Ball State

» THE CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICE DILEMMA

By China at 9:32 PM

Being a long distance parent, it can be difficult to tell when your child is in trouble. Lately, I have seen signs in my daughter on visits with me and heard some things that are really troubling me. I don't really have the money to pursue a child custody case or to hire a private investigator to follow her around and catch her doing stuff, but I know that her mom is out partying all night sometimes on school nights while my daughter who is 14 is allowed to run the streets and hang with her friends. She has been in trouble with the law several times that I know of and I am wondering if they have brought in a child protective services attorney yet. I have honestly thought about contacting child protective services in Florida, which is where she lives, but even though they will tell you it is anonymous I am afraid that she will find out it is me and then she will deny me visits with my kid. I really am concerned about her well being and I am not sure what I can do to take action without having it come back and bite me. I have always felt that she should stay with her mother, I never felt it was right to try and take her away, but her mother has some serious problems. I think that she might be schizophrenic and I am pretty sure that she is an alcoholic, but I can't really prove any of this, these are just the things that I have kind of figured out on my own. My daughter very much keeps secrets, which is an indication that she might be the child of an alcoholic which can make it difficult to figure out what is really going on. She also lies, and I have caught her in a few of them, but I realize that this is what her mother expects her to do and so I don't ride her too hard. Contacting a child protective services lawyer is something I should probably do, but I am really afraid that if I push too hard on this woman then I will never see my kid again. I figure for now it is probably better to have her in my life, then not to see her at all. That would probably be worse for the kid.

» FINDING OUR NICHE

By China at 9:14 PM

When we first opened this little place it was on a wing and a prayer. We (my brother and I) had both always dreamed of opening a place of our own, and we struggled at first, but as time went on our place became more popular and word of our incredible food spread like wild fire. We became a success, but lately we were thinking that we really needed to jazz things up a little bit. We knew that we had some stiff competition with a few of new places that had opened in the area, and we talked about it, and we really needed a draw for the weekends, and felt that we needed some live entertainment. I told my brother if we were going to do more of a night club scene on the weekends, that we had better redo a few things and be sure to add some retractable queue equipment out front, just to keep things orderly. You know, those are the ropes and you use to keep people in line and to keep crowd control. I also thought that if were going to get some really good live entertainment, then perhaps we should consider cafe barriers, just to keep people from coming in contact with the performers and their equipment and stuff. He agreed saying that if we want this to be big then we need to make sure that we are ready to do a big booming business.

Well, we signed up and auditioned a few bands and wow there were a few that really impressed me. We set the whole thing up and pumped out the flyers advertising for it for about 2 weeks. When that night finally came, we were fully staffed and ready to boom, and it worked. The barriers were a really good idea and the crowd control stuff all worked well. We had more people in that night, then we had ever had at one time before, and with a line still around the block, the whole thing was pretty cool. I think we found a new niche for our old business.

» GETTING A BARGAIN ON HOME FURNISHINGS AND SO MUCH MORE

By China at 2:52 PM

These days saving money is on everyone's mind. I love to save money, so for me I guess it is okay. I shop auctions and thrift stores, and quite honestly most of the furniture in my house I got really, really cheap and some of it honestly was free. I take the rejects that people discard and fix them up when I need to. For instance, I got a dresser at a yard sale, really nice old dresser a little beaten up and I sanded the whole thing down and stained and laminated and reattached some of the handles and it looks amazing. My dining room set is a hand me down from my parents, both the tables and the chairs. It is a beautiful set, that they were getting rid of anyway so I took it. I got another dresser and night stand for my sons room and I sanded that and painted it all different colors and it is a great kids set. I got my computer desk free from a yard sale when they were closing up and didn't want to clean it up. It is in great shape, but they were done with it. I have gotten some really neat things from thrift stores also, like I got some bar stools, well I call them bar stools but the woman who sold them to me called them counter stools, I am not sure if there is really a difference between the two, but I do think that they are really nice and they are in great shape, I got all 4 of them for $10.00.

I guess my point is that saving money is not a bad thing. It is a fun challenge to try and find good stuff for a great price. So let's not look at the current economic situation as a negative thing, let's take it on like a puzzle that we are trying to solve. Challenge yourself to find the bargains and you will. Experience the rush of getting a deal on everything from home furnishings to groceries, and absolutely refuse to pay full price. Believe me the first time you get a really good deal, you will be so excited about it you will want to tell the world. It is a great thing to save money so be sure and get the fever!!

