Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Common Household Spider "Are They Poisonous"

As small as these little creatures are, it's amazing what a rucus they can cause. Many spiders are harmless, but there are some common spiders that should truely be feared. It is important to be able to identify spiders that are poisonous and the symptoms spider bites can cause. It would be an excellent idea to place some glue traps around your house, to help you identify what types of spiders you have living with you. As it is hard to get a close look at them when they are running across your floor or when they are squished in a tissue or under your shoe.

The Hobo Spider
The hobo spider has a brown body and can grow from 1/4 to 5/8 inch in length. It is commonly found in Idaho and Utah. It is a European immigrant that has recently been implicated as a potentially poisonous spider in the United States. They live in funnel web. Most hobo spider bites occur in bed or clothing where the spider is trapped next to the skin.

The initial bite from a hobo spider is usually painless but hardens within 30 minutes. The area of the bite may have numbness and it is common to feel dizzy. After 15 to 35 hours the area forms blisters and can start to slough, which stops after about 24 hours. It causes a slow healing wound. It can take months to heal. The hobo spider bites is not considered to be fatal but fatalities have occurred.

The Brown Recluse
The Brown Recluse spider is one of the few dangerous spiders in the United States. It is also called the fiddle back spider or violin spider because of the violin shape mark on it. It's native to south central United States but can be commonly found in the central mid western states. It is best to use glue traps for brown recluse, because they are not affected by pesticides.

The initial bite from a Brown Recluse spider is usually painless and the victim can be unaware for 3 to 8 hours later. Then the site of the bite might turn red and swollen. The bite can take a long time to heal. It will often leave scaring. It is extremely rare for a fatality to occur from a brown recluse spider bite but they still must be treated as a dangers spider

Black Widow
Adult female black widow spiders are about 1/2-inch long, not including the legs. They are jet black with a red hourglass marking underneath their circular abdomen. The adult males are around half the size of the females. Females can be identified by their red dots and white lines along the abdomen. The male black widow spider is harmless. It's the females you have to watch for. In spring or summer the black widow start to mate.

A black widow spider bite can go unnoticed. The intensity of the pain depends on amount of venom injected and the area of the bite. The bloodstream carries the venom around the body and it acts on the nervous system, causing different levels of pain. There may be slight local swelling and two red puncture points from the fangs. Pain usually starts from the bite site and works it way to the abdomen and back causing severe cramping in the abdominal muscles in some cases. Less than 5 percent of black widow spider bites results in death.

Wolf Spiders
Wolf Spiders are a common household pests that look for a warm place to stay for wintertime. They do not spin webs but they hunt for food at night. The Wolf Spider can be commonly mistaken for brown recluse spider, but they lack the violin-shaped marking behind their head. They are not aggressive and will run away from disturbances.

With wolf spider bites you will feel some local pain. Itchiness, dizziness, nausea, and swelling are uncommon, but they can be symptoms.

If a spider bite does occur, always contact a your physician. If it's possible, try to catch the spider or at least get a good description of the spider. This will aide the doctors to know how to handle the bite more quickly.

To find out more about how to get rid of your spiders safely with home remedies and no chemicals. Here is a book to help.
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Save Money On Groceries "Tips To Stick Within Your Budget"

It is easy to overspend when grocery shopping. It's probably the place where we do the most impulse shopping. So we tend to buy things we don't really need and there goes the budget. Here are some things that will help guide you when buying groceries.

Make A List
Most People have certain things they eat regularly. So making a basic menu plan should be fairly simple. You know you have to eat dinner 7 times this week. So write down 7 dinners. Think about what you need to make those things. Make a list. Look in your pantry and fridge to see what basics you are out of. It helps to keep an ongoing list inside your cupboard of things as you run out of them. Making a list will help make sure that you get everything in one trip. Statistics show that you spend more the more trips you make to the store. When you go in for one item that you are out of, and you come out with a whole lot of other things. Plan to go grocery shopping two to three times a month. Sometimes it will be necessary to shop in between trips to the grocery store. If you have a problem with impulse buying, then maybe try getting your milk and bread at a convenience store where there is less to tempt you.

