Posted on

FREE Will & Trust Kit from Suze Orman!

Today Emily and I, along with some other bloggers, got to chat with the DYNAMIC and passionate Suze Orman on the phone, thanks to Avon. Suze is the financial advisor to all of Avon’s independent consultants. Isn’t that cool? She’ll also be featured in Avon’s “Success Without Limits” program, airing on Oxygen at 6:30 PM this Saturday. Suze’s personality was as large over the phone as it is on her financial television show. She was very funny and straight forward and she gave us some great financial advice.

Here are three key things I learned from our call with Suze today:

1) Your emergency fund should contain enough money for you to live off of for eight months! I didn’t realize this, I was thinking more four to six months! Very eye-opening.

2) Going back to school? Don’t defer your previous student loans! Just keep paying them off. Student loans can almost never be discharged in a bankruptcy filing should you fall on hard times, so get them out of the way NOW.

3) You should never start saving for your kid’s college funds until you are out of credit card debt, have a fully-funded emergency fund, and are putting savings away for your own retirement. Once you have those things in place, Suze recommends a 529 college savings plan.

For more great financial tips, you can visit Suze’s website – and Suze was kind enough to give all of us and our readers a FREE GIFT! From now until Midnight on Saturday, April 25th, you can download Suze’s Will & Trust Kit – valued at $2,500 – for FREE!! Here’s how:

Just go to suzeorman.com and click the “Will & Trust Kit” link in the blue bar on the left-hand side of the home page. Click the orange “Gift Code” button and enter “Moms Rule” into the gift code field. Click the green “Submit” button and follow the instructions to redeem your free copy of the Will & Trust Kit.

I did this tonight and finished the whole kit in less than two hours – that’s with my kids running around everywhere and my phone ringing off the hook! It is an awesome resource. You do it all online and then it prints to PDF for you. Amazing! Thanks Suze, for the great call today and the great gift.

Post to Twitter

Posted on

The Blogosphere Grieves Today

The blogging community is a real, supportive community, and today we are grieving for Heather, who lost her sweet girl Maddie, 17 months, last night. I don’t know Heather really well, but I was stuck in an elevator with her for 45 minutes at BlissDom. She was the one who felt a little better about her panic because I was panicking more (always happy to help). And her blog is funny, and I love following her on Twitter.

But what else do I need to know? She’s a mother. I know what that feels like, as do most of you. And I can’t imagine what she’s feeling now. My friend Rachel wrote a beautiful post that I think expresses how we’re all feeling today, with a beautiful picture of Maddie, here.

Maddie was a preemie, and so Heather has been committed raising money for the March of Dimes. If you have a couple of extra bucks today, all the mommy bloggers in the world would be thrilled if you’d donate in Maddie’s name. There is a link to do so in sidebar of Heather’s blog.

****whoops, Heather’s blog is overloaded with traffic from caring readers. Here is a direct link to Maddie’s March of Dimes page where you can donate.*****
Now go hug your kids. Life is short. Let’s all take some extra time to just play today.

Post to Twitter

Posted on

In Which We Become Cartoons

Imagine for a moment, if you will, that Emily and I have cartoon alter-egos. Here, I’ll help your imagination along! Meet Cartoon Emily:

and her cartoon cousin, Cartoon Jenny:

(I am telling you which one is which, because when I showed them to my husband, he said, “Which one is you?” and then when I asked him, “Which one do you THINK is me?” – he of course, picked Cartoon Emily. SOOOOO…that sounds like the makings of another blog post. Anyhoo.)

Imagine if you will, that our cartoon selves are having a cartoon-versation! Here’s how I imagine it would go:

Emily: You look awfully pale. Are you feeling allright?

Jenny: Yeah, they just didn’t have a lot of skin tone choices. Do I look like I should be in Twilight?

Emily: Yeah.

Jenny: Awesome. Nice shirt. I wanted that one but they didn’t have alot of shirt choices either so I had to go with this dress. And heels of course. And now my feet are KILLING me. I want my leopard-print Crocs.

Emily: Ok, yeah, WE GET IT. YOUR FEET HURT. YOU LIKE CROCS. Can we move on?

Jenny: WhatEVs. Why are you holding chips?

Emily: Because I want a healthy and delicious snack. Why are YOU holding chips?

Jenny: Because the package matches my dress. DUH. No DOY. Dumb question.

Emily: Are you sure it’s not because we’re doing this Frito-Lay thingy?

Jenny: It might be. But did you know Frito-Lay and Pepsi are like the SAME company and Frito-Lay makes Mountain Dew? I’d rather be holding a can of Dew. Just sayin’.

Emily: You need HELP.

Jenny: WhatEVs. I can quit whenever I want. I just DON’T WANT TO.

________________________________

What Cartoon Emily and Cartoon Jenny were TRYING to say is that we are proud to be part of the Frito-Lay Fabulous 15, a group of bloggers that is happily snacking away on some of Frito-Lay’s healthier snack choices! Pretty soon we will be offering up chances for you to WIN some great snacks like Baked Lays, Flat Earth Chips (yummay), 100 Calorie Packs and their brand new Smart Food!

And the cartoons? Emily and I visited the website of Frito-Lay’s new marketing campaign, Only in a Woman’s World. The characters are four funny cartoon ladies who star in their own webisodes. After watching them, Em & I were inspired to make cartoons of ourselves! You should do it too, it’s way fun. Then email us your cartoon self for funzies!

So far there are four Only in a Woman’s World webisodes, and this one is my favorite! But you can see them all at their website. Enjoy! And go make some cartoons out of yourselves!

Post to Twitter