How I See It

Halloween Tips to Keep Your Child Safe

4 Important Ways to Make Sure Your Child Has a Fun and Safe Halloween

Most experts will tell you that if you want your child to have a fun and safe Halloween, you need to make sure they understand the dangers.  Parents need to understand that Halloween can have several affects on different children.   Some children see Halloween as a time to be on their own and out with friends.   Others see Halloween as a scary holiday.  Every new parent to Halloween should look over the following tips that can help them understand what your child is feeling during the Halloween season.   In doing so you can help to make sure they have a fun time while still being safe.

1.  Teach Your Child About Halloween

Many times your child will have gotten their Halloween information from friends or from school.  However, as a parent it is important to discuss with your child what Halloween and the traditions of the season are. Talk with them about why children and adults dress up in costumes for Halloween.  Take your child to a Halloween costume store so that they can see the different types of makeup, fake blood, scary masks, and monster costumes.  By doing this you help your child to understand that what they may see on Halloween night is fake and just for the fun of it.

2.  Never Allow Your Child to Trick or Treat Alone

If your school-aged child is still young enough to go trick or treating they are still too young to venture out alone.   Trick or treating without mom or dad in tow is just not a safe thing to do these days.  If your child argues, tell them they may go with another child’s parent who is watching over the group of kids out on Halloween night.   Make sure to thank the other parent for doing this chore and that you will take over the duties the next Halloween.

3.  Halloween Candy Needs Inspection

I know my kids could hardly wait to get through the door and dive right into the cache of Halloween goodies that they had acquired through trick or treating. As tempting as it is to let them dive in, you need to set some rules before they start gobbling up their goodies. Let them know that they can’t eat any candy until trick or treating is over and your back home.  All packages that have are open need to be thrown out for your child’s safety. The last one is to try to keep your kids from eating too much candy.  The sugar rush from eating too much will make them grouchy and irritable just before bedtime.

4.  Talk to Your Child About Their Halloween Experience

When the Halloween evening has settled down and the excitement of scary masks and trick or treating is over, take some time and talk with them about their experiences. What was it that they liked or didn’t like during trick or treating? You might find that your little ones were more anxious about the images that Halloween offers up. Visions of scary costumes, haunted houses, and fake blood can give some children nightmares. If that is the case, this is the time to help your child talk through that anxiety.  Give them the peace of mind that Halloween can be a fun time and not a scary experience.

How to Stay Better Organized

Or How to Keep Track of Your Stuff and Not Lose It

As any child will tell you losing track of your stuff is easy to do.  Most adults fall into that category as well.  How many of us have set down our cell phone or car keys and haven’t been able to locate them again.  Fortunately for you we have come up with some great ways to help you keep track of your stuff and stay organized in the process:

1.  Don’t Lose the Paper Trail

This usually means keeping the receipts to where ever you have traveled.  This paper trail will help you track down any device you may have lost.  If you eat at a restaurant, take a cab, or grab a cup of coffee somewhere, always ask for the receipt.  If you sat your keys down at the local Starbucks, you may only be a phone call away from tracking them down.  Many receipts have the name of the server who waited on you.  That name could be important as they could remember serving you and help your retrieve your lost item.

2.  Learn to Label Everything

In this day in age, many of us have a tough time believing that people are honest.  However, law enforcement experts all agree that a labeled item with your name and phone number have a great chance of being returned to you.  Address labels either printed by you and or professional asset tags will work great.  By giving someone the benefit of the doubt, most people will try to return your items, especially if you have made it easy for them by labeling your stuff.

3.  Make Things a Habit

If you are not a creature of habit, become one.  Those people, who do the same thing or put their stuff in the same place every time, will notice if it is not there.  For example, if you always put your car keys in your left pants pocket, you are more likely to notice them missing if you leave the house.  Make it a habit to know which pockets you put your cell phone, wallet, keys or other essential items.  You will be less likely to leave them behind the next time. 

4.  It is All About Being Flashy

For example, your iPhone is going to look like everybody else’s iPhone.  Chances are that if you leave it on a table at a cafe, you will not notice it.  Consider covering your iPhone with a flashy case cover.  It doesn’t have to be bright pink (unless you like that) but something that catches the eye.  Giving your iPhone that maximum visibility might be a little embarrassing, but you probably won’t forget your iPhone when you get up to leave.

7 Tips to Surviving Back to School Stress

Going Back to School is a Stressful Time for Both Kids and Their Parents.  Find Out How to Deal with Pressures and Get More Time with the Family.

As summer turns to fall the minds of all kids and their parents begin to turn to getting back into the school routine.  This is also the time where the added stress of new schedules, homework, extracurricular sports, and other family functions begin to take their toll on parents and kids alike.  Things can get very hectic in a very short time if not managed well.  We have put together 7 tips to help parents find the balance they need when it comes to school, work, life and family.

1.      Beat Stress by Getting Organized

The number one reason most parents get stressed when their kids head back to school is because the family is not well organized for it.  Some quick solutions to help you and your family stay organized is to buy a calendar and keep it up to date with your activities.  Use the calendar to schedule daily dinner menus, chore lists, and upcoming events to help you stay organized.

2.      Remember Your Priorities

Recognize what is the most important to you at home and at work and make sure everyone understands what they are.  If need be, set goals with your family on what activities are most important and get them involved in making sure those goals are achieved.

