Welcome Back! I'm Up and Blogging....

A preview of what's been going on.......

Although the original postings up to July/August are over on the original blog, now named, SpoiledMom: Happiness Is Not Material, We Interrupt This Blog For The Casey Anthony Saga.


I have finally gotten my personal blog back up and running. However, there are not many posts, due to my time at Casey Anthony Saga Blog.

I have lots of pictures to add, not to mention what has been going on in our lives during the Casey interruption. Cancer has progressed, girls have grown (and grown). They are both taller than I am...yikes! Oldest made Jr. Beta (hooray), youngest is still "all A Honor Roll", and they are doing a lot of changing....oy!

(Hi Supermum! Yes, I'm still alive LOL ! Missed chatting with you!)

Everyone is invited to follow both blogs. Please be patient, however, as I get "Seasons of Motherhood" up to date.



I am excited to be able to get back to "writing". I have been doing original writing over at the Casey blog, but it is not the same as what those who read the blog before. I enjoy writing about the goings on in life and having the exchange with others and incorporating it into the posts.

On the Casey blog, I tried mainly to report the breaking news, facts and findings, mixed in with my personal opinions, but not as much as on "SpoiledMom"...heh

Thank you for your patience and I hope I continue to have my old readers, as well as new readers from the Casey blog. It's like the best of both. Look for new additions to this blog, as well. I plan to add a lot of my southern recipes, teen parenting topics, as well as a few surprises! I am very excited about it!

I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Christmas! Relish the remainder of the season and wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

A new year full of health, prosperity, and love.

~spoiledmom

Deceptive Downsizing at the Supermarket

Please see video at end of post that includes more information on this topic.

It's cold and flu season again. Oh, joy! Seems just a short while ago my pantry was stocked to the brim with tissues.

It's also the holiday season, and that means extra snacks, juice, and well, "extras" for all the parties, dinners, and friends stopping by.

Next time you grab for that box of tissues, bottle of juice, peanut butter, or even your child's morning cereal, make sure you check the packaging. Look for smaller packaging, width size is being manipulated more than height.

Homeowners are not the only ones downsizing these days.

Food manufacturers, paper product companies, along with a plethora of other major brand companies out there are downsizing their products. They have basically decided to research either how sneaky they can be, or how misinformed we, as consumers, are.

For example, Lays Brand potato chips has recently downsized their 16oz "Family Size" package of chips to 14oz, with no change in price. Skippy brand peanut butter has taken the equivalent of two (2) tablespoons out of their product. By looking at the jar, you would not notice. You also wouldn't notice unless you knew exactly what the previous ounce of Skippy was. How did Skippy get around this? The same jar is used, except the very bottom of the jar has been altered to "not" accommodate the two tablespoons, by taking out an indentation that was previously there. However, again, the price has stayed the same.

Paper product manufacturers are making tissues not as wide, but the packaging is the same. Toilet tissue paper has less sheets to allow for the more "wider" roll. Again, without this knowledge, shoppers would not notice a difference. The product packaging is reaming very close to same. Therefore, less bang for our hard earned buck.

Remember the better-buy shopping mantra: "Be aware; always compare".

A survey of shoppers felt more "cheated" or "deceived" when told of the manufacturers' changes. Those same shoppers said they would be willing to pay a nominal increase in price to keep the same product amount than to feel deceived by manufacturers' tactics.

To learn more on this topic, please view the following video from NBCs Today Show featuring Janice Lieberman, Consumer Advocate.

Would like to hear your thoughts on this matter.

(if you experience audio problems at the start of video, (i.e. out of sync, garbled sound)when the video has finished loading/buffering, the audio will be corrected..promise!) :) Feel free to contact me or leave a comment and I will help you.
It is a Truveo tech situation.

video courtesy: NBC Today Show : 12/9/08, 2nd hour; via MSNBC Truveo

random pics

Thrifty Tuesday

Website of the day: Printable Grocery Lists

Excellent site to organize your grocery lists as well as other shopping lists.

Also great to use for planning Christmas gift shopping. Can also be used for dinner menu planning as it can combine recipe and grocery lists. Plan your Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner menus then add grocery list. Print out and have on hand while at the supermarket.

There are endless uses for the items on the site. There are several different templates to print out, or you can create your own custom lists.

Hope you enjoy!

Wonderful time saver.

Menu Mondays

The ever changing and, at times, scary, economy is affecting families across the nation. Mine included. In an attempt to restart the blog, I would like to hear how you are dealing with rising gas prices, rising food costs, and overall inflation. I would love to encourage interactivity with the readers by implementing a few new daily topics. The first of which, we will start today. I'd like to call it Menu Monday. I hope to dedicate Mondays to getting feedback from readers on their favorite recipes and to help, if no one but myself, create weekly or nightly dinner menus. I will be posting along as well, my recipes and/or menu for the week. Other daily topics I would like to set up would be budgeting, i.e.: grocery costs, how you implement your budget and what tricks you use to stay on track.I will post upcoming topics and look forward to the feedback and interaction.

Feel free to comment while this post is updated!

Look forward to hearing your great ideas!

spoil yourself today....

SpoiledMom

Spoiled

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For Karen: