I have met so many bloggers over the last couple of years who are not monetizing their blogs in any way. I know that many people feel like they are “selling out” if they make money off of their blogs. Do you consider site-wide sponsorship any different than using affiliate marketing links?

I’m genuinely curious as to the reasons that so many people are not monetizing their blogs. Weigh in on whether or not you are and if you are not, why not? Is it a matter of integrity, technology, time, or all of the above?

The beginning of the school year is upon us and for most parents, that means spending a lot of money. Here are some tips to save when it comes to back to school shopping.

Back to School Boxes: It might be too late already for you for this, but our PTO offers “Back to School Boxes” that have exactly what you need for your class prepackaged. At first it might seem like they are a little bit more expensive because you can’t shop around. However, I find two advantages to them. The first is that I can usually prepay in the Spring so I am not putting so much money out at one time. The other is that because I am not making a trip to the store to buy the items, I am not buying any “extras” that tend to come with each shopping trip. I’m getting the exact items that my child needs and nothing more. And there’s no danger of buying the wrong things and ending up having to exchange.

Combine Clothes Deals: Keep your eye out for the best “stackable” deals that you can find. If you are shopping online, this means using both a free shipping coupon along with a percentage or dollar off coupon AND some kind of early bird or back to school sale.

Use Gift Cards: I usually buy the bulk of my kids’ school clothes at Children’s Place. However, I found out that I could get Kohl’s gift cards as a cashout from my American Express credit card. We decided to skip a short family vacation that we were going to use the points for and instead cash out for gift cards. I ended up getting almost $400 in clothes for $37 in cash once I used various stackable sales and coupons plus my gift cards.

Look in Strange Places: I was surprised to find a back to school section at Sam’s Club the other day. We didn’t need supplies for class but we always need pencils for homework. I was able to get a box of mechanical pencils for $5, and it should last the entire school year (without us having to buy another pencil sharpener because the kids always manage to lose or break them).

Shop Around for Textbooks: When I was in college, I had two choices for textbooks and they were both on my campus. Once I got there, I might get lucky and get a used book. Now you can shop so many online textbook places (including renting instead of buying at some of them). Just be sure that you are getting the right edition because many of them change frequently.

These tips won’t solve all of your problems, but they should at least help. And we can all use all of the help we can get when it comes to saving money!

I am excited to announce that we are completely revamping the Chatty Women site. First of all, we switched from WordPress Mu to WordPress 3.0. This is huge for us! It will allow our bloggers to have a lot of new options. Second, we are switching the theme from Cutlines to Thesis. This will allow us more customization and standardize the site with others at MeyerTech. Third, we are going to start bringing on new bloggers. I am most excited about this because it will mean new content!

And finally, we are going to start telling the world about Chatty Women. We have a great thing going here and want everyone to know about it!

For a limited time, you can get free shipping at Beauty.com with NO minimum purchase. This is a great deal if you are just needing one or two small things and didn’t want to have to pay more in shipping than you were spending on your merchandise.

Beauty.com is a division of drugstore.com and has everything from shampoo to perfume to makeup. You get find some of my favorite brands like bareMinerals, Urban Decay, Smashbox, Too Faced, and DuWop. In fact, you can get one of my new favorite products, the DuWop Venom Gloss Mini Trio Set. I love throwing these in my pocket when I go out for the night!

The Beauty.com free shipping ends June 14.

There are many reasons that I love working online. Lately one of my favorite reasons for loving that I make money blogging is the “surprise” money that comes in every now and again.

I expect that when I post a hot topic I will get traffic for that topic and maybe make a little money off of the links that I put in the posts. But once a topic is old, I figure that I won’t make anything off of it–especially if it was a “news” type topic.

The other day I was checking my statistics for Ticketmaster and discovered a credit tagged with the subid “billyjoel.” The crazy thing is that I posted about the Billy Joel concert almost a year ago when he and Elton John were scheduled to play in Ohio and Indiana. I never would have suspected that I would still be making money off of that post!