» Collecting pregnancy information

By China at 1:42 PM

There are so many parenting web sites out there, but so many of them only cover a few areas of parenting and do not do a great job of covering all the parenting resources you need throughout a child's life. Some of the information out there about things like homeschooling and handling a child with special needs, can be scarce to say the least. I am always looking for new and better resources to help me manage my children and my life more effectively. I don't always have all the answers about parenting, but when I don't know the answers myself, I look for ways to access more information about parenting on the web. The internet is a great resource for parents and can be a real blessing when you are dealing with a specific issue about a child. I love going online and chatting with other parents about issues that I am experiencing and looking for words of wisdom from those who have already been there. The more information the better, that is how I look at it. I have always had a philosophy that you can take a little something away from information from all different places. It doesn't mean that I just do whatever anyone tells me, but I try to pick out the pieces of things that I think will work for me and try to put them into effect accordingly.

I did this from day one. Even when I was pregnant and the doctor's would give me information, I went online and I researched pregnancy information and got a lot of helpful tips about things I could do to keep myself healthy, my baby healthy and even ways to prepare for the birth process. I learned so much about pregnancy and the birth process that I actually felt like an expert by the time I entered the hospital to actually give birth. Since then, I have researched and learned as much as I could on the subject of parenting and I have found that I feel better prepared for the day with a little more information about what I am going through now and what problems to anticipate in the future. There are never any guarantees with parenting, but may I suggest to you that the more information you gather, the better you can feel when your head hits the pillow at night. It really makes an impact in not only your life, but in the life of your child.

» Using the best free conferencing service

By China at 10:22 PM

My best friend's dad is the CFO of a communications firm downtown. Over the summer she had a job working in his office. Since she is a communication and business major, this really helped her learn the ropes and I could tell by how much she talked about it that she really enjoyed her job. Among many other tasks she had to do over the duration of the summer was research free conference call services. We ended up talking about what she found out a lot, since I didn't know very much about the subject. I recently started looking into this particular subject myself and came across several companies, including Rondee. By going to their website I have a much better understanding of what free conferencing is and how it works. I didn't realize how many people could be included in the call at once. This particular website says up to one hundred people per call, which is about eighty more than I had imagined. (I obviously don't know too much about this subject). Free teleconference is being used by a lot more people than I thought too. When I hear those words I automatically think businesses and formal meetings, but I found out that it is used by so many more people. A lot of schools, clubs and non-profit organizations are also using free teleconferencing. During the school year I am on the relay for life board and after looking into free conference calls, I feel like this would be very influential in helping us reach out and get more people involved in both the donation side and also volunteering. It can help us to reach way more people at once and is a wonderful resource.

I even went on to the Rondee website and it was really easy to follow and sign up. (Even for me and I am extremely technologically challenged). All I had to do was fill in my name and email address and verify it. After I typed in the verification code I got through my email, it said “Thank you! You can now send free Conference invitations.” So easy to do.

It is funny that I had no idea that something like this even existed outside of the business world, and now it will probably become a constant in my life. Being away from home, it gives me a way to keep in touch, and also a great way to get our non-profit organization out there!

» best diet pill

By China at 8:43 AM

Losing weight is something millions of American's want to do, need to do, but there is no easy solution unfortunately. Every magazine, every television show having to do with weight loss, leaves you not knowing where to turn or what to do first. For the most part, weight loss can be one of the most aggravating things to try and do. Even the diets and dieters that are successful find that they work hard to take off the weight, only to find that it quickly returns with a few extra pounds for good measure. Dieting and exercising are very important parts of the weight loss process but sometimes they need a little boost. Sometimes it helps to get on a program that includes using the best diet pill to help aid you in your weight loss. The diet pill you choose should include some nutrients to help boost yourself while you are reducing calories and definitely should also have an appetite suppressant to help keep your appetite in check while you are counting calories and reducing caloric intake. Especially in the beginning of a diet, it is important to keep your appetite under control, because if you don't you may start to get frustrated especially if you don't see much weight loss during the first few weeks, and you may return to your old bad habits. Dieting, not being on a diet, but the act of ingesting nutrients that support and care for your body, is an important revision in the life of a dieter. Changing your lifestyle and habits is just the thing to not only get slimmer and healthier, but to stay that way for years to come.

Follow These Tips To Become A Happier More Satisfied Dieter:

1. Make gradual lifestyle changes, start by taking away a few of the bad things and replacing them with a healthier alternative.

