MYSTERY SHOPPING—WHAT YOU MEAN I NEED TO READ THE JOB DESCRIPTIONS?

Or as the old B movie bit characters might say “Read, I don’t need to read no stinking job descriptions.” But you do and here’s why.

I’ll use movie shops as a prime example of how much a job can change with just a few words. 

Movie shops are one of my personal favorites, they are fun to do, they generally pay well and sometimes you get a free movie or two plus concessions out of the deal.  It is all in how the job description is worded and just a single word can change the whole shop scenario.

The first of the single word change out is overt or covert.  Overt means you reveal yourself as an auditor at some point in the shop and by doing so you can prevent yourself from getting free movie shops in that theater for as much as a year or more. 

Covert means, you do not let anyone know for any reason why you are there.  In remaining a true mystery shopper you will get to see more movies for free if you don’t get spotted. 

Not getting spotted is generally a simple task, if you pay attention to who is around you.  These shops generally include counting the number of patrons, gathering ticket prices, concession prices and/or recording what trailers are showing, along with a number of other small bits of info. 

A few years ago I was at one theater and I spotted the mystery shopper by his paperwork that clearly said on it “Covert Movie Audit”  he was setting in the lobby filling out his report!  The man definitely needed to learn something about being covert.  The first rule is do not take your paperwork in with you.  You leave it in your vehicle out of sight.  Yet there he was in the lobby filling out his form. 

On such assignments I put my small spiral in my purse, or use an ipod to make quick notes out of sight of others (bathroom stalls work well for this). Or I will pretend I am playing a game on the ipod and make brief notes there.  The object is to not get spotted.

The first thing I look for in movie assignments is the c that makes the difference in covert and overt assignments.

The second single word I look for is ‘EACH’.  That word can make the difference in being in a theater for just the length of one show, or from the minute the theater opens to the minute it closes on a certain day. 

An example of this is a covert blind check (meaning patron count, and ticket prices) movie mystery shop I just completed last weekend.  The word EACH was on that paperwork.  I had a choice of three different days to do the shop as wekk as numerous local theaters and that made a HUGE difference in how many times I’d be seeing the movie.

The theater I went to was one of my favorites and I chose the Friday time frame because the required movie was only showing one time on that day on one screen.  That meant I got paid for two movie tickets and $25 to see a movie we wanted to see anyway, unfortunately this one didn’t include any free concessions, but then those also require more work.

Had I chose Saturday or Sunday I would have had to set through the movie three times and to do so covertly in the small theater I was at would have been nearly impossible.  We have done it with success before by claiming we were doing a movie review for a newspaper, but it’s not a scenario that is easy to carry off. 

If I had chosen one of the big multi-screen theaters it would have been even more complicated and would have required 1-2 partners to pull it off.  Because when the paperwork says EACH, it means every screen, every showing.  You are paid for your tickets and a flat pay for each additional screen, but you are also talking about trying to remain covert all day!  In this particular movie situation the first movie would have been $25 plus two tickets, but all the other screens would have been $12 plus two tickets, because they figure you have already spent the fuel to get there. 

While doing the multi-screen can net you a lot more money, it can also be very exhausting, and your cash layout until the reimbursement can be quite high.  These are things you must consider when reading over the job descriptions.

Another single word I look for is “FIRST”.  Some movie shops require you to be there for the first and/or last showing.  Since the first showing is often just before noon it becomes a problem for many part time mystery shoppers.  If you have a regular job chances are you are not going to be available for that time showing. Or if you get up early the midnight shows might not be for you either. It’s all in the wording.

After looking for these single words I also read the job description in full because, especially with movie shops, the description of the requirements can change constantly. It is important to fully understand not only the how to do it part of the shop, but the deadline for filing the report.

I have had movie shops where I have had to literally leave the theater right after the trailers to phone in the results immediately and then go back in to see the actual movie.  I do not like missing the first several minutes of a movie.

For other types of mystery shopping and merchandising the instructions can be as varied also.  One company I work for audits several different bank chains, each bank has the exact same basic requirements, but they also have differences.  One might require you to check if their free in the lobby coin counter is working, while another will want you to try to cash a check without being a customer, and a third requires you to take a covert picture of the bank exterior.  Because they are all three the same company it is easy to get them confused.  So it is important to refresh your memory with each job.

The documentation for a job might change slightly too.  While one location may require a receipt another might require you get a business card.  Wrong documentation, you won’t get paid.

Some merchandising jobs will have in them that you must be able to comfortably lift a certain weight, or have a vehicle to transport a box of a certain size, or you might only be able to do the job during a certain short time frame.  Or as I mentioned in my previous post http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/07/communication-key-to-good-mystery.html  You might be required to shop a certain department for a certain item.  It’s all in the paperwork both online and what you print out.  The thing is you MUST read the paperwork.

Many a job has not been paid for because the contractor has not read the paperwork and understood it correctly.  The understanding is an important key as well. 

When I first started mystery shopping I didn’t get paid for one fast food shop because I took the time frame of between certain hours to mean I needed to start the job between those hours and it didn’t matter how long it took me.  I was wrong.  It meant both segments needed to be completed between those hours.  I didn’t read the instructions all the way through and it ended up costing me money.

Once you accept a job and print out all the required paperwork it is important to “read” or check that paperwork. As I pointed out in the

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/07/communication-key-to-good-mystery.html  post I didn’t check my paperwork closely and didn’t see that it didn’t have the department and job information in the paperwork.