Granted, I only made $4. But imagine if you kept at it over years and continued to add content that was worth reading year after year? Your revenue would start to multiply as you increased the number of posts you put out and the number of clicks you were getting. Definitely good motivation to keep writing!

I can’t believe that I am saying this, but it is almost fall!! How do I know? Let me count thy ways: 1) My daughter wore a little jacket to school this morning, 2) Conner Prairie’s Apple Store is now open, 3) The first NFL games will be starting next week, 4) It feels good to run outside again.

All of those…and I didn’t even mention that the Calendar says “September”!

I do love fall. It may very well be my favorite season (maybe second favorite after spring). I love the warm days but cool nights. I love that the apples are ripe and tasty and barely bruised at the supermarket. Soon trees will be turning and we will be taking our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. The only thing I don’t like about fall? It always seems to go to quickly.

Are you a fan of fall? Are you anxious for the leaves to start turning or mourning the end of swimsuit season?

TMZ is reporting that an unreleased song by Michael Jackson entitled “A Place with No Name” is being released. The song is similar to America’s “A Horse with No Name,” and the band gave Jackson permission to record the song.

The question now is, where you can you get a copy of Michael Jackson’s unreleased song? So far, TMZ only has a tiny snippet of it. However, I am sure that it will be appearing on iTunes and Amazon.com very soon. The estate would stand to make millions on the song. Everyone is still looking for all things Michael Jackson, and the song actually sounds pretty good.

I’ll keep my eyes open for any place that we can get the full version and will update this post as soon as I find out.

I’ve been following Celebrity Apprentice closely this year and found the finale to be unbelievable. When they first started showing the “party planner” named “David,” I thought that I recognized him. After a couple of clips, I realized that it was the same guy that I saw on a bridal show last week that designed the Disney Wedding Couture Packages. I couldn’t believe that Joan Rivers was saying that “David” was overwhelmed and out of his league in decorating the space. Seriously? A guy who Disney entrusted to design their couture wedding packages?

If you didn’t see the show, Rivers offended Tutera so much that he not only quit working with her but he pulled out of Celebrity Apprentice altogether. When taken to the board room, Rivers and her daughter (Melissa Rivers) claimed that none of it ever happened and Annie Duke was totally lying.

My husband is claiming that he is never going to watch the show again because of the outcome. I’ll watch again, but I am definitely surprised. How about you?

My husband and I were watching Food Network today and he paused it for me to watch a commercial that he thought was really funny. I hadn’t seen it yet, so I stopped to pay attention. I have to say that it was one of the funniest commercials that I have seen in a long time–and it was not even a Super Bowl commercial! After searching for it online, it appears that it may have initially aired during American idol (I must have fast forwarded through it. Anyway, here is the commercial. It is for Minute Maid Enhanced Juice (it supposedly uses Omega-3 and DHA to help nourish the brain).

The premise of the commercial (for those of you who might be doing a Google search for it) is that the woman runs into a man and says “I think you’re the father of one of my kids.” The resulting conversation is a riot! But did you remember the maker of the product after you watched it? Or just that it was a cute commercial?

Here’s a recipe from one of my favorite nut companies, NutsOnTheNet.com. If you haven’t tried their nuts, you don’t know what you are mixing! I keep them on hand for gifts, parties, and general snacking. I haven’t tried this recipe yet because I need to order more pecans. But I will be! I would say that I place an order just about every other month.

Candy Coated Pecans:
1 large egg white (about 2 tablespoons), at room temperature
1/4 cup loosely packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups Zenobia Mammoth Pecans

1/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes, optional Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place the egg white in a medium sized stainless steel bowl and whisk until frothy. Add the brown sugar and vanilla and stir until smooth. Add the pecans and the coconut, if desired, and stir until well coated. Pour the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet and arrange in a single layer. Set aside at least 30 minutes and up to two hours. Transfer to the oven and bake, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Immediately loosen the nuts with a spatula and set aside to cool.