What was your resolution?

March has just begun, and already the majority of Americans cannot remember what they resolved to do this year...except to save more money. When thinking about saving green, going green (more specifically: Blue) is a terrific way to help you keep more money in your pocket. Would you like to save up to 25% of your water bill? Make some resolutions you can keep!

New Year's resolutions are easy to keep when you go green with some of these easy to implement environmental ideas.

Catch a bucket Place a bucket where it can catch rainwater. Use this to water your plants or wash your car instead of the hose. Recycled water is great-pour fish bowl water on your plants. Bathe the dog in the yard. Rinse dishes in 1/2 sink full of soapy water, then place in dishwasher. Use the water to wash the sink.

Sort it out Sorting your trash reaps big environmental rewards. Here are just a few statistics to help you keep the resolution:
* Composting vegetable waste makes natural fertilizer- reusing, reducing and recycling in one pile. This is better for the environment than a garbage disposal and requires no water.

* Sort all plastic out. Bottles, packing plastic and shopping bags are all recyclable and reduce production energy up to 67% and air pollution emissions more than 25%. Recycling one plastic bottle conserves enough energy to fuel a 60 watt light bulb for almost six hours.

* Crush those cans.
~~~Steel is the number one recycled material in the United States. Of the 100,000,000 steel and tin cans used in America everyday, enough cans are thrown away to build all of the cars in America.

~~~Make aluminum a contender: Recycling of one ton of cans will conserve 12,725 kilowatt hours, equal to the amount of the electricity used in the average American home in 10 years. This energy is the equivalent to 2,350 gallons of gasoline, or enough to drive a new car 82,250 miles. Recycling one saves enough gasoline to fill it half full.

* Read the paper online. Of the 62,000,000 newspapers printed today, 44,000,000 will be thrown away- 30,000,000 trees. Recycling one ton of paper conserves 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy or enough to heat and cool an average American home for 6 months.

* See through the waste. Recycling one glass bottle will light a 100 watt light bulb for 4 hours.

Turn it off Sleep mode requires energy. Turn off the computer, DVD, shredder, satellite converter, TiVo, lights, television, every appliance.

Down the drain
* Turn off the water while you brush your teeth (save more water than some humans get in a whole day), install low-flow shower heads, turn off the hose at the faucet. Turn off the water while you shampoo and condition- that's 50 gallons a week. Take a short shower- 5 minutes less will save about 1,000 gallons a year.

* Front loading washing machines: If you cannot afford one, wash only full loads of clothes. If you cannot do that, use the correct water height and the coldest water temperature. Line dry- uses less electricity and naturally humidifies the air.

Read on to find a way to burn some calories and save more water!

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Investing in Landscaping: Your wallet & the environment

Grass seed. Check. Rake. Check. Sun hat. Check. I've already spent $200 and not planted a seed! Where's the return on my investment?

Landscaping is an investment in your home and the environment. Average landscaping increases the value of a home by five percent. Excellent landscaping can increase property value by as much as 11 percent.

Landscapes which reduce the cost of heating and cooling the home produce as much as an additional three percent increase in home value. Plants and trees combat carbon dioxide, while protecting the environment from additional carbon emissions from energy consumption. Non-flowering plants can reduce the number of allergens inside a home.

Two types of landscaping investments can increase the selling price of your home: Long term and short term. Both have some similarities. Each type is diversified differently.

Common Sense Advice

~ Hire a local professional to design the landscape. You will implement a design with a good survival rate, complementary to the surrounding neighborhood and with an eye for detail you may never have considered.

~ Ask for indigenous plants and trees. These are more likely to survive drought conditions and will require the least amount of upkeep.

~ Avoid high maintenance designs. Shrubs which need constant trimming will be very costly in the long run and could cost you more money in the short term. You do not want to hire someone to replant perennial flowers before you sell the house. A buyer may not want the bother or expense of a high maintenance yard.

