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‘Mommy, I’m bored!’ Top 5 online activities for your kids

Finance

This is a guest post.

When nasty weather, a cold or the flu keeps kids indoors, plan ahead for those days with some great online activities kids will enjoy. Whether it is learning a new language with mom or dad, or practicing multiplication tables with an older sibling, kids can find plenty of cool things to do to kill their time. Here is a top five list of things your children can do while surfing the net.

Fun Languages
Learn Spanish, German, or French online with your kids. Give your children the gift of language with some key phrases and words to encourage brain activity in the language zones. Studies have shown that children exposed to multiple languages in their elementary years are more likely to learn a second language as adolescents and adults. Statistics indicate basic knowledge of a second language promotes better understanding of English grammar. The internet has some great resources for older children and parents wishing to improve their vocabulary knowledge and grammar skills. Word a day programs and test prep programs are often as entertaining for the parents as they are for the kids.

Arts and Crafts
There is a plethora of sites offering downloadable art project sheets, coloring pages, creative flash cards, art activity books and art games on the internet. Let the creative genius of your young artist shine through with how to draw tutorials and interactive art history sites. Don’t forget the musician in the house, as there are plenty of great music tutorials complete with video and audio for the young future soloist to watch. Many sites offer interesting and kid friendly “how to” videos for piano and vocals. Many sites offer inexpensive or free holiday cards the kids can create and print for one of a kind holiday or birthday gift giving. Crayola offers terrific downloadable coloring pages, games and activities.

More Academics with Math
Colorful math puzzles, homework practice sessions all online, downloadable speed tests and great interactive programs abound for the math whiz. Fun and entertaining, these online interactive programs are often free and downloadable in seconds. Your kids will never be bored again when accessing such interesting activities as tangrams, money games and creating their own math flash cards. Periodic tables and math and science in the kitchen bring fun and kid friendly experiments for rainy days and long summer vacations. Keep them interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with how things work videos.

Early Learners Have Fun Too
There are wonderful sites that teach young children and early learners about counting, colors and shapes. Teach your children about telling time and other valuable skills. Learn about money, traffic safety and stranger danger in fun and engaging videos and interactive games. Young children are remarkably quick to pick up on new skills through technology. Parents can take advantage of wonderful online activities at many educational websites.

Games and More Games
There are free and not so free video and mobile device games for children of all ages. Fun and diverting puzzles, adventure and arcade, card and board games for younger to middle school aged children can be found just a few clicks away. Fun and challenging sports and trivia games for high school aged kids are often found at no charge.

Sell old CDs
Got some unused video games ready for the bin? A DVD that you kids received for Christmas and never watched? An old CD they don’t like to listen to anymore? Here it is another opportunity to spend some time online having fun. Websites such musicmagpie will allow your children to sell their unwanted CDs and make a bit of money out of it. Less clutter around the house, more fun for your kids. That sounds like a win-win.

Mortgage Race, Part 2

Finance

As I mentioned last month, Crystal and I are in a race to pay off our mortgages.  The loser(henceforth known as “Crystal”) has to visit the winner.   Now, since–judging by the temperature–Crystal lives in Hell, I think it would be good for her to visit in the winter.  There something about the idea of going ice fishing, staring at a hole in the ice while sitting on a 5 gallon bucket, cursing the day I was born.

Today, she threw down the gauntlet again.   She has apparently decided that, since her prerequisites are met, she’s going to win.  Sure, she’s closed on her house and built her savings back up to $20000, but it doesn’t matter.  I’ve sent a small army of arson-ninjas to keep her from getting ahead.    They are so small, they can only carry tiny matches and single drops of gasoline, so the damage they can do is tiny, but it will add up.   Just a word of advice:  if you hire an army of arson-ninjas, go for the upsell and get ninjas that are at least 2 feet tall.   Anything less is just inefficient.

When I announced the race last month, my mortgage balance was $26,266.40.  Today, it is $25,382.53.   In three days, there will be another $880 applied to the principal.

In February, our renters will move in and we’ll conservatively have another $650 to pay.  When that starts, our balance should be around $23,000.   Adding a portion of the rent payment should mean we pay off the house in May 2014.  However, when I bring in our side hustle money, that will bring us back to September 2013.

Crystal’s projected payoff is July 2013, so I’ll have to hustle.

 

Selling Your Car

Finance

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Pa...

