I consider myself a good shopper even though it’s not something I spend a lot of time on because I find it very boring, but for those of you that like to shop and really don’t have a clue on how to save money remember to take advantage of those holiday sales.

You’ll be delighted to find out how much money you can save on items after a holiday instead of the sales before them and they are probably items that you will eventually need to purchase anyway.

Black Friday of course occurs the day after Thanksgiving and it’s considered to be the biggest shopping day of the year. You can definitely benefit from tremendous savings, but you have to be willing to fight the crowds and get up very early to get the best deals. I totally avoid this shopping day though.

Just so all you guys that buy jewelry for the women in your life will know, most jewlery shops have sales before Valentines Day, but in the weeks after Valentine’s Day you can save at least 30% on the same items. You can benefit from these sales by getting quality jewelry at a bargain price to give on a birthday, at Christmas, or for any other occasion.

When I was young I always looked forward to that new Easter outfit and as we all know Easter clothing isn’t the cheapest thing to purchase, and the larger your family is the more expensive it will be. Yet right after Easter all of those pretty dresses and little pant suits are very cheap.

You can buy them to use for other occasions throughout the year and save money. They make good clothes to wear to Church and weddings without costing you a fortune. You can also purchase them for the following year to save plenty of money.

The day after Thanksgiving up until Christmas Eve shopping can be stressful and it can cost you a fortune. Many people are willing to pay more for gifts this time of year because it is a necessity and they really are more interested in getting their shopping done. That is until the credit card bills start rolling in!

To help reduce the amount of money you spend on Christmas gifts, try shopping for them all year long when you find sales. How many times have you seen something on sale and said to yourself that would be the perfect gift for a specific person?

Take advantage of these opportunities and store all of the items you pick up in one location. This way you always know where to find them. Using this method you can give wonderful gifts to those on your lists without spending more than you have to.

I am very impulsive so this shopping technique is hard for me because I want the person to have what I bought them straight away. Don’t forget to take advantage of those great sales the day after Christmas.

This is another opportunity to pickup gift items that you don’t want to pass up. You can even buy items for yourself without feeling guilty. Those perfume gift sets will be at least 50% less the day after Christmas. I buy a couple of them in my favorite fragrances so I don’t have to buy perfume throughout the year.

Happy Easter to everyone that celebrates this holiday. The Grandbabies look forward to finding candy and eggs, but not meeting the Easter Bunny. I personally never looked forward to meeting some giant rabbit either, just isn’t natural. The kids always have so much that Bill and I simply get those plastic eggs and put  some candy eggs and a 5 dollar bill in each one.

We normally make a meal and they all come over, but this year we were invited to Jodi and Brian’s and all we have to do is the potato salad and red beet eggs. Where we live if you shop at Giants after you get so many points you receive a ham for free. Our grocery store does a lot of cool things to keep their customers happy, like buy one roast get another free and Bill loves all those 2 for 1 deals and the money off gas is good.

I was busy yesterday so I wasn’t on here very much, but the night before I found out about entrecard.com and went around surfing sites and dropping cards. As soon as I figure it out I’ll be sure to post about it and let you know how it’s going. It’s good to get traffic for your blog, but it doesn’t seem like they really look at anything. I think I like the idea of the card changing daily or at least I think that’s what it’s suppose to do. I need to find out if it’s working right in Firefox.

I have to find out about advertising and other things, but I think I am going to like it. I wont be able to really study it till next week so be sure to check back and see if it’s something you might want to do to get better exposure for your blog and rack up credits to use for other things. You get 1 point when you visit someones site and drop your card. Next week I’ll really work on it.

Have you ever heard of Reiki ? It’s a Japanese type of spiritual practice also used for stress reduction and relaxation. It is a technique that helps promote healing either for self or for other people. It is characterized as a practice of “laying on of hands .”Getting to know what Reiki is may help people not only become a healing channel but also a tool to promote peace among other people.

The healing powers of the technique are based on the idea that there is an unseen “life force energy” that flows through each person. This life force is said to be the reason why people are alive. When one’s life force energy is low, then people are likely to get sick or feel weak. If the life force is high, people fell healthy and happy.

Reiki is also a form of meditation used as a type of therapy for treating physical, emotional, and mental diseases. The name Reiki is taken from two Japanese characters that describe energy itself. The word “rei”, which means “unseen” or “spiritual” and “ki” which means “energy” or “life force” is combined to become Reiki. In English, its meaning is usually given as “universal life energy”.

It was Mikao Usui who was known to have developed Reiki in 20th century Japan.  Story has it that Usui received the ability of healing after going through three weeks of fasting and meditating on top of Mount Kurama. Practitioners of Reiki use a technique similar to that of the laying on of hands.

This action is said to promote the channeling of “healing energy” to another person. The energy flows through the palms and brings along with it healing powers that can be used for self-treatment as well as for treating others.

Reiki is a simple, natural as well as safe method of dispensing spiritual healing and self-improvement. It is said to be effective in providing alternative treatment for virtually every known illness and malady. Not only that, Reiki also helps create an added beneficial effect, that of spiritual healing. This method is also said to work well when combined with other medical or therapeutic techniques to help relieve side effects and promote recovery.

Reiki, although seen as a very powerful healing technique, is reported to be amazingly simple to learn. Reiki and the ability to use it effectively cannot be taught in the usual sense. The skill is said to be “transferred” to the student during a Reiki class.

This ability is not merely learned but is passed on by a Reiki master to the student during a gathering known as “attunement”. After the skill has been passed on, it allows the student to tap into an unlimited supply of “life force energy” that can then be used to improve one’s health and enhance the one’s quality of life.

Although the practice of Reiki may be spiritual in nature, it is not considered as a religion. There are no set of beliefs that one should learn about before learning to practice the technique known as Reiki. The practice does not depend on any form of dogma.

It will work whether the student believes it or not. But it is said that the practice of Reiki helps people to keep in touch of their spiritual selves rather than the intellectual concept that it provides.

The practice of Reiki also aims to develop and promote living in harmony with others. Aside from practicing Reiki and its principles, the founder of the Reiki system, Mikao Usui also recommends the practice of simple ethical ideals that can lead to peace and harmony among people.