Getting the Best Price on Amazon

I have to tell you ~ Amazon is one of my favorite places to shop. The convenience of being able to order items and have them delivered quickly {and generally with free shipping} is something that touches a VERY special place in my heart.

The one where I don’t have to haul all four of my kids around town looking for the best price on something. :)

Anyway, I wanted to let you all in on a few tips for finding some great deals on Amazon.

1. Don’t be afraid to buy an item used. It may not always come with the free shipping {generally, s/h on the used books is $3.99 per item, but it can still add up to some HUGE savings. Take the book Meet Our New Student From Mexico {a great series by the way} as an example:

This book retails new for $29.95 and is offered USED for $3.99. After s/h that is a $22.00 savings ~ not just pocket change! We’ve found some amazing books using the used feature that Amazon offers and ones that we generally wouldn’t purchase otherwise. Incidentally, I snapped up this book and all it was missing was the dust jacket ~ something that would get ripped in no less than 10 seconds flat in our house…ask me how I know.

2. Look at the different prices for various formats. Many of the books that you search for are offered in hardcover, paperback and/or library binding.

The book below {Little Walrus Warning} ranges in price brand new from $4.95 {hardcover} all the way to to $16.95 based on the format of the book. For this book, the paperback version was actually MORE than the hardcover edition. There is also a used version for $1.19 {$5.18 after s/h}, but the new hardcover is an even better price and has free shipping.

Those are just a few quick ways to help save a little bit when browsing the many resources Amazon has. Hope that helps you out some! Just wanted to pass along a little something that is Working for Me!

Vote and Help Me Out!

Voting is now open for favorite Company Girl photos ~ and mine is one of the pictures!!! I'm a little partial to the picture {and I'm shameless enough to beg for your help!}.

What's in it for me? The winner of the most votes will get a guaranteed spot in the Company Girl book and the winning photo will be professionally mounted on canvas for me to enjoy for years to come!

{Photo #62}

I also entered this picture of McKenna with one of our friend's daughters - they had so much fun playing together that night!

{Photo #61}

Cast your vote by clicking on the little star under the picture - it's that simple!

Each person is allowed to cast three votes, so you can vote for my two and have fun looking around for another. Voting is open until Sunday, June 28th. So please ~ vote, vote, vote! :) You can click on either of the pictures to take you directly to that voting page.

Thanks so much for your help!

The Joys of Homeschool Convention

I love homeschool convention time.

Love it.

Wandering around the huge vendor hall. Finding great deals in the used curriculum sale. Refueling by listening to some amazing speakers.

Going into convention I had all my curriculum choices lined up {in a nice little row thank.you.very.much} ~ so certain of what I needed to buy. Wanted to do. Planned to follow.

Here I am on the other side of convention having ditched one of my curriculums {language} and will now be spending the next few weeks furiously reviewing a new language curriculum for our upcoming year.

If you are at all familiar with my personality, this is really stretching me. Putting me out of my comfort zone. But I am very excited about our upcoming year and getting planning underway.

I'll be sharing the different areas we'll be studying next year and also our plans for the summer in the next little bit, so stay tuned. {And feel free to ask any questions!!}

My Dear Followers...

Just because I can't see your faces in my sidebar doesn't mean that I

a) don't love you
b) will forget about you

I am hoping that removing that little widget on the side {along with a few others} will help with all the crashing of Internet Explorer. Because I'd hate for you to get all frustrated and never come back to visit!

Of course, if I could convince you about all the wonderful aspects of Firefox...and how simple it is to use...and the fact that it rarely {if ever} crashes on me...you might just get hooked.

Just giving you a heads up ~ because there is a post in the works about all my favorite things that I can do with Firefox coming up! If you use Firefox, are there any wonderful add-ons that you are ever-so-thankful for?

Help Me Out Here...

I've had several people email me recently telling me the Internet Explorer is shutting down when they view my site.

Are you having problems too?

I use Firefox and everything is quite lovely in Firefox-land. Out of curiosity I opened up my IE and tried to log onto my site and I'm getting nothing in the right hand sidebar {or if I do, it's all a little skewed}.

Could you all chime in and let me know what you are using to view my site and if you are having any issues?

This would also be the point that I mention again HOW MUCH I LOVE FIREFOX...and how much IE annoys me {I'll step off my soapbox now}.

Update: Could you let me know which version of IE you are using? 7 or 8? There is a possibility that it could also be linked to either the 'link within' widget that I was using or the followers widget...I'm checking into it! In the meantime, you won't see the 'followers' or link within. Let me know if that makes a difference.

Have a Question - Post a Comment

This is a repost from earlier, but I've been getting quite a few comments lately with questions ~ and answering the questions is hard when there isn't an email address to reply to {and I will reply!!}. The solution is simple {assuming you have a blogger account too}.

For some of you all, the return email is "noreply-comment" which means I can't reply directly to the comment that you leave. But I can reply if you check one little box that says "show my email address" in your user profile. It won't show up for anyone to see, except the person who's blog that you posted on so they can reply directly to you.

I promise it's safe - do you have your little box checked? I'll know if you comment! :)

What Do You Think?

I'm curious what you all think of the new look here? I've finished most of it, although there are still a few sidebar items that I need to add back in.

And then once I'm no longer sidetracked...perhaps I'll be back to posting about what we're actually doing during our schooltime. :)

In the Works

If you notice things moving around and disappearing around here, I'm in the process of redesigning the blog layout. So just hang on! :) I've got the main part of it done, but want to have the complete package pulled together before it goes "live".