar to CFD trading. However, when trading with CMC markets, spread betting attracts no commission, for any order executed. The charges free spread betting practice, especially when using the CMC platform attracts many traders. However, the practice is restricted to UK residents only.

Process of Spread Betting

The steps followed are straightforward and direct; a new member can use virtual funds to try out the new income earning bet. The first thing is to choose the commodity one can opt to gamble. This could be a product that one has just learnt about a possible fluctuation of market prices shortly. Once a trader has identified a potential profit is making commodity- be it a commodity, shares, treasuries or indices- one can open a sell for a falling price or a buy for a rising price. While any investor is free to place an order with any of the hundreds of available choices in the disciplines above, it is advisable that one concentrates on a select few items. This will ensure a closer observation and follow-up with the trend of the particular commodity. Placing an order is just a simple as clicking the sell or buy button at any point.

Figure 1: assessing the spread of a commodity

Risks Associated with Spread Betting

Normally, the possibility of losing all the ventured money is just as high as that of gaining. However, the higher the risk, the higher the returns. It is, therefore, advisable to place orders bearing risks that one can stand to lose as much as one would admire to make some profit. Using a demo account to sharpen one’s skill is important as it helps one to reduce the risks involved. The main secret of finding the best company to place a bet with is not easy. It demands to look at past values, projecting the expected values and the time it would take for the value of shares to either shoot down, to the regular prices or rise to the standard value if the prices were low.

In spite of the volatility of market prices, most experienced spread bettors can accurately put their money on a given bet, and as sure as the sun, take their profit after the betting period ends. However, this is not as cool as it looks, having a relative analysis of all similar companies so as to predict a rise or fall is not easy. It is advisable to ensure that when the risk involved appears high, a large stop loss, betting with a low fraction of the capital is recommended. For low-risk bets, increasing the size of the bet is commendable since there is a chance of making a huge fortune. Some investors are willing to spend more than ten hours reading and watching business news, just to ensure that no market change goes unnoticed.

Spread Betting Margins

These are the tools that ensure only those with cash play the game. Margins ensure that bettors use their resources well and therefore spread bet responsibly since their capital is at stake. The deposit margin will make sure that one loss something when the market goes against their bet. This is money that is deducted from their capital and is reimbursed, together with added maintenance margin, once the market goes aligned with their predictions. A good broker such as the CMC will ensure that the software executes every pressed button immediately and has no financial toll. Finding such good agents is not easy.

Another DIY Project By Gerry

Here is the Before and After of mom's computer chair Gerry re-did for my mom. (She already had the fabric- just needed to buy a bit of foam for the arms of the chair).

Today's Winner

Today's giveaway :

http://www.oneincomedollar.com/2016/09/back-to-school-ready-with-kellogg.html

and the winner:

Debbie Sherrer- comment 143

Winner has been contacted and has 7 days to replay before a new winner is selected.

Thank you to all who entered.

Simple Mills Spooky Halloween Recipes

Graveyard Cake

3 eggs

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 box SimpleMills Chocolate Muffin & Cake Mix

1 container Simple Mills Organic Chocolate Frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 6-inch cake pan and line it with parchment paper. Also grease a small ramekin or glass dish.

2. Whisk the eggs, water, oil and vanilla in a large bowl, then the baking mix and stir until combined. 

3. Remove about ½ cup of cake batter and pour it in to the ramekin

4. Pour remaining batter into cake pan. 

5. Place both items on a baking sheet and bake 20 minutes. 

6. Remove small ramekin but continue to bake the cake for another 10-15

minutes or until a toothpick come out clean. 

7. Let cake cool for about 10 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and on to a cooling rack. 

8. Once the cake has cooled completely, frost.

9. Crumble the cake that that was in the small ramekin in to tiny pieces and place crumbles in mounds around the cake to make “dirt” hills

10. Decorate with your favorite spooky graveyard decorations.

Spider Web Pumpkin Cupcakes

Yields: 12 Cupcakes 

3 eggs

1 cup water

3 tablespoons oil 

1 box Simple Mills Pumpkin Muffin Mix

1 container Simple MillsOrganic Vanilla Frosting

5-6 ounces dark chocolate, melted

1.Preheat oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with paper liners.

2. Whisk the eggs, water and oil in a large bowl, add the muffin mix and stir until combined. 

3.Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 full and bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. 

