Gosh I wish I’d known about this site, Discount AC Parts, back when my ’97 SL1’s air conditioning broke a couple years ago.  Of course mine broke just as it was starting to warm up in the spring, and where live, spring is practically summer for everywhere else, so we start running our air conditioning fairly early.

I took it to a mechanic, and was told that my a/c compressor was shot. It was going to cost $1500 to fix it!! The blue book on my car was barely $1200, so there was no way I was going to fork over more than the car was worth just to fix the air conditioning, nor was I going to drive in 115 degree summer heat without an air conditioner (so I got a new car).

However, if I’d known about Discount AC Parts, I found that the ac compressor for my car, brand new, only costs about $400! Granted I still would have needed to find someone to install it for me, but I’m sure someone could probably have done it and kept the entire cost under $1k, and probably could have continued to drive my old car for a few thousand more miles. I really miss that car actually – it got great gas mileage – 35-40 mpg on a good week.

Based on what I found that I could have saved on my own car, I would say it’s worth checking them out if you’re in need of a new a/c compressor for your own car.  My in-law’s drive Toyotas, so if they’re ever in need of a Toyota AC Compressor, I would have to say I’d send them to that site to compare prices.

Yeah I know – Spring is still a couple months away, and most of the country is still in the midst of Jack Frost’s wrath, but what better way to wile away the time spent hunkered down indoors than to plan out your Spring Cleaning schedule?

I have seen these Space Bags advertised on televsion and have seen them at the local super store, and have considered picking up a couple of them to try out, particularly for the loads of clothes I have currently stashed in those big plastic totes, waiting to either be given away or set up at a yard sale.  But it looks like there is a better deal if you order these Space Bags  online – 7 bags for $19.95 plus shipping & handling.  That’s a pretty good deal, considering I have seen them selling only two or three of the medium or large bags in the stores for the same price!

They are a good way to store all your winter clothes until they’re needed again next season, especially the bulky sweaters, blankets and coats that would ordinarily stuff your closets.  So if you’re looking for something to help save you some closet space – or even to be able to shove them under your bed to make cozy with the dust bunnies – go check out the Space Bags at that site to get seven of them for $19.95 + S & H.

Oh yippee. A cold is making its rounds in our house.  I am pretty sure it started with the Kiddo – she still has it – then moved to my husband – he seems to have been hit the worst, and I am kind of teetering on the cusp of coming down with one.  I can feel it hovering “just there” – I have some sniffles and I have that weird feeling in my head, but I am not stuffy or coughing or anything like that yet.  It’s like the dang thing is toying with me.

Just in time for me to go back to work, too.  Goodie.

You can’t always go by what the “pro” movie reviewers go by when it comes to deciding whether that newest flick that is playing is worth the $12 to go see.  I mean, how do you know they’re really being honest, and weren’t handed $20k to give the movie the thumbs up if it’s absolute crap?

Sometimes hearing it from “real” people like you and I, is the way to go.  Yes, everyone is going to have different tastes about movies, some people will just not like any movie with Keanu Reeves in it no matter how good it may be, simply because he is in it, while others would see every single movie of his ten times for the same reason.  But, it’s still nice to see the opinions of every day people who’ve shelled out that $12 to go see the movie, rather than hear it from the people who make their living off of doing movie reviews.

Enter EverHype. This is a place where you can go and reviews about all sorts of things, Action Movie Reviews, reviews on dramas, comedies, and horror flicks; there is even a place to review music and games!  I looked around and there is so much information there that you could spend days reading up on things, whether they’re new movies only in theaters or older movies on DVD, on video games and music of all genres.  Go check it out!

Do you remember those old pyramid schemes?  The ones where you were sent a bulky letter in the mail, with a giant list of people and their addresses, and you were supposed to send like one dollar to the first ten or something like that, then add your name to the top of the list, and mail it off to a billion other poor saps and hope they would give you the same courtesy…  and hopefully in a few months time you’d have dollar bills rolling into your mailbox?

