A Little Smart Shopper In Training

The bright side of a tough economy is to make you think twice before you spend, which will benefit you in the long run. But for starters, you may need a few pointers for how to manage your money more wisely. Capital One and national consumer advocacy group Consumer Action have launched a site called Moneywi$e, which provides a series of online courses on family financial management. Capital One has also teamed up with Parent Bloggers Network on a new blog blast about schooling our kids on smart shopping. They are asking parent bloggers to share their thoughts on how to teach our children about financial responsibility while shopping for school.

In my opinion, the key to raising a financially responsible child is to be a financially responsible parent. Action speakers louder than words. At least from my own experience, I don't remember my parents ever preaching to me how important it is not to overspend, but I appreciate their frugal life style and am following their lead. Believe it or not, kids are keen observers and are sensitive to changes.

I’m not so much of a deal hunter, but I do save quite a bit by sticking to my principal of purchasing on need not on impulse. As far as back to school shopping is concerned, I’d suggest plan the shopping trip together with your kid by following these simple steps.

1. Check your inventory. Stay on top of what you already have in the house, such as school supplies, clothing, shoes, etc.
   
2. Create a shopping list. Figure out what you still need to get ready for school. Keep your shopping list clean and reasonable by eliminating things that you (or your kid, to be more exact) can comfortably live without, things that are obviously beyond your means, and things that you already have and that are in good usable condition (even though they may not be as nice you would like).
3. Do comparison shopping. Compare prices of the items in need preferably on line, or through store ads if you don't have easy access to the Internet. Remember that store brands are usually of equivalent quality to name brands, but cheaper. Search for store-specific coupons or promotions to avoid missing any additional savings.
4. Be loyal to your shopping list. This is the most important but perhaps more difficult part. But once you make it the first time, it'll become easier. You'll find it not only saves your money but also saves your time.

I hope these could be of help to some of you. I'd love to learn about your tips too. In fact, if you blog about this topic by the end of the day today, you might win a $150 gift card and a Kindle! See contest details here.

I Want To Be Diaper Free!

When do I start? It's probably the most commonly asked question about potty training. The expert answer is probably "when your child is ready."

We experimented with infant potty training, which may sound radical or impractical to many parents, but we have been quite successful in our attempt and our son clearly likes to be diaper-free.

We noticed when he was only several days old that our baby would make a special face whenever he wanted to poop. So we followed his body signs and let him release in a container instead of a diaper. Later on we started to time how often he pees at different times of the day and potty trained him accordingly.

Not surprisingly we had a lot of funny, stinky accidents, but by he was 7 months old, our son had become used to sitting on his bear-shaped potty and doing his business there. Now he only needs to wear diapers during the night. Fewer and fewer accidents happen when he is diaper-free or in cloth diaper during the day. I can't remember how many times he tried to take off the disposables that we had to put him in when we went out together. Babies know it's more comfortable to stay dry and we as parents could make the effort to help them be freed from diapers as early as possible.

The Parent Bloggers Network has teamed with Pull-ups for a potty training blog blast. You may learn more about potty-training through The Potty Project. You could win one of five Flip video cams by sharing your own potty-training tale.

Handed Down From My Mom

Mother's Day is just around the corner. Not until I became a mom myself (about 1 year ago) did I start to fully understand what it takes to be a good mom. To celebrate this special holiday for moms, I'd like to thank my dear mom for all that she has handed down to me!

When I was a little girl, I often felt hurt when someone told me that I didn't look like my mom. My mom is so beautiful. I want to be her! But now I feel so blessed that my mom has handed down so much to me to make me a better person. Like her, I'm optimistic about the future. That may partly explains why I love entering giveaways;). She taught me not to waste things and to live frugally. That's why I can proudly say that I'm debt-free. She showed me the importance of being an independent and responsible woman. That helped me earn respect, trust, friendship, and even love (in the case of my husband) from others. There are a lot more things, small and big, that my mom has handed down to me, which I will not laundry list today.

I just wonder how often you have said Thank you or I love you to your mom? I know that I've taken her love for granted for so long that I haven't said those lovely words as often as I should. I'll start working on that!

BTW, I learned from Parents Blogger Network that JOHNSON'S has started their second annual Celebrity Hand-Me-Down Auction on eBay. Each donation by celebrity moms will raise money for JOHNSON'S Global Charity Initiative. And you could win $250 for sharing what your mom handed down to you!

Clean As You Go

The Parent Bloggers Network has called for bloggers to share their cleaning tips and to enter to win $5,000 at How I Clean Now. I'm not a cleaning expert, but I do recommend what I call Clean-As-You-Go as a great tip. It's very easy to implement. Don't sleep on your cleaning problems and you'll find cleaning a lot more manageable as part of your daily routine.

Here are a few examples of how I follow the clean-as-you-go principle:

• Wipe out the grease right after cooking
• Wash the dishes right after eating
• Spot clean the food stains as soon as they're spotted
• Do the laundry as soon as there's a full load in the washer
• Vacuum the carpet/floor once a day (I recommend iRobot to make your workload a lot lighter)
  

You may find it hard to do at first, but it will benefit you considerably over time as few cleaning needs accumulate in your house. As a side note, you may want to try the new Pledge Multi Surface Cleaner to help simplify cleaning.