Product Review: Bango - everyone now can have salon quality trims at home!

If you are like me and try to save money, one of the first items off the list was visits to the hair dresser. It is amazing how much money you can save by learning to cut your own hair. And I just received a great tool for cutting my bangs at home and make them look like I went to a professional hair dresser. The secret is Bango - ideal for cutting bangs or short hairstyles at home and make them look like you spent a fortune paying someone else to cut your hair.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - the BANGO kit comes with everything you need!

 The BANGO kit was great because it includes everything you need to cut all kinds of bangs, shorten layers in a layered look and also trim the ends to minimize split ends. The kit included:

• Bango hair cutting tool
• a couple of hair clips
• a comb
• a pair of scissors
• and a DVD with about 6 minutes of instructions on how to use BANGO 

You can cut all kinds of bangs, I usually have mine a little bit longer on the sides than in the middle. I was years ago shown a trick by a hairdresser to quickly create some fake layers, but to me even that trick (twisting your bangs and then cutting the ends) did not produce the same results as a professional hair cut. So I was happy to be able to test the BANGO. 

copyright Durhamonthecheap - worried about not having the right scissors? No problem, BANGO provides them!

Best of all, the tools included alone are worth buying the kit. I have never had a real pair of scissors to cut hair with and the ones included in the BANGO kit are awesome. I love the clips because I have long hair and use the clips to hold the hair back so I can focus on my bangs.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - in addition to the CD, there are plenty of images to guide you along!

 And the BANGO is the best thing. It has the perfect grooves to guide you while you go snip, snip, snip on your bangs and produce shorter, but still good looking bangs that fit your face. The BANGO with its grooves holds on to your hair and then you can easily cut the bangs to the right length with the sharp scissors. I tried it and in a couple of minutes I had my bangs cut without ever leaving my house.

BANGO will be available at CVS, so keep an eye out when you visit your local CVS store to get this great new tool and continue saving money on your haircuts!

Disclaimer: I was provided a free product for review on my blog. As always, the opinion expressed in the blog post are solely my own and have not been influenced by any third party.

Product Review and Giveaway: Del Monte Fruit Burst Squeezers - great for a healthy lunch box!

Thanks to Del Monte, I received a wonderful gift pack of items to try out and review on my blog. Included in my gift pack were.

·         Two boxes of Fruit Burst Squeezers in apple cinnamon and blueberry flavor

·         One Del Monte lunchbox - we need constantly new ones since we all brown bag our lunch!

·         One orange-shaped eco-friendly shopping tote

·         One strawberry-shaped eco-friendly shopping tote - how cute is that in your purse!

·         One Del Monte magnetic frame

copyright Durhamonthecheap - my gift pack from Del Monte!

In addition to this new product,  Fruit Burst Squeezers, which are perfect for packing into school lunches, Del Monte also has a fantastic contest fitting the season of First day of classes. But more about this and the great giveaway later. 

The Del Monte Fruit Burst Squeezers are a great new product that come in a Simply Fruit variety and a Fruit + Veggie variety. The simply fruit variety comes in three flavors, Apple Cinnamon, which I received, Mixed Berry and Strawberry. The Fruit + Veggie varieties available are Peach / Mango and Blueberry, which was contained in my gift pack. For those moms concerned about nutrition, each package of Fruit Burst Squeezer contains 1 ½ servings of fruit or fruit and veggies and are an excellent source of vitamins A and C. Also important for moms concerned about artificial ingredients and sweeteners, the Del Monte Fruit Burst Squeezers contain no artificial flavors or high fructose corn syrup. 

We sampled the Blueberry variety because we wanted to find out how well the veggie flavor was covered. Del Monte did a great job of hiding the healthy vegetables. The content really taste like blueberry and I am glad to be able to include blueberry in our lunches without having to spend a fortune buying fresh blueberries. 

copyright Durhamonthecheap - Blueberry Fruit Burst Squeezer

As you can see from the image, the content of the blueberry Fruit Burst Squeezer do not have the fake blueish color of many other blueberry-flavored products. The color is more reddish and the tube is really easy to open, even for little hands. Best of all, if there is left over, which can happen with finicky eaters, you can close the tube again and store it in the fridge for another time. I have stored the Fruit Burst Squeezers in the fridge and I would recommend that you do the same because the colder temperature makes them so much more refreshing.

Because the vegetable flavor was not detectable, we also checked out the ingredient list. The blueberry Fruit and Veggie Del Monte Fruit Burst Squeezers contains pear puree concentrate, water, pumpkin juice concentrate, pear juice concentrate, natural flavors, carrot puree, blueberry puree concentrate, fruit and vegetable extracts for color, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), citric acid.