 3.      Evaluate Your Values

Stress comes from not understanding the difference between values and priorities.  A parent’s tasks don’t always fall into something of value and becomes just a priority; however, you will feel out of balance if some tasks are not taking your values into consideration. 

 4.      Do a Favor, Get a Favor

With the hustle and bustle of school kids, learning to pay it forward can be a stress reliever.  Do favors for other mom’s long before you need a favor from them.  Volunteer to drive someone else’s kids if your kids are going to the same place.  Doing the favor first sets the tone for other parents to do the same for you.

 5.      Hire Some Help

You can’t be super-parent and do it all; however, you can hire help inexpensively.  Look into hiring some high-school students to help with your kids’ homework.  Retirees are great to help out and give you an extra set of hands.  All of these are cheap ways to relieve your stress of trying to do it all.

 6.      Keep in Touch with the Family

Schedule some time with the whole family to talk about issues you or they may have.  Deal with responsibilities and delegate chores as well as taking this time to update the calendar for upcoming activities.

 7.      Get Some Exercise

Nothing relieves stress better than good old exercise.  Make it a priority in not only your life, but your kids as well.  Bike ride together or take family hikes.  Exercising helps to increase your energy and gives you that leg up you will need when the school schedule starts to get crazy.

***Remember, stress just goes with the territory of being a parent of school aged kids.  When the stress gets a bit too much, look for reasons to laugh about the situations.  Not only will you feel better, but your kids will find the laughter contagious and they will have learned a lesson on stress busting.

Outlet Malls Can Cost You Money

Discount Outlet Malls May Not Be Saving You Money

Anyone traveling out to shop at a discount outlet mall will tell you that it is quite the adventure.  Outlet malls are huge shopping centers where brand name manufactures sell their clothing, shoes, apparel, jewelry and other items at discounted prices.  They are usually considered by the brand store as last year’s fashion or overstock from their retail stores.  Many of them include stores such as Nike, Anne Taylor, Levis Strauss, Coach, The Gap, Old Navy  and many others. 

Discount outlet malls have grown in popularity as it seems that there has been a rise in demand for brand named goods.  However, are customers really saving substantial money when they are shopping at these discount outlet malls?  The answer maybe not where you shop, but how you shop.

Why Outlet Malls Seem Like Good Deals

A huge reason that outlet malls seem to be a shopping deal is because of where they are located.  Outlet malls are built out in remote areas where the land is cheaper.  Building in remote areas makes the discount outlet malls more convenient to several cities.  The outlet malls also need to be located far enough from their brand retail or department stores to make them unique. 

Outlet malls used to be the dumping ground for brand retailers to sell their overstocked or slightly damaged goods.  However, that has changed as name brand retailers manufacture their goods overseas and damaged or overrun goods rarely happen.  Therefore, most goods sold at outlet malls have been produced specifically for outlet malls.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that those products sold in outlet malls are as good as those purchased at the name brand retailers.  Many times the items are made of cotton not wool or detail stitching is lacking.     

Buyer Beware When Shopping at Outlet Malls

Discount outlet malls are known for their drastically reduced prices.  Strolling through an outlet mall you will find huge discount signs everywhere.  It’s not uncommon to see fifty or sixty percent off tags advertising huge discounts.  However, fifty to sixty percent off of what?  Many outlet malls stores will reference a product to be priced at $150; however, the product may have never sold for that amount anywhere.  The perceived discount is what the buyer at an outlet mall store will find valuable, not the actual savings.  Therefore, it is important that as a buyer that you know your products and the reference price of those name brand items.  Knowing that will give you a better realization of what discounts, if any you are getting from your outlet mall shopping.

Safe Ways to Shop Online

How to Protect Your Credit Card Accounts from Fraud While Shopping Online

It is getting routine to hear about security violations where personal information gets out.  One of the more common types of personal data we give online is our credit card information.  This in turn ends up as credit card fraud when hackers get a hold of that information.  However, online purchases will continue to be made and there needs to be a way of limiting credit card fraud.  Currently there are three popular ways that the average consumer can continue to make online purchases and minimize the chances of credit card fraud.

1.  Try Online Payment Services

Online payment services have been growing and one of the larger services is from Google.  The Google Checkout service is a free to use and stores your credit card details and doesn’t share them with online merchants.  When an online vendor accepts the Google payment service you can make the purchase simply by clicking the Google Checkout button.  The other big name with online payment services is PayPal.  As with Google Checkout both options don’t charge you a fee to make that online purchase.  The safety of both sites is that if a unauthorized or fraudulent purchase is made you have 60 days to notify them for reimbursement.

2.  Use a Disposable Credit Card Number

Not only is it inconvenient to type in your 16 digit credit card number especially when you are making a purchase to an online merchant who you don’t know well.  The safer way to go and avoid credit card fraud is to us a disposable credit card number.  Many banks now offer temporary card numbers for online purchases.  These temporary credit card numbers and security codes are valid for that one online vendor you make your purchase with. 

3.  Purchase Using a Secure Credit Card

Though many credit card issuers off zero-liability with online purchases, having a secure credit card gives you that added layer of protection.  Secure credit cards require that you enter a predetermined password to complete the online purchase.  Not all issuers offer this service; however, if you are a frequent online buyer having a secure credit card could keep potential hackers from getting your information. 

Using any of the above suggestions should help keep credit card hackers at bay; however, as a consumer you should be checking your credit card accounts regularly.  With some care and effort, you may be able to stay one step ahead of credit card hackers and continue to enjoy shopping online.