DaFixer

Racking Up Super Back-to-School Savings From Kindergarten To College

If you’re in need of any Christmas presents at all, regardless of age or gender, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered! Here in Sugar Land, Texas, my mom and I are known as “the discount ladies” (particularly at our local HEB store). I’m almost positive that our saving frenzies are some kind of addiction.

In fact, just a few days ago, we were organizing our stockpile (that we keep in a 3-bedroom apartment, by the way) and found 39 boxes of unopened cereal, 15 boxes of Ziploc bags, 34 bags of fresh ground coffee, and 9 bottles of unused syrup.

Believe it or not, there is a method to the madness. The concept behind all this is, the cheaper the items are, the more we can buy. The more we buy, the more people we can bless.

Everything we buy in bulk has the sole purpose of being donated or made into gift baskets for family and friends. I actually have two such baskets right next to me as I type this.

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People Who Subscribe To AdWords Adviser Are Far More Likely To Improve Their AdWords Advertising Than People Who Don’t!
Dear Business Owner, you probably already know this, but advertising with AdWords is not always easy. Little by little, you are being crushed by low-quality scores, poor landing pages, and high advertising costs.

But it doesn’t have to be like that!
The AdWords Adviser is a free monthly newsletter that can lift your AdWords advertising out of the pit of despair and finally make it profitable for you.

With your subscription, you get:)

• Tips on how to run a profitable AdWords campaign.
• Training for beginners and advanced AdWords users.
• News on what is new in AdWords.
• Personal recommendations of tried and tested products to help you manage & run your AdWords account.
• Learn from others mistakes with our Question & Answer sessions.
• Articles on Internet marketing and running an online business from guest authors.

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A few years back, my husband and I took our daughter to a friend’s neighborhood for trick or treating.  We all went out together using the wagon to haul the kids from house to house. As we walked and talked, we sipped margaritas from the red cups our friends had handed us on the way out the door.

Did we get sloshed? No. It was simply a casual drink while enjoying time with friends.  Not really the end of the world or an event to get our knickers all in a wad about.  But the truth is, my husband and I would never have considered drinking during trick or treating had it just been the two of us taking our daughter out. Now I love my work, it doesn’t feel like work at all, but at this private party, something inside of me told me this way leading to the wrong lifestyle.

We accepted the red cups because we silently justified it as harmless and we wanted to continue to be loved and considered “fun to hang with” by our friends.  Even if that meant crossing the line of our own family values.

It’s often so easy to fall into the trap of living the lifestyle acceptable to society.  Even if it’s wrong.  We so readily justify our way through poor choices because it’s more convenient, more fun, and more supported to “live it up!” Where then do we draw the line between right and wrong?  When our children are watching our lifestyle choices, what is their takeaway from it?  How are we shaping their future?

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Awareness of Your Motives is the 1^st Step to True Authenticity  
This article hopefully will become a judge-yourself-moment,  in a non-threatening way. Ask yourself:  Are you real? Do you connect easily with others on topics of conversation and stick to your views? Do you have authentic viewpoints, or do you use others viewpoints as facts? Are you happy with yourself? Do you love yourself? If you don’t like something do you vocalize it? Do you judge and insult others constantly? Are you condescending? Are you nice nasty? Do you smile in people’s faces, yet talk about them behind their backs negatively? In the presence of a friend are you truthful? Do you exaggerate a lot?

I often run into people who are so conscious to impress, that confusion is inevitable for them. I find many that are confused with who they are because of defense mechanisms, fear, insecurity, inadequacy, rejection or just plain phony (fake). We all have a speckle of phony or “Halo Effect” had to put a Project Management term in. LOL! Yes back to the point at hand confusion of who they are and how they should behave or act in various settings around people. We are in the world and connected in various ways whether we’d like to be or not. We can’t live in a silo separate from others.