~ Avoid trendy items. Water features and statues fall out of fashion quickly and may turn potential buyers away. Stay natural.

~ Use natural elevation and drainage to save water costs. Proper landscape design will reduce the amount of water needed to sustain a garden.

~ Plant evergreens on the north side of the home to block winter winds. Plant deciduous trees on the south side to shade the home in summer. Proper tree placement can save up to 25% of heating and cooling costs. The boost in energy efficiency will increase the value of the home.

~ Plant according to the mature size of the plant. Overcrowding plants decreases their survival rate and increases the maintenance work, as plants will need to be removed over time.

~ Protect your foundation. Planting large rooted trees and shrubs too near the house will have disastrous effects on your foundation, sidewalks and driveway.

~ Weed protection. Shop for inexpensive weed control barriers. This investment will reduce maintenance costs for the life of the landscape.

~ Mulch. Cover around and between plants...

Read the remaining long term and short term investment tips to make your landscaping a positive return for your wallet and the environment!

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Make my tax refund retirement

Tax season is the second largest spending season of the year: Second only to winter holidays. Rather than spend the tax refund before you get it, think about the future. Need a step-by-step guide to retirement?

It is never too early to plan for retirement. The landscape of the world of retirement accounts changes as you reach retirement age. Tax benefits begin to disappear. Tax implications become more plentiful. Retirement is the practical application of "A penny saved is a penny earned."

Begin your road to retirement by exercising wise economic choices: Buy a house you can afford, spend wisely on cars, stay out of consumer debt and maintain a healthy credit report. All of these choices build big retirement muscles.

Set your retirement goals. Calculate your current yearly expenses, including utilities, property taxes, car expenses and food budget. Do not include your mortgage interest payment, but do include your principal. Double the total to estimate how much income you will need to retire. Multiply that by the number of years you will be retired. This will be your target savings amount.

Talk to an investment counselor for help in gauging your risk tolerance, income security, dividend reinvestment and portfolio aggressiveness.

I am 20. Is it too early to start saving?

You cannot start too early. The more you do now, the less you will need to do later.

Enroll in a 401(k) plan with your employer with matching contributions or begin a retirement account. Contribute the pre-tax maximum ($15,500) to your retirement. Learn to tailor your expenses to the money you bring home. You are learning to control money better.

401(k) is not enough. If you work thirty years contributing $15,500 per year, your nest egg before dividends will be $465,000. This may sound like a lot today, but when you retire, you will only have $31,000 per year to cover all of your expenses. How much did you need again?

Discuss with a financial adviser or investing consultant whether your needs will be best served with an individual retirement account (IRA), a mutual fund account or a stock portfolio or a combination.

Do not spend tax refunds. You lived without that money all year. Instead of spending it recklessly, invest the entire refund into your retirement. You will be saving more money than your employer is investing in your 401(k).

Assess your risk tolerance. How much are you willing to gamble with your investments? Consider higher risk investments with larger dividends to grow your money faster. At this age, you will be more resilient to market losses than you will in a few decades.

I am 30. Should I change what I am doing?

You are beginning to build equity in your home. How does this affect your saving?

Keep reading. The advice continues through age 60!

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Christmas shopping???

What do taxes and holiday shopping have to do with one another? Stress. Before you get busy spending that tax refund, think ahead to how you got stressed last year. Avoid it this year.

Planning ahead is the key to avoiding financial holiday stress and the New Year's credit card hangover. If travel is in your holiday plan, conquer the shopping early. With three months left over, you will be able to leisurely plan a trip without going into debt or stressing the details.

Be done shopping by August. Perfectly doable with this strategy.

Do the math. Plan to spend 1% of your annual income on holiday spending. This money will not be spent totally on gifts. Decorations, cards, food, fuel expenses traveling to parties and incidentals will fall into this 1% as well.

On December 26, do not stand in line to return anything. If it does not fit, will it fit someone on your list? If it doesn't match, will it fit in one of your recipient's homes? If you don't like it, will someone on your list? "What list?" you ask.

