This post was sponsored by Sears. All the opinions are mine.

As I said in my last post, I am attending my cousin’s graduation party on Sunday.  She’ll be starting college shortly, and she definitely needs to get “CampusReady”.  I remember what it’s like going to college the first time.  It is also amazing how much you need to start a new life at college.  It’s nice to be able to go to Sears and do some one stop shopping.  You can easily shop for your dorm room there.  I love that they have coordinating dorm room products.  They even have design ideas for you, so you can make your room your own.  Though, the best advice I can give is to make a list of everything you need.  Then you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything!

You can even find CampusReady on Facebook! I think it’s great how Sears is reaching out to the college community to make sure they are prepared for school. Also, you can enter to win money towards tuition too! Sears and Upromise have teamed together to give away a total of $25,000. Upromise members are automatically entered with a sears.com purchase through Upromise.com, or enter free at sears.com/campusready. Check out sears.com/campusready for full rules and complete details.

If you know anyone heading to college this fall, make sure you send them over to Sears for all their college needs!

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It is hard to believe that it’s almost time for school, but we are looking at around month away!  I have a couple of high school graduation parties to still attend, and it is always fun to give my college advice.  It wasn’t that long ago Bill and I were in college.  I remember Bill eating ramen noodles to save money (ewwwww is all I have to say).  However, noodles are cheap.  Any kind of noodles will work too.  Another way to save money is buy thing like fruit and snacks on your meal plan and bring them to your room.  It’s much cheaper than eating out of vending machines.  Another way to save money is to bring your laundry home.  It’s much cheaper to do it there!

With all that being said, a great gift for a college bound student has to be gift cards.  The Sears Reloadable Gift Cards are the perfect gift.  You can get them in your local Sears and Kmart stores.  Once in school, if you want, you can reload it online.  This allows you to watch what they are spending and giving them some money to help with their home away from home.

Sears has a great campaign called Sears CampusReady to make sure you are ready for college. There are tips, advice on how to make the best with the amount of space you have in your dorm room, and even a checklist. There is even a CampusReady on Facebook that is really easy to use!   This is great way to make sure your student has everything they need!  Giftcards, checklist, supplies — what more could you ask for?

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Well, last weekend I spent half of my birthday money buying myself some towels.  Actually, I think they are called bath sheets.  They are the really huge ones.  Now, I know a lot of people don’t like them (because they keep telling me that!), but I love them which is why I spent my birthday money on them.  Now, I also want some nice shirts.  I own a ton of T-shirts which is great around the house.  However, when we go out (as few times as we do), I would like something nice to wear.  Plus, this year, I will be attending several conferences, and I would really like some nice tops to where.

That is where Sears comes in. Did you know they are having an awesome clearance sale right now? They have a ton of awesome stuff at 75% – 80% off! Who doesn’t like to shop with those kind of sales? One of the tops I definitely like is this one:

It comes in several different colors too!  Best of all, it is on sale for $7.79 (regular price $44).  Who doesn’t love a deal like that?  With those kind of savings, I can definitely find quite a few outfits for myself.  Make sure to check Sears out for your next shopping trip!

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This year for my birthday I asked for money.  It is so much easier just to shop for myself.  This year, I want clothes and towels for my birthday.  Now, towels are easy to buy.  Clothes, well those aren’t quite as easy.  However, one night this week, I am going to head over to the mall to go shopping.

One of the first stores I am going to check out is Sears.  Sears is one of are anchor stores and always has great deals there.  Right now, they are offering 75-80% off their original prices on fall and winter apparel until April 18th!  Not only can I get some great deals for me, but I can also get some great deals on my kids clothes for next year (Madison outgrew the girl we get clothes from and Will did too.  It has gotten pretty expensive to buy them clothes, so I like to save when I can.)

Even though my kids need clothes, I like some new shirts for myself. All of my more dressier T-shirts have shrunk from being washed a million times.  Now, that I have birthday money, I plan on using it on myself and buying myself some shirts like that on the left.  How often can you get plus size shirts for only $7.99?

Honestly, there is just so much Sears apparel that appeals to me. I could spend another thousand words showing you all of the stuff I like (and that’s just off the clearance rack!).

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Now, I am not writing this to piss anyone off. I know I research companies before I work for them, and I just want to give you a point of view that you don’t see unless you blog for them. Now, anyone who does blog for them won’t ever post one bad word ever, because if you do, you will be kicked out (yes, I know people who this has happened to). If you happen to mention something that got said on their “private” forum, you’ll get kicked out (but this rule hold true for only certain people because I’ve seen things blogged about and nothing was done to that person).  Before I go on any more, let me tell you my story, what I’ve seen, and why I am not sure I’ll go back even when I will be allowed back in.

