Moms Meet Blog Review: Calorease - how did it work?

I had previously posted here about Calorease, a weight management in pill form that I was asked to review through Moms Meet. The product is very simple and easy to use. You take two pills of Calorease with each fat-containing meal. Calorease works by binding the fat and thereby could potentially reduce your intake of calories per day. The makers of Calorease state that this weight management treatment can reduce your food intake by up to 500 calories a day. So if you are busy and going to the gym does not always fit your schedule, taking a couple of pills with each meal sounds easy enough.

I took Calorease for 3 weeks now and I can assure that I did not notice any side effects. I was initially very concerned about any effect on the heart, but I did not notice any rapid heartbeat etc. I did not measure my blood pressure, so take this statement with the disclaimer that to me, my heartbeat state the same. And the makers of Calorease state that the pills are stimulant free.

I did notice that in the description it states that if you have a low calorie diet, you should consult your physician. This is because if the pills are taken with a very low calorie meal, such as a small salad, you can experience constipation. If you plan on eating a plain salad, you should simply skip Calorease and save it for a more fattening snack or skip the one dosage on that day alltogether. I did not notice any such side effects, but I usually have two slices of buttered bread with my salads or some crackers. So by my standards, some crackers or pretzels or buttered toast is enough fat that you can tolerate two Calorease with your small salad.

What I did notice though is that sometimes I would wake up hungry. This I took as an indication that my evening meal was not as filling as normal and this was due to the Calorease. So you may have some stomach growling, despite eating a regular meal. I did notice that I lost weight without changing my daily routine or my meals to any degree. I am down about 5 pounds since starting Calorease. Now that may be unrelated to Calorease, but as I stated I did not knowingly change my routine.

Overall, this has been a good experience for me. The weight management was certainly easy and convenient. You can fit it in your schedule as long as you eat regular meals and do not snack throughout the day. I have not noticed any side effects and I did drop some pounds.

So if you are curious about Calorease, a 90-tablet pack of Calorease retails for $29.99. This is in exchange for the convenience of being able to pack a couple of tablets in your purse and take them when you are eating out.

If you want to try now Calorease, you can get Calorease at 50% discount and pay only $14.99 for a 90-tablet pack by placing your order at calorease.com/buy and enter code 4MOMS. To find updated information on sales and other specials, please “Like” Calorease onFacebook.com/calorease.

To sign up for sampling opportunities with Moms Meet,simply go greenmomsmeet.com and sign up!

Disclaimer: I received this product for free from the sponsor of the Moms Meets program, May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms Meets blogger, I agreed to use this product and post my opinion on my blog. My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of May Media Group LLC. or the manufacturer of the product.

Freebie Fridays: Hillshire Farm and Gevalia

Today is a good one for Kroger with its digital download - new BOLD flavors of Hillshire Farms deli cold cuts in Turkey and Ham. I got the Ham, Bourbon sounds too delicious to pass up.
Go to Kroger.com and select coupons, then download the free product coupon on to your Kroger card.

There is also a free Gevalia sample. You can get a sample of Mocha Latte in the K-cup version for your Keurig. Go to their new product page for Gevalia specialty coffees here and select the free sample in the upper right hand corner.

Good Luck!

Gevalia Mocha Latte K-Cup Sample

Gevalia Mocha Latte K-Cup

Gevalia Mocha Latte K-Cup

Gevalia Mocha Latte K-Cup

Book Review: The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey

I have not been an avid follower of Dave Ramsey like a lot of other people, but when I got a chance through Booksneeze to review this book, I jumped at the opportunity because I wanted to find out what advice Dave was giving people.

I have to say that after reading this book, I can agree with Dave's advice on almost everything. It is common sense, straight talk that will work to improve your financial health, if (and that is important) you are willing to make changes in how you spend money. Dave is no miracle worker and so if you continue to overspend, you will not be financially healthy, even if you subscribe to something like Dave's financial advice of the day. You will have to make changes if you want or need to improve your financial situation.

What I got out of this book is debt is bad. Avoid it, unless you have a mortgage. Mortgage is about the only debt you should have and even that should be kept manageable. I have never incurred debt in excess of what my assets were, so if needed I could pay off my mortgage by selling assets (and that does not include retirement savings - those I will not touch until I am retired!).