4. Cool in pan10 minutes, transfer cupcakes to a cooling rack, cool completely.

5. Melt chocolate in microwave or over a double boiler. 

6. Place frosting in a large bowl and whisk to soften and frost muffins.

7. Place melted chocolate in a piping bag (#2 tip) or ziploc bag (cut a small corner).

8.On top of each frosted cupcake, start in the middle and pipe chocolate in concentric circles.

9. Gently drag a toothpick from the center to the outward edge of the cupcake.  Continue until you’ve created a web. 

10. Let the chocolate set and enjoy.

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup-Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow Ghosts

Ingredients for the cupcakes:

2 large eggs

½ cup water

3 Tablespoons oil

1 box Simple Mills chocolate muffin and cake mix

10 white chocolate peanut butter cups, removed from wrappers (optional) Desired amount of Simple Mills Organic Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients for the ghosts:

10 large homemade or store bought marshmallows

2oz melted dark chocolate, for ghost faces

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F & prepare muffin tin.

2. In a large mixing bowl, make Simple Mills chocolate muffins according to box.

3. Add 2 Tbsp batter to 10 lined muffin tin compartments. 

4. If desired, place a peanut butter cup on top of the batter, then cover it with 1 ½ Tbsp additional batter, or simply fill muffin cups with batter.

5. Bake for 18 minutes, until risen and firm to the touch.

6.Cool for 5 minutes in pan before placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

7. Melt chocolate and using a toothpick, draw ghost’s eyes and mouth onto marshmallows.

8. Assemble cupcakes: Apply desired amount of frosting to the tops of each cupcake, top each cupcakes with marshmallow ghost.

Monster Cake Pops

Yields: 25 Monster eyeballs

3 eggs

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 box Simple Mills Vanilla Cake Mix

1 cup Simple Mills Organic Vanilla Frosting, divided 

Cake Pop Coating 

1 cup palm shortening

¾ cup coconut butter

1¾ cups powdered sugar, sifted 

Natural Dye (India Tree)

Pupils:

25 -30 chocolate chips

Make the cake pops:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Grease an 8x8-baking dish and line with parchment paper. 

3.Whisk the eggs, water, oil and vanilla in a large bowl, then add the baking

 mix and stir until combined. 

4. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 10

minutes and then place onto cooling rack. 

5. Cool cake completely and place in large bowl 

6. Crumble cake with your hands and mix in ¾ cup of Simple Mills vanilla frosting until thoroughly combined

7. Using a tablespoon, scoop out batter and roll the dough into balls.

8. Melt the remaining ¼ cup of Simple Mills vanilla frosting

9. Dip cake stick in frosting, stick it in the cake balls, and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (stick end up).

10. Repeat until all the dough is gone and place in freezer.

Make the coating:

1. Place the palm shortening in a large bowl and mix on high until mixture is light and fluffy. 

2. Add melted coconut butter and beat until fluffy

3. Add powdered sugar and beat until frosting is light and airy (3-5 minutes).

4. Divide coating into 3 bowls but reserve about ½ cup for the white irises.

5. Among the 3 larger bowls, mix in your preferred natural dye color. 

6. Remove the cake pops from the freezer; working quickly and gently, roll the pops in the coating and place back on the pan with the stick end facing up. Repeat until finished and place in fridge to set for about 15-20 minutes.

Explore the World of Online Bingo!

How about the idea of playing some interesting games online where you also get to chat with other players? Online bingo gives you just that and more. There are plenty of prizes to be won and many other attractive jackpots and offers. This is why the game is played by many people across the continent.

Some sites even allow you to play free bingo games! These games however can only be accessed once you become a funded member on the site. On GameVillage Bingo there are 2 free bingo rooms that you can participate in as long as you know when the games are played. To read more about GameVillage click on this link.

There are plenty of other reviews on bingo sites that you can read online, so make sure you do your homework before registering with a site. One of the most attractive features of GameVillage is that it gives out generous bonuses to newbies and homeowners alike.

In case you are wondering what a homeowner is, as soon as you make your first 3 deposits on the site; you become a homeowner. As a homeowner you get to enjoy various other benefits and become part of the site’s loyalty scheme.

A simple deposit on the site can fetch you additional bonuses that allows you to play a longer time.

So, of you think you should try online bingo, the right idea would be to join a site as a member immediately. Only then will you be able to experience online bingo games as well a wide variety of other casino games like slots, table card games, scratchcards, etc. All of these features are guaranteed to be found on GameVillage Bingo. There is no way you are getting bored ever again!