Back To School Shopping And Tax Free Weekend

It is time for back to school shopping and one of my wife's least favorite times to shop, luckily she is not big on shopping. School starts next week and this weekend is "tax free" weekend in Texas. Most of the time we do not bother with the tax free sales simply due to the crowds are worse than the last minute Christmas shopping crowds. However, this year we have put school shopping off due to being unemployed and our youngest will be wearing uniforms this year.

Texas has had tax free weekend for several years now and have made changes over the years. In general you have to spend over $100 to get the savings, easy to do when shopping for school supplies and clothes. Here is a link to the tax free list. For the most part the list makes sense but, there is part of the list that is a bit like the old Texas Blue Law. You may ask what is a Blue Law? Today, it is directed at alcohol sales. However, as many many years ago it was expanded to things like; you could buy nails but not a hammer, ammunition but not a gun, a camera but not film, etc. Now on the tax free holiday list here are some "blue law" type of gaffs; backpacks (only for elementary and secondary students - are the cashiers the backpack police?), golf hats but not golf gloves, diapers (baby and adult), pajamas and robes?, swimsuits but not other athletic type clothing.

Anyway, off to fight the tax free shopping crowds. I will post later on how much money if any we saved.

Resume What Do You Really Need? Part III

Format is yet another part of the resume. What format is best Chronological, Functional or Combined? Many word processing programs have resume templates, which are good but don't really help you with questions that you may have about what to put in your resume. We found a resume program at Half Price Books called Resume Works Pro for less than $10, you can also find a copy on Amazon.com from $15-19. It is easy to use and has a lot of helpful features.

• Resume samples
• You can convert the resume that you create in Resume Works Pro to MS Word, PDF and text files
• Tons of sample cover letters
• Contact manager
• The ability to easily edit the look and content of your resume after you finish to change the style or add/delete sections.
• A walk through much like many Income Tax programs.

Formats, Chronological is the most common but may not be for you. I found a good explanation of the three types here it is for Psychology but much of it applies to everyone. I found that the Combined format works best for me, due to the complexity of my job field. Next, is the different sections within your resume. Which ones to use is up to you but, I have the following; Name and contact information, Job Title, Summary, Work Experience, Designs, Skills, Patents, Security Clearance, Education and References.

• Name and contact information - Pretty self explanatory (Name, Address, Phone numbers & Email). If you have an online resume on Monster or one of the others, I suggest that you only put your name and maybe the area in which you live (Dallas, TX or San Diego, CA) and leave off the rest of the information.
  
• Job Title - I use the industry standard job title for my profession "IC Mask Designer"
• Summary - I use Summary as opposed to Objective just because one it tells someone exactly what you do and two if you are sending a resume "duh, you are looking for a job." This is just my opinion.
• Experience - For my situation, since I worked for the same company but several groups within the company, I chose to use the following format for my experience. Company Name - Group Name, Location (Dallas, TX), Dates and Title. Then used bullet points for each detail of my job, this comes in to the keyword searches from employers.
• Skills - I have all of my programming languages, programs (MS Office, AutoCAD, Photo Shop, etc.), operating systems (Mac, PC, Linux, Sun workstations, etc.)
  
• Designs - A list of all of the designs that I worked on.
  
• Patents - A list of my patent number's and what they are used in.
• Security Clearance - This helps if you wind up applying for a company that contracts with the government, even if it is not currently active.
• Education - I only have use my college education. Most people say not to use your high school since it dates you if you are "cough cough" a middle aged to older person. In my case though my college eduction still dates me.
• References - I put "Available upon request" for one references will extend your resume. Always ask before you put someone as a reference.
  

This software has tons of resume examples from Account Executive to Worldwide Procurement Director. Although, I did not find exact matches for my field, I did find a lot of examples that I could adapt to fit my resume. I wound up with a great resume that is also pleasing to the eye that will hopefully help get me a new job.

Money Saving Monday - Cheap Summer Fun In Dallas

As you might guess, I live in Dallas, Texas. Whether you are unemployed or just trying to save money in the terrible economy, there are ways to have fun on the cheap. This morning on Good Morning Texas (GMT), they had several money saving segments. Some of them we were aware of and others were news to us, here is a link to several summer fun ideas on the cheap.