2. Find a reasonable way to get yourself up and moving. Whether that's taking the dog for a walk around the block or playing with your kids at the park instead of just sitting on a bench watching them.

3. Get plenty of rest. 8-10 hours per night at least. The more tired you are the more apt you are to over eat.

4. Drink plenty of water. This helps quell the appetite and can also help to fill the stomach making you less hungry. If you want to eat less at a meal try drinking a full glass of water right before the meal, and I bet you find that you get full more quickly.

» panic attacks

By China at 9:10 AM

It seems that there are truly so many people who are suffering from panic attacks and stress and anxiety symptoms related disorders. Many are embarrassed to tell people about their problem and really try to hide this fact from others. When a friend of mine told me about her "problem" and the embarrassment she suffered, I really thought that it was all in her head, which I didn't let on to her, but I really was uneducated and uninformed about this disorder, and having never experienced one of these attacks before, I really just thought that it was another excuse to medicate people and call it a disorder. Well, I felt that I needed to know more about what my friend was going through, and I went online to do some research of my own, and I was really amazed at what I found. There were many sites claiming that this is a psychological disorder and they went through a list of the medications that were available to treat and deal with these disorders. I personally find being medicated for the rest of your life a totally unacceptable solution, so I kept looking and what I found really amazed me. I stumbled across this site run by a man, Charles Linden, who had suffered from anxiety & panic attacks for many years. Discouraged and fed up with feeling totally out of control, he began doing his own research on this topic and came up with a real behavioral cause for panic attacks. He found that in the human brain there is a part that is called the Amygdala and this part of the brain is basically responsible for the fight or flight response that our bodies have. In the standard brain, this "switch" stays off until a traumatic response triggers it on. In the brain of those suffering from anxiety however, the switch seems to stay on and thus causes a heightened response to every stimulus, large and small, causing the body to overreact to any stimulus. Basically he uses something called operant conditioning which is a way of retraining the Amygdala to only respond when there is a real threat and to remain shut the rest of the time. I called my friend and told her and she is getting started on this program, after all there are no drugs or surgery involved, plus they offer a money back guarantee, so we both feel there is really nothing to lose by giving the Linden Method a try.

» water restoration

By China at 8:58 AM

Buying a new home, can be quite a difficult task. You never know what you are getting and just like when you are purchasing a new car, sometimes it looks beautiful and seems great and then you own it and things begin to fall apart. That is what happened when I bought this house a year ago. It was my very first house, and I couldn't have been more excited about a purchase. I had a down payment, had good credit and a good job, and I was really looking forward to owning my very first home. I shopped around and wanted a modest house for a reasonable price, I wasn't intending on living in a mansion or anything crazy, after all, it was just me and I wanted a comfortable living space with a little extra room for an occasional house guest. When I saw this house, I just fell in love. We went through all the paperwork and the inspections and everything seemed great. I purchased it on September 18th and was just thrilled thinking about this homes endless possibilities. When I moved in, I got everything set just as I wanted it, well for now. Everyday I would come home and I wouldn't feel well. I wasn't sure why but I was always tired, and I had always been so energetic. Well, weeks of this until I had no choice but to go see my doctor. He ran oodles of tests and they all came up fine and then he suggested that I might be allergic to my new home. He told me to go home and make a note of what was different, and I really couldn't come up with anything, so he said just to be on the safe side I should consider having my new home tested for the air quality, well sure enough there was mold growing in the walls where they had water damage and had not had it repaired properly. Fortunately it was a small enough area that I had a water restoration company come in for a look and they were able to take care of the damage for about a $1000 which was well worth the money. Now my house not only looks good, but is good for me as well. My energy is back and I am absolutely still loving my new home.

» medicare

By China at 9:36 AM

Medicare, Medicaid, who knows the difference between these health insurance plans along with many more out there? I just learned that Medicaid is a health care program for low-income, financially needy people that is set up by federal government and given out state by state. Medicare is not based off of need; rather it is something you or your spouse or parent has paid for through working or through insuring themselves (maybe if they were self-employed). Those are brief descriptions of what they are, but I don't know if anyone could really go into great detail about everyone of the health care plans out there (unless maybe you are trying to sell them to someone). Health insurance has always been something that is confusing to me. For now, thankfully, I am covered under my dad's insurance plan and I think it stays that way until I graduate college (or at least I hope so, otherwise I'm screwed). But one of my friends is not covered under her dad's family health insurance plan, which I think is really weird since we are the same age and the same year in college. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to pay for my own insurance (even though someday soon I will have to).

