Cool Mommy Product Reviews

Spring is here and all my three kids are enrolled in baseball. Our youngest daughter is going to play T-ball this year. So our schedule has become more hectic.

Aside from that, all of our 3 kids just started piano lessons. So they each have three piano lessons a week. They have also been taking swimming lessons.

I would to stress that they activities are really for fun. We put absolutely no pressure on them to excel. For swimming, well, we simply want our kids to learn to swim. My hubby is more particular in terms of wanting them to learn their strokes properly so they can swim effortlessly.

I insisted that my kids take up piano lessons. My youngest daughter loves her ballet and she wants to learn piano – seeing that my husband sings in the church choir. My second son was OK when I told him that I wanted him to learn piano as well. My eldest son is actually very talented music wise. He learned violin at the age of three at some music teachers urging and was very good at it. But he just did not want to continue. I managed to persuade him to start piano because his two other siblings are also learning.

So here are their full schedules :

Eldest Son – Swimming at 10:10am Saturday Morning (last lesson last week)
– Piano at 1:30pm Saturday Afternoon
– Baseball practice at 6:00pm on Tuesday and at 4:30pm on Saturday.

Second Son – Baseball on
– Swimming at 10:10am Saturday Morning (last lesson last week)
– Piano at 1:30pm Saturday Afternoon
– Baseball practice at 6:00pm on Tuesday and 4:30pm Saturday Afternoon.

Daughter – T-Ball at 6:00pm on Tuesday Evening 9:00am Saturday Morning
– Ballet at 4:00pm Monday Afternoon
– Piano Lessons On Wednesday Afternoon
– Swimming at 10:10am on Saturday Morning (last lesson last week)

So this is how a busy mom’s schedule for kids look like. Fortunately, baseball training is at a park opposite of us. Our family takes a 7 minute drive to the high school for swimming lessons. Piano lessons is just 5 minutes away at the Art Center.

Are we doing too much?

Kids

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been sitting down with hubby to go over our spending and expenses. Given the economic situation, I thought it makes sense to go over what we spend even though we are still OK (at the moment – you never know).

One of the things that I decided to work on was to make sure we have the best deals in town – like the most cost effective cell phone plans, utility provider, even credit cards. Our mortgage, well, we’ll have to shop around to refinance and we have not found the most efficient way to do it online yet.

But for other stuff that we regular spend on, I’ve made it a point (I always have actually) to make sure i cut coupons, surf for the best deals. Below are my top 10 sites (I’m sure there are other better ones – please share them) for searching for good deals.

1. LowerMyBills.com – Before I got my verizon cell phone 5 years ago, I spent about 5 hours researching on the web about various cell phone plans from different providers. I also surfed some forums to see comments on whether reception for AT&T wireless was better or Verizon. Finally, I settled on Verizon Wireless. I tool lots of notes on my notepad and was sure that it was the right decision.

Just before I went ahead to sign up, I came across lowermybills.com. I went to the cell phone section and keyed in my zip and details. And lo and behold, they too suggested Verizon! So it turned out that I wasted 6 hours of my time. This site also has mortgage rates comparison etc, but I’m not too sure if these are accurate. But the cell phone plan certainly was.

2. Billshrink.com – Bill Shrink has a site that also finds the best cell phone plan for you based on how many minutes you use the phone, the number of people on the plan, whether you text or not etc. It has got a very neat layout and user friendly interface. More so than lowermybills.com.

3. CouponCabin.com – This is one of my favorite coupon sites. Whenever we plan to go to say, TGIF dinner, we duly head over to the site and print their coupon.

4. fatwallet.com – Fat Wallet is one of the largest coupon and deal sites with a great forum (which if you are not careful – you can be stuck their for hours). You can also sign up to be a fatwallet member and get cash rebates shopping through their site.

5. Netxtag.com – Nextag is a shopping comparison site that lets you compare a lot of stuff. It is one of the sites where you want to stop by before you make any major purchases.

6. Ebay.com – Yes, good old ebay. My friend Amy just started her business and she is working out of her home basement. Rather than going to Ikea and getting most of her stuff their, she headed over to ebay and managed to set her office table, chairs and other stuff for a really great price. With the economy as it is, you’ll be surprised by the stuff that is available there.

7. Craigslist.com – Like ebay, craigslist has some surprising gems – whether you are looking for used furniture and equipments. My friend once got an older washer dryer on craigslist for really on the cheap.

8. Overstock.com – Overstock.com is a great place to hunt for fashion bargains and other great stuff. I’ve bought quite a few stuff from their and it is really a great site.

9. AskMrCreditCard.com – This is probably a site you go one time or when you are looking for a credit card. But they have got a cash back credit card calculator which is really cool. All you have to do is to enter your monthly expenses in some categories like gas, supermarket etc, and the calculator will generate the three cards that will earn you the most rebates. And the results will also show you the breakdown and rebate percentages. My hubby has the amex blue cash. So I keyed in our monthly expenses and sure enough, it turns out that we were having the right card. The site also has some interesting surveys like the one on the best cash back credit cards and gas credit cards.

10. TheBudgetFashionista.com – I’m a lady, so how can I resist the occasional nice clothes and shoes. Well, this site the budget fashionista actually post coupons and deals on fashion stuff. This is great and a great change from so many other blogs that post just grocery coupons.

Finance