Each year, impulse buying for last minute additions to recipient lists account for nearly 15% of all holiday spending. Eliminate this spending, by knowing ahead of time for whom you will purchase. Parents, children, grandchildren, partners and best friends make the list every year. If possible, pare the list to the bare minimum. Your boss' secretary's husband does not need a gift.

Group you recipients into these categories: Gift, food, craft and card. Cards, wrapping and craft supplies should be purchased at after holiday sales. Crafts should be completed by June, wrapped and put away. By wrapping the present and applying a tag with a name, you have officially crossed the name off of the list. Beside the name, you should place a the total cost of the gift, wrapping included.

Sign holiday cards while watching a Little League game or cheer leading practice. Sign only as many cards as you have names on your list for which you do not have an email address. Remaining cards should be boxed for another year. On average, cards need only be purchased three out of every four years.

November 28-30, make a personalized holiday newsletter on your computer to impart the year's accomplishments/joys and to send best wishes for the New Year. This should be added to the cards the first week of December and mailed. Save postage by sending your newsletter via email to as many recipients as possible. Make note on your list as to the postage paid on your list, along with the cost of the cards and stationery stock/ink to print your newsletters. Cross off those names.

Divide your gift recipients into seven groups. Shop for one group...

Don't be in the holiday cold and hung over (or overdrawn) in January. It's not too late to start today!

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Tax refund exploitation

America has fallen for the instant tax refund. Are you being exploited? Yes. How?

The advent of the "instant tax refund" was designed to target low-income workers by H & R Block in the 1980s. The outline of the profitability of the program was very clear.

Traditionally, the users of tax preparers were high-income earners with complicated tax returns. 1984 saw the largest graduation of certified public accountants (CPA) in American history. Market research predicted that if tax preparation companies did not target a wider range of clientele, they would become obsolete within a decade, due solely to the glut of competition.

With a huge amount of venture capital, H & R Block launched the "Instant Tax Refund Loan", touting that users could have their checks in as little as three days. The focus of the ad campaign was young families with small children. Not one commercial featured a business suit.

Within three years, satellite "offices" cropped up in shopping malls, and the word "loan" disappeared. The instant tax return was born. Now, younger people and seniors joined the ad campaigns.

Traditional tax preparers, most notable being Jackson Hewitt, signed long term contracts with major retailers like J.C. Penney, Rent-a-Center and Wal-Mart to host their tax preparations. With access to break rooms, preparers were instructed to entice the employees, some of the lowest paid workers in the United States.

Retailers would take the next step and cash the checks in the knowledge that the holder would shop before leaving. This was no noble gesture on the part of tax preparers or retailers. The unprecedented success of the project was complete.

An army of attorneys had carefully drafted the contract between the earner and the preparer. Fine print included clauses of default and error: Should the return be reduced for any reason, notwithstanding preparer error or earner negligence, earner will be responsible for reimbursement of monies distributed and payment of all fees and interest thereon.

Translation: If the preparer makes an error that results in the earner not receiving a refund, the earner must repay the money, exorbitant interest and a handling fee for the error. Bear in mind that the check was not the actual tax refund, but only a loan against what the tax refund would have been.

So where is the $3 billion in profit? In interest and fees: Interest rates vary from an annual percentage rate of 70% to 1700%. The average prepared tax return is $2,000, with a fee of $250. 12% of all of the refunds are going into the pocket of the preparer and the lender.

The IRS states that the average income for 79% "instant refunds" is less than $35,000. 57% of those who got "instant refunds" filed for the earned income credit (EIC) which provides financial assistance to the working poor. Without a doubt, making $1.7 billion from the lowest paid workers in the country is truly designed to exploit.

References: National Consumer Law Center, Internal Revenue Service, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Affairs, Attorney General for California, Attorney General for Illinois, Attorney General for Washington

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What is a medical diary?