I think health insurance is a hard topic for young voters to follow. This is my first time voting in a presidential election and I am 21 years old. It is also my sisters first time voting and she is 18. Neither one of us has ever had to think about our health insurance plans or pay for it ourselves or know what they cover or what they don't cover. The extent of our knowledge on health insurance is dad gave us a card and sometimes we have to pay 8 dollars when we go to Walgreens to fill a prescription. I know, I'm 21 years old and it's sad that I don't know that much about health insurance. It just didn't seem as important to me as the other issues, like abortion, gas, the war and education to name a few that are extremely important to me as a student in the United States. But someone pointed out to me that I need to read up on health insurance because the candidate that I vote for will most likely be there or at least set the tone for the health insurance that I will need in a few years from now. It's weird how you need to think so far ahead when planning for real life.

» sparring gear

By China at 9:30 AM

My brother has always wanted to be a boxer. He started out loving boxing I think because he always appreciated the fact that boxers were big and strong and I think that because my father was always so tough on him growing up, he thought that if he were bigger and stronger that he could stand up for himself better. Or maybe it was a self image thing because he still tells about how he weighed only 90 lbs in the 10th grade in high school and that he still remembers. Anyway he is not small anymore and has worked hard to pack on the muscle and has continued to love boxing. As a matter of fact he just recently moved out of my parents house and had to make sure that he found a big enough place that he could store all his sparring gear. He absolutely loves boxing, except now I am concerned because my nephew who is 3 is following my brother around and is punching everything in sight. I know that it is normal for a boy to idolize his uncle and everyone else in the family thinks that it is cute, but I am really concerned. I really don't want to see my nephew become obsessed with boxing like my brother is. As a matter of fact, I do think that my brother needs to seek counseling for his issues surrounding this as well. I am afraid he is going to get himself killed or just get his head bashed in by a person who is just as angry as he is. So far, he has seemed to come out of his fights relatively unharmed, but I refuse to even go and watch, and quite honestly my sister is thinking about bringing my nephew to his next fight. I just think that this is too much violence for a 3 year old boy to witness, especially if my brother were to get hurt. It just seems to me that it would be better for him not to see this fight, but everyone in the family just says I am being silly. I have even gone so far as to speak to my counselor about this, and fortunately he says that I am not crazy and that although it is probably best for my nephew not to go to the fight, that is my sister's decision and not mine. I can express my opinions, but after that it is out of my hands. Well, I don't like the fact that they are exposing him to this, but at the same point it was nice to hear someone agree with my side of the story.

» antique auto insurance

By China at 9:09 AM

Auto insurance is one of those things that have always baffled me. Thankfully my dad pays for mine and my sister's car insurance, but I have friends at college that pay their own and always have. I know that depending on the car you need to get different insurance, like we have a classic car that we need to have antique auto insurance on. But also I know that the more tickets you get and more accidents you get into the more you rates go up and by that logic; our family's insurance must be really high.

It seems weird to me how they decide how much your car insurance is. Do different people have completely different rates? I looked online at the website of our auto insurance carrier and they have this system set up where you answer questions and they give you a quote on what your insurance will be in you got their service. The first thing that you have to do is type in your zip code (I used my information for this experiment). Next, you have to add all of the drivers including their gender and their relationship status (married or single) and you have to include their past 5 years of history (meaning accidents or violations) and their age. So I added my dad (a single, 45 year old male) who has not had an accident in the past 5 years, me a single, 21 year old female with 2 accidents or violations in the past 5 years and my sister, a single, 18 year old female with one accident. It also gives you the choice of good student discount which both of us would qualify for. After that you add the make, model and year of all of the cars you are insuring we would have 2. Then finally they ask you if you rent or own your home, have a good history and whether or not you plan on staying with the same carrier for a long period of time. Then the magic numbers come out and you have a million plans to pick from (well more like 12).

I went and changed some of the stats like if neither my sister or I had gotten to an accident, my dad would save about 800 dollars on our car insurance (which makes me feel really bad), but it is amazing how they figure out all of these quotes based off of your life.