Another thing to check your paperwork for before you leave home is if the location address is on the paperwork.  With many companies it is not.  They use a generic form for all their paperwork and it is very frustrating to get out and discover you do not have the address for the location you are to go to that day.  It’s fine if the town only has one of that bank or fast food location, but in larger cities where the burger joint might be on every corner it is essential that you have the correct address.  Go to the wrong location, you won’t get paid—nearly did that once.

Time frame is essential, always check that again after you print out the paperwork.  I recently signed up for a lunch shop, for a job you request and they let you know later if you got it.  When the paperwork arrived it had been changed to a dinner shop.  So always check before, during and yes even after you do a shop to make certain nothing has changed.

Reading the paperwork will also tell you what company you are representing on that day in what store.  While there are the basic companies you contract to, sometimes you are there as a representative of an entirely different company.  An example is you work for merchandising company A but they are hiring you to do a merchandising job on behalf of corporation B and you must meet the dress codes, including name tags, and rules of corporation B, including signing in the vendor book as with corporation B not company A.

A word about vendor books and merchandising.  If the store has one, you absolutely need to sign in on that book.  Not only because it is the stores policy, but because the companies you work for WILL send someone out to check to make certain that you were there.  If you haven’t signed in it makes it much harder for you to prove you were there.

Yep, they audit the auditors.  On more than one job my assignment has been to check to see if the previous merchandiser actually did the job.  Unfortunately I’ve found several times the jobs haven’t been done. 

Don’t ever take for granted you can “let something” slide because you are tired, or don’t agree with how the job is suppose to be done, because you will be audited when you least expect it.

One mystery shopper I know tried cutting corners on doing bank shops by just grabbing business cards and not actually doing the personal banker interviews she was required to do.  Well she turned in a report stating she had spent time with someone who was actually out on maternity leave. She was fired by the mystery shopping company.

The companies have all sorts of ways of checking your job performance, so READ the paperwork and follow it to the letter. If you have a question about how it is to be done, then contact the scheduler and ask questions BEFORE doing the shop.

Also reading the paperwork might include surprising extras. For one merchandising job we were required to purchase cookies and take them to the departments for the employees while we gave a how to speech—problem was the company we were to take these cookies to did not allow such things.  By reading the paperwork ahead of time and checking with the company I headed off a potential problem for myself.

Another set of jobs has just recently added that I must visit their website AFTER I do the shop and do a price comparison.  The first time this addition appeared it was not on the assignment paperwork, but it was on the online filing of the report. This is one of the reasons I say READ afterwards as well.  Had I not read that little extra “click here” I would not have completed the assignment properly and would not have been paid.

Filing deadlines are another thing to read closely.  Two companies I work for deduct from your pay if you are late in filing, even by a few minutes unless there is a problem with their website.  If you don’t read the entire set of instructions you would not know that. Sometimes the deadlines are very short. 

One company I work for on a regular basis shuts down their website every night from 10:00pm to 12:30 am for daily maintenance and updates.  You only have 12 hours to file your reports with that company, and if you don’t get it filed before 10 pm you will be up quite late waiting to file the report and it can put you past your 12 hour deadline.

Read your contractor agreements as well. I enjoy merchandising and so when a company I have mystery shopped for years for offered me the opportunity to do merchandising as well I very nearly signed up for it until I read that I would have to pay for my own background check, and my own shirt the two of which came with a pretty hefty price tag.  This is a company I know to be legit, but I object to being required to pay for these things when I’ve already been working for them and their sister company (and doing merchandising for the sister company) for seven years.  They know my work.

I do not object to a background check being ran, I object to them wanting me to pay for it.  Especially when I’ve already had numerous background checks ran by various companies and passed them with flying colors.  Needless to say I am not merchandising for that company.  It would take a lot of jobs for me to re-coup the cost of those expenditures.

Another company that I have worked for a long time has recently changed over from requiring your social security number to requiring an ein I do not have an ein, nor do I want one, that would simply complicate my taxes—and I do pay taxes on the jobs I do. I regret that they have done this, I will miss doing the shops for them, but I do not feel I need any further tax complications, when a social security number has worked for this long and is all both the state and federal government requires to mystery shop.

All of this is in the contractors agreements.  So be sure and read those as well.

I’ve just touched upon a few of the many reasons to completely read all paperwork, but I feel I’ve given you enough to make you realize how important reading the paperwork is.

Jan who remembers a test in school where the first question said “read the entire test before starting” and it turned out that in the middle of the test it said “put your name at the top of the page and turn it over—you have completed the test.” In OK

COMMUNICATION, THE KEY TO GOOD MYSTERY SHOPPING…

Merchandising, and every aspect of life for certain, but today’s post is about mystery shopping and merchandising and how important a good set of communication skills is vital to being successful in your job.

The first thing I want to say is if you have ANY doubt about how a job is to be done you should check with the scheduler for that job to get it clarified.  This can normally be done from an online help feature with each company. Some companies have people on duty to answer your questions immediately.  Others you may have to wait as much as 48 hours to get your response.  So it is vital that you contact them as soon as you realize you have a question.

Some have phone numbers you can call for help while in the field.  Unfortunately that number is on the website and if you don’t have a smart phone, which I don’t, and you are miles away from your computer that phone number is not assessable to you easily.  To avoid this problem either enter into your phones memory the numbers for the help desks for each company, or keep a list of them in your mystery shopping bag.