Should You Buy Already Prepared Food
It is usually better to cook from scratch when you have a large family. When I cook for my family it is generally cheaper to not use prepared foods. A big pot of stew is very inexpensive to make, but to buy cans of stew can run into money. However, if the choice is between going out to eat or prepared foods, then definitely prepared is better.

When it was just me and my husband, it was probably cheaper to buy prepared foods rather than buy all the different ingredients that we would need for a smaller batch. The food almost always went bad before we could use it, because there just wasn't enough people to eat it. You can only have spaghetti for so many nights in a row.

Buy Basic Food Products
It is healthier and more cost effective to buy more basic things when shopping for groceries. Buying a bag of rice will save you money compared to a box of flavored rice. The prepared foods usually contain preservatives that are not good for your body. If you prepare the food yourself, then you can control exactly what is in it. Oatmeal is allot less expensive than instant oatmeal and it is better for you. Processing takes allot of nutrients out of food and it is quite a bit more expensive. Although, if you are not willing to take the extra time it takes to cook these foods, then this tip will not be helpful for you.

Check Adds Before You Go
Check your adds regularly. This will help you to know what is a good deal and what is not. Some stores are better to buy certain items at than others. I have a particular store that always has eggs on sale for a good price. That's the only place I will buy eggs. Grocery stores adds start on the same day every week for the most part. Planning your menus around these specials can help you save as you shop. Generally the front page of the ad has the best deals. They’re designed to get your attention and make you want to come to that store. Just because an item is in the add does not mean it's a good deal, that is why you need to check them regularly. Buying produce in season will also help you save money. If it is something you can freeze, then do so. Out of season fruits and vegetables are expensive and not good quality.

Store Discount Cards and Coupons
Many grocery stores have cards that give you a discount on certain items, especially items that are advertised in their ads at a sale price. If you don’t have a card, you’ll be charged a higher price, which is listed in the ad in tiny print beside the item’s picture. The cards are useful to shoppers. Many stores have registers that print out coupons for future purchases of items that you have bought that day if you are using the store card. The cards are easy to get; you have to fill out a sheet with some basic information at the register or customer service desk, and then just remember to use the card when you check out.
If you get the Sunday newspapers, it often includes coupons for dollars off on groceries. Most coupons are for processed foods and new products, but you can find them for many different items. You can use a coupon while an item is on sale, so you can double your savings. It does take a little organization though. If you’re on a budget, however, you could save quite a lot of money if you buy several items on sale with coupons.

Take A Calculator
How many times have you been shocked by the price at the register and wondered what did I buy? Well taking a calculator with you to shop could help you if you’re on a budget, especially if you’re an impulse buyer or have small children who distract you while you shop. If you’re good at math, you can try to keep a running total. But if your like me, a calculator would be great. As you add an item to your basket, punch the price in the calculator. Using a calculator will help you to make wiser choices; if you see that your total is rising rapidly, you can put something back and choose a lower priced item. Using the calculator will prevent any shock at the register.

Compare Brands
Many grocery stores have their own brand name products, and these products are usually made by well-known manufacturers. Store brand products are almost always less expensive than name brand products, and if you look at the ingredients, they are probably identical. Buy one of the store brand products, taste it, and if you like it you can save money next time you need that item. You can save by buying store brands on food, over-the-counter medicines, cleaners, and other household products. It is common for stores to put all of their store brand products on sale at one time.

Larger Quantity
If a grocery store puts a nonperishable item on sale at a very low price, buy extras. Basic foods like flour, sugar, beans, rice, canned and frozen goods will last quite a while if you use them regularly. If you buy enough, then you won't have to buy it when it's not on sale.
Buy your snack items in bulk instead of putting money in a vending machine regularly. Joining a wholesale club means you must purchase a member’s card, but a few trips to the club can save you lots of money if you buy items you use frequently in quantity. The clubs offer samples of certain items frequently, so you are able to try something before you buy it. This is great, because you don't want to buy a ton of something you might not like.

