For the Love of Lists

Engineering life one step at a time

Quick 10: 10 Inspirational Uses for Mason Jars

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Mason Jar UsesI have fallen in love with mason jars.  I don’t even know why exactly.  But let’s be honest: they’re good sizes, sturdy, and pretty darn cute.  So when I found a 12-pack case of pint size jars on Amazon (and an equally adorable set of blue ones), I couldn’t resist.  This left me brainstorming all the different uses I could find for them.  My a-ha moment was when a friend told me about a “book jar”, a jar filled with scraps of paper detailing book titles that could be picked at random next time I needed a reading suggestion.  This got me thinking: what other decisions and ideas could I simplify by leaving them up to chance?  What thoughts could I store and save to be explored at random later on?  Here is my list of 10 inspirational uses for mason jars.

  1. Book Jar – write book or series titles to choose your next read
  2. Memory Jar – write your favorite memories (with your spouse, kids, etc) to read on a special occasion (New Year’s, anniversary)
  3. Boredom Jar – write ideas for all the things you (or your kids) can do next time you’re bored
  4. Workout Jar – write your favorite workout routines or individual exercises to change-up your fitness plan
  5. Gratitude Jar – write about things/moments you’re grateful for and review them next time you need a pick-me-up
  6. Rewards Jar – write a variety of [healthy/free] rewards you can use to treat yourself after a productive day
  7. Cheer Up Jar – write down all of the things that make you happy or can improve your mood on a rough day
  8. Date Jar – write all of your favorite or original date ideas (places to go, movies to watch, restaurants to try, etc)
  9. Writing Jar – write a list of writing/doodling prompts to kick start your creativity
  10. Motivation Jar – write down all of the ideas that inspire and motivate you

My favorite is the memory jar that my husband and I started when we got married last year, and I can’t wait to look through all of our entries on our first anniversary.  So next time you find yourself stuck, or you just want to add some variety to your life, try out one of these ideas.  Let me know what you think!

 

This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means that I receive a bit of compensation if you make a purchase using the product links above.  It’s no extra cost to you, and I would never suggest a product I wouldn’t buy myself.  I hope you enjoy the recommendations!

Quick 10: 10 New Uses for Makeup Bags

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Makeup Bags

Last year I used a makeup subscription service that sent small bags worth of sample-sized products each month.  It was a lot of fun, but it did leave me with 12 of those bags lying around my house.  So I started finding new ways to use them.  Here are 10 ideas I came up with:

  1. Purse Kit – keep your keys, wallet, ID, and headphones in an easily transferable pouch
  2. Mini Emergency Kit – band-aids, tweezers, hand sanitizer, anti-histamines
  3. Tool Kit – mini scissors, multi-tools, measuring tape, tapes
  4. Hygiene Kit – feminine products, mini toothbrush, oil wipes, tissues
  5. Hair Accessory Storage – hair ribbons, clips, stretch headbands, elastics
  6. Spices/Tea Bags – bring your favorite items with you when you travel
  7. Mini Spa Kit – mister, eye cream, lotion, perfume
  8. Nail Kit – polish, files, orange stick, cuticle cream
  9. Chargers – keep your charges and cables in one convenient pack
  10. Mini Art Kit – mini notepad, crayons, colored pencils, erasers

What more ideas can you think of?  Share below!

Financial Resources for Beginners

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Financial Resources for Beginners

Like most of you, I recently finished filing my taxes.  Yay!  But after about 20 calls to my mother I realized that, with six years of college education under my belt, I should know a lot more about this subject than I do.  Until now, I hadn’t thought of making it a priority.  So I set out on a mission to collect some go-to resources to teach myself more about finances and managing my money.  If you’re looking to understand the basics too, check out some of these sites, books, and apps:

Financial Education
Better Money Habits
MyMoney.gov
Khan Academy
LearnVest
Investopedia

Blogs/Experts
Dave Ramsey
Suze Orman
Money Crashers
Frugal Rules
Money Saving Mom

Books
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Personal Finance in Your 40s and 50s
Personal Finance for Dummies

Apps
Mint
Mobile Banking (Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc)

News/Magazines
Business Insider
Forbes

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s enough to get started.  Don’t be turned away by the book titles – if you’re like me, you want to start with simple explanations and work your way up to more complex strategies.  Of these, Business Insider, the Mint app, and the videos from Better Money Habits are my favorites.  So browse a few sites, learn how the systems work, and you’ll be all set when next year’s tax season rolls around.

Do you have any favorite sites or tips?  Please share them in the comments!

How to Clear Your Inbox with Only 3 Folders

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Disney Week is over, so let’s get down to business.  And I’ll pretend I’m not hearing the music from Mulan in my head…

This week, I’m going to share an idea to organize your emails and clear your inbox with only three folders.  And here’s the best part: you can use this system for nearly all your paper documents and files as well.

