Back to School: Sales from the History Channel & Biography!

Through Sunday, August 1, the History Channel is having a big back to school sale.  You can get 25% off if you use the code BACK2SCHOOL.  My suggestion is that you go through Ebates, and you get 5% cash back!  Biography DVDs are also on sale, with some titles starting at $5! If you homeschool, teacher, or just love history, make sure you check out their clearance section!  I saw one episode of World War II in HD for $1.99!

A Thursday Confession

I have a confession to make.  My inspiration has been running a little dry lately.  I blame in on the three-day migraine which kidnapped me last weekend (sadly, my mother also had a migraine during that time period too...thank God for my dad).  My summer vacation is winding down, and I have to start shifting my focus to work.  And I just can't seem to do it.  Today's goal is to try to make my office a little more inspirational.  I'm hoping that by ridding my office of some of the clutter it has amassed this summer that I will be inspired to get to work.  What do you do when you've lost inspiration?

Tackle it Tuesday: The Morning Routine

As many of my dear readers know, I am a teacher.  *sigh*  I now have less than three weeks of vacation left before my first teacher workday on August 9.  No more days of sleeping late and spending my afternoons reading, or playing Frontierville on Facebook chatting with my friends on Facebook.

It's time to roll back to reality, so for my "Tackle it Tuesday" I'm tackling a morning routine.  I have had charts of morning routines and chores in the past, but lately I've been thinking about tweaking them. Enter the Fly Lady.  As she advises, "Baby Steps, Baby Steps".  Last night I whipped out a little "Things to Do" dry-erase board from Target's $1 aisle and set out my most basic routine.

My fibromyalgia has to be kept in mind while writing my routines and adjusting my schedule. My goal is to get up at 5:00 a.m.  This week, I'll be getting up at 5:25, next week at 5:15, and the week before I go back to work at 5:00 a.m.  I'm hoping this will give my body a chance to adjust to a set wake-up time without too much pain.

Here's my basic routine:

• Get up when the alarm goes off and make the bed. (I have a bad habit of laying in bed for another ten, fifteen minutes, trying not to fall asleep and whining about getting up).  Since I have my bi-level machine (Darth) for sleep apnea, I know if I get up, empty the water out of Darth, clean the mask, and make-up my bed, it's nearly impossible for me to go back to bed.  
• Devotional time / prayer
• Wake up the Princess and get her dressed (Swish & Swipe while I'm waiting on her to get dressed...she's autistic, we don't hurry these things along)
• Exercise (Leslie Sansone - Walk the Walk: 1 & 2 Mile video)
• Shower & get dressed

Today I'm going to be working on a project list of the little things I need to do before I go back to work.  I've come a long way since the summer began (thank you, Darth!), but I still have a few things that need to be done.  Next week, hopefully I'll have an evening routine too!  Wish me luck!

What's your morning routine?  What's your evening routine?

5 Things I Hate / 5 Things I Love

I'm taking a cue from my friend, Holly,with this blog entry.

5 Things I Hate

1. When my brain works faster than my computer...
2. The fact that I only have about three weeks of vacation left...*sigh*
3. When my shoulder wrenches up and I have no range of motion in my right shoulder or the right side of my neck (which is a pain when you're right handed!)
4. When I feel like no one is listening to me
5. The horrible realization that I need to get myself back into a set bedtime / set wake-up routine before I go back to work.
   

5 Things I Love

1. Mysteries:  The Closer's new season has started, Poirot is back on Masterpiece Mystery, and I've read six of the Sookie Stackhouse books in less than a week
2.  Lazy rainy afternoons...yesterday afternoon was spent with a book (Lovely!)
3. My newfound love of decoupage
4. Cool cotton sheets on warm summer nights
5. Cherry pie 

Saturday Savings: American Girls Finds!

A Brief History:
The American Girl dolls premiered in 1986, when I was at the ripe age of six.  Needless to say, I've been a fan for a long time.  When I hit my history fascination about the age of six, our local librarian introduced me to the series, and Felicity, Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly became my best friends.  We couldn't afford the expensive dolls when I was young, so I often designed replications of the doll clothes for my own dolls.  I had a "Hot Looks Mimi" doll that became my version of Kirsten, and I used my little Barbie knitting spool to make her scarves similar to Kirsten's winter scarf. 

In graduate school, I specialized in early American history.  During my first Christmas in graduate school, my parents surprised me with my favorite doll, Felicity, and her Christmas ballgown.  And the next Christmas, her friend, Elizabeth, joined my collection.  On a school teacher's budget, I surely can't afford the expensive clothes and furniture, but I have found frugal ways around it, which brings me to my "Saturday Savings" edition!

Living the Frugal Life
A couple of years ago, my mother called me from a yard sale.  She'd found Molly, Kirsten, and another Felicity doll for $25 each.  I told her to buy them, and I would pay her back.  Now, I have all three of my favorites!  A rocking chair purchased for $2 at a yard sale makes a nice seat for Kirsten, and a fancy settee purchased for $10 at a crafts store makes a period seat for Felicity and Elizabeth.  This morning, I made a major score at my neighbor's yard sale.  I got Molly's stage and movie seats for $20 total!  They are both retired pieces, and if you check Ebay, the stage alone is listed at over $100 and the seats at nearly the same price!  I was so excited!  A little vacuuming and dusting, and it will be as good as new!  Plus, I can use the stage with its "Movietone News" background as a teaching tool for World War II.  I'm thinking of having students write their own "Movietone News" scripts and use puppets or the dolls to talk about them.

