Mariannes Motifs

Fruit Baskets - Perfect Easter or Passover Gift

It's time to plan ahead for those Easter and Passover gift baskets.  Cherry Moon Farm is a new spinoff from the company that brings you ProFlowers and they have some pretty fruit baskets now available.

The Large Organic Fruit Sampler is $39.98 and inlcudes:

• 2 Certified Organic Pears
• 2 Certified Organic Apples
• 2 Certified Organic Navel Oranges
• 4 Certified Organic Kiwi
• 6 Certified Organic Bananas

They have lots of others too, inlcluding one with fruit, jelly beans, and nuts.   And this one is $39.99.  Easter is the 24th and Passover starts on Aapril 19th.

Wood Wick - Candle that Crackles

I wanted to buy the Hubster something small and nice for his birthday, since his big present was an IOU for a computer that we are saving up for, so I got him once of these Wood Wick candles.

The candle is supposed to crackle like a wood fire.  I got the Redwood scent, and it is very nice, especially nice for a guy as it is a woodsy scent.  it is filling the room nicely but not annoyingly strong.  It crackles very quietly, not annoying at all.  I am thinking that if you got a few of these and put them in the fireplace it would be a nice substitute for a wood fire.  These are soy candles, which I understand are supposed to be good for not smoking.

 

 

Refinancing the Mortgage for 3.5%

Forget saving money on the car insurance rate, (really, forget it - carinsurance is not a good subject around here) but at least we will be saving a pant load of money on our mortgage.   We have a tentative closing date for next week.  The best part - the new mortgage is 15 years so we will be paying off the house faster.  We actually slightly increased our payment but it will be worth it to save tens of thousands of bucks over the life of the loan and have the house payed off about the time the kids are in college.  And really - what can beat this rate?

Did You Get Any Good Black Friday or Cyber Monday Deals?

I was in NY for Black Friday, and did hit the local WalMart.  I got some great $3.77 Egyptian Pima cotton towels.  Heh heh.  We also stocked up on Hanukkah toys for the kids.  We also hit Walgreens, where my favorite deal was $2.50 little WebKinz.  Yeah, I know therese aren't the biggest deals in the universe, but they were things I could use at a great price.

At this point in the holiday season, any additional shopping I need to do is going to be online.  Places like Buy.com's Cyber Monday deals are the way to go.  Get a great price and get it delivered to your door.  No crowds, driving, parking, overly perfumed candle stores, or people spritzing you with perfume.

Web-Deva Web Site Builder

I am checking out a new web site building company called Web Deva. Set up as a "Software as a Service" model, it looks pretty interesting.  I normally host my blogs on TypePad but awhile back I got the domain cheesyromance.com and I wanted to do something a little different with it.  I wanted to do a forum where people could save their own reviews of romance books and chat about recommendations.  I needed more power than just a blog would give me.  I tried a couple different web hosting companies but even though I am actually pretty technical, I got overwhemed setting up PHPBB and gave up.

I don't have a lot of extra time to screw around with building a web site.  I just want to create content and get it going.  I don't want to think TOO hard about my web sites.  I like the way you can create an account and set up a test site and only have to pay to turn it one once you like the way it looks.  And they even have e-commerce - wow. So if you're interested check out their demo - web page builders.

5 Ways to Make Money When You are Desperate

1.  List stuff on Ebay.  It's a lot easier than people think.  Follow the steps to list your item - ebay leads you through the process.  Tips: Take a good photo - outside gives best light.  People want to see what they are buying so make sure the picture is clear and well lit.  For shipping it really helps to have a postal scale so you can have ebay calculate and charge the shipping for you.  If you don't have a scale consider doing the flat rate shipping box from the post office.  Here is a place that sells scales.

2.  Got any broken gold or silver jewlery laying around?  Mis-matched earrings, ugly stuff you hate and never wear?  Sell them to the local pawn shop or jewlery store.  It's easy.  Go to two places to get a quote and sell to the highest offer.

3.  Have a garage sale.  Price stuff to sell and when you are done load the leftovers into your car and straight to Goodwill.  This will make you a couple bucks and also declutter your house.  Win Win!

4.  Are you a decent writer?  You can make money by writing articles for textbroker.com.  They don't pay a lot - a penny a word for a 3 star author, but it's real money and nothing to sniff at.