What you don’t have a mystery shopping bag?  Why not?  What is it?  It is your all purpose tool for doing mystery shops and merchandising of all types.

Mine is an oversized purse with sturdy handles.  Into it goes my clipboard with my paperwork and route print out on it, my address book, spare ink pens, a stop watch, an ipod, a small spiral notebook, a pair of scissors, a small stapler, a camera, spare batteries for the camera,  a screw driver that has a Phillips head tip on one end and a flat head tip on the other, my cash envelope that is designated “reimbursables” for those small required purchases, my vendor name tag and any specific tools that a job might need.  In the past I’ve used a zippered three ring binder, but have found the tote bag easier for my personal needs.

I keep the bag fully stocked at all times.  I have found having it prepared and ready to go prevents getting out and into a bind for doing a job. 

I must admit that the small address/phone number book is a very recent addition to the bag.  I had a page of the numbers in the three ring binder when I was carrying it, but never got around to putting something similar into the bag until I ran into a problem recently that could have saved me a lot of time and frustration.

I was doing a reimbursable mystery shop that required me to shop a certain department of a store and ask a certain set of questions.  Over the last seven years I have done literally hundreds of such shops, but I still print my paperwork and go over it just prior to doing the shop to make sure the company has not changed how they want the job done.

I also read the entire job description prior to signing up for a job—more on why I do this in my next post.  On this particular job I had read the entire set of paperwork online before deciding to take the job, and then had printed the paperwork out immediately after making the decision.  I did not stop to read what had printed right then because after all I printed what was on the screen, or so I thought.  

Oh I looked at it to make sure I had all the pages, but did not reread all the pages at that point. There were two identical jobs to do at two different locations. Generally I will only print the instructions once to save on paper and ink, but for some reason I printed out both sets of the instructions separately.

The next day as I arrived to do the first of the two I pulled out the instructions to verify the department and scenario.  Everything was on the paperwork, but that!  The sentence was there, but where they normally put in the required department and item was blank on both sets of instructions!

Now I had a problem, nowhere on that paperwork was any contact information for the mystery shopping company.  I was over forty miles from home and no smart phone.  I had contracted to complete both shops on that specific day, before a certain time.  There was not time to drive home, look up the information and drive back.  I had to go with what I remembered from reading the night before and pray that it was right.

When I went to file my reports that evening the online paperwork said an entirely different department and item.  Great now what?  I had spent a lot of fuel, and made two purchases I thought I was to be reimbursed for, not to mention I would not get the over $20 I had contracted for, because you MUST do the correct department and item to get paid.

I was pretty upset, in all the hundreds of mystery shops I have done I had NEVER shopped the wrong department before.  Now I had done so with not one but TWO shops.

I decided honesty is the best policy.  I emailed the scheduler and explained what had happened and what I would have swore the paperwork had said when I signed up.

In the email I included the job number, the locations, and my auditor id number, along with my phone number. Then I did not file the two shops. I couldn’t because the department and item were wrong.

I went to bed that night pretty upset with myself.

Communication works two ways.  The auditor called me the first thing the next morning.  I was NOT wrong in the department and item, there had been a clerical error at the company that they had corrected mid-day the day before, while I was actually performing the shops, and they had changed the department and item at that time! 

She went on to apologize to me for the distress it had caused me, told me to file my reports that day and that I would be paid in full, including the reimbursements.  All past due notices would be removed from my file as well.

If I had not sent the email, the result would have been entirely different.  If I had taken the phone number with me, they could have notified me then that the department and item had been changed.

Other times having the contact info with me have paid off have included not being able to find a location.  I once could not find a $50 bank shop in a town as per the instructions, address, and map the company had supplied.  Luckily that day I had the phone number with me.  A quick call made me my $50, a typo at the company had put the bank in the wrong town.  Luckily the town it was in was actually a suburb of the larger town and just a few miles away.  No communication—no $50.

I lost one big shop for a similar situation on a fuel station, because the map supplied by the company had it at a residential location and not where it actually was over 50 miles away, in an entirely different town.  If I had taken the contact info with me I could have saved myself the two hours and fuel I spent looking for it with a simple phone call.

Another important reason for having the contact info is sometimes the companies you are auditing are not always nice to the auditors.  In one fuel shop I was literally cursed at and thrown out of the store for merely asking permission to take photos—the location had several violations.  I had not been rude, I had asked permission—as required, to take general over all photos.  The minute the manager saw my camera he went crazy.  I found out later he and the supplier were in a lawsuit and he thought I was collecting “evidence” for the other side.

I called the firm that had hired me and got permission to not complete the job and still be paid. 

One major retail store I audit often will not allow photos of any sort in their particular location, while others in the chain will.  The auditing job I do there requires photos.  So each time I must call the scheduler and tell them where I am and the situation.  I do all other aspects of the job, but don’t even take my camera into that store to avoid being escorted out.

Another important communication aspect is the “life happens” part.  No one schedules when their car will break down, they will catch the crud, when snow and ice will make streets impassable, or any other number of emergencies.  When this happens you need to let your scheduler know IMMEDIATELY.  Most times they will allow you to reschedule.  If not they will remove you from the job with little or no penalty as long as you let them know IMMEDIATELY. 

