Archives for 2014

Time Management: Google Chrome Browser Extensions

March 12, 2014 by Tracy

Photograph Credit: Google Chrome

In using time wisely while online, I find the Google Chrome browser extensions a great time saver.

Having mentioned accessing a couple of money-saving tools through these extensions, I will share how you can use them as well.

When I am shopping, editing a picture, or searching online, I use the extension buttons to access needed resources.

Before sharing how to add extensions, let’s start by understanding the terms.

Defining the Terms

Google Chrome Browser

A browser connects one from an internet signal to the World Wide Web. The most popular browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. For this post, I am only concentrating on Google Chrome, which is the browser I prefer to use.

Extension

The extensions used on Google Chrome are files that contain specific programming to complete tasks beyond the existing software. So, extensions are similar to apps, but they run on browsers rather than on a platform (e.g., android, Windows, kindle, etc.).

Installing Extensions

To view your current extensions or to add more, follow these directions:

1. Click on the button with three horizontal lines located on the right side of your screen under the red “x.”

2. Select “Tools”

3. Click on “Extensions”

4. With a view of your extensions, you may delete any extensions you no longer use. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you can click on “Get more extensions.”

Once inside, you can view new extensions or search by name. My favorite extensions include the following:

Ebates – cash back site
Shop at Home – cash back site
Honey – promotional code finder
RoboForm – password and login filing system
Pocket – saves favorite blog posts for future reference
Awesome Screenshot – advanced snipping tool for capturing photos

To add one of these to your Google Chrome browser:

5. Select the “+ FREE” button

6. Click “Add” button to confirm the new extension

7. From this point, you can either add more extensions by searching or browsing, or you can return to your extensions page by following the directions to view your current extensions.

8. Once you have your favorites activated, you will see those extensions on your toolbar under the red “x.”

When you are on a website where you need one of these extensions, you only need to click the extension icon and a small window will open for you to use. In using time wisely, extensions allow quick access to information that would otherwise require visiting another website.

If you do not use Google Chrome but you want to access these extensions, then use SwagBucks or Google to search for adding extensions to Firefox or Explorer or whatever browser you prefer.

Though I find extensions helpful, you may not. On this journey to using time wisely, discover what works best for you. Happy using time wisely!

Question: What are your favorite extensions?

Paying Less than the Sale Price: Our Range Purchase – Part 3 of 3

March 11, 2014 by Tracy

Having shopped and added up the cost and implemented the savings strategies, today concludes this paying less than the sale price series.

Though you already know the end of my story, I will still tell it and show you via tables how to use multiple savings strategies.

This third and final post gives an overview of our savings, the order in which those savings were used, and documents the future savings earned through this purchase.

I separated my out-of-pocket expenses from the future earnings. I do this because I will count the future earnings when I spend them.

So, here is how I completed and evaluated the purchase of our new range.

Part 3: Completing and Evaluating the Purchase of our New Range

Completing the Purchase for our New Range

With the gift cards purchased and the codes e-mailed to my inbox, I proceeded to checkout. I verified that the order had all the items we needed and the subtotal was $496.98. Then I used the saving strategies to see the final cost of our new range:

Amount	Description	Balance
$496.98	Subtotal	$496.98
-$50.00	Honey promotional code (SEARS50)	$446.98
-$0.91	Applied Shop Your Way points (910)	$446.07
$26.77	Sales Tax	$472.84
-$442.95	Paid with Discounted gift cards purchased from Cardpool	$29.89
-$29.89	Paid with credit card and earned reward points	$0

Evaluating the Purchase of our New Range

With lots of saving strategies at work, these tables breakdown our out-of-pocket cost and our future rewards for making this purchase:

Our Out-of-pocket Cost

Amount	Description
$411.94	Purchased discounted gift cards from Cardpool
$29.89	Paid remaining balance and taxes
______
$441.83	TOTAL

Our Future Rewards

Amount	Description
$11.99	Ebates cash back which will be included in the check I receive from Ebates this May
$4.31	Shop Your Way Rewards (4,311 points) for use on a future order
49 points	Rewards added to other credit card points for gift cards, merchandise, or cash back

In weighing the cost of repairing a 10-year-old range or buying a new one, we are thrilled with our choice of making a new purchase. With the larger window and a few other neat features, this range fits our needs, and the cost was within our budget.

I was thrilled that not only did we pay less than our $450 target price, but also that our final cost was less than the sale price of the unit.

Using savings strategies takes time. I spent about 2 hours making this purchase. But those 2 hours included researching with Paul and waiting on the delivery of the electronic gift cards from Cardpool to appear in my inbox.