Credit cards can be used, if you pay them off every month. I keep a credit card for business travel and to pay bills online. That is it. Credit cards do not include a means to get credit to spend money I do not have. They are for convenience, buyer's protection and that is it. They do get paid off each month, no exception.
Cut back on expenses. I now pay mostly with cash, not debit or credit card because it shows me clearly how much money I am spending out of my self-imposed weekly allowance. I do return items at the cashiers, not because I can not afford them, but because they exceed my weekly budget for food. It is not embarrassing because in the end I know that I will be better off financially.

Get over the comparing yourself with neighbors. Not worth it and it is usually a bad move. Live within your means and you will be happier than if you can match your neighbor's new car and now have car payments. So while I will not go out buy now every book published by Dave. I find his approach to be common sense, widely applicable to middle income families and easy to implement. Intuitively, I lived according to most of his rules and will now call my mom who taught me sound financial practices Mom Dave!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book through booksneeze in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed in this post are solely my own and have not been influenced by booksneeze or any other third party.

Moms Meet sampling program: Hail Merry Macaroons in Chocolate and Strawberry

Through Moms Meet I had been provided with a sampling package for Hail Merry Macaroons. I love everything coconut, so I was super excited to be included in this sampling program. We combined the sampling program with lunch associated with a House Party even so that the macaroons could serve as dessert.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - big selection of food and Hail Merry provided the desserts!

People were very surprised at the shape of the macaroons. There were no negative comments, people just expected macaroons to be more shaped like chocolate-chip cookies. And once they bit into the macaroons, especially they chocolate ones, they could have cared less about the shape because they all thought the macaroons were fantastic.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - plenty of macaroon samples to go around and everyone admired the gift tin!

So we gobbled up the macaroon samples, compared notes on which flavor we preferred (chocolate was the winner) and looked at the other flavors made by Hail Merry that were present in the gift tin - including blonde and caramel salt. Then we split up the goodies, the temporary tats, the questionnaire and of course the coupons towards a future purchase. Snug in another bite on a macaroon here and there and happily took home our chocolate sample bags!

copyright Durhamonthecheap - lunch party at work with Hail Merry macaroons as dessert - Yum!

Thanks to Moms Meet and Hail Merry for providing us with this wonderful gift pack. The Hail Merry Macaroons were an awesome product discovery. No one of my group had heard of Hail Merry before this event and most would not have considered buying macaroons in the store. Sampling the chocolate and strawberry macaroons really surprised my group with how well the macaroons tasted, particularly unexpected for the strawberry flavor, and members in my group will keep these macaroons in mind wen having friends over for dinner that require a gluten-free diet. I kept a few samples on the side so I can distribute them to additional colleagues who require a gluten-free diet, but could not make it to the luncheon.

Disclaimer: I received a gift pack from Hail Merry Macaroons through Moms Meet to host a sampling event. Included in the gift pack were additional Hail Merry products just for me. The opinions expressed in this blog are solely my own and have not been influenced by Moms Meet or any third party.

Samples at TARGET.COM - brew over ice K-cups Snapple Iced Tea, Airborne Immune Supplement, Maybelline Stick Foundation

Hurry and go to the samples page at Target.com here and you can sign up for three samples, pending eligibility.

- Snapple Iced Tea in K-cups form. I just tried these in Lemon and Peach Ice Tea and they were absolutely yummy.
- Airborne Immune Support Supplement. I was eligible to get the orange flavored package for dissolving in water. You can select a different sample, depending on whether you prefer to use the dissolving powder or maybe chewable capsules.
- Maybelline NY Fit Me Shine-Free Stick Foundation.

Good Luck!

House Party: Butterball Turketarian - so many uses for Butterball Turkey Besides Thanksgiving!