Remember they are also under contract with the companies you are auditing and if you don’t do the job they don’t get paid either.  It is far better to be honest with the company and allow them to hire someone else to get the job done on time then to make up a fairy tale as to how the evil step-mother prevented you from doing the job on time.

Communication skills are also important in filing your reports, particularly ones with narratives.  Some companies want simple short sentences, or descriptions of 100 characters or less.  Others want a detailed accounting of exactly what transpired and when.  Know your company, know their requirements and do your job well.

Some companies will rate you on your communication skills and will only hire you for the jobs your skills cover.  To help improve your rating consider writing your narratives in Word or other similar word processing programs before filling out the online report.  Run a spelling and grammar check.  Let the narrative cool a bit and then re-read it aloud to yourself.  For some reason reading aloud helps you pick out incomplete sentences and narrative flow, or at least it does for me.

Then do a simple cut and paste into the form to file the report. The extra time you take to do this can make a difference in the availability of jobs and the amount you will be paid.

Communication is also essential while doing the tasks. If you are not good at making up a scenario on the fly and sticking to it convincingly when doing a mystery shop, plan your scenario out in advance.  As a person who writes both factual and fictional stories on a regular basis I can usually come up with a scenario easily, but there have been situations where that would not have been true because I knew nothing about the subject matter and needed to do some research prior to the shop.  A short cruise around the web can tell a person who doesn’t own a pool some common pool conditioner problems so they can easily do a pool supplies shop. 

I know nothing about playing golf, yet I can do very convincing golf equipment shops after doing just a little bit of web research.  After all it doesn’t take much to pretend to be a novice golfer. You just need to have just enough knowledge and good communication skills to get the golf pros talking.  They’ll do the rest.  Same for the home improvement scenarios. Car repair telephone shops for luxury cars when you are personally driving a beater are a snap with just a little bit of web research.

It all comes down to communication.

In my next post I’ll discuss the true importance of really READING the job requirements BEFORE you sign up for a job.

To read more on mystery shopping and merchandising how to’s visit the following posts:

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO BECOME A MYSTERY SHOPPER:

 http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-do-you-need-to-be-mystery-shopper.html 

FURTHER EXPLANATION ON MERCHANDISING

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2010/11/long-time-no-typework-at-home-jobs.html 

ARE REINBURSEMENT SHOPS WORTH THE INVESTMENT?

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2010/02/are-reimbursement-only-mystery-shops.html

Jan who hopes her communication on communication has been very clear in OK

PAYING FOR YOUR MAGICAL TRIP

January 31, 2012

So now you’ve got a rough idea of how much this trip will cost you and maybe a little bit of panic is setting in. Maybe the total was more than you thought it would be, but you REALLY want to take this trip, or a trip to anywhere, or maybe you just want to get debt free (just had to slip in a plug for that, because once you live debt free then you can travel all you want) but you don’t want to take out a loan or use charge cards for the dream trip (especially not if you want to live debt free). HOW in the world are you going to pay for this trip, because boy would it be fun to go!

The answer is simple. Two ways, cut the costs and save for it and pay cash for the entire trip. This post is about paying for it. The ideas here will work not only work for playing for a vacation, but for getting debt free, or buying any number of things. My next post(s) will be about ways to cut costs. There are hundreds of ways to do both ways, both on the trip and at home. First the cash, because the sooner you start on it the faster you will reach your goal.

You can start right now. Find a solid heavy jar, or that cutesy bank you picked up somewhere, a tin can whatever and put it where you can easily get to it. Maybe you would want to decorate it, or let the kids if you are letting them help you plan right now, Do something to remind you that any money that goes in this is for the trip (or debt reduction).

Now go to your purse, shake your pants pocket, dig in the sofa cushions, dump the coins out of the car ash tray, frisk the washing machine, look in your coat pockets, look everywhere you know you usually deposit pocket change and put it in the container. The clinking of those coins hitting the once empty container is Tinkerbell’s twinkle sound, do you hear Walt Disney World calling you?

While that doesn’t look like much right now it will grow and grow and you will soon be off on your trip of a lifetime. But just like those of us that are on the Dave Ramsey plan talk about feeding the gazelles, you need to feed Tinkerbell too.

You’ve done the first step, now start paying for everything you can in cash, dollar bills to be exact. No coins, because every coin is going to go into your vacation fund. I’ll call it Tink’s fund for now. Each night, drop all your coins into that bank and listen for Tink telling you thank you. You will be surprised how fast that fund is going to grow as time goes on.

Our first trip to Walt Disney World we paid cash for the trip for four of us, so have a few of the trips between then and the one we are currently saving for now using the methods I’ll be telling you. It took us exactly 9 months to save for the trip just out of pocket change and coupon money for the four of us. The more you do to feed Tink the faster you can get there.

So where are you going to get the cash to feed Tink? Let’s start with a simple one. Coupons. Don’t go running screaming into the woods at the sound of that. I’m not telling you to become an extreme couponer , although that wouldn’t hurt, I’m saying just incorporate a few coupons and discounts into your life. It doesn’t have to be a major production like you see on tv, it can be just one or two here or there. The volume you do is up to you.

Think outside the box, need an oil change, check the yellow pages of your phone book, often there is a coupon there for oil changes. Do you eat out often (we’ll discuss this more later)? Check to see if your favorite places you eat at have a free online club or a loyalty card. Because if they do you should sign up for them, and net the benefits from them.