How to Clear Your Inbox

By the time I left grad school I had four email accounts, and each was loaded with hundreds of reference emails.  I’d be looking for a past message from a professor or a flight confirmation, and, while the search function helps, it can be time consuming.  I frequently lost tasks within the inbox black hole too.  Plus, it’s been proven that our minds get stressed by information overload, whether or not we think it affects us (and in my case, I’m well aware that it does).  So I decided to find a better way to handle emails.

I looked through my inbox and realized we get the same types of emails as we do standard documents: things to respond to, things to do, things we’re waiting on, and things we’ll reference later (oh, and trash, but you should know where to put those).  So I decided to set up three folders:

  1. Action – Things I need to do
  2. Hold – Information I’m waiting on (ex. need a response, short-term reference)
  3. File – Information I’ll need to reference later

As for the things I needed to respond to, I took care of it in one massive batch at first.  But now, if it will take me less than two minutes, I respond right away (a habit I learned from the popular GTD system).  Otherwise, I consider it a task and it goes in the Action bin.

Here’s how the system works:

Action: This is the most important folder in your work email, in particular.  Any task/response that will take longer than two minute goes in this folder and is added to my master to-do list.  When I’m looking for the tasks that need to be done I sort by “From” or “Subject”, depending on the subject.  If I get a new response through an email chain (and the prior emails are still at the bottom) I simply replace the older email (typically it gets deleted or put in the file bin).  When a task is done, I either delete the emails or file them for future reference.

Hold:  This one’s kind of a mixed bag, but it really comes in handy.  It’s for information you’ll need to act on or for reference in the near future.  For work this usually contains tasks I can’t act on yet (either due to time or needing a response) and information related to future events.  At home this is the spot for travel reservations and order confirmations.  The trick with this folder is to review it frequently to determine if the contents should be moved to the action or file folders (or can be deleted).

File:  So this may be where I stretched the truth on only needing three folders, but technically I still consider this part of my inbox system where the actual reference folders are part of my general email system (it’s like your inbox vs. your file cabinet).  Any emails I think I’ll need later on get put in the file folder.  This requires some real discernment, because, like a lot of people, I get tempted to keep everything.  Only keep the emails you’ll really need in the future; it will save you a lot of time and space in the long run (even virtual storage isn’t endless).  Once a month I go through my file folder and empty it into the appropriate reference folders.  With my work email I even skip the file step and drop emails directly into their reference spots as they come in.  The key here is to make sure you’re actually filing these and not letting them pile up!

I’m not going to lie: it took me hours to get all those emails sorted at first.  But now my inbox is empty, and stays empty continuously.  When I get the day’s emails I simply handle them according to my system.  And because I’m only dealing with a few at a time, it’s easy to determine which are really trash and which are important.  Another great help has been Unroll.me, which showed me all of the useless subscription lists I had been on and let me remove them in minutes.  Now all of the sales emails I only need to see when I’m shopping are rolled up into a single daily email.

This has helped me keep on top of my emails so well that it’s been implemented on all of my accounts.  Here are a few more ways to take advantage of it:

  • Use it for your incoming mail (bins like this or this are great for it)
  • Use it for your paper work/home inbox (a file cabinet helps for reference documents)
  • Modify it for spring cleaning (ex. clothes: action = needs tailoring/repair, hold = seasonal, file = put away)
  • Remember, if it doesn’t fit in any of the three categories it’s either something that can be done immediately or it’s trash. Handle it accordingly.
  • Schedule a date with yourself once a month (or week, depending on quantity) to empty your File folder. Use this time to also scan your Action and Hold files for content that can be moved.
  • Set your inbox folder to show you how many emails it contains, not only the unread ones. This notification can remind you of your goal to keep it empty.  Do the same with your Action and Hold files to stay alert to how many tasks you’ve got on your plate.
  • Use an email management program like Microsoft Outlook to access all of your accounts in one place.

I hope this can help you spring clean your inbox and gain some sanity.  Let me know how it works for you.  As I test out new organization systems I’ll be sure to pass them along, so be sure to sign up for my email list to stay up to date!

 

How to Earn Money While Shopping

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I don’t think there’s anyone on this earth who wouldn’t mind a few extra dollars in their pocket.  And while you can search for promo codes, print out coupons, and seek out sales, there are actually quite a few ways you can earn cash back and rewards for items you’re buying anyway.  Some of these may be nothing new, but collectively they offer you a nice handful of “free money” for barely any extra effort:

  • Ebates

Ebates is a great site that my mom recently introduced me to, and it’s my new favorite way to shop online.  You simply log onto the site, then click the link to your favorite store and continue shopping as you normally would.  You can earn 1-5% cash bank on average (sometimes more), and it is credited to your account almost instantly.  They also offer their own deals at different stores and alert you to sales.  Plus you get a $10 gift card to a choice of stores just for signing up.  At the end of each quarter Ebates mails you a check.  I used it to shop on Amazon over Christmas and got a nice bonus check by mid-January.  Be sure to use it for Groupon deals, because you’ll earn 6%!

