Some Recent Blog Updates

One of my New Year's resolutions was to spend more time on my blog. 

I'd like to double my readers by the end of the year.  I used to have more traffic, but when I was posting very irregularly, I lost some of that traffic.  So, I'd like to atleast get that back to where it was.  But to do so, I've got some work to do.

I'm increasing my number of weekly posts and trying to post atleast daily.  I'm also trying to comment more often when I visit other blogs.  I read so many other blogs, but hardly ever comment.  Not sure why.  I guess it just doesn't occur to me to do so.  Trying to change that!

I'm also trying to read and teach myself some new tweaks to the blog to make it a better place to visit.  One of the recent changes I've made is to install CommentLuv. 

If you're unfamiliar, CommentLuv is great for those commenters that have their own blogs. When you're commenting, it finds your last blog post and places the title and link to it right under your comment.  This is a great way to snag interested new readers when you're commenting on a post!

I've also made my blog Do Follow enabled.  This means that your blog will get some great "link juice" back because the web crawlers can now find your blog link in your comment!  This is obviously my very simple explanation, you can Google it if you want to find out more.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to over here.  Oh and that bad case of being unmotivated last week?  Totally gone now.  Dishes are all caught up and laundry is getting there... got slowed down by my 5 year old with a stomach virus. 

All my Christmas decorations are finally put away!  So excited about that one, lol.  We even got the house cleaned and decorated and held a great pirate 4th birthday party for my son over the weekend.  Lots going on around here :)

Coming up soon:  I have some pics to post of our homemade pirate party decorations!  They turned out great!

Image Credit: Tech 2 Hell

Some Recent Blog Updates

Savings & Earnings Recap 1/15 - 1/21

How much extra money did you earn this week? How much did you save? Here's my weekly recap of money/gift cards earned, cash saved by using coupons, and freebies received.

It's fun to see your savings/earnings amounts all added up. It clearly shows that it's time well spent when you cut coupons, hunt for sales, and make little bits of money here and there. Here's my recap for the past week, 1/15/12 - 1/21/12. 

Cash/Checks/Gift Cards Received
$5.00...... Amazon.com GC won through the Swagbucks search engine!
$95.00.... Various blog income
Total: $100.00

Coupon Savings
$5.00..... Great Clips (Men's haircut coupon)

Total: $5.00

Freebies
Organized Simplicity free Kindle book
22 coupon inserts from a friend!

Total 2012 Cash/Checks/Gift Cards Received: $211.92
Total 2012 Coupon Savings: $72.48

Find my previous weekly recaps here.

Savings & Earnings Recap 1/15 - 1/21

Feeling Unmotivated

Do you ever get into a funk where you're so unmotivated to do anything?

This entire week I've been dragging, not wanting to do anything around the house.  Laundry is piling up, dishes are getting behind, our Christmas decorations are only half put away.

I'm just not motivated to do much of anything.  It's weird because for the past few weeks, I've been doing really well with getting so much done around our house.  I've been decluttering and organizing and tackling big projects.  And now, nothing.

And the thing is, I'm not depressed about anything.  Nothing has me down and I'm certainly not sad.  Just unmotivated to get things done. 

It's driving me insane because I want to get things done.  And the disorder is getting to me.  But it's just not enough to actually pick me up and make me move, lol.

Hoping for a more productive week after the weekend!

Has this ever happened to you?  For no apparent reason, you just start letting things slide or you're just so unmotivated?

Feeling Unmotivated

$1/2 New Kellogg's Krave Cereal

Have you tried Krave, the new Kellogg's cereal?

Use this printable coupon for $1.00 off two boxes of Krave! 

We've found this cereal for $2.50 at Walmart. So with the coupon, we've gotten it for just $2.00 per box! Oh, and the back of each box has had a coupon for $1.00 off two boxes that you can cut out for your next purchase.

My kids LOVE both flavors, the multigrain with chocolate center as well as the double chocolate.

I love that it's made with multigrains, although it does contain more sugar than I'd like them to have.  So it's definitely a "treat" cereal around here.

$1/2 New Kellogg's Krave Cereal

Free Elle Digital Magazine for 1 Year

Sign up for a free 1 year digital subscription to Elle magazine!

It's one of those Mercury Magazines offers and they'll have you answer a few quick questions to see if you qualify for any other free subscriptions while you're there.

Note that you don't need to select any others in order to receive this one.  Enjoy!

Free Elle Digital Magazine for 1 Year

Considering our TV options without cable

When we made the decision to cancel our cable tv service, we didn't really have a plan worked out.  Although we had considered ditching our cable provider many times over the past few years, we weren't sure if we'd end up with a new cable company or with some other option.

Ditching our cable tv service was kind of a spur of the moment decision.  We had thought about it before, but never came close to actually going through with it.  But since they wanted to increase our monthly bill by $25, it kind of gave us a big kick in the butt to cancel it.

Now that the cable is gone, I'm so happy we did it, and kind of mad that we hadn't done it years ago.  Seriously, it's saving us $40 a month over what we were paying and $65 a month over what they wanted us to start paying.  That extra money is going to help us pay off our car loan early!

I know some people just decide to do without tv completely in order to save money, along with other benefits.  We could do that, but I'd rather not. 

I enjoy watching tv in the evenings with the Hubby.  It's our time to sit and relax and enjoy each other's company, with some entertainment as well.  We also don't go out very often since we have two young kids (ages 4 & 5), and this is our main entertainment.  So we had to consider our options.

Right from the start, we knew we weren't going to switch to another cable company because the money saved was too tempting.  We already have a Netflix DVD plan, but that doesn't help with watching current tv seasons.  We considered Hulu plus, but ultimately decided against that too.

Instead, we went to our favorite big box store and bought an antenna for $30.  We hooked it up to the tv, which was super easy and fast.  And just like that, we had about 20 channels or so for FREE.  And they come in super clear.  For FREE. 

I don't know about you, but I'm incredibly amazed.  I heard of people using an antenna, but I always thought it was like cheesy rabbit ears and fuzzy reception.  Umm no.  It's not like that at all.  I seriously feel like we're stealing cable, ha. 

With the antenna we can watch most of the tv shows that we enjoyed with cable.  Though there are a few that are on channels that we don't get anymore.  For those few, we're usually able to find them online on the network site or on Hulu.  Instead of watching the show on the laptop, we hook it up to the tv with an HDMI cord so we can watch it on our tv instead!  Love it!  And it's also FREE!

Free is good!  Seriously, it's one of the best decision we've made and I only wish we'd gone through with it long ago :)

Disclaimer:  This post contains an affiliate link.  If you make a purchase through this link, it helps support Tips & Treasures at no cost to you. Thanks!  Also, I was not paid to make this post, I'm just passing along my experience in the hopes that it can help someone else :)

Considering our TV options without cable