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Striking a work-life balance is a difficult task. Chances are you’ve got plenty of work assignments you need to finish, coupled with plenty of household chores you need to take care of. With all of those responsibilities, it can be tough to find free time to just relax and feel better. If you find that you constantly feel swamped, these tips can help you find a better work-life balance:

Schedule Free Time

Book a babysitter and go out on a date with your loved one. Or spend time with your friends. No matter what you choose, some much-needed social time will help you unwind. You can even plan a weekly movie outing or game night so you can bond with your children and spouse.

Make the Most of Your Time at Work

It’s pretty easy to get sucked into meaningless conversations with your co-workers or get hung up on taking care of bills at the office. While chatting with your colleagues can help build camaraderie, it’s best to ensure you’re getting as much work done at the office as possible so you can leave on time.

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Loans are an integral part of a business, more so for small businesses. Usually, small businesses require loans for their start-up capital. Even after the business becomes functional, a further loan might be necessary for the expansion of business or for some other business related requirements. Many banks and financial institutions offer these loans. However, they expect something in return for their investment. If you can put yourself in the shoes of the lender and think of the loan amount as your own, you can understand what these expectations are.

So, as a borrower, if you can meet these expectations, your chances of obtaining a loan become much stronger and you can obtain loans much more easily.  In order to get a small business startup loan, the lender needs to know what you need the money for. Here, you need to be very exact and specific about stating your needs. Vague explanations never work. Secondly, the lender will want to evaluate your chances of being able to return the money. So, you should be able to convince the lender about the effectiveness of your business plan. The key here is the business plan and this is where your starting point should be.

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Online education and distance learning have made the decision of going back to school very easy and very possible. While there are many reasons people now more than ever considering furthering their education. The main reasons are Increased earning potential, Job security, and personal growth.

Higher earning potential:

While higher education doesn’t guarantee a better salary, stats show that overall you are more likely to earn more the higher your education level is. The U.S Department of Labor shows for example that a person with a bachelor’s degree will probably earn twice as much more than a person with just a high school diploma.

Job Security:

If you hold a college degree, you are more likely to find a job and more likely to keep a job. The unemployment rate for high school grads is 10.3 percent, the unemployment rate for bachelor’s degree grads is only 5.4 percent. Not to mention the career opportunities that are made available to you when you hold a college degree.

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My parents named me after a television character – Jody, from that late-’60s, single-parent comedy, Family Affair. Remember Jody and Buffy and Mr. French? Well, the kids in my third-grade class sure didn’t. They only remembered that Jody was a girl’s name, a fact I was reminded of every day on the playground. Thus I decided, when I switched schools in the fourth grade, to rebrand under the much more boyish moniker of Joe. I thought the transformation would grant me acceptance into the inner sanctum of popularity.

The process was relatively easy (and equally meaningless) on the playground. But at home, my parents were hurt, and my aunt even refused to call me Joe, so emotionally tied were they to the image of little Jody, their cute blond kid. Rebranding a company can be just as painful. Yet, alongside premature IPOs and budget-busting television ads, corporate trans appellations have become a popular ingredient of New Economy branding strategies in recent years.

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More choose flexible hours on the job

It’s a typical morning for Terry Hackett. His 6-year-old son, Connor, wakes him up to snuggle in bed, then the creative director is off to work. He downs a PowerBar, stops at Starbucks for coffee and often holds a planning meeting with senior management.

Never mind that it’s not yet 6:30 a.m. and the sky is still black.

“It took some getting used to because I’m not a morning person,” says Hackett, 53, of PRO Group, a Denver-based marketing and merchandising company for wholesalers. He regularly begins his workday before dawn. “But it means I leave around 4 p.m., and I can spend time with my son before dinner.”

The 5 a.m. commuter is no longer an oddity. The workday is starting at an increasingly early hour as more employees adopt non-traditional work schedules, a fast-growing trend that’s transforming the 9 – to – 5 workday.

Employees are getting to work earlier than ever to avoid rush-hour commutes and handle work-family demands, and many employers are simply demanding earlier start times to service clients across the USA and around the globe.

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