5.  Have an unusual skill?  Try creating a listing on fiverr.com where people list things they will do for 5 dollars.

More Random Rules for Ideas Worth Spreading

1.  Don't wait for the perfect opportunity, for the stars to align, for the right backer.  Just start.

2.  Point yourself in a direction and take small steps.  I promise you will get somewhere.

3.  Communicate.  Write, twitter, blog, draw it on a napkin.  Unlock your creativity.

4.  Not everyone is going to be the next Internet Millionaire.  And that's OK.  Don't let that scare you from making your own mark on the world.  Small successes mean a lot too. You don't have to invent the next Slingbox to count yourself as a valued member of society.

5.  Don't listen to people that want to put you down to build themselves up.  They are everywhere and they are an insidious influence.

6.  Don't be afraid to fail.  If something's not working out, don't be afraid to scrap the idea if it no longer has value to you.  Try something else.

7.  If something's not making you money but you enjoy it, do it anyway.  Why not.  It's called a hobby.  Everyone needs one.  Or two.

8.  Change with the seasons.   People's buying habits (and surfing habits) change with the season so work with that.  Think about the calendar and what holidays and events are coming up two months from now - start marketing ahead for those.  When the rush comes you will be ready.

For Seth Godin's original list -

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/random-rules-for-ideas-worth-spreading.html.

When Is Dime Worth a Dollar?

Did you know that from the years 1946-1964 US dimes were 90% pure silver and 10% copper?  They stopped making them that way in 1965 but you can still come across those old coins.  I think my Dad has a pile of them he has saved through the years.

According to coinflation.com those Roosevelt dimes have just over a dollar's worth of silver.  Yeah, not going to buy you a villa in Italy or anything, but its probably worth keeping an eye out for these babies in your change pile.

1946 - 1964 Silver Roosevelt Dime Value

 

ZOMG - The Gold-Cash thing really works!

I've wanted to try selling some of my broken gold chains and stuff, knowing that gold is selling for pretty high prices right now, historically speaking.  But I never knew who to go to for cash for gold that wouldn't rip me off.  Sending them in to the company sounded like a good way to do it, but it's a lot of trust to send gold in the mail, right?

So I finally checked out Gold-Cash.com, which was recommended to me by a company I do business with.  I liked the fact that they published their rates per gram right on their web site - no mystery.

I started out by checking out their website at http://www.gold-cash.com.  They made it really easy to work with them - you can print out a FedEx label for free shipping to them, or order a packing envelope that they will send you.  Being lazy, I opted for ordering the FedEx packing envelope with prepaid shipping.

A couple of days later I got a box from FedEx with a packing envelope inside, along with a plastic ziplock bag with my order number on it and instructions.  I then searched the house for gold and sterling silver to sell.  They had me inventory each type of item on their sheet  (2 earrings, 5 chains, 2 bracelets, etc)  and then I dropped the package off at my local FedEx Kinkos while I was running around for the day last Friday.

Here is what I sent in:

 

Then I waited.   I expected to get maybe $20 bucks or something for the broken jewelry and single earrings I sent it.  Wow, I was sure surprised this morning to get an email from Cash-Gold saying offering to pay me over $320 for the stuff I sent in.  Wow.  I am in shock.  And after I accepted the offer I had the money in my paypal about 5 hours later.

TOTAL PAYMENT: $321.73

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters makes CNNs fastest growing comanies list.

I was reading CNN.com's list of the 100 fastest growing companies today and noticed that number 11 on the list is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.  Since I have been writing about Keurig brewers and K-Cups, I have noted that I get blog traffic from people searching for K-Cups.  I also see the Keurig brewers being sold a lot of places, and I know they were one of the hot holiday gifts last winter. 

Green Mountain makes some of the most delicious K-Cups (single serve coffee for Keurig brewers. )

Green Mountain k cups are some of the nicest out there.  I especially like that they have organic and fair trade options.   Amazon sells Green Mountain coffee through third party stores.  The Organic Espresso is an expensive buy at $127 bucks - but don't freak out because that is 6 packs of 12 (72 K Cups).  That comes out to $1.76 for a cup of Organic Espresso.  The reseller ships orders over $60 for free, and this would automatically qualify.  Not as cheap as the .32 cent K-cups I have written about previously, but I think this is a better cup of coffee for those who like a stronger, richer brew.  The Green Mountain Coffee Fair Trade Organic Sumatran Reserve (Extra Bold) comes out to $1.23 per K Cup and comes in a more managable pack of 48 for $38.95 from Liquid Nation.

For the spelling impaired among us: kuring, kurig, kuerig, keurig, k-cups, k-cup, k cups, coffee pods, organic k-cups, fair trade k-cups, single serve coffee