Homeminders - home reminders

Do you have trouble remembering the last time you changed your home's air filter? Or maybe you've been searching for the manual for one of your appliances, and you can't find it anywhere. Or another good one we never remember until we are already on the road heading out of town is turning down the hot water heater. Wouldn't it be nice if there we some fool proof system that would remind us to do all these things and keep up with all our house information? Well, there is! It's a site called Homeminders. From a monthly maintenance schedule emails to weather alerts, and vacation reminders to document vaulting, Homeminders is the ultimate service for every homeowner.

Rentometer - rentals made easy

Are you a landlord or a tenant? If you answered "yes," then you should check out Rentometer. From the tenant side, you can compare your rent with other local properties to make sure you're not paying too much. You may even be able to send maintenance requests to your landlord through them; reducing the hassle of tracking down your landlord. For landlords, there's a plethora of services designed to help you manage your rentals, from Craigslist posting and tenant screening to a dashboard to manage all your rentals in one place. So, if you're a landlord or a tenant, check them out and see if they're right for you.

NoNotes - stop taking notes

Are you a college student who finds it hard to listen to your professor and take notes at the same time? Or maybe you're heading to a conference this weekend, but your colleagues aren't, and you want to fill them in on all the talks? Well, then NoNotes may have the answer for you.  In NoNotes own words, they are "a high quality low cost transcription and translation provider. We take your audio files and turn them in to text and we can translate any document to more than 80 languages." Transcription services are nothing new, but they've simply made it easy to do. You simply send them the audio, and they'll send you back a complete word-for-word copy. So, next time you "don't want to miss a thing" (as Aerosmith would say), check them out.

Little Librarian - encourage your little reader

Does your child love going to the library and reading books? Well, now she can take it to the next level. With the Little Librarian kit, she can become her own librarian in her own library! What a great way to encourage reading, and the skills of organizing, sharing, borrowing, and returning. So, if you've got a budding librarian or reading enthusiast in your midst, you need to check this out (and you don't even have to return it or deal with late fees!).

Voting - Knowledge is Power

As most of us are heading to the polls in the next couple weeks, it's a good time to remember that voting is an incredible privilege that we have as Americans. And as it is an incredible privilege, we need to be sure to educate ourselves. To that end, here are a couple of sites for those in Georgia that will help you get ready. For those not in Georgia, do all you can to learn about your candidates and the amendments that will be on the ballot. A simple Google search will get you a lot of the information you need.

Constitutional Amendments on the Georgia ballot - http://lwvga.org/CAs.htm

Find your Georgia voting location and a wealth of other information about the elections in your area - http://www.sos.ga.gov/mvp

Pillbox - which pill is that?

The National Library of Medicine and the FDA are partnering to bring you a new resource called Pillbox. Pillbox helps you identify unknown pills. You simply enter some of the characteristics like color, shape, and other markings, and then it will tell you which pill it is! How "Oh, Cool!" is that! So, next you can't remember if the blue pill is your heart medicine or your thyroid medication, this site can sort it out for you! (Now, the site is still in beta, so be sure to check with a pharmacist at the end of the day.)

Own an Island - your piece of the world

Ever thought about owning your own island? Well, Private Islands Online allows you to search and view private islands for sale across the world. And if your pockets aren't yet deep enough to purchase an island, you can search for island rentals as well. Hey, and if you're pockets still aren't deep enough (like mine!), you can check out the site and just have some fun daydreaming!

Finance Friday - Life Insurance

Do you have life insurance? Do you even need life insurance? If you're single and have no dependents or family to speak of probably not, but if you have a family that depends on you, you definitely need it. From all the research I've done, here's what I would recommend - a term life insurance policy worth about 10 times your annual salary. This is typically enough to help cover the costs of your burial, paying off the house, covering the kids' colleges, and a few other things to help take the pressure off. And if you're a spouse that does not work? Well, yes, you probably need life insurance too. It's a little harder to calculate how much you would need, but think through what the other spouse would have to pay for if you were gone - childcare costs, etc. Term life insurance is really not that expensive, and it is totally worth it! If you need help calculating it, let me know. I have a spreadsheet that I got from one of my personal finance classes that really helps you put it all together.

Cousins Camp - fostering family ties

Here's a pretty cool idea that I ran across. As many families live far away from each other, cousins don't often get to know each other very well. To foster family ties, work with your family members to create a Cousins Camp. Send your kids (cousins) to one of the family member's house for a few days, have structured activities, and let the kids bond. It also works well to send them to Cousins Camp at the grandparents house. This is a three way win - the cousins get to bond, the grandparents get to bond with their grandchildren, and the parents get much needed time to focus on their relationship with each other. However you do it, this is a great way to keep families close when they live far away!