» life insurance

By China at 8:45 AM

As a pharmacy student I am trying to get as much experience with the pharmacy classes as well as the environment that I can before I graduate and am thrown into the world of working. Over the summer last year I worked in a pharmacy as a technician aid and we learned a lot more about pharmacy that I ever even know there was to know. One of the things that I had learned that I had never really thought about previously was health insurance. Every time someone comes in to fill their prescription, you need to make sure that they are in the computer and that all of their information is up to date. For my family, I guess we have good insurance even though it never crossed my mind before, because we only pay eight dollars for our prescriptions no matter what they are. But while I was working there I found out that people with other insurances pay a lot more and in some rare occasions less. For a prescription that we pay 8 dollars for, someone else could pay 80 dollars and yet another person could pay 300 dollars. It is unbelievable to me that someone could have to pay that much money for a prescription. They explained to us that people who are self employed or do not have benefits pay for their own health and life insurance and sometimes they can't afford better insurance and some people can't afford insurance at all, which was a complete mystery to me. My best friend Jenn's parents are retired now so they buy their own health insurance and they change yearly depending on rates and if they find a better plan. It is insane how many times she has to update her information at the pharmacy or wait for a new insurance card to come in the mail. I am so thankful that I am in a position where my dad has a good job and his company provides us with a good insurance plan, I can' imagine paying that much money every month when I go pick up my medicine. When I was working at the pharmacy, some people where coming in and spending more money on one prescription than I do on a whole month's rent at school. I guess being in school and working allows you to meet a whole bunch of people that you may not normally meet in your social circle and you get to learn a lot more.

» consolidation of debt

By China at 7:23 AM

I am a pharmacy major. That means I have spent the last 2 years of my life slaving over chemistry labs and studying about atoms and memorizing the periodic table. Then my junior year came around and I decided that I needed a minor. I went back and forth between Spanish and business and then finally after talking o my dad I decided I could always put bilingual on my resume, but I needed to have a background in business (almost everyone does now a days). So this year I signed up for a few business classes. One of them includes a personal financial planning class. I will be the first to say (with our first exam coming up very soon) that out of all of my 400 level chemistry and genetics classes my financial planning 110 class is by far the hardest for me.

I am really good with money. My dad has always taught me to save and taught me the significance of budgeting so I figured this class would be a walk in the park. Boy was I wrong. We are learning things like debt consolidation and interest rates, things I have no clue about. Being in that 50 minute class makes me yearn for my 3 hours chemistry lab. Everyone in my class is a business major or minor and seems to know significantly more about the subject than I do. I thought going in that I had a great handle on finances (hey I have a checking and saving account with real money in them) so how hard could this class be? Hard.

We have a project coming up soon that I have spent so much time on (I'm sure that everyone else in my class has it done already and finished in like 5 minutes). We have to choose a spouse and jobs for each and find our salaries and then continue to look for a house and find prices on a mortgage and interest and so on. Just hearing those terms make me sick. I called my dad for help and told him that instead of having to do this stuff on my own one day I'm just going to live with him forever. He just laughed at me and said you figure it out as you go along, everyone does. But if everyone does this in real life, how come it's so hard for me to do this imaginary assignment?

» Electronic stethoscope

By China at 8:46 AM

Growing up in a small town you get used to a different way of life than those who grew up in a big city. Growing up everyone knew everyone and there was one main store in town and a small pharmacy and one little small town doctor who made house calls and took care of all the people in the town and their animals too. A different world from where many of my friends come from. Dr. Stanish was by far a medical wizard. He treated everything from the diseases of childhood to the ailments of the elderly. He nearly delivered everyone of the kids in town and some of their parents too. He didn't have many of the benefits of modern technology and used a lot of old home remedies to take care of his patients. I know this may sound a little backwoods to all of you, but he really seemed to know what he was doing and many people in our town lived quite a long time because of the wonders of the Doc. He tried to get out and go to seminars and stuff, but a lot of the technology I think was well above his level of understanding and I do think that modern medical advances scared him a bit. He did have an old x-ray machine and I remember how excited he was when he got his first brand new Littmann Classic Stethoscope. How proudly he wore that thing around his neck. He would say sure there were lots of Electronic Stethoscopes on the market, but he felt that his Littmann Classic stethoscope was by far the only piece of good technology that he needed to keep the town well. A few years ago the town got a new Doc, Dr. Stanish Jr. and Dr. Stanish Sr, took some time off for fishing by the river. The younger Dr. Stanish was schooled in a more modern form of medicine, but a lot of the people still wanted old Dr. Stanish to take care of them when they were ill, and he still did. Last week, Dr. Stanish Sr. passed on to greener pastures and the town will never be the same. See these types of small town doctors really don't exist anymore, and it is a shame to loose such a brilliant medical mind. The world will go on, just differently.