On Sale
Just because it is on sale, doesn't mean it's a good deal. If it is not something you usually eat, then it may not be a great sale for you. When Kellogg's goes on sale, it still may not be as cheap as the private label brand that you usually buy. You can save by buying items on sale, but it won’t be a savings if you don’t like the product. Only buy food that you know you or your family will eat or you will have wasted your money. Be careful that you don't buy large quantities of perishable items. If half of it gets waisted before you eat it, you won't have saved any money. Always check the date on sale items. It is very common for stores to put product on sale when they are close to going out of date.

Don't Go To The Store Hungry
Make sure you have already eaten when you go to the store. Everything looks good when your hungry and your grocery bill will show it. It's easier to resist junk food when your tummy is full.

When you have a plan, you are one step closer to sticking to your budget. These are just a few tips. There are many more ways to save money on groceries. If you would like more information on:

  • great substitution ideas for store bought items
  • homemade recipes for cleaning and laundry
  • homemade recipes for easily made cosmetics
  • common use medical remedies
  • utility savings, you may not have considered

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Organizing Could Save You Money

Just about every one takes a day or two out of the year to clean out closets and cabinets to declutter. For most of us, getting organized is a space clearing endeavor, but did you know it can also save money? It’s true. Someone who lives among disorganization and clutter might have trouble keeping track of every penny because he or she has problems locating important items. What follows is a discussion of how money can be saved by organizing your home and your life.

If you bring in your afternoon mail and discard it to a side table, intending to get to it later, you’re wasting money. While your intentions are honorable, the majority of people who throw their mail into a pile never end up going back to the pile until the very last minute or even worse, when the bill is overdue. When this happens you can incur late fees and high interest charges. In addition, there may be a discrepancy on your bill, a discrepancy that’s easily removed if it’s nipped in the bud right away, but if brought to the attention of the credit card or utility company three months later, they may question why you’re only bringing it up at that time.

While you’re getting organized, you might want to consider those kitchen cabinets. Why? Because if you’re not aware of an item’s existence, you may end up purchasing that item more than once. If it’s not something you use often, it may pass its expiration date which means money in the garbage. If you organize your cabinets and take stock of its contents, you’re less likely to purchase duplicates.

Coupons are another area requiring organization. Are your coupons a jumbled mass in a drawer or envelope somewhere? The last thing you probably want to do is go through all those coupons to receive a twenty-cent discount on tomato sauce, only to find out the coupon expired months ago. If you keep your coupons in an organized pouch or card file, grouped by item or food group, it will be much easier to find what you’re looking for. With today’s double and triple coupon savings, you don’t want to miss out on any bargains.

What do you do with your receipts when you leave the checkout counter? Do you cram them into your wallet or purse compartment only to throw them in the garbage when you’ve accumulated a large wad? If so, why bother keeping them at all? If you want receipts to work for you, you’ll need to keep them organized. File them by date or item. For instance, keep all receipts for appliances in one file, receipts for electronics in another and food in a third. This way when you need to refer back to a receipt, it will much easier to find. What if your brand new toaster oven breaks down soon after it’s purchased? Not only will you need proof of purchase, but you’ll want to prove the date of purchase in order to get free replacement or repairs. Without a receipt, you may have to pay for a whole new product, and that’s a waste.

Another reason to keep receipts is for your taxes, especially if you itemize or own a home business. If you want to write off office supplies and computer equipment, you best organize those receipts.

While you’re organizing your coupon and receipt files, organize your home files as well. There will come a time when you’ll need a copy of a birth certificate or other important paperwork. If you don’t have the original at home, you may have to pay for a replacement.

In addition, a disorganized person tends to lose rented movies or borrowed library books. Why pay a late charge that could have been avoided by keeping rentals in a designated spot in your home?

