A lot of people are pinching pennies nowadays, so here are a few ideas for saving money:

• Refill ink cartridges yourself when your printer runs out of ink.  Instead of paying $27 for a new printer cartridge, my husband pays $11 for printer ink and does it himself.  The bottle of ink will refill the cartridge 4 times!!!  He saves over $100 when you count in the tax.  (Be careful when doing this, though.  It’s best to do it over the sink or newspapers.)  For even more savings, buy bigger bottles of ink.

• Refill toner cartridges yourself. Just like with the ink cartridges, you can save a lot of money here.
  
• Check  GasBuddy.com  to find the best gasoline prices. You can check daily for the best gasoline prices in your area.
  

• Sign up for free birthday dinners in your area.  Many restaurants do this. You can sign up online or in the restaurant. In fact, for my last birthday I received seven email certificates:  four free birthday dinners, one free appetizer, one free dessert, and a coupon for $5 off a $10 purchase.
• Buy a programmable thermostat or adjust the thermostat. We bought a programmable one for $30, and it will eventually pay for itself.  My husband programs it to where the heat will come on when we need it and then drop the temperature when we’re away or during the night.  (We’ve also been keeping it a little cooler this winter and a little warmer on warm days than we have in the past.  I know a lot of people do this.)
• Use energy-saving florescent light bulbs in lamps and lighting fixtures.   We have these in most of our lamps and light fixtures.  However, I brought in a lamp we never use that was in our guest bedroom and put it in the living room.  I was sitting close to it and started to feel warm.  It had a regular light bulb in it, and the heat produced from it was making me hot.  That doesn’t happen with florescent light bulbs.  Think of the energy saved!

My husband has a flash drive that he uses to transfer information between computers. It amazes me how tiny the flash drive is, yet it can hold so much data.   Decades ago, they would have thought people were crazy if they talked about something like that.  I remember hearing how computers used to fill up a room and used data entry cards.  Things have really changed since then.

PICTURED ON THE LEFT IS MY INDEPENDENCE IRONSTONE.

#1. Are your Kitchen utensils nylon, silicone, wood or other?

Mostly nylon.
#2. Do you prefer dishes washed in a dishwasher or by hand?

Dishes washed in dishwasher, pots and pans washed by hand.
#3. How many sets of dishes do you have?

Too many!  LOL  We have our everyday dishes, a set of china from when we got married that is only used on holidays, a set of pottery from when we got married that is Independence Ironstone with fruit and leaves on it (I hope will one day be a collector’s item.  Actually, it already is, only the price is low.), and four place settings of dishes that our daughter gave us that blends well with our everyday dishes so we could serve 12 if we needed to.

I also have my mother’s china minus all the dinner plates and my grandmother’s china.  They are stored right now because when my mother’s house burned down, they got a lot of black burned on them.  It will come off with vinegar, soda and a LOT of elbow grease.   All of Mother’s dinner plates from her china were broken in the fire.  They weren’t in her credenza but in a kitchen cabinet.  : (   All her cabinets burned and fell to the ground, including depression glass and other antique dishes that belonged to her grandmother, etc.

#4. Share a recipe that calls for only one pot or pan.

Green Chili Chicken Enchilada “Casserole” (fix on top of stove in 10-15 minutes)

Questions From:  FUN, CRAFTS & RECIPES

Need emergency lights?  If you have a business, even a small business, then you need to have an exit sign.  I think businesses are supposed to have them over every exit, which I think is a great idea.  If there really is an emergency, most people are not in “thinking” mode but are in “panic” mode.  An easy to read sign doesn’t require any thinking but guides people to where they can go out of the building.

(Some moms might want one of these signs for the friends of their teenager.  Just kidding!)

Some people want to know the best diet pills out there on the market. As far as I’m concerned, I try to lose weight by eating smaller meals, trying to eat healthy meals, having healthy snacks a couple of times during the day, and exercising. I allow myself to have small servings of things I like such as a special dessert or dark chocolate.  Each person has to decide what works best for them, and if they do use diet pills then they should first consult their doctor.

I really like going for walks outdoors, but when the weather is bad then that’s not possible.  Another solution is to walk at the mall which is fun because then I can pop into Old Navy or the Gap and see if they have any cute baby clothes on clearance for Baby J, our 18 month grandbaby (and now also for Baby C who is due in 2 1/2 months).  But it’s not always convenient to take a trip to the mall.  That’s one really great thing about treadmills. If the weather is bad, it’s inconvenient to go to the mall, or someone is in their pajamas, they can still exercise…any time of day or night.  That’s something to think about!

If you are interested, you can go to How to Teach Kids to find out about the origin of Valentine’s Day which was interesting to me.  One part I thought was really interesting was that the first mass production of Valentine cards was in 1847 when they produced paper lace Valentine’s.

There are also activities for kids, a children’s DVD about Valentine’s Day and a long list of children’s books about Valentine’s Day.

Years and years ago, we used to have a small business.  It would have made things so much easier if we’d had a barcode scanner, but back then there weren’t any stores or businesses that I know of that had scanners.

Barcode scanners have simplified things so much, especially since so many businesses are computerized.  And one really great benefit is when it is time to do inventory.  (That was always such a pain!)  A scanner would make doing inventory so much easier!

Need some tips or techniques to add to your teaching materials?  I have started a new site called How to Teach Kids to share ideas that I have used in my 19 years of public school teaching and also ideas from teacher friends.  Hopefully, you will gain a new idea or technique to use if you are teaching your own children or a classroom of students.