Clean Up Your Own Clutter!

I remember an experience as a child where I overheard someone saying that they needed to go home

and clean so that their cleaning lady could come the next day.

Growing up in a single-parent household and always struggling to get by, I had often dreamed of having a housekeeper to help us keep up on the chores.  Hearing that this person needed to clean so that the CLEANING lady could come puzzled me.  Why would someone pay to have their house cleaned if they were just going to do it themselves?  Why would they clean their own house, if they were going to pay someone else to do it.  I wondered if they did it to keep up appearances or something.  I thought it was weird, but I soon forgot about it.

Now that I am cleaning my mom's house twice per month, I remembered my confusion as a youth and now I understand.

Housekeepers generally DO NOT clean up your clutter.  They come in once per week (or once every couple of weeks) to clean your mirrors, wipe off counters, dust shelves/ picture frames/ knick knacks, scrub sinks, clean toilets, vacuum the house, empty the trash cans, sweep and mop bathroom and kitchen floors, etc.  They need you to clean up your own clutter so that they can do their jobs properly.  They don't live there.  They don't know where you keep your stuff.  They don't want to interrupt your projects that you started and didn't finish.  They won't sort through your mail.  If you leave your clutter out, they will simply dust, wipe or vacuum around your clutter.

I have not lived with my mom for about 10 years.  My mom is not the sort of person to leave things the way they are.  She is constantly re-arranging the furniture in different rooms, switching the function of certain rooms (switching her office and the kid's play room), reorganizing her dishes, remodeling her house, etc.  Even being her daughter, I don't know where everything goes in her house.  Even as her daughter, I would never sort through her mail.  A paid housekeeper definitely wouldn't do that either.

Even though her house is medium sized (4br, 2.5 bath, living room, family room, kitchen), it usually takes me about FOUR HOURS to clean.  I am lucky that she has cleaned up most of her clutter by the time I get there.  As her daughter, I would help my mom clean her clutter if she needed it, but it would take me much longer to clean her house.

This is NOT my house.  My house isn't THIS dirty... yet

BUT I have a confession to make.  Time to air out the dirty laundry:  My house is a MESS!  I go home to MY dirty house, and I want to cry.  It seems the more that I clean my mom's house, the less I clean my own.  I live with my husband, two dogs, and a cat.  We don't even have kids!  It seems like all we do is move our clutter around.  As soon as we get one area cleaned, it is almost instantly dirty again.  I don't remember the last time we wiped the mirrors and counters, cleaned the toilets, etc.  How did my house get so messy?  LIFE GOT IN THE WAY.  My husband and I have been struggling financially for the last year.  We have been busy working multiple jobs, letting our stuff fall wherever it lands and not moving it until we need it again, letting the mail pile up, letting the dirty clothes pile up, not folding the clean clothes, etc.  I am drowning in my own clutter!

I still dream about hiring a housekeeper but 1) we are broke and we don't have the money, and 2) we have too much clutter in the way.

I am usually a clean freak.  I like my home to be clean and in order.  I enjoy watching Clean House.  I recently realized that my house was nearly as messy as some of the homes featured on the show.  I keep hoping Niecy Nash will show up at my house ANY MINUTE.  But that's enough of my ranting about my dirty house.  I thought I would have much more time to clean and get my affairs in order when I finished school, but I was WRONG!  Oh well!  That's life.  I will just have to find the time to clean my own house.

If you have ever wondered why people would clean their house so that their cleaning lady can come... now you know.  AND if I ever become rich enough to hire a housekeeper, don't judge me if I say I need to clean my house so the cleaning lady can come.

The Truth About WakeUpNow

WakeUpNow is not for everyone.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that it will be easy money.  It's not.  It requires hard work, dedication, and time.

I signed up for WakeUp now in June 2013.  I hoped that it would help me save me money, and make a little extra money while I was finishing school and building up my other business The Peshell Academy of Music.  At first, I was very gung-ho about WakeUpNow.  I loved the free offers, I loved the cell phone discount, I LOVED taxbot.  I liked the discounts that I was getting at restaurants.  I was excited to join the vacation club because of the deals (but I was waiting until I reached Founder 3 to sign up for vacation club because it costs an extra one-time fee).  I was excited to share this program because of all the ways WakeUpNow helps you to save money, manage money, and make money.  I did what I could to "be a product of the product" and share what I had found, but I didn't have much success.

In August, I organized an open house to chat with my friends and family about WakeUpNow.  My mentor and others in our upline were there, and we ordered pizza.  Many of my friends and family said that they would be there, but NONE of them showed up.

In September, the floor fell out from underneath me.  I had started my last semester of college, I was having some pretty serious health problems, and my husband lost his job.


