In My Bag

It used to be that you had two options when getting set up with a cell phone and wireless service:

• Be approved for a monthly plan, which required a one or two year contract. You might also be eligible for a free or discounted cell phone, depending on the terms and length of your contract
• Buy expensive prepaid phone cards, and pay full price for a cell phone

Because my father was willing to set up a cell phone plan for me in his name back in the summer of 2004, I did not have to worry about dealing with prepaid, which I would have had to otherwise, as I had in the past. Yet another downside of having bad credit - not only do you deal with high interest and higher deposits on loans and such, you are also almost always denied for contract cell phone plans!

Recently my husband and I decided to call T-Mobile and see about paying off an owed balance on my account, one that we had let go in the fall in order to take care of some more pressing financial matters. But because we let the balance go so long, we had to pay it off and start anew with T-Mobile.

I fully expected to hear the spiel about being denied based on credit, but why not take advantage of our wonderful prepaid phone cards?

But I was wrong. Blissfully, totally wrong! T-Mobile has introduced a great new feature called T-Mobile FlexPay. T-Mobile Flex offers people the same monthly plans and benefits and features, but without contracts and obligations! With FlexPay, you can still pick your plan and add-ons, and still have them! The key difference is that your pay period is based on prepaid, rather than postpaid. This means that you pay for your month service ahead of time. For example, I am expecting a bill from T-Mobile within the next week. This bill will cover my services for March. I already paid for my February services when I signed up for them in the middle of January (I paid for January too, but it was pro-rated).

The purpose of T-Mobile FlexPay is to offer customers with shoddy credit the opportunity to enjoy the same plans, features and rates as contract customers, but without the risk of running up large bills that they might not be able to pay. That is why all services must be paid for at the start of the billing period, rather than at the end of one.

There is one downside to T-Mobile FlexPay, and that is that a lot of the shorthand numbers - those five digit codes you see mentioned on commercials and advertisements — are blocked from usage with T-Mobile FlexPay accounts. Again, this is to prevent unforeseen costs being added to one’s bill. It’s a downside for me because Twitter uses a five digit code for updates, as do many other online and offline companies, including Google and MSN. But, there are workarounds, with the use of international numbers, email addresses and applications that can be downloaded right to your cell phone!

Dan wanted new RAM, so he ordered it through his brother, who is so involved with multimedia and computers and televisions and such that he probably dreams of HDMI and CAT6 when he goes to sleep at night. Well, the RAM is DDR2, but apparently the advertising and manuals for his motherboard were misleading, and his motherboard isn’t compatible with DDR2. :/ So now he’s annoyed - as am I, lol - and his brother is looking for a new motherboard for him.

I first heard of couponchief.com last year, when I was doing a sponsored post for a pay-to-blog company. I bookmarked couponchief.com, and have been checking back for coupons there ever since. Honestly, I may have been paid to review couponchief.com, but they really do have a great selection of coupons! They have everything from Dick’s Sporting Goods coupons to Target coupons to coupons and specials for online shopping websites. I recommend checking them out if you’re looking to save.

KAZAM Body Care is a company that carries products that are made of natural ingredients. Some of the best skin care products out there are the ones that don’t have any synthetic chemicals in them. KAZAM’s products contain pure ingredients that are hand selected from nature itself. Some of the natural ingredient containing products that KAZAM has to offer include bath and shower products, lotions, skin exfoliators and cleansers, and hair care products. In addition, KAZAM also has natural scents, products for men, bath essentials and lotions for children, and even hand crafted jewelry.

The product I have been using for the last two days is KAZAM’s natural body care lotion in Sweet Orange Ginger. I admit, I never thought that orange and especially ginger could be workable scents for me. But I went ahead and applied it, and I can now honestly say that the scent is growing on me. The spicy ginger tones down the tangy aroma of the orange, and the two scents together combine to give my skin a delicious fragrance. More important than scent, the lotion itself is doing an excellent job at moisturizing my hands and keeping them from feeling and looking dry. This is especially important to me at this time of year, especially right now with the winter wind howling outside my house and rattling the living room windows!

My overall assessment of KAZAM natural body care lotion? I really like it! My husband told me last night that the scent is intoxicating, so that’s always a plus.

Karalee Designs contacted me a little bit ago and asked if I would be interested in reviewing their products. As a lover of jewelry and someone who enjoys doing product reviews, I happily agreed to! A few days later, this lovely package arrived:

I admit it, I ooh’ed and aah’ed over the necklace. I love red, I love cherries. I love jewelry that isn’t the standard dime a dozen pieces you find in most stores and jewelry shops. The necklace itself is very sturdy, with a chunky, solid feeling round frame with a red glittering background that catches the light and attention of others. The chain, while thin and delicate looking, is also quite sturdy — it has held up to my son tugging on it several times!

I didn’t find the exact necklace that I have at Karalee Designs, but I did find many others like it in the minis and teenies section. They’re very reasonably priced at $38-$42, and offer a choice of 16″ or 18″ chain length.

In addition to a variety of necklaces, Karalee Designs also has unique bracelets, rings, belt buckles, wrist cuffs, brooches, hair accessories, pet collars and keychains. If you’re wanting to buy for a family member or friend, but aren’t such which treat they’d like, pick out a gift certificate for them instead!

Stick Me Designs is an online company that sells, among other things, stylish diabetic meter bags that can be used to store all of the necessary supplies for any diabetic who is on the go for work, for play, or for anything!
While the bags are designed for use with glucose meters and all of the accessories that come with them, the bags themselves are perfectly sized for carrying cosmetics and small toiletries and personal items!

The bags, which can be found here, are very stylish indeed. I got the chance to review the polka-dot print. I loved it. My mother, who is a diabetic and agreed to use the bag for a few weeks, did not. But that’s okay, as Stick My Designs has many different prints available for their bags.

My mother enjoyed the bag for use as a diabetic meter bag, and I found that my cosmetics, tampons and small pill carrying bottle fit perfectly into it. With zippered compartments and adjustable elastic bands, the small bag can hold a surprising amount of stuff! Overall, this bag gets a definite A!

(I love that tampon commercial. Dan and I joke about upgrade! all of the time now.)

So we got our tax return on Friday. And we spent every last penny of it. Well, not every last penny. Dan has a $20 in his wallet, I have some change in mind, and there’s $16.41 left in our bank account. But I feel good. We paid a LOT of bills that needed paying. We also spent about $300 between household supplies, more memory for Dan’s computer (poor guy is running on a measly 1gb of it right now), gas for the cars and groceries. So yeah, we’re kind of broke… but fully stocked, and we don’t owe any bills besides our car payment and cell phone bill until MARCH. Yay us!