There’s no reason to lose money because you’re disorganized. Once you free up all the clutter in your home, you’re sure to have an uncluttered life as well.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Laundry Made Easier

Mom, are you spending way too much time sorting, washing, and folding laundry?
Here are some quick easy tips to help get you out of the laundry room!

1) Sort Less
With the exception of whites that need to be bleached, brand new dark or red items that bleed or delicates, you may not need to sort laundry as much as you think.
Most high quality clothing doesn't bleed. And there is no crime in washing towels with other laundry unless it will get linty (like microfiber cleaning cloths).
You might want to sort laundry by what room it will end up in. I throw my boy's laundry all in together and despite what home economics gurus might tell you, I haven't noticed any bad effects! This method simplifies things because each load goes to the same place. Instead of walking around the house delivering laundry to each room, you save energy and time.

2) Instead of folding...
Hang kid's shirts in their closet and simply lay small items flat in their drawers.
I use those cheap shoebox size plastic organizers in the boy's closet and throw unsorted clean socks in one, undies in another, pjs in another. Each child has his own containers so there's no confusion.
It's much simpler than spending time folding underwear and matching socks. They can find their own sock mates!

3) Use Your Tools
Put one laundry basket in each room where dirty laundry is discarded (usually one per bathroom or bedroom). Buy some of those zippered mesh bags at the dollar store and throw one in each.

4) Teach your kids and husband
Ask your husband and kids to put laundry in the hamper instead of dropping it on the floor, and to bring their hamper to the laundry area when you're ready to wash. Don't scold or nag, use natural consequences. When someone needs that favorite pair of Buzz Lightyear pjs or boxers, they will quickly learn that if it doesn't make it to the hamper, it doesn't get washed!
Train them too to put their dirty socks in the mesh bag. Even if they're too young to do so, put all dirty socks in the bag and throw the entire thing in the washer. They come out clean and the washer doesn't eat the baby's socks.

Enlist your kid's help when it comes to folding laundry.

A 2 year old can put dirty laundry in the hamper and throw clean clothes in the dryer when you hand it to them, a 3 year old can fold washcloths, and an older child can deliver clean folded laundry to their room and even hang items.

5) Forget Perfection
When I was a kid we had "play clothes" and "school clothes". The nicer things were what you wore to school and out of the house, and you changed into your play clothes (usually items that had a defect or weren't as nice as going-out clothes) as soon as you got home.

Using this method means that the nicer items don't wear out as quickly, and they may not need to be washed after every wearing. An item that is worn once (unless it's socks or undies) doesn't necessarily need to be washed.

And you may decide that it's not worth spending time removing stains on play clothes, thus saving you more time and money.

Also, try using Oxi-Clean or another non-toxic whitener instead of bleach on your whites. Since it can also be used on colors, it won't be the end of the world if a stray colored item gets in your bleach load.

I hope these tips help rescue you from laundry room shackles!

Bulk Cooking

Busy and preoccupied, the last resort of a working mom is asking her family out to eat together.
This is a fine idea but doing it all the time is not good at all. It costs much and you are not that sure if the food outside is indeed healthy and safe. There are lots of restaurants but often than sometimes, most ends up in eating at fast-food chain restaurants.

You know for a fact that fast food is not that good for the over-all wellness, right? And who would want to have a family of too much calories? Nobody wants it, do you? Rather than eating out, there is a solution if you are just too busy or preoccupied. This is cooking in advance or the so-called “bulk cooking “. This type of cooking method is very beneficial especially for those who seem to have no time at all.

This is a means of saving money because as we are aware of, buying food in bulk is less expensive than buying food per week. At any rate, you are still the one choosing the type of food you want to buy. In this case, you could buy ground meat this week, and cook it for the following week.

Bulk cooking also lessens the expense of a new couple living together or someone who lives independently. They could prepare food in advance and not having to worry about left-over right after. This is both a means of saving effort, time and money of course. One of the strongest advantages of this method is that a busy parent could spend more quality time with his or her kids and the whole family, this is very essential.