For us, these 2 hours were time well spent. I am hoping this range lasts for the next 10 years. Knowing we got the best deal available (minus the extra 2% I could have saved using Shop at Home rather than Ebates), I was giddy with excitement as I waited for our range to arrive.

As you shop online, remember these saving strategies to continue stretching your dollars while using time wisely. Off to bake some more chocolate chip cookies because now I can. 🙂 Happy baking and saving!

Question: Which savings strategy is your favorite?

Paying Less than the Sale Price: Our Range Purchase – Part 2 of 3

March 10, 2014 by Tracy

Writing much about combining savings strategies, I know many forget which savings strategies work together.

In the midst of rebates, member savings, rewards, and cash back sites, one can easily forget a savings strategy or get overwhelmed and stop before getting started.

Picking and choosing savings strategies is a skill which one can learn. Even knowing the options, I still forget or miss an opportunity (see my cash back decision below).

I’m on this journey to using time wisely. While I find spending time researching and fine-tuning savings strategy skills worthy of my time, you might need to use your time wisely investing in your family, education, ministry, or home.

But as I learn and use these savings strategies, I will share what I have and am learning to do to purchase needed items while paying less than the sale price. In starting this series yesterday with shopping and adding up the cost of our new range, I continue today with the savings strategies I chose to use when purchasing our new range.

Part 2: Implementing Savings Strategies for our New Range

In shopping online, I have more options for saving than entering a store. Using the following savings strategies, I worked down the subtotal to our final cost:

1. Access Merchant’s Website through a Cash Back Site

Starting with Ebates, I used the extension on Chrome (a button on my menu bar). As this extension is already setup with my login information, I only need to click the button, enter the store name – which was Sears, and start earning 3% back on my purchase.

Usually I check both Ebates and Shop at Home for the better percentage, but for some reason I forgot to check Shop at Home. Bummer! I could have saved an additional 2% as Shop at Home has a 5% back on purchases from Sears. Oh well, I’ll try to remember next time as checking is quite easy with the extensions on Chrome.

2. Use a Loyalty Rewards Points Program

Sears, Land’s End, and Kmart (to name a few) have partnered with Shop your Way to offer customers a loyalty card. When you checkout, hand the cashier your loyalty card to record your purchase amount.

For each $1,000 points earned, you earn a $1. You can then choose when to use your rewards on your purchases.

When shopping online through Sears, I only needed to enter my loyalty card number while on the shopping cart page. I will earn points for this purchase, and I chose to use the $.91 in rewards I currently had on my card towards the payment.

3. Look for Honey Plug-in Button in Shopping Cart

Having already installed the Honey Plug-in into my Google Chrome browser, I just need to look for the little orange box when I am in the shopping cart.

HINT: The Honey box will be near the fields for entering promotional codes.

Honey will try each available promotional code. If using one of their suggested codes offers you a less expensive price, then Honey will apply that code for you.

This plug-in saves so much time as I do not need to search for a promotional code. I just press a button, and Honey does the rest.

By using Honey for this purchase, the promotional code SEARS50 was applied which deducted $50 off a $300+ Appliance order (expires 3/16/14). With this promotional code, my subtotal dropped from $496.98 to $446.98.

4. Purchase Discounted Gift Cards through Cardpool

Though the price was now below our target price, we would still need to pay around $30 for sales tax. I turned to Cardpool for Sears gift cards up to the subtotal amount. When I logged into my account, I chose the bulk purchase option and typed in the subtotal amount: $446.98.

Cardpool brought up the following options:

$156.19 for a $167.95 Sears Electronic Gift Card

$139.50 for a $150.00 Sears Electronic Gift Card

$116.25 for a $125.00 Sears Electronic Gift Card

___________________________________

$411.94 for $442.95 in Sears Electronic Gift Cards which is a 7% savings

Using all four of these savings strategies, I was on my way to meeting our target price for our new range. Some of these savings strategies are immediate rewards while others are future earnings. However, all the savings strategies work together to help us in stretching our dollars.

Return tomorrow for the end of the story where I will give a big picture overview and present the big reveal in combining these savings strategies.

I will share the order and the way in which I used these strategies in checking out after shopping online. Until tomorrow . . . keep on saving!

Question: Which browser do you prefer to use when shopping online?

Paying Less than the Sale Price: Our Range Purchase – Part 1 of 3

March 9, 2014 by Tracy

Since I routinely stretch our family’s dollars by paying less than the sale price for items we need or want, I get asked, “How do you do that?”

Though I write about the different savings strategies I use to get the cost down as far as it can go, I know sometimes it is easier to see how to combine savings rather than to hear how to do it.

