Review & Giveaway: Milo Paper Gift Shop

Okay organizing junkies, who loves a good notebook for lists, organizing, notes, etc.? Anyone? If you're anything like me, you probably have more notebooks than you need lying around the house. While I'm a tech-lover, I'd rather hand-write things down than have electronic lists. I love writing. I love colored pens/markers. I love beautiful notebooks. *sigh*

Enter: Milo Paper Gift Shop. Beautiful personalized notebooks, notepads, wall calendars, super cute kids placemats, stationery, growth charts, and more. I want to show you a few of the truly cool products they offer.

dry erase meal planner

desk blotter

stationery

I was sent a notebook to giveaway to one lucky reader. Here's what I think about it:

• The front and back covers are beautiful. The design is lovely and the cover itself feels sort of soft, yet sturdy. The cover is scratch resistant as well.
• The notebook is made from recycled materials, which is awesome.
• The coil is nice and won't come unraveled from use.
• The lines in the notebook aren't crisp, thick lines, but are lighter dotted lines. I personally dig this. I don't like it when lines in a notebook overpower my writing.
• Overall impression: Milo Paper Gifts makes high quality products that are meant for use - not just to sit on your desk and look pretty {that's just an added bonus}.

Prize: Milo Paper Gift Shop Notebook

Number of Winners: one

To Enter: You must use the Rafflecopter widget below. It's really easy to use and makes giveaways a lot easier for me to manage. The widget will tell you what your commenting topic is! (mandatory)

Giveaway Ends: Wednesday, August 8 @ 12:01 a.m. (ET). One winner will be chosen using the Rafflecopter widget. The winner will be announced on this post and will be emailed to claim their prize. The winner has 48 hours to respond to my email to claim their prize.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Giveaway Rules & Disclosure:

• You must be a follower (through Twitter, FB, GFC, or RSS/email) of The Nest Effect to win.
• The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter.com.
• This giveaway is open to readers living in the U.S.
• Please make sure your email is either linked in your profile or on your blog OR that you include it in your comment. If I can't find your email address, I can't contact you as the winner.
• You must comment as your first, mandatory entry. All entries will be verified when the winner is chosen.
• One entry per method per person (3 total).
• This giveaway is sponsored. The prize, information, and giveaway have been provided by Milo Paper Gift Shop. I was sent a product to review and give my honest opinion on. Any opinions about products stated in this post are completely honest and purely my own.

Technology Tutorial: How to Organize Your "Liked" Pages on Facebook

Today I have a technology tutorial for you. It's really simple to do and can make Facebook more enjoyable.

I've always "liked" a lot of business pages on FB. It was a bit overwhelming a few months ago before the Lists feature came out and all of my liked pages were showing up on the main news feed along with friends and family. Information overload. Here's how to organize your FB likes so you can view what you want, when you want. {The instructions are written on the images, so if you're reading in an update email or feed reader and can't see the images below, please visit the blog.}

After creating all of my lists, I've deselected the "Show in News Feed" option for each page. By deselecting that option, it doesn't show up on my main News Feed - only friends and family do now. Since I've created lists for ALL of the pages I like, I still get the updates, but I choose when I view them. I also really enjoy being able to view the same type of updates all at once {for example - all of my education blogs and companies are on one list and I can view their updates together}.

If you have any questions, let me know!

Sell Your Excess "Stuff" & 2 Free Printables

I'm really feeling lately like we just have too much "stuff". (This was actually #4 on my decision for change last month.) Yesterday I went and bought an iPad. Not really helping out #3 on list. But thanks to Pinterest, Etsy business has been good, and I thought it would be handy for an upcoming trip I'm taking. After playing with it for the last 24 hours, I've decided to take it back. #1 I'm not an Apple fan to begin with. #2 while it's really neat, I feel like it's truly the same as my Amazon Kindle Fire I got for Christmas last year. And I can get way more stuff for free on the Fire than I can on the iPad. I've wanted an iPad since they first came out, so at least now I've tried it and know what I'm "missing" (or not). Taking the iPad back = one less gadget + $600 back in our bank account.

Anyway, do you feel like you have too much stuff as well? I don't think I'm the only one. When I watch movies/TV shows where the characters live in other countries or in another time period, whether or not it's accurate, they seem to have less "stuff" and live more simply. We're in debt. We should be living simply anyways, right? We don't think so, obviously, since we have junk overtaking our apartment.

Over the last month and a half, I've been slowly cleaning sections of the apartment, finding things to sell or donate. Ideally, I'd love to have a yard sale, but it can't really be done where we live. Option #2 is eBay, Amazon, and local online classifieds (not Craigslist). I don't like taking the time to list things on eBay or ship the stuff, but now that listings are free and they've (finally) simplified their listing process, it's not too bad of an option. Amazon is super easy to sell books, movies, and video games. And online classifieds (through local TV news stations) are really only worth selling on for more expensive items (TVs, a car, furniture, etc). I really wish we could have a yard sale though because then I could sell even the smallest of things - like a candle, binders I no longer use (but are in excellent condition, of course), stationary, clothes, etc. No one looks on eBay or classifieds for some of those "other" things. I've recently discovered local Facebook groups that are kind of like online yard sales. Good concept, but the posts are mostly people who are trying to get you to buy into their "work from home and make $10,000 a month" scam.

