Non-vacation to Florida booked

I’m not a fan of the heat. I’m not a fan of Florida. But since I got myself banned from that massage school in New Jersey, I had to look elsewhere for training in myofascial release and structural integration. It’s not the career solution I’m really looking for, but I watched the instructor’s 4-minute YouTube [...]

Already working on my Christmas giving

Last year, after seeing the horrifying prices at Toys R Us, I put together craft kits from dollar store deals to donate to Toys for Tots. This year, I’d like to do something nicer, and I’ve begun the hunt for quality gifts for dirt cheap.
On one of the coupon blogs I follow, they pointed out that [...]

It’s a sweet week to book flights

I’ve been stalking a few destinations for upcoming trips – Vegas for late July and Aspen in late September. The prices for both destinations have dropped dramatically in the last 24 hours. I’m no long planning to go to Vegas because I want to take a different massage course than the one being held there, [...]

Can I make Gift Certificates work for my little biz?

I have never actively offered gift certificates for several reasons, but I’m starting to revisit my conclusions, which you are welcome to debate, since I’m hardly infallible:

I’ve always thought of gift certificates for personal services as “girl” things, and over 80% of my clientele is male.
I’m a person, not an establishment – when giving a gift, [...]

Ah, the ‘burbs…home to friendly CVSes

Oh boy did I enjoy my drug store games in the suburbs of New Jersey this past weekend. They had almost everything in stock even on the last day of the sale, when coupons gave a bad beep for whatever reason, they knew where to look on the coupon to ascertain its legitimacy and then [...]

I need to blog about something brilliant

I was contacted by a reporter from Money magazine regarding a comment I left a month ago on Pants In a Can. Brainy Smurf had blogged about Bank of America slashing his credit limit in half, and I chimed in with:
Oh, Brainy, we have too much in common with our credit cards. We seem to be [...]

Bridezilla’s Latest Frugal Wedding Ideas

My sister has her first job as an RN lined up (woohoo – exactly the job she wanted, in the hospital she found herself drooling over!), but it doesn’t start for another 6-7 weeks. In other words, she can spend that much time doing what she really ought to be doing: getting the wedding details completely sorted out. When [...]

Brand Disloyalty: What I’ve Discovered

Because I don’t give away everything I get for free with coupons, I’ve tried out a lot of new stuff in the past 6 months. Last month I sent comments to a few manufacturers about either liking or disliking their products, but there are more. Now, a lot of these products are frequently on sale [...]

Etiquette Dilemma: Mixing Biz with Non-Biz

I was going to write “mixing business with pleasure”, but given the business I’m in, you might have been expecting something much sleazier than this…
I mentioned that a client of mine offered to optimize my website and web presence for free – she sees it as a hobby of sorts, I suspect because she found it [...]

CVS: We’re having it my way, Jose

Earlier this week I emailed CVS customer service about the anti-MMK coupon policy at my local store, the shift manager who wouldn’t give me his name (good thing I caught it before I knew I’d need it), and overall cluelessness about rainchecks. I had previously had a run in with the night manager there, who [...]