In writing this post, I cover a lot of information. As the article became longer and longer, I decided to break it up into these three parts:

Part 1: Shopping and Adding up the Cost of our New Range

Part 2: Implementing Savings Strategies for our New Range

Part 3: Completing and Evaluating the Purchase of our New Range

Within the next three days, all three articles will post, but I will not leave you hanging to find out the ending. I know you want to know what the last page says, so I will tell you.

We purchased a unit that was on sale for $454.99 plus a cord, fee, and tax, but we only paid $441.83. You can do this, too, and I’m going to take you step by step. Let’s start with finding the item to purchase.

Part 1: Shopping and Adding up the Cost of our New Range

Almost two weeks ago, our oven decided it had done enough baking. In diagnosing the range, Paul narrowed down the problem to two different parts. One of them was the culprit, but there was no way to figure out which one it was. Both parts cost around $150 to replace.

Continuing to research, he discovered that if one part was good and the other one was bad, then the range would short out the new part.

In calculating our worst case scenario, we found it could cost up to $450 ($150 for first new part which might short out and need another first new part for $150 and then an additional $150 for the second problem part) to repair our 10-year-old range.

Wondering what the price of a new range would cost, we decided to go shopping.

Shopping for our New Range

Keeping $450 as our target price, we browsed new ranges. My only must-have was a smooth-top surface. We searched online at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Best Buy, Sears, Amazon, Walmart, Kmart, Target, J.C. Penney, hhgregg, and local appliance stores. The lowest prices were through Sears which made me happy.

Our previous range was a Kenmore, and I loved it! My favorite range found online was a Sears Kenmore with the same base model number as our previous one. And this new one had a few more bells and whistles. Yay!

The unit chosen was on sale for $454.99 from $729.99 which was a $275.00 savings. This unit was close to our $450 target price, but not at or under it – yet.

Adding up the Cost of our New Range

The sale price of the unit was $454.99 which we added to our shopping cart. Then to have the deliverers install the new oven, we needed to purchase a new cord.

Since we did not know for sure why the previous range quit, we did not want to take any chances with an old cord. We added the cord for $26.99.

Needing our previous range removed, we added the $15 removal fee, and then tax was $26.77. With all the charges, our shopping cart looked like this:

Item	Price
Range	$454.99
Cord	$26.99
Removal fee	$15.00
Delivery	FREE
Subtotal	$496.98

As we were now well over our target price, I was ready to get the savings strategies together to see if it was possible to reach our goal by paying less than the sale price.

Though you already know the end of the story, I will pick up here tomorrow when I share which savings strategies we implemented when purchasing our new range. Hang in there because the story is getting to the good part. 🙂

Question: Do you look for savings all the time or just on big ticket items?

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies

March 8, 2014 by Tracy

I’ve been baking up a storm in our new oven. Having replaced our range during my daughter’s teacher’s last week of school, we had to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week with her which had to include a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

As I have been asked more than once for our chocolate chip cookie recipe, I will document it and share it with you.

Now, this recipe was passed down from my grandmother to my mom, from my mom to me, and I will pass it along to my children as well.

I am not sure where my grandmother received the recipe, but it is delicious. In addition to making chocolate chip cookies, I use this recipe for our M&M cookies, butterscotch chip cookies, and the white chocolate chip cookies.

Using our KitchenAid mixer makes whipping up a double batch of these chocolate chip cookies a breeze. Once the batter is made, I form the cookies using a melon baller to keep the cookies uniform in shape. I then slightly press the round ball of dough into a cookie shape and bake. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes approximately 4 ½ dozen cookies

Ingredients

½ c. shortening
1 tsp. vanilla
½ c. sugar
¼ c. brown sugar
1 well-beaten egg
1 ½ c. flour
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
½ – 12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ c. chopped walnuts or pecans, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Thoroughly cream shortening, vanilla, sugar, and brown sugar.
3. Add the egg, beat thoroughly.
4. Add the dry ingredients.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.
6. Drop from a teaspoon or melon baller onto greased cookie sheet.
7. Bake in 375° oven for 11-12 minutes.
8. Wait about 1 minute after baking before moving to a cooling rack.
9. Let cool and then store in an air-tight container or cookie jar.

This recipe has brought our family hours of bonding time and enjoyment. We make dozens of cookies throughout the year and find this recipe worthy of repeating year after year.

As my daughter’s teacher requested this recipe, I was thrilled to share it while breaking in our new range with multiple batches of chocolate chip cookies. If you are getting an urge to bake, then your family and friends will help you devour these amazing chocolate chip cookies. Happy baking!

Question: What recipe do you have passed down through your family’s generations?

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