Today my daughter went to Lisbon in a school trip. Although she has participated in other field trips, it is always with great emotion that I wave her goodbye when the bus leaves the departure place.

Since pre-school that the school organizes a trip to a certain place before Christmas holidays.

Today she is going to visit the Oceanário and the Pavilhão do Conhecimento. Although she has already visited the Oceanário with us, she was quite excited to visit it again with her school friends.

The return is expected at 18:30pm but as usual on this kind of trips they will be probably late.

I began watching a series called Extreme Couponing in cable TV, to be specific in the TLC channel.

I was quite amazed with this series since I have been hearing about coupons for a few years but I didn’t realize how we could effectively use them.

Here in Portugal there are almost no coupons. Brands barely never distribute coupons and it is impossible to get an item for free or even at a really low price. There are however some hypermarkets that offer client’s card discounts in some products from time to time.

Client’s card discount means that you still have to pay the full price of the product however a percentage (10%, 25%, 50%) will be credit in the client’s card and that amount can be used in future purchases.

From time to time there are peel coupons but those are rare and usually for a small amount.

Most of the time client’s card discounts can only be found in well known brands that are very expensive, meaning that, if we find the same product from a white brand it will be cheaper.

When I’m watching the episodes I’m thrilled to see people pay a small amount of money for a pile of goods.

If I had coupons over here I would definitely use them to pay less for my groceries. I wouldn’t be so extreme as some cases presented in Extreme Couponing, but I would for sure make the most of coupons to get great deals during my shopping trips.

Are you using coupons?

photo credit: paulswansen

This is a Guest Post

I have three young children, and each of their birthdays is in January. This means that I have to plan three individual birthday parties for each of them in one month. And I have to do this the month after the holidays, no less. Needless to say, January can be a pretty stressful month for me. However, I’ve had quite a few years of experience planning kids parties, and I consider myself an expert now at keeping my cool during the planning process and during the actual parties, even when I have to throw an elaborate Mario birthday party or Sponge Bob party. Here are some things I do to make sure I enjoy my kids’ birthday parties as much as they enjoy them:

1. I establish a budget for each of the parties. For instance, I might decide that I want to spend $150 total on each party. Sticking to a budget allows me to stop worrying about the money aspect of planning parties for my kids.

2. I always host the parties at my house. This saves me a good amount of money I can use to buy party supplies. If I paid for the parties to be hosted at an ice skating rink, for instance, it would cost me a lot more money. In which case, I might have to skimp on party favors or ice cream to stick to my budget.

3. I make sure I have things for the kids to do at the party. I might rent a new popular kids movie that recently came out to show at the party. And I will often usually plan arts and crafts activities for my daughter’s parties. For my sons’ parties, I will plan outdoor activities like capture the flag. If the kids have enough to do at the party, there’s less chance for potential naughtiness.

4. If I run into any behavior issues at the party, I offer the children incentives to behave. I’ll usually buy a big pack of stickers or silly bands before the party. For example, last year one of my son’s friends kept on trying to climb the fence in our backyard. The fence is high, and I was concerned he would get hurt. So, I told the children that they would each get a sticker if none of them tried to climb the fence during the party. And it worked. None of them even went near the fence after that. (Keep incentives age appropriate. Stickers work well for 6 year olds. They don’t work as well for older kids).

5. Make sure you have contact information from all of the parents of the kids attending the party. This is crucial. If one of the kids gets sick or hurt, you’re going to need a way to contact their parents. I’ve had to call parents quite a few times because their kids were feeling sick after eating too much sugar.

If you’re new to planning parties for kids, don’t worry! You’ll get the hang of it!

photo credit: RedCraig

This is the first time I’m participating on the Piquing My Pinterest from Tina Gray {dot} Me blog. Every Sunday people join this linky and share the best Pins from the week.

Today I choose the inspiring touch.

Are you a blogger over 40? Yeah, welcome to the club!

Please join in the fun and get to know your fellow bloggers!!

The RULES to join in are very simple!

1. Grab the button
2. Add your link to the list
3. Visit as many other blogs as you can
4. Follow the ones you like (and comment on their blog to say that you are following)

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This list is new each week. The links do not carry over. Please link up each week for new participants to find your blogs. It will be visible all week to visit the blogs listed.

While you are here, make sure you check out the

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Western Union’s World of Betters is a campaign launched by Western Union where the main objective is to offer $1.000 to those that better answer the question: “What would you do with $1,000 to make someone’s day better?”

Those wanting to participate in this campaign can answer the previous question and depending on the number of votes the answer gets there is the chance to win $1,000.

You have the possibility to share your answer in several social networks so that you can get more votes.

From the most voted 500 answers, 100 will be chosen and each one will receive a $1,000 to make their day a better one.

World of Betters campaign is entertaining people around the world with a series of events. These events are preformed by Alicia Keys, Indian superstar Sunidhi Chauhan, K’Naan, John Legend, Ayo and another star that will only be revealed in a final event in Miami. These events have the goal to make more people participate in the World of Betters campaign.

You can enter the Western Union’s World of Betters campaign until December 15th.

As of my answer to the question: “What would you do with $1,000 to make someone’s day better?”, I can say:

I would use that money to take my kids to see snow for the first time in their lives.

This post is sponsored by Western Union.