  • Grocery Rebate Apps

I’ve just started using these, and they do require a bit of time, but I’ve gotten $12 back so far just from scanning grocery receipts and answering a few polls.  Ibotta and SavingStar are the two I have installed on my phone.  Both work essentially the same way: scan the rewards before you shop to see which redemptions are available, shop as you normally would, then scan the items and take a photo of your receipt.  You can redeem your rewards through PayPal or through gift cards.  The difference is that Ibotta asks you to answer quick polls or watch short videos in order to earn rewards, and SavingStar offers freebies and a weekly deal on a fresh food item (such as apples).  In my opinion though, Ibotta offers rewards on better items, such as any brand of bread, cereal, eggs, and milk on occasion.  And you can form teams to add bonuses – the larger your team, the more you can earn (if you’re interested in joining my team, enter the referral code “iewolqd”).  Use both apps to bulk up savings.

  • Price Match Savings

I’m not sure if other stores offer this, but Walmart recently debuted their Savings Catcher app and I’ve already collected over $30 back on a gift card.  We get our groceries from their store in town primarily, so taking an extra minute to scan the receipt bar code is worth it.  Even if you don’t shop there all the time, the savings are figured out automatically and you can redeem them at any point.  Sometimes you don’t get any cash back, but sometimes you may also get $10-$15 from a single trip.   All you have to do is scan, so you can set your savings in motion by the time you drive home.

  • Credit Card Rewards

So I’ll preface this one with a caution: credit card rewards systems are great, as long as you’re responsible with them.  That being said, there are several great options for rewards systems out there: flat rate cash back, 5% rewards, gas rewards, mileage rewards, and more.  Research recommendations for the best cards, and choose the one that will benefit you the most.  I love to use my points for airline tickets, because nothing beats saving up to take large chunks off that ticket price.  I also know people who redeem the points for gift cards to their favorite stores and restaurants.  If you’re routinely paying off your purchases at the end of the month, credit card rewards can give you a healthy boost.

  • Airline Mile Programs & Partners

Speaking of airline miles, most major airlines offer mileage programs that reward you with for customer loyalty.  Fly often enough and you can join their elite programs, earning you free bags, VIP boarding lines, and free upgrades (it’s not as hard as you think: flying United 5-6 times in a year can be enough to make you a “Silver Member”).  Many airlines also have industry and corporate partners, where you can earn extra miles by flying partner airlines for other locations or purchasing certain products (ex. FTD has a deal with United Plus members).  Do some research on the different airlines to see which programs offer the most bang for your buck.

  • Rewards Cards

Most stores offer some form of a loyalty card, either in the form of a store credit card or a rewards card.  I’m a fan of the latter.  Kohl’s, CVS, Petco, Regal Cinemas, and others offer you cash back and freebies based on how often you shop with them (ex. 5% cash back, free popcorn).  The best part is that most of them can simply look up your account via phone number, so you don’t have to worry if you leave your card at home.  You can also stores cards on your phone with an assortment of “wallet” apps.  Kohl’s is my favorite of these, as they sometimes reward you with $10 in Kohl’s Cash for every $50 you spend.  And if you use CVS for prescriptions, don’t forget that you can apply them to your ExtraCare rewards.

  • Amazon Smile

Okay, so this one won’t earn you extra cash, but it will donate that money to a charity of your choice.  It functions the same way as Amazon’s standard site, but Amazon Smile automatically donates a portion of your purchase (0.5%) without you paying anything extra.  While they do offer several spotlight charities such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Doctors Without Borders, you can also write in a charity of your own that you’d like to support.  I think this is a great idea, and I highly recommend signing up; Amazon will even ask you if you’d like to switch sites once you sign on.

These programs have really helped my husband and me to save a bit of money on our purchases.  Just last month we used Ebates with Groupon to get a San Diego ticket package worth $211 for only $90, including an instant $6 cash back (plus 90 credit card points).

Here are some tips I’ve found useful:

  • Combine these programs/apps with coupons and sales for even better results.
  • Focus on using these ideas for what you’re already planning to buy; don’t get distracted into shopping for items only because they offer a deal.
  • Remember: all those nickels and dimes add up!

I hope this has given you some ideas for new ways to add some padding to your household budget.  Have you tried any other ways to save on shopping?  Please share below!