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money.  Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value.  Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

  1. Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
  2. Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well.  Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
  3. Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.”  It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

  • Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses.  Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
  • Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept.  Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time.  Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
  • Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car.  That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car.  “Officer, Sumdood took my car.  He was wearing jeans.”  That won’t get your car back.
  • Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer.   A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars.  It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

 

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Homeland: What does it cost to make a hit TV show?

Celebrities

HomelandWhen you are producing your own TV show, you can do whatever you want to cut costs. However, you must realize that making a hit TV show is something that is very expensive to do. You must pay your actors handsomely because they are usually Hollywood A-listers, but your actors are only the beginning of the payroll.

You have a very large staff that works on the show to make sure everything works. If you have ever watched the credits at the end of a TV episode, you know that there are many people working on the show. You must remember that every single person on the credits was paid a salary to work on the episode. You must now imagine looking at your balance sheet and deciding how to pay all these people for each episode.

There are many people who wonder why their TV shows do not look as well produced as others. This is something that is left up solely to money. Homeland has Showtime behind them, and Showtime can afford to pay for the exotic locations and all the effects that are needed. However, there are other shows that have to shoot on a much smaller budget. They use a smaller amount of locations, and they use a smaller amount of effects. This does not hurt the show in all cases, but a lack of money would make a show like Homeland impossible.

When Hollywood was equal parts television and movies, Homeland would have become a movie because of the budget. The budget that is spent on just one episode of this show could be used to make a decent movie. In today’s Hollywood, there are many TV shows that would have been movies 20 or 30 years ago.

When you watch Homeland, you need to remember that there is a ton of money behind every episode. You may not like every episode, but you must remember that the producers and studio paid handsomely to have that episode produced. The money that fuels Hollywood today is off the charts, and we must respect that when every new episode come on the television.

The Library vs Amazon

Finance, Life

A few weeks ago, I discovered the queue at my public library’s website.  The process is simple: Select your books, wait a few days, then pick them up. They are available from any library in the county, delivered to my local library. That’s awesome. Much more convenient-and cheaper-than Amazon.

So I moved a couple of pages of my Amazon wish-list into the library’s queue.

I must not have been thinking, because two days later, I got an email telling me that 19 books were ready to be picked up and 10 more were in transit.facepalm

In this county, each checkout is good for 21 days. For items that don’t have a waiting list, you can reserve 3 times. That’s 12 weeks for 29 books. Hopefully, I’m up to the challenge.   Please keep in mind, I’m a father of three, two of whom are in diapers, and I’m married, and I have a full time job.

I have frugally blown every second of spare time for months.

Update: This was another post written in advance. When all of the books came in, I suspended my request list. Little did I realize, the suspension cancels itself after 30 days. That was 30 more books. Whee!

New Ideas

Business

lawn gnome

 I had an email exchange with my close friend and business partner earlier this week.

“I get ideas but think they are probably stupid.  Okay,  I have some ideas. Again, I get scare you’ll think I’m reaaaally dumb.”

My response?

“No ideas are stupid.  You start filtering **** like that, we’ll never find the ******* gold.

 Brainstorming has no filter.  You never know where a “stupid” idea might lead or what associations it might trigger.”

When you are trying to generate new ideas, applying a filter like “That sounds stupid” won’t get you anywhere.  It’s idea suicide.

Could a discussion on the possibilities of becoming a lawn gnome distributor lead to becoming a successful manufacturer of combat gnomes?

Brainstorming involves turning off your stupid filters and running with it.   Keep a recorder or a notebook handy and keep track of everything.   Go off on tangents and see where they lead.  Maybe they’ll lead to the gold.

The one thing you can’t do while brainstorming is criticize.   If you start shooting down ideas, you are destroying the opportunity to find greatness.  Even if an idea is  impractical, build on it.  There has to be an angle that becomes worthy of consideration.    On the off-chance that there’s not, run with it anyway.  It’s an exercise in creativity.

I regularly send my friend emails with potential business ideas.  Most of them come to nothing, but once in a while, something clicks and we launch a successful venture together.   If I were filtering ideas because they might be stupid, we might not have some of the projects we’ve got.

In addition to random & odd emails, I’ve got a notebook of some kind with me everywhere I go to record any passing idea I may have.   In my car, I use a voice recorder.   I periodically review everything I’ve noted and copy most of it into evernote.

Someday, those pieces may come together into a billion dollar idea.

How do you generate ideas?  Do you bounce ideas off of friends or get drunk and shuffle a Trivial Pursuit deck into a Monopoly game?

 

 

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