If you read my Week #1 post on menus you will see we went to Ghengis Mongolian Grill for my birthday meal. I belong to both their online club and have a loyalty card. As a result the three of us ate for 1/3 of what the bill would have been normally. I got a free meal because it was my birthday, and we’d eaten there enough that we’d earned another free meal. So our nearly $50 meal cost us $16 including the tip (we paid our server a tip based on the $50 because we had extremely good service). The difference went into the trip bank that night.

Every way you can save with a coupon OR a discount of any type, use the money you saved to “feed Tink”. Save $.10 with a grocery coupon, put it in that bank. Get a discount because of a loyalty card, a student or senior citizen discount, put it in that bank. You will be amazed at how fast that money will add up.

Then once a month, or when you mystery shop your personal bank (I’ll explain this in a minute) deposit all but a few coins from your Tink fund into a regular bank into an interest bearing account. Even if it’s just $10 put it in the real bank. Because the sooner you do the more you will earn in interest and every penny interest is that much closer to your dream trip. The reason I say leave a few coins in the Tink fund bank is because I consider it “seed money” If it’s empty it’s too easy to leave it empty, but if you see coins in there it’s a lot easier to add a few. It’s a mental thing.

Now let’s look at cutting expenses. You saw how much we saved on that birthday meal, but what if we’d all drank water with lemon, which is free, instead of three $2 each drinks? At that one meal it would have been a savings of $6 plus tax for the three of us. That’s roughly $6.50 more to feed Tink with. Or if we hadn’t eaten out at all that night…you get the idea.

Do you REALLY need that double low fat whatever latte on the way to/from work? Could you make it yourself at home, or skip it one day a week even?

Of course coupons are a big saver on groceries too. So is the menu planning I write about in other posts. Don’t forget to mail in your rebates. All that cash goes into the fund. As the fund grows you will find more and more ways to save because you WANT that trip!

Around here when we are saving for a big trip we often equate what we are saving by either not buying something, using a coupon or getting a discount with what it will buy at WDW. One of us will often say “that’s a coke at Disney World.” Or if it’s a bigger savings “That’s a burger, a one day ticket, a night’s stay etc at Disney World.” And it all adds up.

My granny always said “mind your pennies and your dollars will mind themselves.” You see a penny in a parking lot, pick it up and feed it to Tink, it only takes 10 pennies to make a dime and 10 dimes to make a dollar. So don’t pass up that penny.

While we no longer use charge cards due to our personal decision to follow Dave Ramsey’s path to Financial Freedom, when we did we had one that paid a cash back bonus. We paid this card off pretty religiously so using it was another way we earned cash for our trips. We paid for everything with that card and then as soon as we had enough “cash back” built up we could withdraw it that money went into the Tink fund as well.

When it came time to take the trip we made certain we had enough money in the savings account to pay off the charge card when the bills from the trip started rolling in and then used that card exclusively for the trip-so we earned cash back for those expenses as well, for the next trip. The Tink’s fund stayed in the bank earning interest until the bill hit, but the minute the bill hit we withdrew from the bank enough to cover the bill in full and paid it off.

This plan works well as long as you don’t get a Murphy hit and can’t pay off the charge card. Then the interest will eat your lunch and you will have the stress of an additional bill. We made the conscious decision to do without the charge card at all. Because we learned the hard way that Murphy is just one knock at the door away at all times. But if you choose to use charge cards that is your personal decision and you can use it to your advantage to pay for the trip IF you pay the bill off in full each month.

A note about using a charge or debit card while at WDW or any out of town trip. Notify the company the card is issued from ahead of time when you are traveling, because if you don’t you might find your purchases denied, even when you have the cash there to cover it.

In this day and age of identity theft many companies will shut a card down if they see it being used outside its normal travel area. We had that happen once while at WDW and it was VERY embarrassing. A simple phone call straightened it out, but that was time away from our vacation and a bit of embarrassment we could do without.

Also, one of my bank debit cards will not let purchases from certain states go through on the debit card because of identity theft period. It’s a small local bank and there is no discussing it with them. Certain states are on their no go list. Another debit card has a daily limit of $1,000 they will let go through, unless you make prior arrangements before your trip or large purchase. So it’s better to find out BEFORE you go if you have a similar situation rather than get several states away and find you don’t have access to your cash. Be sure and check on that daily limit because when staying at the WDW resorts you will be issued a “room key” that will be used like a credit/debit card in the park and resort area and they will run a large total through on your account at once. You can tell them ahead of time how much you to allow at a time and then they will need to notify you of when they are running the amount through.

Due to the problems of identity theft and theft in general we actually have an electronic use only free checking account with a Visa debit at a bank other than our main bank set up. We use this account strictly for our online purchases and travel. Only the exact amount of money we need for the purchase/trip is put in this account prior to the purchase/trip. That way if theft does happened our main accounts are safe and our liability is limited. We keep the account open with just a required small amount in there at other times.

Another big fund raiser is sell stuff. Run a garage sale, list on ebay, sell media items on half.com or amazon.com, Craig’s list, upillar.com, your local cheap cycle the list goes on and on of places to sell things. Someone recently said they “only got $.75” for a book they had purchased years ago. I responded “that’s $.75 more than you would have had otherwise and now your bookshelf is cleaner and you aren’t paying to heat/cool that book. “ If I’d been talking to a family member I would have said “That’s almost half of a Mickey Ears ice cream bar at WDW.” I always have things listed on half. com http://shops.half.ebay.com/ladydressmaker_W0QQ_trksidZp2919QQmZbooks as an ongoing fund raiser for whatever our current goal is.