As mentioned, cooking ahead could be healthy since you take control over the food choices and make sure that you really go for the healthy choices.

Being busy is not a blockade to one’s food preparation especially for one’s family. In these modern days, making independent yet wise choices must really be of consideration. This makes bulk cooking a good choice for each household. This will not only benefit parents but as well as children who do not deserve improper attention and inadequate healthful food.

In a nutshell, this method of preparing food could really suit up any lifestyle especially those who are having the most hectic schedules on Earth.

Budget To Save Money

Maintaining a budget is very important in the grand scheme of things as you want to make sure that you can take care of all the expenses that you incur in the course of living. This is something that a lot of people are not aware of and they spend their life living paycheck to paycheck. When you live in this type of state you have a big problem because there is no money available in case something should happen.

If you want to have a personal budget then you need to take on some money saving. Saving money is not something that a lot of people are very good at. This is due in part to our nature to want to spend what we have. But when you take the time to save a little money each time you are paid. This is a matter of some importance as you never know when you are going to need it.
The best course of action is to plan on saving ten percent of the money that you bring home. With this plan you will have a weeks worth of pay saved in ten weeks. The money that you are saving should not be touched for any reason barring an emergency. The reason that you are saving is to make sure that you have money should you need it for an emergency. This will enable you to save a lot of money because if you have not saved for an emergency then you will be forced to go and borrow the money which will compound the problem when you take into consideration the amount of interest that will be charged.

Personal budgeting is a matter of knowing how much money you have coming in and going out. First off you would need to determine the amount of money that you need to pay out each week or month depending how you prefer to pay the bills. Most people do not like to pay the bills on a weekly basis because the bills may change by the month. Once you have determined the amount of money that you have going out each month then you will need to determine the amount you need to set aside each week. Most often you will find that you can set aside forty percent of the pay that you receive and you will actually have more than you need.

The budget that you set up should be stuck too no matter what. A budget that will do no good is one that is not stuck too. The budget amount that you set should not be your entire pay amount. If you are finding that you need to save all or nearly all of your pay then you should take the time to check out the expenses that you have. There may be some things that need to be trimmed, because you are operating outside of the money that you have coming in.
Setting a personal budget and saving some money is a requirement to lead a life that is not ruled by money or the lack of it.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Kids and Money - Why Is It So Hard?

We learn so many things as we grow up. We learn how to walk, talk, and get away with not doing our homework. We learn how to play complicated games, many of them involving pretend money. So, why is it so hard for us to learn how to manage money? Why do so many people struggle to make ends meet, even on reasonably high incomes? Why do so few people manage to provide sufficiently for themselves in retirement? It’s not rocket science. We know what it takes. And there are some people doing it. So why isn’t basic money management as widely understood as basic geometry? Imagine what life would be like if making money came as easily and naturally as riding a bike or tying your shoelaces.

Imagine graduating high school with a permanent, secure, passive income already in place. You wake each the morning to find more money has appeared in your account overnight! If you want to travel, you do. If you want to paint, write, or do any other creative activity, you do. You choose your occupation based on what you love to do, not the burden of having to pay the bills.

You have all the time you need to socialise with your family and friends, to stay in shape, and to practice your spirituality. This world is not a pipe-dream. It’s not unrealistic. The world is alive with opportunity, more so now than ever before, and the opportunity is expanding exponentially. With the right knowledge and attitudes, today’s kids can capture their share of that opportunity, and set themselves up for life. So, why isn’t everyone doing it? Because not everyone’s parents have the right knowledge and attitudes to pass along to their kids. Some of those who have the knowledge and attitudes are still setting themselves up in life, working long hours, and find it difficult to break the knowledge down into terms their kids can understand. What can we do about it? As parents, we need to be conscious that financial education ranks up there with education about nutrition, health, and communication.


We must educate ourselves, so that we can educate our children. There are many places to go on the web to get that vital financial education. There are numerous e-Books, ezine articles, and offline financial publications with an online presence. And, of course, there are dozens of relevant books in your local book store.