The winner of the Consignment sale success Blogtoberfest post and a new Halloween Costume from Diapers.com is Richelle F.  She won an adorable Carter’s pram pumkin in microfleece.  It is so cute!  If you take a closer look, the feet say “Boo“.  Just in time for Halloween.  Hope you haven’t bought a costume yet.  So congratulations, Richelle, and we will be contacting you soon!

Thank you to all who participated in our 24 hour blogathon.  We had a ball.  I learned a lot about blogging and blogathons this weekend.  I thought I would share some of what I learned with you.

•  Plan, Plan,Plan.  I got the dates mixed up and didn’t give my blogging friends enough time to participate.
• Start early.  Don’t wait until the day of to blog.
• Make sure you use a blogging platform that allows you to schedule.
• DON’T participate when you have a big project going on.  Our surprise took longer to get rolling due to the time constraints of the blogathon.
• Make sure you give guest bloggers plenty of time to participate and remind them often until they post for you.
• Thank not only your readers (thank you) but also your guest bloggers with link love.
• Enjoy all that you will learn and talk about.

I definitely would recommend participating in one if you ever get the opportunity.  Just work it smart, not hard.

Our blogathon has come to an end and we want to thank all of our participating bloggers. We have done a great collective job staying up to date with our posts. So in case you missed our blogathon posts, here is a recap of our posts for the day:

1. The Great Blog Off Begins
2. We Are Blogging for Charity
3. Gardening in a Can
4. Can the Moon be a time saver?
5. Top 10 Thrifty Mommy Posts for 2008
6. Joys of Life - My top 10 Frugal Joys
7. Are 2 for 1 Coupons Worth it?
8. Don’t Argue in Anger
9. Webkinz
10. Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale at Lowe’s Foods
11. 14 Moving Tips That Will Save You Money
12. Don’t Lose Your Mind
13. Where do you buy your milk?
14. Others Participating in the Blog Off
15. Let your kids eat for FREE
16. Investing in Our Children Produces Great Rewards
17. Toys without Lead
18. My Slow Cooker
19. Free Outside Playtime
20. Ice Cream Sundae Day
21. Save 50% and Get a Great Dining Deal
22. Food Lion Specials
23. Amazon Sale Codes
24. Ebay Watch Out!

We hope you have enjoyed our blogathon.  We have really enjoyed our guest bloggers and we have learned so much.  Your conversations are so much fun and getting to know our readers is one of the reasons we love doing what we do.  So thank you for joining us for our very first blogathon.  We hope this experience has also raised money for our charity.  We will see you tomorrow.

Each hour today, we are blogging for charity.  Please consider making a donation to The Children’s Hunger Fund.

I bought two motorcycles back in the winter before it was warm enough to ride.  Winter is the best time to buy a motorcycle.  The reason is because people haven’t gotten their tax money back yet and they want some money to catch up after Christmas.   Another reason is because people usually aren’t searching for a motorcycle in the cold of winter so the price of supply and demand isn’t there.

If you are looking to buy a motorcycle now for the summer, be ready to pay top dollar for it. I paid $1500 for one of my motorcycles, spent about $500, and 60 hours on some customizing, and then turned around and sold it in the summer for $5000. That was about $3000 profit, not counting the labor. You could say I made $50 an hour. Not too bad I guess.

I am able to say that both of my motorcycles are sold, thanks to Craigslist. This was my first experience with them, but it definitely won’t be my last. The greatest thing about Craigslist is FREE listings.  Trust me, I know how Thrifty Mommy feels about FREE.

I actually posted one of the motorcycles on eBay twice, and it met the reserve price both times. The problem is, my winning bidders did NOT pay. They didn’t even come look at the bike. I have 2 problems with this, 1) eBay charged me $38 to list it, and another $40 because the reserve was met.  2) thanks to the new feedback system eBay has setup, sellers can NOT leave negative feedback for a buyer, not matter what the reason. This allows bidders the opportunity to play all the games they want, with no consequences. With the popularity of Craigslist these days, eBay should watch out, or make some changes quickly.

guest post by G

Each hour today, we are blogging for charity.  Please consider making a donation to The Children’s Hunger Fund.

Amazon is one of my favorite places to go shopping at. Why? haha, I don’t have to leave the house and most of the time I have tons of gift certificates from things I’ve done online. In the past few months I’ve racked up about $100+ in Amazon GCs and I’ve just discovered how to find more things on sale.

In case you don’t normally purchase online you just fill up your cart and click on check out. Once at check out you will get a chance to place your code or promotion. Here’s a few codes for you:

JUNEBAR8- Save $10 when you spend $39 or more.

SENSEO15- Save 30% on Senseo. 

KETTLE45- Save 40% off Kettle Chips

Keep in mind when you spend over $25 you can also get FREE Shipping. Don’t forget to check out the bargains on Amazon. I’ve been searching for movies lately so my first stop is DVD deals where they have movies under $5.99 and others marked 50% off. Hope this helps.