Older kids often can earn their own vacation souvenir/spending money by babysitting, doing yard work and similar jobs for others. Whatever you do the more you do the more you can save.

Consider mystery shopping and saving all of the income from that, above your expenses of doing so, for your trip. For more on mystery shopping check out my previously posted articles on the subject.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO BECOME A MYSTERY SHOPPER, FURTHER EXPLANATION ON MERCHANDISING, ARE REINBURSEMENT SHOPS WORTH THE INVESTMENT?

 

. Remember me saying that I put the Tink Fund money in a bank I mystery shop at. Well I make that deposit when I do a teller shop and use their coin counting machine to count the Tink Fund then make the deposit, as required by the mystery shop. File my paperwork and I make anywhere from $5 to $25 depending on the bank and the time of the month for making that deposit. Then the money I make from that shop goes directly into the bank via direct deposit when I get paid for the shop.

Because I schedule my mystery shops to coincide with my errands I’m not out any extra expenses for fuel to do the shop so the whole amount goes into the Tink Fund. If it was a mystery shop that I had to make a reimbursable purchase, like a nice meal out, for I deduct how much I spent for that meal from the check and only the profit goes into the Tink fund.

Make gift giving time part of preparing for the trip time. It might be the perfect way to tell family members about the trip. Disney or other gift cards, Disney cash, tickets for the parks (you can buy them ahead of time because the time on them doesn’t start until you actually use them). Special clothing for the trip, stuffed animals, Disney movies (often have rebates on them) reservations etc all make good gifts. Plus they are part of your trip budget so you kill two birds with one stone.

Speaking of gift cards it’s time to speak about mypoints and similar programs. These are programs where you click on emails or ads and you get points. These points are saved until you have enough to redeem them. While mypoints does not have Disney gift cards that you can redeem for they do have Wal-Mart cards, fuel cards, restaurant gift cards and various other gift cards that you could use while vacationing OR to use at home and put the cash you saved by using them in your Tink Fund. They are basically free money you can earn in just a few clicks. I personally use the mypoints tool bar and get bonus points every month by using it to do the numerous google searches I do each month anyway. No extra effort on my part once I installed the tool bar (which I got bonus points for doing) and it’s free money. Oh if you shop online you can also get bonus points from the various places by doing the shopping through the mypoints (or similar websites). Not a member of mypoints? I’d love to refer you, I get points for referrals too. Just e me privately and I’ll refer you.

Another bit of info on gift cards is to purchase ones from Sam's Club or Costco.  Their cards are sold at a discount.  Often $5 off of every $50 purchased.  I purchase gift cards there not only as gifts, placing the saved money in the Tink Fund, but to purchase Disney Gift cards and Southwest Airlines gift cards when flying.  These cards are used to pay for air fare, meals and accommodations at WDW.

WARNING #1:  Southwest airlines will only let you use a certain number of payment divisions to pay for each ticket.  They count each gift card as a division.  We did not know this when we made our first flight using gift cards for the flight.  Our cards were in $50 denominations, the limit was four forms of payment.  So we could only use 3 cards and a debit/credit card for the ticket.  In order to use all the gift cards we had we had to book each direction of the flight for each person separately.

This means for our party of two I had to book four separate tickets.  The cost was still the same, but it meant on SWA our boarding groups were sometimes different.  How we handled this was the person with the first boarding group took both our carry-ons, boarded and saved a seat for the second person.

WARNING #2: This one is not that big of deal, but it is something you should be aware of.  Disney will not let you pay ahead or use the gift cards for automatic payment of charging to your room key.  You can charge to your room and then pay on your bill with the gift card, but if you are set up for an auto payment via your debit/credit card when you reach a certain limit before you go pay on your bill with the gift cards the amount will go to your debit/credit card.

We handled this by keeping track of our charges and going to the front desk to pay on the bill with the gift cards before we hit the automatic debit/credit card charge.

This required a little extra time on our part, but because we had so many of the gift cards it was well worth the effort.

Blogging is another way to earn bits of cash here and there. See the ads in and around my blogs? Every time you or anyone else clicks on one I get a penny. (all clicks appreciated) and that goes into my Tink Fund.

The whole idea is to save for the trip, so every penny you save or earn it goes into your Tink Fund. Our first trip cost right at $3,000 and that was when there were four of us going, now I only pay for two as my son always pays for his own expenses if he joins us. We still pay right around $3,000 thirty years later for our first trip of the year from OK when we purchase our annual pass, and then far less for the remaining 1-3 trips for the year.

That first trip there was one park, the Magic Kingdom, there are now 4 parks, 2 water parks and a large shopping complex. Plus to us the campground, called Ft. Wilderness, is an adventure in itself. There is a lot to do at each of the resorts as well. You can spend a whole day easily just going from resort to resort to see the differences and enjoy the ambiance of each resort. While pool hopping is frowned upon there is a lot to see as each resort is done in a different theme. We particularly like doing this during the various holiday seasons to enjoy the decorations on a “crash and burn” day.