You've heard about medical diaries, but what really goes into a good one? While outlining what goes into a child's medical diary, you will soon see a pattern which can easily be applied to teens or adults with any medical or mental malady.

Keeping a child's medical diary will ensure that your child gets the proper medical attention in the fastest way by eliminating many avenues pursued in search of the best way.

The medical professional will have a complete history without compiling research from every doctor and hospital in your child's past. Why waste valuable time that could be the difference between life-saving measures and long term effects?

Preferred medical diaries will be bound editions that will not collect stray information or allow for information to be removed.

Begin with the basics
At birth your child begins to receive medical care. They will receive an APGAR score within sixty seconds of birth. Don't be surprised when he is five and his doctor asks you what it was.

Ask your nurse in the hospital to record his vital statistics at birth. The nurses will keep the diary in the nursery upon request. Include the following:

Place, time and date of birth
Hospital name
Attending pediatrician
Temperature
APGAR score
Audiogram result
Weight and length
Immunizations
Car seat test results (if given)
Tests and results

First trip home
Before the two week well-baby check up, note everything that you find. Much like a baby book, include any of the following:

Sleep pattern and total hours slept
Coughing or fever
Vomiting (not spit up during burping)
Excessive gas
Diarrhea
Date lost umbilical stump

Professional visits
Record everything from the first visit and all other professional visits that follow to doctor, dentist, nurse practitioner, psychologist, psychiatrist, orthopedic, dentist, optometrist or any specialist:

Doctor's full name, address and telephone number
Time and date of appointment
Vital statistics (blood pressure, oxygen saturation, temperature, weight, length)
All vaccines
Tests performed
Treatment received (fillings, glasses, hearing aids, orthotic devices)
Prescriptions (dosage, prescribing physician, pharmacy-with address and telephone number, pharmacist, prescription number)

Back at home
Over the next months and years, your child will change. Record everything that affects health, including the following:

First tooth (which one and date)
Loss of teeth (which one and date)
Fevers (temperature and duration)
Colds
Rashes (include diaper rash that occurs for more than 72 hours)
When and what new foods/juices are introduced
Changes in baby's reaction to light and sound
Childhood illnesses (chicken pox, measles)

Get the rest of the recipe for a great medical diary!

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Breastfeed in the closet?

Having breastfed and used a bottle with our many children, I found the arguments why women should not "be allowed to breastfeed in public" astonishing. Enjoy this foray into why asking breastfeeding women to cloister themselves is equal to a human rights violation for both mother and child...as well as a look at why the "against" arguments are anatomically incorrect.

Segregation is equivalent to assigning a lower class ranking to breastfeeding mothers for choosing the best for their children.

Proponents of public breastfeeding stand on the time-tested argument of breast milk's natural and nutritionally unequalled content as the perfect food for babies delivered in the most convenient, natural way. Feeding directly from the breast is how all other mammals distribute milk.

Breastfeeding mothers are the largest proponents because they have more intimate knowledge than any other in the argument arena.

Breastfeeding desensitizes the breast. After nursing an infant, women are unlikely to receive any sexual stimulation from the breast. This is the natural maturation of the breast and the maternal reception of the nervous signals.

Prior to birth, the breast has not experienced nervous stimuli such as the let down reflex, correct latching or a baby's natural pecking signal. Once these signals are received for the first time, the breast interprets all other signals thereafter as prompts to perform or incidental contact to be ignored.

Societal taboo attached to an sexualized image is mistakenly associated with breastfeeding. Suckling the breast is not a sexual act for the mother.

Opponents believe the nipple covered by the baby's lips is vile, embarrassing, and cause for shame. Ironically, the nipple covered with a smaller amount of spandex is beautiful, sells products and is to be coveted.

These opponents do not take into consideration the function of the breast. In fact, the breast's main purpose is the nourishment of offspring. The secondary issue of bonding is the proximity of the breast to the mother's heartbeat. This anatomical design is of note.

And there is more...read on.

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