I think it was about two years ago when I received an email from PayU2Blog asking me to join them.  I was flattered, and it was a great way to make money off my blogs.  You get paid $5 for a minimum of 60 words.  Those were the rules when I started.  However, they aren’t posted anywhere, and if you don’t have access to the forum, you’d have no idea to all the changes that just seem to magically show up at their whim.  One day you can be following the rules, the next you aren’t.  The latest example of this (besides the reason I just got kicked but I’ll go into that a bit later) is when Izea came out with blog sponsorships.  If you had one on your blog, they (at least sent you an email BEFORE they did it) kicked you out.  Now, no where in their “rules” does it say you can’t have them nor would any new bloggers even have known it.  Actually, I understand the reasoning behind it.  However, there are so many bloggers that left Izea, because they felt PPP was telling them what they could and could not do with their blogs.  Well, this step is one big one towards that for PayU2Blog.

Another issue I have with them has to do with a friend of mine:  Drew.  Now, the upper brass their have a bad habit of calling out who they think are “cheaters”  on the forum.  Drew decided to quit and emailed them to let them know.  This was exactly what he was suppose to do.  He then wrote a post about why he left PayU2Blog.  He then was called out on their “private” forums by PayU2Blog for being a jerk and other things.  He couldn’t even defend himself, since he was locked out of the forums.  Well, low and behold, they found his email.  They then issued a half assed apology on their “private” forums, and actually, sent him a pretty snotty message before they realized their mistake.  I’m sorry, but this whole mess could have been avoided if they didn’t badmouth their bloggers.  They also start witchhunts among their members and I often myself unable to disagree with them on their forums.  You would often find that the members would gang up on the one lone person who disagreed.  I found that long standing members would no longer comment on the forums, because they felt they couldn’t.  Now, I also noticed that my work seemed to go down if I disagreed (now, this could be purely coincidental since it didn’t happen every time I spoke out, but did seem to happen enough that I noticed).  As much as all this annoyed me, I keep working for them, because money is money.  That may make me a bad person, but that money paid for Christmas and a lot of other things for my kids.

Now, what happened to me.  As you all know, I was picked to be an Izea Insider.  I have written a small amount about this.  However, no where to the level of a “personal cheerleader” like I was accused of being.  However, PayU2Blog disagrees and has told me that I cannot work for both Izea or PayU2Blog.  It is one or the other.  I was not the only one told this either – Brett, Corrin, Heather, and Julie were also kicked out.  Now, PayU2Blog seems to think that Izea has it out for them, and we are all spies.  Ummm, no.  We applied for this position never thinking in a million years that this would be considered a conflict of interest.  I consider myself a professional blogger and can separate what I do for each company.  Heck, Izea obviously agrees since they knew we all worked for other companies besides them and have no problems.  The best part of all this — the blogs that are not affiliated with the Izea Insider thing I am doing (like Lisa Reviews) are also kicked out.  Now, I don’t mention PayU2Blog or Izea on that blog, but since I am Izea’s so called personal cheerleader now (which I have done no post to even suggest that) nothing I do is good enough for them anymore.  Now, their advertisers lose out the most with this decision.  This blog got over 300,000 visits in October alone, and I average anywhere from 500 – 1,000 visits a day on here.  Since their advertisers are only after SEO (and maybe some hits from the posts itself), it really shouldn’t matter what my other posts are even about.

Now, what does this “personal cheerleader” get for being an Izea Insider?  I will get a template makeover for this blog (it’s coming and looks awesome!).  I was given an Affiliate Summit Pass and Sears gift card to give away.  I am also being given a $1500 stipend to spend on conferences.  Now, I actually have to pay out of my own pocket first and get reimbursed.  As you can see, this isn’t as glamorous as it was made out to be by PayU2Blog.  I have been nothing but transparent about this, but whatever.

I hope this doesn’t come across as sour grapes — I really do.  I have a lot of friends that still work for PayU2Blog and that I hope this doesn’t affect our friendships.  However, I do feel that you need to hear both sides of a story, and if you are thinking about working for this company, you need to be prepared for what may happen.  You will not hear this from somebody currently working for them, because they will get kicked out if they even mention in a blog post that they are doubting this company.  If you do a google search, you can see all the people who have had problems with them.  I can’t vouch for those posts — only what I personally went through and what people I know have also.  Since, I am over 1,000 words, I’ll end it here even though I could probably go on for another 1000 words).   I just have to say that it isn’t fair to change the rules in the middle and not allow me to work for both companies especially on blogs that have nothing to do with me being an Izea Insider.

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