I was tired all of the time and I felt stretched too thin.  I was struggling to keep up in school and fulfill my other commitments.  I didn't have much time to spend on WakeUpNow, and I started to get discouraged.  I fell into traps about how to talk to people about WakeUpNow.  Those that I talked to were put off by the similarities to matrix level marketing because of all of the other MLM schemes and sales parties that they had already been introduced to over the years.  They didn't take the time to realize that WakeUpNow is different.

According to the information on the WakeUpNow website, once you have three people signed up underneath you, your monthly membership is free (your rank is D3 or Director 3- three and it's free).  Once your three people each have three people, you earn an average commission check of $600 per month (your rank is F3 or Founder 3).  Originally I thought that I would see if these two promises are true, but I can't even get to D3!

My WakeUpNow mentor heard of some of the problems that I was facing and offered to call some of my contacts for me.  He asked me to make a list of 25 people who I thought would be interested, and 25 people who might not be interested.  I submitted the list of 50 people to him, and he started calling them for me.  Unfortunately, NONE of them have signed up.  In truth, I still like the products.  I would ride out the busy waves in my life and keep working at building my WakeUpNow business if I was already at the rank of D3.  In six months, I was unable to sign up three people.  Since I'm not at D3 and money is tight, I can no longer pursue this business venture.  As of this moment I have disabled auto-renew, so my membership will end when it's time to renew (unless a miracle happens and I get three people to sign up in the next week or so).  I'm going to keep using WakeUpNow until my membership expires.

If you would like to hear more about my experiences with WakeUpNow, please message me or leave me a comment below.

Where did this come from?

My printer was out of ink, so I decided to try Cartridge World in Midvale, UT.  They refill your printer ink, which saves you money vs buying a new ink cartridge.  I had never tried Cartridge World before, but I have bought ink from refilled cartridges before from other places.

Back in the old days, you had to send your cartridges out to have them refilled.  It could take a week or so.  For this reason, two sets of ink cartridges were a good idea: one set in your printer, and one set that you could send out to have it refilled.

My spare cartridges had been lying on a bookshelf in my living room for awhile- probably left out as a reminder that I would need to refill my ink soon.  Now I was OUT of ink.  I grabbed the cartridges- HP 15 black and HP 78 color, and headed to Cartridge World.  They had a color cartridge in stock, so they took my empty cartridge and sold me one that was already refilled.  They did not have a black in stock, so they refilled the cartridge while I waited.  It was nice!  It didn't take long.  I didn't have to leave it there and wait a week or two to retrieve the cartridges.  Quick, same-day service.  PLUS, it saved me about $30 by not having to buy it new.

I went home and tried to install the new ink cartridges.  When I opened the printer, I found that my printer DOES NOT take HP 15 & 78, it takes HP 564 (black, magenta, cyan, and yellow).



You can see the obvious differences in the cartridges.









WHAT IN THE WORLD?!
These cartridges look nothing alike.  How could I have confused the two?  I'll just have to chalk it up to a blonde moment.  But a couple of things just don't add up...

I have had those extra cartridges for awhile.  I assumed that they were my spare set.  I have never owned any other printer.  Where did these other cartridges come from?  And where was MY spare set for my printer?  I just paid to refill cartridges that I can't even use!

Luckily, they were nice about it at Cartridge World.  They took back the refilled cartridges, and exchanged them for the cartridges that I actually needed.  Crisis averted (whew).  AND the cartridges that I actually needed came to about $9 less than the other ones, so I saved EVEN MORE money!  Thank you Cartridge World!

First Month's Successes and Failures

I committed to trying out WakeUp Now and being honest about my personal experiences.  I meant to blog about my first month of WakeUp Now at the beginning of August.  Where has the time gone?  I can't believe it's time for school to start again.  Watch for my August results in about a week or two.

I definitely had my ups and downs the first month.  I set out to discover if WakeUp Now could really save me the money that it claims, and whether it would be a good business opportunity for me.  Here are my successes and failures the first month...

Successes:

The savings are definitely worth it!  The first week, I saved $38.48.

The first $30 days? $146.68

WakeUp now uses a savings tracker that resets every calendar month.  For this reason, I will also give the data in calendar months and from this blog forward.

June savings: $38.48 (remember, it was only one week)

July savings: $162.18 (because there were a few more savings the last week in July, after my 30 day mark)

So how did I save all that money?

• Free offers including music downloads, movie tickets, free samples, etc
• Printable manufacturer coupons (Juice, Chips, toothpaste, deodorant, etc)
• My husband bought a PS3 controller (normally $50) for $17.50
• We saved $30 on my husband's contacts.

And that's not all!  Included in the membership are three magazine subscriptions.  I did not add these to the monetary value, but it allows me to receive these without having to pay for them.  So which three magazines did we get?  Men's Fitness for my husband, Redbook for me, and Discover magazine to share.

I set up my cell account to get the 22% discount, but it takes a billing cycle or two before it kicks in, so I did not include the cell phone discount into the monthly savings this first month. 