So I can highly recommend the Del Monte Fruit Burst Squeezers as an add-on to the lunch box. While you may want to alternate between regular fruit and the Del Monte Fruit Burst Squeezers, if your kids likes blueberries or strawberries, which will become impossible to pay for come fall, these Del Monte Fruit Burst Squeezers are a great way to include their favorite fruit in the lunch box throughout the year.

Now to the second part of this post, the Del Monte Facebook contest First Day of School Photo Contest. You can enter by simply uploading a picture of your kid's first day of school or maybe you can find your first day of classes photo and enter that. The top 20 Finalist photos will be posted to the Del Monte Fruit Squeezers website, and fans will have the chance to vote for their favorite photo. The winning entry will receive a $10,000 donation to a school of their choice.

Here is how to get started:

-          Submissions will be accepted now through through September 7 at 11:59 CDT.

-          From September 8, 2013 at 12:00:00 CDT to September 15, 2013 at 11:59:59 CDT, the public will be able to vote for their favorite Entry.

-          From September 16, 2013 at 12:00:00 CDT to September 22, 2013 at 11:59:59 CDT, the public will be able to vote for their favorite Finalist.

-          To submit your photo entry, you can visit http://www.delmontefruitsqueezers.com/

 
To keep up to date on Del Monte happenings, you can follow Del Monte on their Facebook page here and below is a video that recaps the Photo Contest for the First Day of School sponsored by Del Monte. The complete rules are shown here.

So to sum up, my wonderful gift pack from Del Monte contained:

·         Two boxes of Fruit Burst Squeezers (one Fruit + Veggies 4-pack and one Simply Fruit 4-pack)

·         One Del Monte lunchbox

·         One orange-shaped eco-friendly shopping tote

·         One strawberry-shaped eco-friendly shopping tote

·         One Del Monte magnetic frame

The best thing, Del Monte has agreed to make a second gift pack available to one luck reader on my blog. 

Which brings me to the third part of this blog entry, the Giveaway!

You can simply enter by following the instruction on this  Rafflecopter giveaway. 
Rafflecopter ensures that winning entries are selected fairly and I only require that you follow my blog, but you can gain additional entries by liking my new pages on Twitter and Facebook. 
Entries are due by 9-21-13 and I will need the full name and mailing address of the winner, since Del Monte will ship the prize directly to the winning reader of my blog. Good Luck everyone!
Sorry, must be a resident of the USA to participate!

copyright Durhamonthecheap - the good people at Del Monte will provide a second gift pack to the winner!

Disclaimer: The Del Monte products, information and two gift packs have been provided by Del Monte, but as always all opinions expressed on this blog are solely my own and have not been influenced by Del Monte or any third party. 

Book review: City of Hope by Kate Kerrigan

Life’s darkest hour can sometimes lead to more happiness than ever expected. This is the second book in a series and a follow up to "Ellis Island". Ellie Hogan is in Ireland, leading a content life with her husband John. While John likes the quiet pace of farming in rural Ireland, Ellie, in part to compensate for the lack of children, is a business woman constantly on the search for yet another opportunity. In her town, she keeps buying up businesses, leading to a rare, but volatile argument with her husband. The sudden death of John leaves a bigger void than expected for Ellie, who leave Ireland for the USA. Here she seeks refuge in the challenging business environment of New York. But rather than continue her life as a business woman, Ellie fills her emptiness by providing comfort to the poor. 

available on amazon.com

Will this new purpose finally allow Ellie to feel fulfilled? Not quite and the reader can follow the struggle of Ellie for a purpose in her life and the end is quite surprising. Not certain what I expected for sure, but now that I have had some time to think about the plot, the ending does make sense and is in line with the character of Ellie. She is an independent woman, ahead of her time. She does not compromise, but in the end knows exactly where she belongs and what her mind and body need. It just takes her a little bit longer to figure this out because even in her missteps, she can still build success. 

I found this to be a very engaging book. The author understands to let New York City of the Great Depression come to life. She vividly paints a picture of the hopelessness that Roosevelt’s election can only partially assuage and in which individuals like Ellie are counted upon to act as angels for the starving and weak. 