This post was written by Eliza Ferree of Babylune.

Each hour today, we are blogging for charity.  Please consider making a donation to The Children’s Hunger Fund.

Kroger has a ton of B1G1’s:

• Food Lion Large Cooked Shrimp
• Carolina Fried Turkey Breast
• White Seedless Grapes
•  Doritos
• Pet Ice Cream
• Nabisco Nilla Wafers
• Kellogs Frosted Flakes
• Nature’s Own Bagels
• Purina Dog Food
• Quilted Northern Toilet Paper
• Soft Soap Liquid Hand Soap
• Speed Stick Anti-perspirant
• Healthy Accents Razors
• Frosted Sugar Cookies
• L’oreal Vive Pro Hair Care

Each hour today, we are blogging for charity.  Please consider making a donation to The Children’s Hunger Fund.

Right now you can purchase $25 Restaurant.com gift certificates for $5.  Simply enter the discount code SIZZLING at the checkout and hit “apply”. This sale ends Sunday, June 22nd.

Happy saving!

Each hour today, we are blogging for charity.  Please consider making a donation to The Children’s Hunger Fund.

I am so excited to introduce you to my girlfriend, Brianne, over at her holiday blog. She’s an ice cream-a-holic.

Today is Ice Cream Sundae Day - and since it’s sweltering outside, what better way to cool off than to enjoy a sweet - and wonderfully cool - treat! Okay, I have to admit, I’m a sucker for ice cream - it doesn’t have to be a sundae, so who’s watching? Enjoy your ice cream today in whatever fashion you like it!

Luckily, two of my favorite places to get ice cream also have some pretty good deals that make the indulgence a little more affordable! I love ice cream, but sometimes can’t eat but so much. It seems that getting older is catching up with my metabolism and my appetite for sweets, so I can’t do the double-decker ice cream cones of yesterday… Sigh.

First stop on my list: Sonic’s drive through. They have several really great choices for ice cream, and they usually have half-price drinks during the middle of the day, and right now they’re advertising 99cent shakes. What a great way to beat the heat! And, my favorite treat for special occasions: their ice cream sundae! Now that it’s officially summer, they also offer their sundae as a mini-sundae, and you can get a smaller version of the same dessert for a smaller price! (Funny thing is, I went to Sonic about a week ago and tried to order the mini-sundae and was told that they only offered that in the summertime. I was a little upset considering it was June and 90-some degrees outside - that counts as summer to me!)

My next stop would be to Wendy’s. They’ve got really great, thick milkshakes. I particularly love their chocolate shake, but I never can finish it by myself, so I usually don’t want to waste the money or the ice cream! But, I was there once and was practically pleading with them to offer me a solution, and they did mention they had a kiddie-size shake for about a dollar. The shake was really small, but it was really all I needed and wanted. It was perfect! (Although I have to warn, since this isn’t technically on the menu, you may or may not get a location willing to help you out on this one…)

And of course, there’s always the do-it-yourself ice cream treats - but I find these are best when shared with a group of friends or family. I’ve noticed several grocery store ads lately that are showing ice-cream on sale, sometimes buy-one-get-one. My husband’s favorite is to crunch up Butterfinger candy bars and mix them in with just plain vanilla, or he’s found my stash of Andee’s mint chips that I was planning to use in a specific recipe (Grrr…) and he mixes those with vanilla ice cream. I do have to admit though, he’s pretty good a making the milkshakes! His Oreo-shake comes close to rivaling Chick-fil-a’s! Maybe I’ll get him to try his hand at homemade sundaes!

Now if I could only convince Chick-fil-a to offer smaller versions of their milkshakes, I’d be set! Oh, and I need to find some kind of discount or coupon for Maggie-Moo’s Ice Cream. Better batter, here I come!

Each hour today, we are blogging for charity.  Please consider making a donation to The Children’s Hunger Fund.

OK, so I have mentioned this before but one of my favorite playtime activities for summer is water painting the house or driveway.  All you will need is a bucket or bowl, water, paint brushes, and a paint medium.  The side of your house if it is brick is perfect.  Now all you have to do is paint.  The water will show up on the driveway or your house as a “different color” to your kids so that they can see shapes and artwork.  But when it dries, it’s gone.  So that means no clean up for you.  YEAH US!!!!  And we all know how much kids like to play in water.  It’s a great little way to have fun with your kids without any stress or clean up.

What’s your favorite summer playtime activity with your kids?

Each hour today, we are blogging for charity.  Please consider making a donation to The Children’s Hunger Fund.

With all the toy recalls out there that have been recalled for lead levels, my co-worker wanted to find a safe place to buy toys for her little boy.  Now, please understand that I am not being stuck up.  Nor am I trying to be anti-anyone, but I do believe that toys from China seem to have a higher lead level than anywhere else.  And we all know that in America, you can’t hardly pee without an environmentalist telling you where you are allowed to.

So here are a list of places that have American made toys:

• Little Tykes
• Toys Made in America
• Fat Brain Toys
• North Star Toys