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I’m working from home today.  The Kiddo is at preschool, so all there is to bother me while I work is the neighbors dogs barking, and the annoying whine coming from my crappy work laptop.

I have a pair of noise cancelling headphones that, even when they are not powered on, still do a fair job of drowning out most noises even with the volume of the music at a reasonable level.

I forgot that I had my office door open, and was working away, listening to my music, when suddenly my chair jolted violently.  I turned and looked to see whether my life was suddenly in danger by some uninvited criminal, and was looking directly into the face of my cat.

I flicked him on his side a couple times with my fingers and yelled at him for nearly giving me a heart attack and told him to get the heck out of my office.    Then I waited for my heart to slow back down again (heck I can still feel the adrenaline), and walked out to get myself another diet soda and closed my door on the way back in.

Ugh!  If I wasn’t awake earlier, I sure am now!

My senior year of high school, I received a scholorship that I could use at any of the local community colleges.  It was for $1000 per semester, and I really can’t remember whehter it covered books in addition to the classes or not.  Regardless, I do remember how expensive books were even then, and I often tried to get used books from the campus bookstore if at all possible to save money.

My daughter is only three years old right now, and I hope that one day she will be able to go to college.  But I can’t even imagine what it is going to cost us by the time she is old enough to attend.  It’s already a whole lot more expensive now than it was 15 years ago… Fast forward another 15 years? Heck we’ll probably have to be millionaires to be able to send her anywhere decent unless she gets a full ride scholarship!

Fortunately at this point in time, and hopefully in the distant future as well, there will be other options to find the cheapest college text books around so that we can save money.  Goodness knows that tuition is going to be hard enough to cover, so any way we can save money on the books is going to be a godsend.

There are so many different ways to make money online.  If you have a product to sell, you can try your hand at your very own e-commerce site.  This often entails a lot of hard work – creating the product, photographing the product, deciding upon what you will sell the product for at retail, and then listing it on your website.  Not to mention the work that is required to set up your e-commerce site in the first place, whether you try to do all the hard work yourself or pay someone to do it for you.

But what if you want want to make money without actually having a product on hand to sell? Then you may want to consider an affiliate program.  There are several, but there is one I signed up with a short time ago, that seems to have a load of great companies on hand to choose from, it’s called The Pepperjam Network.  They have so many companies to choose from, in all ranges of product types – dieting, baby products, fitness, fashion – you name it, it is probably there.

What exactly are Affiliate Programs? Basically it is a company where you can sign up and choose from any number of companies who are wanting people to advertise their products; products that you can get behind and promote on your website or blog.  The links you create on your site take your visitor to the seller’s website, and if they buy something during their visit, or sometimes within 30 to 45 days after they click your link, you will get a percentage of that sale!  Sometimes they even give you a set amount for just leading someone to their site if that person fills in the form there.

Let’s say Pepperjam has listed a company that sells toys, and their commission rate is 10%.  Your site or blog is geared towards toys, so this would be a perfect fit – your visitors may be interested in clicking the link or ad that you strategically place on your site, and if they see something they want to buy – say the season’s hard to find children’s toy – you’ll get 10% of their total purchase in your affiliate account.  The more people click, and the more they buy, means more money in your account.

And the best part is, all you have to do is set up the link or ad on your website, maybe spin a post or dedicate a page telling people about the product or even the site and what your visitors can find there, and if it’s tempting enough to them, they click, look around and maybe buy… and your work is done!  So go check them out!

It seriously feels like today is just DRAGGING by.  I feel like I’ve been at work for at least four hours already, but nooo.  It’s only been 2.5 hours.  What the heck??

Yes it would be nice for time to slow down once in a while, but not while I am at work!  Please oh please, not while I am at work!!  This is ridiculous… It feels like my husband and I should be venturing forth to get lunch already, but that is still at least an hour and a half away!  Gah!

For my husband and I, anyway.  Both of our “big gifts” arrived today, and since mine was ungainly large, we went ahead and “gave” each other our gifts.

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