At the same time that she makes her living in New York and finds purpose and happiness (somewhat) in her life, Ellie is still Irish at heart and I find traces of Maureen O’Hara’s characters in the feisty and independent Ellie. I have not read the prior book Ellis Island, but now I wish I had read it because it would certainly provide more clues to Ellie’s character and explain her behavior initially. It is not required to have read the prior book to find City of Hope a very good read. But if you get to like Ellie as much as I do, then you really want to know where she comes from and what her prior life has been. By the same token, a future installment in this series is now eagerly awaited by me because I want to know what the future holds for Ellie.

bzzcampaign: Kroger Mega Sale - stock up with food and school supplies

Through bzzagent I was enrolled in the back to school sale by Kroger. School has already started here, but I never need an excuse to stop by Kroger. So off I went this morning to cash in on the digital downloads from the last 3 Fridays, get some customer reward freebies (Crystal Light sticks, Granola bars) and see what else is available on clearance.
I came out with bags full of stuff for lunch, dessert and plenty of goodies to pack for lunch bags. Here is an image of the total haul, which came to only $25.55 - what a bargain!

copyright Durhamonthecheap - Kroger haul today for $25.55!

So I started off with the digital downloads from the last three weeks, which was a 2L bottle of soda, some Gatorade shake with extra protein and an energy drink. The Gatorade will come in handy to pack for lunch. I then selected a treat, 6 candied apples with sugar coating and rolled in nuts - yum! I also selected a rare treat, three Asian pears, which were on sale for only 99 cents/pound. Then I bought for lunch this weekend some pork chops, portobello mushrooms and snow peas for steaming.

I also found EmergenC reduced. This EmergenC was for joint health and came in tangerine flavor. If you have followed my blog, you know that I love EmergenC because it is good for you and tasty! Kroger has been really good in making coupons available and so I used free product coupons for Granola bars and Crystal Light on the go sticks - both products I love and regularly use in lunch boxes. Lastly I could not resist and bought some more coffee, the Private Selection Mocha Latte just sounded too good and was on sale + I had a coupon, which made this another great Kroger bargain.

Last but not least, Goldfish crackers were reduced and I found the BBQ flavored variety, which I could not resist because they are great as a snack during breaks and will make it into the lunch bag for several days in a row.

Overall, a great trip to Kroger and I love the savings, but also the ability to feed my family some healthy items in the next few days that are fresh and tasty!

copyright Durhamonthecheap - healthy and tasty lunch thanks for McCormick and Kroger!

I prepared a quick lunch using the pork chops, mushrooms and snow peas. For added flavor I used McCormick Grill Mates in Molasses Bacon flavor. I simply sprinkled some of the flavoring over the meat and mushrooms while sauteing them in the pan and the flavor turned out fantastic. Not only did the meat receive a nice color that just looked yummy, but the portobello mushrooms really picked up the bacon flavoring well. The meal was rich and flavorful and it only took a few minutes to prep.

Disclaimer: I received a discount through bzzagent for shopping at Kroger and providing an honest review about my shopping experience. The opinions expressed in this blogpost are solely my own and have not been influenced by any third party.

Product Review: Lean Cuisine Honestly Good line of frozen meals - Lemongrass salmon

I rarely eat microwave food, preferring instead to cook my own meals so that I know what it is in the food. But I had a splitting headache today that really made me feel groggy all day and so I was glad to be home and able to take a nap after work. Cooking was out of the question. For these occasions I have frozen dinners at home, so that there is still food on the table.
During the latest week of Super Doubles at Harris Teeter I picked up a few Honestly Good meals from Lean Cuisine. This is a new product line by Lean Cuisine intended to be healthy with whole grains and generous meat portions that are both filling, but also enjoyable and healthy. I opted for the lemongrass salmon because this is not a dinner I usually fix. I rarely have lemongrass at home, but love the flavor of lemongrass.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - a generous portion, healthy and most important - very tasty!

The preparation is very easy. You take the separate sauce package and thaw it either under warm water or in your hand. Meanwhile you heat the meal for 3 minutes in the microwave. Then you add as much of the sauce as you wish and heat the meal for another 2 minutes - then you are ready to serve!

The lemongrass salmon is described as a whole coconut-crusted wild caught salmon filet, complemented by brown rice with wheatberries, snap peas, orange & yellow carrots, edamame, and ginger lemongrass sauce in a separate pouch. Overall, there is truth in advertising. The meal was meeting my expectations based on the description and the meal tasted very nice. It is filling, but does not wear you down.

For 320 calories, you get 5g of fiber and 18g of protein, with only 9g of fat. So the meal is really a meal and the flavor is fresh and actually tastes like homemade. I like the packaging because I can vary how much sauce to add and the plastic to me is taste neutral. I could not taste the fact that the meal was heated in a plastic container.