One other thing to consider is what we did one trip we went down. A dear friend had moved from Oklahoma to Mississippi and had left a lot of their stuff in storage here. They paid for our fuel and the trailer rental for us to bring a trailer load of their items from OK to Gulfport, MS. This gave us not only fuel for those first several miles, but a place to stay one night and a nice home cooked meal. This was of course a big savings for all involved. So if you have a similar situation, or you do animal rescue transports on a regular basis you might try to schedule one for part of your journey to help cover the transportation costs. Or plan your trip when a family member has to travel that direction for business and just journey on from their first destination to WDW at a discounted rate.

We did this last one a few years ago when my husband was sent to AutoCad University in Las Vegas, NV in December. We combined the travel time with vacation time and used his travel expense account for paying for the part to and from Las Vegas, as well as lodging and meals while we were there. That left the rest of our nearly four week trip to travel parts of the western US on our private money. Since Vegas was our furthest point west on that trip it covered a good deal of our fuel consumption. If we’d had the time we would have gone on over to Disneyland from there, but alas we didn’t have the time.

Other ideas for saving money, or earning additional income can be found in the Tightwad Gazette books (I, II &; III) by Amy Dacyzn, The Total Money Makeover book by Dave Ramsey, various yahoogroups, and various frugal websites. For legit work at home jobs consider checking out ratracerebellion.com and volition.com websites as well.  You might also considering linking over to my other blogs.  Each one has a frugal theme.  Mind Your Pennies, is how to save money in day to day living without feeling deprived. Patterson's Princess Plan is how to go about decluttering all aspects of your life, including financial matters. At Patterson's Pantry I am planning out a year's worth of basic home cooking menus with the recipes for those menus at Patterson's Pantry Recipes.  At the last one you will find a lot of recipes for making your own conveniences mixes.

Whatever you do save your profits and you will have a vacation that you can be proud of without going into debt. Speaking of debt, consider all these ideas and more for becoming debt free because then as Dave Ramsey says if you “Live like no one else now, later you can LIVE like no one else.”

Jan who is using all these ideas and more to not only become debt free, but to take a celebration vacation trip to Walt Disney World when she is debt free in OK

LONG RANGE PLANNING AND A CHALLENGE

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Anyone that has ever been me around very long knows I am a planner and a list maker. I’m big on planning things out. I’m not always great at following the plan, but generally I’m within the neighborhood of it by the time a project is finished.

For the last month or so I’ve been drifting. Simply mystery shopping and merchandising, letting others steer my path in this sea of life. As a result Thanksgiving was okay, but not the meal I wanted and my timing was way off on it. Let’s just say not everything finished at once like it normally does and cold mashed potatoes are not a big hit.

I could give the excuse I had a horrible head cold, but that would simply be an excuse. Granted I spent all of Friday in bed trying to kick the worst part of it and still managed to sleep almost until noon today. But it’s still just an excuse. It was lack of on organization on my part.

Well, I didn’t really sleep that late, the last hour or so I laid there thinking rather than getting up. What I was thinking was I needed a plan, a goal, something to get me back in gear on everything.

While I’ve been working hard at working I’ve let other areas slide. Areas we can’t afford to slide. I had fallen slack on cooking, keeping the budget up to date, cleaning the house and have not been carrying my share of opening the new business.

So as I laid there mulling it all over I decided it was time to get back to a plan, but what plan would spur me on the most. After all a plan has to be a goal you really want to achieve. Everyone plans on doing chores, but because they really don’t want to do them they often don’t get done if something better comes along.

I’ve got the Princess Plan and it’s good, but I needed more. I needed to have a carrot dangling in front of me, something I REALLY wanted. Then I realized that one year from today we want to be in Walt Disney World for a 2-3 week vacation. Only there were several barriers (mainly bills) in our way for this. So that is when my plan started forming. How to make that goal become a reality. So…

This next year you will be receiving reports on the goal and how we as a family are going to achieve it.

First I need a title, hmmm something catchy, but not to silly. Since the Princess Plan is included in this goal I think I will call it. “The Royal Getaway” or RG for short.

Now I need to decide what I want in the plan, what must be achieved to make this vacation not only possible, but relaxed and enjoyable. So sticking with the format of the Princess Plan I broke it down to 12 categories.

I. Finances, after all this is to be a cash basis only trip, that’s the number one rule.

II. Incorporate the Princess Plan

III. Actual Vacation Planning

IV. Menus, for the year and the trip (also part of the Princess Plan), but it needs its own category for this plan.

V. Sticking with the budget (I know this falls under finances too, but you’ll see why it gets its own Roman Numeral as time goes on.

VI. Mystery Shopping and Merchandising

VII. Getting our business up and running, as well as keeping it going while we are gone.

VIII. Gardening, a day to day plan. You’ll see why this is important for the coming year.

IX. Weight loss. If you have EVER been to Walt Disney World you will know why being in good physical shape is a major plus going there. That place is HUGE!

X. Wardrobe, ours is starting to look pretty ratty and a new one requires cash only. Plus if we lose weight…

XI. Animals, we have a lot of plans for them for the coming year. Plus there are two to go with us and the rest will remain home and all sorts of plans and actions have to be made for this.

XII. Miscellaneous needs prior to the trip. In other words, everything else I forgot to list.

This all sounds pretty general I know, but that is the way a good plan starts. You start with the general categories and then develop the sub-categories right down to the daily plan as you go.

Take #VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising. After doing it for around five years what planning should I need for that right? Actually a lot of planning needs done.

