OpinionMom

Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved.

Here they are. (It’s a super long list this month.)

• Subscribe to New Zealand house and garden and be entered in a drawing for cool stuff
• bloggy giveaways blog, the name says it all
• Write Away, win a child’s or an adult’s book
• At 5minutesformom.com win a movie, or baby clothes
• At an Island Review, win shoes or a gift certificate
• Laura William’s Musings has posted her latest Tuesday edition of contests galore
• At Casual Keystrokes you can get organized with a planner or a folio
• At b5 media you can jump start your business with several thousand dollars of prizes. (This is something I’d like to win myself! I wonder if my business is new enough? 🙂 )
• David Airey is giving away thousands of dollars of graphic design prizes

There’s lots of fun stuff out there this month. Are you sponsoring a contest or giveaway? Let me know and I’ll add it here. (Family-friendly blogs only.)

(Added on September 5th, there are even more giveaways listed at I’m not just a mom … I’m a Home Mom.)

If you win something, leave me a comment and let me know that too!

You might have one of these at home already, but in case you don’t I thought I’d share about our penny jar this week.

Now, in my opinion, I hate pennies. There really isn’t anything that you can buy with just a penny (well, not much of anything) and they take up a lot of space in pockets and purses.

A few years ago my husband started a jar for change. It was really meant to be be for all pocket change, but it has ended up being mostly pennies.

Several times a year we take the full jar to grocery store and dump the pennies into the Coinstar machine there. The Coinstar machine counts the money and gives us a receipt, which we can take to the cashier and exchange for cash.

(This is something that the kids particularly like to help with. In fact, one of them has started her own penny jar.)

We never get much money back from our pennies, five or ten dollars at most, but considering that this is money that would probably be lost in the couch cushions or under the seat of the car anyway, it’s a nice little “bonus” for us several times a year.

(Coinstar does charge 10 percent for the service, but most banks in our area will not exchange loose pennies for bills.)

Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved.

It’s time that we admitted that there are no substitutes for some things. Everything is NOT the same.

Oxygen is one of them. Yes, there are clear gases that might look like oxygen, but you wouldn’t stay alive very long if you tried to breath them.

Water is another thing for which there are no substitutes. There are many clear liquids that might appear to be water, but only water can save us from dehydration.

I’m tired of hearing people say that it doesn’t matter which god you worship, or even if you worship a god at all. I’m tired of watching people that I care about substitute other things for the ONE TRUE THING while slowly dying inside.

I’m also tired of hearing people say that the only benefits to believing in the One True God come after death. In past four years I’ve lost both of my parents and right now one of my closest friends may be dying due to complications from Muscular Dystrophy.

How do I get through it all? It’s because I depend on the One True Thing just as I depend on the air that I breath and the water that I drink. It’s the One True Thing that sees me through each and every day. That’s what keeps me from losing hope.

A former coworker has struggles with many things in his life, but he doesn’t have the One True Thing. How does he deal with it? He drowns his problems in ice cream and beer. (Really!) It would be one thing if that approach worked, but it doesn’t. He is not a happy person.

Note: I did change the paragraph above on 08-30-07 to refer to a specific person as an example, which is what it was meant to do. I considered changing parts of it to “they” in case he reads this post and recognizes himself, but I don’t think he will. Somehow it got jumbled and part of it was “he” and part was “they” when I originally posted it.

Yes, I’m talking about my faith in Jesus Christ. He is the One True Thing!

In the United States people have the legal, moral, and ethical right to choose to believe whatever they want. I support that right and would even make sacrifices for it. However, just because we have the right to choose our belief system does not mean that every belief system.

Put another way, the right to choose our belief system is the right to make our own mistakes. However, just because we have the right to make our own mistakes, don’t buy into the idea that everything is exactly the same. There is only One True Thing!

Accept no substitutes!

Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved.

Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved.

The 89th Edition of the Festival of Frugality is up at FILAM Personal Finance. With 43 articles, this edition of the festival is huge! If you are looking for a way to save money, you should definitely check it out.

Some of my favorite links include:

• Save $$ – Grocery Shopping Tactics. Spend less on groceries!
• Who Are The Cheapest People You Know? When saving money goes too far…
• Don’t Give to the Poor. What’s the best way to meet the needs of the homeless?
• Having A Second Child? Seven Frugal Tips For Getting Ready. Having another baby doesn’t have to break the bank.

So head on over and learn how to save. You’ll be glad that you did.

I just took the Quick and Dirty Career Test and here are my results:

Your Career Personality: Original, Devoted, and Service Oriented

Your Ideal Careers:Art directorBook editor College professor Composer Film director Graphic designer Novelist Stage actor Psychiatrist Writer

The Quick and Dirty Career Test

I see that writer is on the list of things that I should do. Good thing too, I’d hate to think I was in the wrong career!

🙂

ATM Fees can be steep. In my area they often exceed $2.00 per transaction. If you use an ATM machine to get cash only once a week (and let’s be honest, most of us use it more often than that), that’s $104 a year that we pay in ATM fees.

My little money-saving tip today should help you reduce, and maybe even eliminate those fees.

The key to saving on ATM fees is to plan for your cash withdrawals to coincide with a purchase. Have you noticed that all of the cashiers now ask, “would you like cash back with that?”

That’s because nearly every place that accepts a debit card will also allow you to withdraw money from your account at the same time as a service to you, the customer. (Of course, this has been true for some time. However, if you’re like me, you weren’t using this service.)

In the stores that I frequent there is no ATM fee charged to get cash back as you are making a purchase. So, it makes sense to plan ahead and get your cash along with your purchase if you know that you will need it later, rather than going to an ATM machine and save on the fees.

What about those ATM trips that come up unexpectedly? You can still save if you make a small purchase (under the $2.00 that the fee would have been). In my area the daily newspaper sells for 50 cents, so if I suddenly need cash and want to avoid ATM fees I purchase a newspaper and ask for cash back. (Small items like chewing gum would also work.)

Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved.

It’s time for another fun :), but meaningless poll.

I thought it would be fun if we all listed what we ate for breakfast. I’ll start:

I had cereal, milk, and Diet Pepsi (yeah, I know …)

What did you have for breakfast?

I’m very excited to be guest blogging on Principled Discoveries this week. Principled Discoveries focuses on topics related to homeschooling and education.

I hope that you’ll stop by the Principled Discoveries blog several times this week and say “hello.”