Manpacks - socks/underwear/t-shirt subscription

Huh? A new company, Manpacks, is now offering manpacks (a mail-order subscription to replace your old socks, underwear, and t-shirts) to "give men (and the people who love them) more time to build empires, climb mountains, slay dragons... to achieve the goals they aspire to." Yep, that's right. If you (guy) or you (girl who has to clean up after the guy) are tired of  hole-y t-shirts; permanently brown socks, and worn out underwear, BUT you don't want to be hassled by going shopping to replace them, then you can sign up for this subscription service that will mail you a manpack with new socks/underwear/t-shirts every few months. I'm not sure if this is a genius idea to help out lazy men, or a completely crazy idea. Either way, there you have it!

Corn Maze - How they do it

Okay, I've received a few requests to find out and post how corn mazes are created, so here you go. After a little research, the mystery is solved. A maze is cut into the corn by a tractor with a GPS! No, it's not as simple as taking your GPS out of your car, throwing it on a tractor and heading off into the fields, but it's not that far off from it.

Basically, you plant your corn throughout the acreage you plan to use for the maze; usually doing it in double rows, so it's thicker for the maze. Then you use the special software program to design your maze and plug it into your GPS. Once the corn is a foot or two high, you can hook your GPS up to your tractor and have at it!

Prior to GPS, they would use a grid system in the field to create the maze. Yes, think back to those high school math classes. Glad we have GPS now! In case you feel like starting your own maze someday, you can check out these guys at Corn Mazes America. Thanks to them for helping me solve the mystery!

Finance Friday - Stay At Home Vs. Work

I ran across this really interesting blog post the other day on Money Help For Christians entitled "Stay At Home Mom Math Analysis - What’s a Paycheck Worth?" It gives a sample chart of how much a parent would really make if they worked outside the home rather than stayed home with their kids. It's a pretty eye-opening chart when you look at the numbers. I've never seen it truly laid out in numbers quite so plainly, so it was pretty neat to see. My wife stays home, and I always think in the back of my mind about the "what ifs" if she went back to work, so it's "good" to see that we've made the right choice (financially speaking) to have her stay home (Thanks for all you do babe! I know it's more work than any job would ever be! I appreciate you!). Check it out and see where your family stands on the chart.

Pumpkin Patches And More - find one near you

Whether you're looking for a pumpkin patch, corn maze, hay ride, or any other type of Halloween fun, pumpkinpatchesandmore.org is your place to find it. It's not the prettiest looking site, but it has tons of listing all across the US, and 6 other countries (in case you're traveling?). Anyway, take your family on a hayride, enjoy some hot chocolate, and take a pumpkin home to carve. What better way to spend a day with the family!

Indeed - find your next job here

Okay, so obviously with the world we live in today, many people are looking for jobs. So, here's a great place to go to search for one - Indeed.com. This site is basically a search engine dedicated to jobs; when you search it aggregates the jobs from all the other job search sites and lists them out for you. So, whether a company listed their job opening on Careerbuilder, Monster, or some other site, it will probably turn up in this search. I've used this site many times in the past, and when I'm looking for a job down the road some day, I'll probably use it again. If you're looking for a job right now, check out this site, and good luck in your search!

Violight - cell phone sanitizer

Did you know that your cell phone may be dirtier than the sole of your shoe or even a toilet seat? Yep, that's pretty nasty all right. With our daily, and sometime hourly, use of cell phones, it makes sense that they can get pretty dirty. In fact, take yours out now and look at it. See all those finger print smudges? Now think about the last five places you set it down. Unhuh, it's pretty nasty all right. Well, a company called Violight has developed a UV Cell Phone Sanitizer that eliminates 99.9% of germs in just minutes (they actually came out with a toothbrush sanitizer a couple years ago as well, so if your toothbrush looks a little gross, you can take a look at that product too!). Okay, on that note, I'm going to go wash my hands!

Paper Soap - "soap on a ropes" little brother!

Do you prefer to bring your own soap when you travel, but hate packing a wet, filmy bar of soap? Or maybe you're heading out into the wilderness this weekend, and you've already remedied your coffee problems after last week's post, but now you need to figure out how to clean yourself while you're camping? Well, "soap on a rope" move over! Paper soap is here to play! Basically, you take a sheet of soap into the shower with you, add water, and work it into a lather. Hey, and it's airplane carry-on safe!

Finance Friday - Last Will and Testament

Okay, so this one is probably more to motivate myself than for anyone reading this, but, well you all may need some motivation as well. So here's my plan, my wife and I do not have an official Last Will and Testament; yes, I now that's pretty ridiculous considering we have kids. But, anyway, I plan to rectify that this weekend. I heard the other day on the radio from Dave Ramsey about his special deal through US Legal Forms - just go to www.uslegalforms.com/dave. It looks like you can get your Last Will, Living Will, and Power of Attorney for yourself and your spouse for about $44. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. So, the challenge to myself and to those who are in my same boat is to make it happen this weekend! Whether you use US Legal Forms, an attorney, or some other method, just go make it happen!