I was selected through House Party to host a Butterball Turketarian party. House Party and Butterball provided me with plenty of gifts, including shopping bags, plastic footballs, magnets, recipe downloads, coupons and several hostess gifts. They also included a gift card for party supplies.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - supplies for sandwiches and pasta salad

I decided to have the party at work because we are all busy moms and I wanted to show my colleagues how to make brown bagged lunches nutritious and healthy (turkey is lower in fat than other coldcuts) with Butterball products. So I went to Food Lion and purchased sliced turkey for a build-your-own-sandwich bar and also to make a pasta salad. I also purchased a turkey sausage to make a stir fry warm dish with peppers and onions. Walmart and Food Lion have a good selection of Butterball products, although I wish I could have found some of the Butterball Deli selections which include pre-cooked turkey items since I could have used then bigger chunks of Turkey meat in the pasta salad. The sliced turkey worked out okay though.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - pasta salad with turkey, peas, Swiss cheese and a light dressing

I was happily prepping salad yesterday and cooking my stir-fry, then hauling the supplies to work this morning where my biggest problem and headache  was how to arrange everything on our usual party table. But I managed to fit everything on the table, put the party gifts on a chair and we started digging in.

copyright Durhamonthecheap - sandwich bar, turkey stir fry and pasta salad thanks to Butterball

copyright Durhamonthecheap - I guess for Halloween this year I will be a turkey!

Everything tasted wonderful. The deep fried sliced turkey really had a nice flavor, was wonderfully moist and worked great on sandwiches. The pasta salad had a nice texture and the turkey, again I used the original deep fried one, added a nice kick because it is more flavorful than the usual turkey sliced at the deli counter. The biggest hit was the turkey stir fry because most of my guests had thought that it would be plain and rather flavorless. But when combined with peppers and onions and sauteed in a pan, the turkey really soaked up the flavor and it tasted great, but was less fattening than regular smoked sausage. The party was a hit, everyone enjoyed getting treated to a free lunch thanks to Butterball and House Party. 

We distributed the party gifts, admired the plush turkey hat and talked about how versatile the Butterball turkey products are. I was really impressed by how well all the prepared food turned out. And the fried sliced turkey was a nice change on a sandwich, I will definitely be buying this more often now. 
Happy party time for everyone today. Thanks House Party and Butterball!

copyright Durhamonthecheap - happy faces thanks to House Party and Butterball!

Disclaimer: I was provided with a party pack by House Party to host a Butterball Turketarian party and provide product samples and product information to my guests. The opinions expressed in this blog are solely my own and have not been influenced by House Party or any third party.

Book Review: Please Don't Tell by Elizabeth Adler

Fen Dexter lives alone in the wilderness with just her dog as a roommate. To begin with, this is not a scenario I would ever want to find myself in and combined with the rather detailed description of how a serial killer likes to slowly kill his victims, this book is definitely on the more gruesome side of the mystery genre for me.
Elizabeth Adler manages to come up with yet another mystery thriller and this one is a good one. A serial killer likes to bleed his victims out alone in the woods. He carefully selects his victims, often well in advance. The book starts off with a bang when we as readers are put in the woods, witnessing yet another kill by the serial killer. Even though he is disrupted by an approaching car, the methodical approach to his gruesome streak becomes obvious since he carefully checks that all his utensils are present in the car and he also looks forward to ending the life of the next victim, whom he has already carefully selected.

After this introduction, the reader is introduced to Fen, who has her comfy evening interrupted by a stranger that knocks on her door in the middle of a storm with a knife in his hand. We soon find out that there is something about this stranger that leads us back to the serial killer. Whether they are one and the same, we don’t know, but I got the strange feeling early on that Fen is closer to the serial killer than she knows.
But not all is dark in this book because Fen has two nieces; Vivian works in a hospital ER, in which she one night has to deal with the latest victim of the serial killer, while also being wooed by two equally attractive men. The psychiatrist Ralph Sandowski and the detective Brad Merlin show romantic interest in Vivian. As if Vivian had not enough on her plate already, her sister J. C. also enters her life. J. C. is out of money, needs a place to stay and seeks the assistance of her sister.

I like this book because the storylines involving Fen and her two nieces bring much needed lightheartedness to the book and provide a nice contrast to the dark chapters dealing with the serial killer. While I realized early on that Fen and her nieces are closer to the serial killer than I personally ever want to end up, this book is even for a skittish person like me enjoyable because the tense situations are interrupted by storylines involving Fen and her dog that reassure the reader that even with all the evil in the world, there are still an awful lot of just plain good people around