One of the favorites for the kids is swimming and this weekend we took them to one of the local recreation center pools that also has a water slide and splash area. For the four of us the total cost was $16. Check before you go but, some of the smaller water parks and pools will allow you to bring in your own food. We brought drinks, sandwiches and chips. This week we plan on going to Hawaiian Falls, there are three in the Dallas area; Garland, The Colony and Mansfield. The offer several package options and they allow you to bring in a cooler (always a plus!).

Movies are always fun but, can be very pricey. AMC is having a "Summer Movie Camp" and these $1 movies for charity are from June 17th through August 5th. The shows are every Wednesday at 10:00 am.

Specially with children they need to feel secure and normal and they don't need to be worrying that you do not have money for this and that. So, I hope that this has given you some ideas of how to entertain and have fun on the cheap.

Money Saving Monday - CMF Ads And Entrecard

I recently signed up with two ad exchange programs. CMF Ads (Changing Marketing Forever), you can find their ads on the left hand column of my blog under my "Featured Sites." What is CMF Ads you may ask? Well, it is a low cost (even FREE) way to advertise your blog. CMF is quick and easy to sign up and for your site to be approved. This very user friendly site is a must for any blogger and especially for new bloggers to get exposure. CMF is not olny for publisher but advertisers as well.

CMF Ads - Low cost, no-nonsense advertising

Once you get signed up, you choose you ad price. The minimum ad price is 1 credit or $0.25 per 30 day ad. There are two ways to get credits on CMF; 1. accept ads from other publishers/advertisers or 2. buy credits. To buy credits you can choose from 40 credits for $10.00 all the up to 2,000 credits for $430.00. Unlike a lot of other sites that offer PayPal (I have but I am not all that crazy about), they offer several payment options; MasterCard, Visa, Discover, American Express and PayPal. Next you need to get the widget code onto your blog. They have 5 separate options of widgets, I am using the 2x2 widget now which shows four ads at at time.

The other advertising site that I have recently found and added is Entrecard. You can find their ads under the "Featured Sites" as well. One difference that I have found between CMF and Entrecard is that on Entrecard, you earn credits by clicking on other Entrecard sites. So far, just by clicking on other sites I have 5 ads that other bloggers have places on my blog and I have purchaced 12 ads for my blog to appear on other blogs.

There is much that I need to learn about each of these sites but, so far I don't see how you could go wrong with either as an inexpensive way to advertise your blog. As of today, I have spent $0.00 on advertising and increased my blog exposure. These are a Money Saving Monday must have!

Money Saving Monday - DIY Laundry Soap

Today is the first "Money Saving Monday" and I would like to share a DIY Laundry Soap recipe. My wife and I started making this after I learned of my pending job loss and when the price of laundry soap not to mention everything else went sky high.

I found the recipe below on a google search here. There are lots of recipes out there this just happens to be the one that we use. We were both a little bit skeptical but, thought why not just give it a try? After all it does not cost that much to pick up everything that you need and the price per load is much less than what you pick up at the store. We made our first batch and were surised that the clothes were clean, smelled clean and there was half the amount of lint in the dryer trap!

3 C. Water (boiling)
1 Bar soap (grated or chopped) we use Ivory and chop it very fine
1/2 C. Borax
1 C. Washing Soda (we were unable to find Washing Soda anywhere, you can substitute it with "pH increaser" you can find it where your store keeps their pool and spa supplies)
5 Gallon bucket with lid

• Grate or chop the soap and add it to a large sauce pan (we use an old camping pan that we never use for anything else) with the boiling water. Stir over medium to medium-low heat until the soap disolves and is melted.
• Fill the 5 gallon bucket half full of hot water. Add the melted soap, Borax and Washing Soda/pH increaser. Stir until everthing is completely mixed.
• Fill the rest of the bucket up to about 2 inches from the top and stire some more.
• Put the lid on the bucket and use about 1/4 of a cup for every load, we use a little more for towels or really dirty clothes. You need to stir before each use.

Each bucket costs less than $2.00 to make. In the past six months we have made to 5 gallon containers with a family of four. In our laundry room we do not have room for the bucket to be so, we transfer some of the laundry soap into an old liquid laundry soap bottle.