Overall, I give this new line of dishes by Lean Cuisine high marks and this lemongrass salmon is something I would definitely consider stocking up at home for when a murderous headache hits again and prevents me from preparing a home cooked meal. 

Book Review: Happy Money - The science of smarter spending by E. Dunn and M. Norton

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book through bzzagent.com in exchange for an honest review and WOM marketing about the book and the philosophy it describes.

As everyone can imaging with a blog dedicated to frugal spending, I believe to only spend money when it is necessary and not waste money on gadgets that rarely get used or participate in fashion fads. I was definitely interested in the topic of the book "Happy Money" and when it mentioned smarter spending, I wanted to find out whether I would agree that there was a smarter spending.

Reading this book, I recognized that there is smarter spending. It means to make money that is spent count for something more than just a material gain. The authors show a set of principles that they argue can mean smarter spending. These principles are:

1) Buy Experiences not Things
2) Make it a Treat
3) Buy Time
4) Pay Now, Consume Later
5) Invest in Others

I find myself doing a lot of spending that is #2, making it a treat. I will occasionally spend money on a special gourmet item that we can cherish. For example my monthly Goodies box has had a few items that we really enjoyed. So for our summer evenings snacking in the sunroom, I purchased a couple of chipotle sauces that we use on the weekend as snacks. These sauces were more expensive than my usual grocery items and definitely not on clearance (even though I waited until they were on sale with free shipping). But now we have them as a special treat with chips or carrot sticks.

Similarly, the part about buying experiences and not things is something I can see making sense for us. We sometimes drive for a weekend trip to a nearby destination, even it is just the Farmer's Market in Raleigh. We will stroll around the market, maybe buying a homemade pie or some unusual heirloom tomatoes. Again, what we buy will be a treat, but the whole trip to the market is an experience because we only make that trip a few times a year. And one thing we always do at the market is either have ice cream or have lunch. Eating at the market is like having a picnic and makes the trip so much more fun and a little bit of an adventure each time.

available on amazon.com

Some of you may think that these "trips" to the Farmer's Market are nothing special and you are right, they are just a shopping trip to the market to buy produce and have lunch or dessert. But we try to instill in our family the believe that it does not matter how much money you spend, but what you make out of it. And the fact that we enjoy dessert or lunch in an unusual place and outside in the sun, makes this trip an experience.

So for parents this book may provide good guidance on how to have experiences with their kids that do not break the bank. If you just tell your kids, we need to shop for tomatoes at the market, you are not selling the trip as an experience. We approach these trips as an adventure and make sure we have plenty of time to stroll around the market. No cell phones, no calendars, no clocks ticking. It is a little bit of old-fashioned family time on the weekend.

The same is true for our garden. We have a small garden each year and even though it is not big, it provides us a Summer full of fun for the family.We plan starter plants or use seeds in the spring, watch the plants grow and then harvest our own vegetables for months. It is not something I ever calculate profit on because we made time regularly to work in our garden and we enjoy it.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - planting a garden can provide a summer full of fun family time at a bargain budget!

I found myself actually agreeing with the authors on more points than I expected and I find this book reassuring for parents that want to spend money in a frugal, meaningful way!

Book review: interesting take on a memoir - stylized, good to read, but also "interesting"

So this book sets out to be a memoir - kind of. Which sounds strange and it does end up being certainly a unique book in terms of its approach to the concept of memoir. The story is that of the author starting with childhood, through adolescence and adulthood to present day. Along the way learn of his struggles with a father that is far from ideal. His teenage period is marked by issues with drugs and he finally comes to see the light and starts to practice religion. I usually do not use terms such as "see the light", but the author somewhat overenthusiastic describes in such glowing terms his finding Christian belief that I will actually use this term for once.

available on amazon.com

The book is not a memoir in the true sense because at times the author seems to embellish the story for dramatic effect. While for the most part the book reads like a true memoir and the author certainly has enough episodes to fill a book and an interesting life, the gray line between truth and fiction took some getting used to.

Overall, the book is vividly written. I really enjoyed reading it and so if you are simply looking for an entertaining book, this one is definitely for you. I enjoyed the story, the events described were interesting and the author certainly has a way with word. With the exception of in my opinion going somewhat overboard when it comes to the religious tones, this is definitely a well written book.

Disclaimer: I received a free book through booksneeze.com for review. The opinions expressed in this blog are solely my own and have not been influenced by any third party.

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