» telephony trends

By China at 11:52 AM

Recently when weighing my options for switching my home phone service, I actually discovered quite a bit of new information technology available out there on the web. Did you know that you have many options available to you and there are many pages out there that provide you with phone technology info in case you are a little behind the times like me. I have learned about many new telephony trends that are out there and one of my favorites is the phone that can run right through your high speed internet connection. Now don't get me wrong, I had heard about these types of phone services before, but I always thought that you had to choose between your phone or your internet, but actually the system runs both at the same time, which is just really great. I didn't know that this type of service could work so well and was so cheap. In the past I have averaged about $75.00 per month for my home phone service and switching to a broadband phone service will cost me less than $20.00 per month. If you add that up it is a savings of about $600.00 per year, and that is definitely something that I can live with.

I am so glad that I am looking for new and better ways to cut down on my expenses. There are so many "necessities" things that we feel we must have, but it is really a nice feeling to realize that there are lots of new companies out there working hard to bring up reasonable rates for the services we need. Locally, I can not get that deal where you get a package for your phone, internet and cable or I would have done that. It is really good deal when you can get all your services bundled into one bill and have all three services for about $100. Living in a more rural area of the country however, sometimes I don't have any options. With this new phone service they will service me anywhere I am so no need to worry. I really don't think that there is anywhere they can't bring you service to, unless of course you don't have a high speed internet connection, then you would have a bit more of a problem. I love my new service, you should try it. Save a little bit of money, by checking out your options online. I am really glad I did.

» business gifts

By China at 8:52 AM

I have always loved gifts and this is why my newest business venture is such a hoot. I have begun selling cooking items like pans and pots and all kinds of little kitchen gadgets and gizmos. The items are great and nearly sell themselves and I have lots of opportunities to give away lots of business gifts. Some come directly from the company, and some I order myself. See I love to give gifts so much that I have ordered a bunch of promotional products in addition to the ones that the company already provides me. I have seen a huge growth in my customer base, and therefore I keep giving the gifts. I give away t-shirts that say ask me about my products and great travel mugs, because as sales people we are always on the go. When people ask me how to grow their business I always refer them to the promotional products company that I use. I tell them there is no better advertisement than free stuff. People love to use it, love to wear it, and best of all it is free. Well, not really free, I mean I do pay for it, but the prices are so reasonable and the customer service is so incredible. They are always there to answer my questions and help me with my orders. It is just an amazing company. What better way to advertise for your business than to go everywhere your customers go and spread the word. Whether it is an umbrella or a tote, a hat or a tee shirt, people will see the information about your company, and they will ask, What is that about? And your customer will be right there to answer the question and tell how happy they are with your products and customer service. Promotional products and word mouth are the only forms of advertising that I use and believe me, they work. There are lots of things that you can do to advertise for your company, but none as cost effective as freebies. It takes little or no time to hand them out at parties and they are the type of advertising that keeps on going.

The next time you need to do something to boost your business, be sure to consider purchasing some promotional products and give them out. Then sit back and watch your business take off. It is really that simple.

» real estate blog

By China at 8:18 AM

Lately I am feeling that thoughts and worries about money fill my thoughts regularly. With the economy where it is, I am really just not sure which path to take career wise and otherwise. I know that I can work hard to save as much as I can, but savings will only help so much, and I really need to find a career path that I can feel secure with, knowing that my job isn't going to be phased out do to the slowing economy. I have considered investing in real estate, but I am concerned that the market will never bounce back and I will suffer if I make this move. I got some good advice on a real estate blog at www.real-estatethoughts.com. This blog had a lot of good information about buying property, renting out property and even about first time mortgages. I was very impressed with the information I found hear and decided to do a little bit more information about finances and investing when I came across a wonderful financial blog at financial thoughts. This blog has a lot of great ideas to save money, make extra money and how to build on yor savings. I am really impressed with some of the great tips that I have gotten online through the years, and this time, I am really impressed that the information is coming from blogs and not from professional money management web sites, I think that is because with things getting so tight we are all realizing that we need to find and share out money making and saving ideas amongst ourselves. Unfortunately, I make more this year than I did last year, yet somehow it isn't going near as far. I am just really glad that I am living a simple lifestyle. I have very few bills and no car payment. I have just added some energy savings light bulbs and a Brita water filter to my home. I am now trying to work on what will be the most energy efficient heat source for this winter. I am also working on sealing my windows to keep that heat in. I will continue to work toward improving my home's energy efficiency while continuing to try and save money. I promise to share any new ideas I come up with in the future.