Here are a couple of pics from Ebay to show what my stage and seats look like:

What bargains have you found at yard sales lately? 

Welcome to the Lending Library!

Welcome to the lending library!  With my "bookish" theme here at the Frugal Bookworm, I thought the "Lending Library" was a snazzy title to share my favorite web reads of the week.  This week's edition is personal productivity.  As many of my readers know, I'm undergoing treatment for sleep apnea, and my energy is slowly returning.  In the many months I was sick, however, I let a lot of things go!  I've been struggling to get back on track and become more productive!

• Seven Ways to Stay Grounded by Staying Organized:   This is a post I've had starred in my feed reader for a while, and I finally got around to reading it this week.  The author provides some very basic advice for keeping your life in check.  While I've been getting my energy back, I've done fifteen minute pickups instead of five, stopping to rest in between sessions.  It's helped keep me from feeling too overwhelmed or over-exhausted!
• The Fly Lady:  Getting Started.  This site has helped me so much!  Remember, "You can do anything for 15 minutes!"
• Lifehack.Org:  This site is full of great articles about personal productivity, organization, and "getting things done".
• Manage Your Energy:  This is a really interesting article about tracking your energy to see when you are the most productive.

Do you have any sites you would add to our lending library?  Be sure to leave a comment and let us know!

Saving Money on Gifts, Part I: Cutting Back

Image by Free-StockPhotos.com

Welcome to a new series on saving money on gifts!  Earlier this year, I wrote about looking for ways to cut my budget by saving on gift-buying.  Lately, I have had a terrible time sticking to that goal!  My problem, however, stems from not using a cash system and keeping better track of my receipts, rather than buying elaborate gifts.  In this series, I'm not only trying to find some inspiration for myself but also trying to inspire you to think of new ways to save money on gifts!  I'll be sharing some Frugal Bookworm and Looney-bin secrets to help you cut back on how much you spend on gifts!


At the foundation of it all, how can we cut back?  The first thing we should do, is set a budget!  Currently, my budget has around $40 a month in it for gifts.  Normally, I don't spend all of that, but this month with two cousins expecting babies, I've gone over-budget for baby gifts!  *smacks self on back of head* (If you watch NCIS, you know the Jethro head slap!)  Here's what I'm committing to for August after I get paid at the end of the month...I'm going to put $40 cash in an envelope.  When that money is gone, no more spending on gift items!  If I buy something online, whatever amount I spend will go straight back into my checking account and be paid as a credit card payment.



You can also make use of a budget by budgeting what you want to spend on a particular gift.  At our house, we do Halloween treat bags for one another.  I'm going to set a $10 per person limit ($40 total for Mom, Dad, the Princess, and the Adorable Nephew).  When that money is gone, it's gone!  How can you keep track?  Again, you can use the envelope system.  I also usually set up a Word document listing what I've bought for each person's treat bag.  That way, I can keep track of how much I've bought and what I've bought.


Now we've got the first step down, setting a budget.  Please join me next week for Part II of the series as we talk about another key strategy:  planning ahead! 


What are your strategies for gift buying?  Does the envelope system work for you, or do you use another system?  Please share your thoughts!

Frugal Friday: Earning Free Giftcards!

Friends who follow me on Facebook know how much I love Swagbucks!  Swagbucks is a search engine that pays you to search!  I've been a member of Swagbucks for a few months now, and I have already earned $90 in gift cards! What are some of the things I've been able to purchase by using swagbucks?  Baby gifts (burp cloths and bibs that were on sale), a nice set of 13" Single Point Bamboo Knitting Needles Set, and toys for the little sister (Playskool Explore and Grow Busy Ball Popper).


My tips for earning Swagbucks:

• Make sure you earn your daily bucks!  I've made it a habit to earn my daily bucks when I check my e-mail every morning.  You can get 1 sb for refreshing your toolbar, 1 sb for looking at no-obligation special offers (NOSO), 1 sb for participating in the daily poll, and 1 sb for visiting the trusted surveys site.  
• If you don't mind filling out surveys, check your trusted survey dashboard a couple of times a day!  I've done some surveys that earned me over 200 swagbucks!
• Don't oversearch!   If you use swagbucks to search like you would with other search engines, you will earn swagbucks.  A lot of people enter random searches, but if you oversearch, you can get "locked out" of swagbucks for a few hours.  I usually search for general things while I'm checking e-mail or surfing the internet (around three times a day).
• Most important, download the toolbar and use the swidget!  I use the toolbar just like I would a toolbar from any other search engine, and its links help remind me to do my daily bucks!  Sometimes, the Swag Guy (TSG) will send messages with special swag codes for you to enter on the home page.  The swidget can be installed on your web page or facebook profile to alert you when there are new codes!  I've also found the Swagbucks facebook page to be very helpful!  If there's a bunch of people saying "Thanks, TSG!", you can bet there's a code out!

Make sure you check out more winning tips at Swagbucks!   So have I piqued your interest?  If so, run right over to this link and sign up today!  It's Mega Swagbucks day, so you might earn some super swagbucks!