Cleaning as you go

If everyone lived in a perfect world each person in the house would pick up the mess right when they made it. With some training this can be done. When everything is picked up the day you actually use to clean your home means deep regular cleaning can be done.

How do you teach everyone in your home to clean up the mess they make? This is a process and will not occur over night. If you get the whole family involved in cleaning your home then they begin to gain an understanding of why it takes so long to clean. If you must pick up messes first and then do deep cleaning you probably never can finish the job. You are worn out before you start.

When you have a child clean up each mess they make and they don't do it the natural consequence is less time to play. When they do clean up each mess and you notice that it took them less time to clean their room than usual make sure you have them identify why it went faster. Take notice and reinforce the positive behavior.

Another natural consequence is when a child wants to stay up past their bedtime remind them that they must get up at 7 am and not complain. The natural consequence is being tired yet you empowered them by allowing them to make their own decision. Eventually they will decide that they would rather get sleep then wake up tired the next day.

When it comes to teaching an adult to clean up after themselves this brings a whole new set of problems. The more they are set in their ways the more work it takes to help them learn that picking up after themselves makes house cleaning easier. The only way I know to get an adult to understand is by making them participate in regular cleaning of the home.

In an equal world the woman works just like the man and usually even more. They should clean house just like you do. Eventually they will realize how much time it takes just to do normal cleaning of bathrooms, etc. Give them a job and do not accept the excuse but you do it so better than I do and it takes you less time. They will try this but in time they will realize that if they clean up their own mess you may be less likely to ask them to help do all the deep cleaning chores.

This empowers them to decide it is better to do a little than a lot. If you have a family that participates in the whole cleaning process then be grateful as you have a clean house that takes less time out of your life to clean. Here are some tools that can make cleaning easier as well.

The 2-year contract scam

Satellite, cell phone and many other companies offer the 2-year contract which promises to save you money. The way the satellite companies pull you in is by advertising the low price of $29.99 giving you Prime movie channels like HBO for 3 months for free. When you get your first bill you are charged for the rental of the receivers which was not included in the advertised low price of $29.99. The basic package does not include channels anyone wants so you must move to a more expensive package.

Finally you find a package deal you like but it is the $39.99 so your first bill is $55 for the first year. A promotional $100 rebate card which had no cash value adds to the great deal. Phone companies give you a free phone with all the newest bells and whistles which all sounds good, but is it worth binding yourself to a 2-year contract? A lot can happen in two years in this economy like a loss of a job. Your financial situation changes and there you are stuck in the middle of a two contract that is legal and binding.

Year two comes and then the boom is lowered. They make up for all the costs not paid in year one. You are a prisoner of the two-year contract and at their mercy of whatever they decide to charge at that moment. You are penalized if you stop their service before 2 year is up. They have your bank account and credit card information to make sure you do. You are caught in a vicious but legal scam and do they care that you lost your job or life changed for some reason? No, definitely not as you signed a legal and binding contract made to order for their company without you the customer in mind.

Solution:

• Try not to purchase anything that requires signing a contract.
• If you are in a 2-year contract notify the promotional department as they want to keep you as a customer when the contract ends. Request a lower payment. Sometimes they will take off $10 or more.
• Bartering in furniture stores, appliance and major stores like Home Depot can get you a good deal, It never hurts to try as everyone really needs your business especially in these difficult economic times.

Being at their mercy they can charge whatever they desire and they make sure to cover themselves to only their benefit not the consumer. There is something very wrong with 2-year contracts and being a victim of life changing events beyond my control I have learned a costly lesson. They do not want people to skip back and forth between satellite/phone companies but could care less about the customer after you are in their trap. Being stuck in a 2-year service agreement you must pay them any outrageous price they decide to charge. Believe me you are going to pay them back for everything you thought was a great deal initially.

My price now for satellite was $85 for the next year. This was not okay and not fair. They offer packages that are very rigid when I only watch about 6-10 of the 300 channels they offer. Most channels are useless so do not believe the 500 channel scam. They can turn certain channels off and on form the office, give you pay-per-view but they cannot offer you a individualized package that could help you the customer save money when your situation changes and make attempts to talk to them verses avoiding them. You are at their mercy and they make no effort to try and work with you. Advertising uses psychology to pull you in and millions of dollars are spent for this very reason. Really make sure it is a good deal before signing your life away.

Father's Day and gifts to give-odd to normal

This Sunday June 19th is Father's Day. What to get Dad is the question? If your dad has a hobby then get him a tool that he wants to buy but doesn't because he can't really afford it. Is your Dad the outdoors type like a fisherman or hunter? Does he need a new tie? If he is the kind of Dad that has everything then look for the unusual gift. The younger kids could give him the gift of doing a chore that Dad usually does. Maybe just letting him have some quiet time is what he needs. Take him out to dinner or even better make him a great dinner on the grill and let him sit and relax. Here are some of my picks for Father's Day this year. See what you think.

E-mail marketing is not the way to advertise

When you surf the internet to purchase a product do you go directly to the site or do you search for a better price at some other place. I had a phone call from a business that wanted to set up a website for me for the low price of $39 and all had to do was pay hosting and advertising for my site. Purchasing an e-mail list can get very expensive and this form of advertising is ineffective.

They were not as pushy as some of these work at home businesses but what they were going to do was take care of all the technical stuff like adding Amazon.com and other major companies so I could become an affiliate and earn a commission off all my sales.

First of all setting up a web page has never been easier and this can be done without much technical knowledge if you can follow directions. What is difficult is the and also the most costly part of starting an on-line business is advertising your site and getting traffic to your site. E-mail is now one of the newer methods of advertising new and old businesses. Have you noticed your in-box lately and how many unwanted advertising is coming to your in-box.

Recently I have been getting more e-mails in my in-box from businesses from all over the world in attempt to advertise or market their sites. I had approximately 200 e-mails in one day and this is irritating enough that I just deleted them without even reading one of them. This form of advertising is having the reverse affect that it was intended for. Businesses are spending a fortune to purchase lists of e-mails and they are getting scammed.

To save time and my delete button I have made a new free e-mail address that I am sending out to all my creditors and personal family and friends and no one else will get this address. I hope that this will end up saving me precious time daily by not having to sift through the unwanted e-mails or spam forever.

This is a message to all the companies that think they can advertise by e-mail it is not working. If I want to buy something on-line I will look for the products on my own and not because you sent me an e-mail. Advertising e-mails are as irritating as most commercials are on television. I would rather save money on the product than raising the price of your products to advertise in this manner.

Think about how much time you are wasting from sitting at stop lights, watching commercials and scanning through unwanted e-mails. What do you think is the best way to advertise a business today? I personally think there are more creative ways to sell the public a product and that is by saving the consumer money.

E-mails can and will be held against you. (Up front: news, trends & analysis).(Judge rules that e-mails written by a J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. senior staff ... article from: Information Management JournalTHE 10 RULES For Evaluating An E-Mail Management Solution.(Buyers Guide): An article from: Customer Interaction Solutions