So why simplify? Here are my reasons.

• Less stuff = less clutter
• Make some money on things we no long need/use
• Less to clean around
• I don't like keeping things we don't need just because we can - my husband does, though
• Get rid of the guilt - the guilt that comes from seeing the "one too many" of everything that we own and the debt we still have - why keep spending the money?

I've decided any money we get from selling our stuff will go towards paying off the debt. I have some stuff on eBay right now and we have a few things listed on the online classifieds. I also have some books on Amazon.

Want garage sale tips? I've collected some on a Pinterest board for you.

I have created two free printables for you for tracking garage sale and online sale income. Click the images to download the PDF files.

Do you have any tips/websites to share for selling online?

The Latest & Greatest of Pinterest

I spent a good chunk of my weekend on Pinterest. Terrible, I know. I found some really good stuff though and thought I'd share.

None of these pins/pictures belong to me. PLEASE click through the links and visit the websites if you're interested in repinning. Don't pin from this post.

FDA.gov :: Refrigerator & Freezer Storage Chart

Source: fda.gov via Tiffany on Pinterest

Squakfox.com :: The Organized Pantry

Source: squawkfox.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Easy Lunchboxes :: 100s of Lunch Ideas

Source: easylunchboxes.smugmug.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

LifeHack.org :: How to Organize Your Paperwork to Boost Productivity

Source: lifehack.org via Tiffany on Pinterest

OrganizedHome.com :: The ABCs of Household Paper Management

Source: organizedhome.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

TheAccentPiece.com :: 31 Days to Learning Photoshop Basics for Bloggers

Source: theaccentpiece.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

TheHumbleNest.com :: 30 Great Places to Buy Fabric Online

Source: thehumblenest.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Dandee-Designs.com :: Organizing Children's School Papers & Memorabilia

Source: dandee-designs.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Like what I pin? Follow me on Pinterest for more! =]

You can also leave your Pinterest account link below {in the comments} so I can follow you!

Happy Birthday to Me & A Gift For You

Today I am a quarter century old. To celebrate my birthday, how about a free printable? This document comes in the family & party planning set {in the set it's in a different font and is editable}. The family & party planning set is on sale in my Etsy store for 50% off, today only. It's originally $30 and today you can get it for $15! The sale will end at midnight (ET) tonight.


You can download this document for free until midnight (ET) tonight. Enjoy! =]

Infographic: Bridge to Financial Freedom

Since we've been talking finances lately, I thought I'd share this infographic that came in my email today from Mint.com. {If you can't read it, click to make it bigger.}

Finances & Home Information Binder: Debt, Savings, & Home Information

Miss the first two posts? Click to read: Bills & Calendar :: Budget, Income, & Business Expenses

Disclaimer: Don't take any of my "finance" related posts as expert advice. I'm not claiming to be an expert. Eh, I'm far from it actually. This post...and the few that are coming up next...is purely for me to show you how my husband and I handle our finances. We're a financial mess, but this is how we organize it in style.

{Due to not wanting to blur out all of our financial info, I'm just going to show you screen shots of the forms I used, where applicable. I'll use actual photos where I can.}

The sixth section is for tracking debt. Boo. Who likes debt? Not me, but unfortunately we have quite a bit. Thank you, student loans.

debt repayment plan

This sheet comes first and is simply for quick reference of our debt snowball.

credit cards overview

Credit cards are truly the worst idea ever for a college campus. It should be illegal, the way they stand around, handing out flyers for free sandwiches, pizzas, blankets, etc. - all if you go to a fast food place or wherever and sign up for the credit card. So sketch. We're almost done with our credit card disaster.

credit card repayment log

Love this form. Keeps me motivated because I can see the payoff happening each month. Just keep logging...and paying.

student loan overview

Welcome to my biggest financial disaster ever. You wouldn't even be able to fathom the amount of student loan debt Chris and I have together. It's nauseating, but we're determined to pay it off ASAP. The best way to do it? By being organized, of course!

student loan repayment log

Again, this form informs and motivates.

 

The seventh section is savings.

savings log

I have one of these forms for each savings account we have. I track monthly additions to each account and am motivated to add, not take away, as I see the current balance increase each month!

yearly savings

This form serves as a quick overview to see how we're doing, overall, on our savings goals.

The eight, and final, section is home information.

important account numbers

Kind of self explanatory. I keep all of our bills and utilities phone numbers and account numbers on this form.

home services

This form includes all services for our home, such as water, gas, electric, landlords {we live in an apartment}, etc.

insurance policies

I list all insurance policies here: medical, dental, life, auto, renter's, etc.

membership information

All membership info all in one spot for easy renewing.

vehicle maintenance checklist

This form helps me remember when our next oil change is due! =]

to-do list

To-do lists are so versatile. I have them everywhere, so why not in my binder as well?

I hope you enjoyed reading about my new Finances & Home Information Binder. It's only 9 days into July, and I feel like I have a clear vision of where our money is going so we can get our debt paid down off!

If you're wondering where you can get such amazing forms like these, let me tell you. I spent the last two weeks working on a new set with this new font. Maybe not new, new, but new from what I usually use. It's called GeosansLight. This whole set, called fiances & home information set, has the same usual colors I use, but this new font