Other successes:

• I set up my financial planning
• I set up taxbot (and I have already tracked approx. $200 in deductions using taxbot)
• I attended some webinars in order to familiarize myself with the product.

Failures:

• I did not complete my 15 day sprint to success (I didn't help 3 people to sign up in my first 15 days.  If I had completed it, I would have earned an extra vacation on my one year membership anniversary)
• I mentioned WakeUp Now to some of my friends and family, but I blundered my way through- telling them the things that I had found out, but none of it came from my own experience.  I was not sure what to say about the company, or how to get people to sign up.
• I didn't involve my mentor as much as I should.  Many of my friends and family has said, "We'll see if it works for you, and then MAYBE I'll try it."  I need for them to talk to Evan, or one of my other mentors- someone who is actually making money doing this.
• People in my organization: 0 (just me)
• I didn't make any money.

Conclusion:

For July, I have a net savings of $62.18, so the membership more than paid for itself just in the benefits.  If the savings continue like this, it will become more and more worth it (like when the cell phone discount kicks in).  The savings seem to be worth it, but we will see if the savings are always this good, and we will see if I can make any money.

Doing business by email

I live in a planned unit development.  We have a clubhouse that can be used by all, or reserved for special events and private parties.  The following happened as I was trying to reserve my clubhouse:

I called the HOA to ask a few questions about reserving the clubhouse, and check availability.  The receptionist told me that I need to speak to Alison, but that she wasn't available, and it would be easier to get in touch with her by email.  She wouldn't even give me the option to leave a message.  So I accepted the email address.

I sent an email asking about advance notice to reserve the clubhouse, security deposit, etc.

Alison answered all of the questions in my email but stated that in order to reserve the club house, I would need to fill out a reservation form.  She said that the form could be mailed, faxed, or submitted electronically, BUT she DID NOT include a copy of the form, nor a link to where I could access the form or submit it electronically.

EXCUSE ME?!  I obviously want to reserve the clubhouse!  Why couldn't she be thorough and include the form and/or a link to the form.  This causes me MORE work because I have to email her again to ask for the form and/ or the link.

I emailed her again asking for the form, asking if it was available on a certain day, and asking if she knew the address to the clubhouse.  She DID NOT send me the form, but responded that she didn't know where my clubhouse was.  She continued by saying that I should ask my neighbors were it is.  She didn't answer my question about whether it was available, just asked what time I needed it.

HELLO!
I KNOW where my clubhouse is, I just wondered the address so I can tell other people where it is.  There are other PUD's in my area, and I wanted to make sure they get to the correct clubhouse.

FURTHERMORE, she couldn't say, "There is another party that day, it depends on what time you need it."  Nor did she say "It's available any time that day, what time are you thinking?"  She was implying that she wouldn't even look up the availability on that day without the time.  AND she still didn't send me the form!

I emailed her back with the time.
She emailed me back and said that it was not available.  Couldn't she have just said that when I asked her about the day?

Then I had to email her back to check other available dates.  Is there a calendar somewhere I can look at the availability for myself?  Can't I just talk to her on the phone so that she can check multiple dates for me?

What is so annoying to me about all of this is (besides her incompetence) is that I have to do all of this through email.  That means that I have to wait for her answers, and I have to email her multiple times to get the info and forms that I need.  It would have saved me multiple emails if she would have just sent me the form in the first email, and it would have saved me a lot of time and headache if I could have just spoken to her on the phone.

My two cents take away lesson if you do business by email:

I realize that forcing people to conduct business with you through your email may be more convenient for YOU, but think about your CUSTOMERS!

If you do business this way, please think ahead.  If you tell them that they need to fill out a form, include the form and/or a link to the form so that your customers do not have to email you FIVE times to get ONE thing done.  And think about doing some of your business by phone.

WakeUpNow- Too good to be true?

I recently discovered WakeUpNow.  This company makes a lot of claims about being able to save people money, help them manage their money, and help them make money.

They claim that they can save the average household about $300 per month.
They claim that there are hundreds of discounts on online shopping, printable manufacturer coupons, cell phone discounts, travel discounts, deals on eating out, entertainment and movies, home services, etc.

They also give access to money-management software, taxbot to help record tax deductions, protection services to protect against identity theft and fraud, etc.

There is also a way to make money through sharing this secret with others.

I feel a little skeptical because it sounds too good to be true.  I watched YouTube videos about it including this one:

I checked with the BBB at http://www.bbb.org/utah/business-reviews/computers-hardware-software-and-services/wake-up-now-in-orem-ut-22245038.  They have an A rating.

I decided that I'd better try it for myself.  I signed up for WakeUpNow on June 27, and I plan on chronicling my experiences here to show the world if it is really worth it.  Are the savings worth it?  Can I actually make money doing this?

Follow me as I try this for myself, or sign up and try it along with me.  For more information about WakeUpNow visit http://manypenny.wakeupnow.com/