Sean and I have been taking it on a day to day basis and as a result we have ended up working weird hours, rushing to finish jobs, overbooking ourselves, wasting gas and then having days where we have no work. Trust me the reason Sean and I were both so sick for Thanksgiving was because we let ourselves get run down because we didn’t plan.

Plus now we have this business we are opening up and we need to allow time for it or it will never get off the ground. The problem is mystery shopping and merchandising are guaranteed money, the business is a maybe. So MS/M must be the priority of the two at this time. This could easily change in the near future, but for now we must get in as much of the first two as we can and squeeze opening the business in around the edges. That takes planning.

So on the overall plan it would look like this:

VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising.

A. Locate jobs to do

a. Check daily on the self assign websites for mystery shopping

b. Try to contract for as many weekly/monthly/quarterly merchandising jobs as possible.

c. Always take the higher dollar jobs first

B. Print the week’s paperwork as much as possible on Sunday

a. Print additional paperwork as soon as available

C. Try to stack jobs when scheduling as close as possible on locations, preferably in the same building.

a. Limit out of town trips

i. Only do out of town trips when there are numerous jobs for both parties to do and make a full day of it.

ii. Incorporate household and business errands into the daily ms/m schedule to save time and fuel.

D. Study all paperwork the night before so there are no surprises (this has been a big problem for us lately—too many surprises)

a. Gather any necessary tools or supplies the night before

i. Make a ditty bag of tools used often and leave it in the truck.

E. File paperwork immediately upon arriving home, no late nights allowed.

F. Store documentation immediately.

a. Assign a set place each set of paperwork must go as soon as it is filed.

G. Cull old documentation when the need to keep it has expired.

H. Keep a calendar up to date as to any long range jobs to avoid double booking.

I. Arrange for merchandising jobs to be done while we are gone on the trip ahead of time.

J. Set as many accounts up as possible for direct deposit or paypal.(This one is pretty much done)

K. Wash our work wardrobe as soon as we have worn it for the week in preparation for the next time it is needed. (Too many late nights of doing a hurry up load for the next day’s job).

So you can see that by the time I do this full list of 12 this is going to be a very long plan. Then I will take that list and turn it into a monthly, weekly and daily list like I did the Princess Plan.

Making a plan is pretty simple. AND once you have a plan it’s easy to follow.

So I challenge each and every one of you to make a plan and let’s work on our plans together. Why wait until New Year’s Day, why not start now? I’ve got my plan started, what’s yours?

Jan who says if we work together we can accomplish anything in OK

LONG TIME NO TYPE—WORK AT HOME JOBS

November 10, 2010

I haven’t forgot you all, we’ve just been super busy. Life is good right now, but then it generally is, you just need to know how to look at any given situation.

I thought once Gary went back to work life would slow down, but instead it has kicked into a higher gear. Something that I didn’t think was possible prior to this last couple of months..

Sean has become my mystery shopping/merchandising partner. We planned on doing mystery shopping on Mondays and Thursdays for just a few hours each day until the mystery shops died their normal death this time of year. Remembering this time last year when we had trouble finding mystery shops to do we figured we’d probably be down to one day a week by late November.

We started working on an idea for a small home based business and doing all the business plans and such required to make a knowledgeable decision on whether or not to do the business has been very time consuming—WHEN we have had time to work on that. More on the new business another time.

Because even though the mystery shopping has slowed down, it has not ceased like we thought it would and the merchandising has quadrupled in volume. We have been putting in 9-10 hour days 5-6 days a week for nearly two months now. NOT complaining Lord! Even better it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up between now and the end of the year.

Gary has not only gone back to work, but has been on overtime for three weeks now and it looks like that too may last through the end of the year.

We are so gazelle intense around here it is crazy! For those of you who are not followers of Dave Ramsey that means we are running from the debt cheetah at gazelle speed to become totally debt free. Every spare penny we make is going on our debt snowball. It has become fun to pay bills! No I am NOT crazy, I said fun.

The three of us now have our Step 1 Baby Emergency Funds fully funded and are now working on our Baby Step 2—the debt snowball (see Dave Ramsey’s book “The Total Money Makeover”) and are making great progress on it.

Sean has paid off a medical bill that was eating him alive and nearly has his only credit card paid off as well. The credit card of course is long gone as we no longer use credit cards in our household. That will leave him with a few truck payments and his student loans and then he will be debt free. I’m so happy for him.

I am still paying on our first installment of the debt snowball, but it will be completed by this time next week. It was a $2,400 medical debt and we are paying it off over three years early based on the scheduled payments. Next will be a credit card that we hope to shave three years or more off the scheduled payoff on. It is truly exciting to see our debt spiral downward for a change. I am so glad we found the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover. By staying on this plan we should be totally debt free in 3 years or less including the house! Not bad for a family that was maxed out credit wise and unemployed this time two years ago.

If you are a user of yahoogroups, you should visit with the knowledgeable people at Dave_Ramsey_Debt_Beaters@yahoogroups.com it’s a free to join list and I’ve learned so much from these people!

Now back to merchandising. I’ve never really covered merchandising when talking about mystery shopping so I thought I’d expound a little more on it today.

Most of us walk into a place like Wal-Mart, Target or any number of stores and take for granted the sparkling displays were all placed there by the store’s employees. NOPE! While the employees do re-stock and are responsible for certain merchandise many of those displays and what’s on them is placed there by merchandisers. Here’s how it works.

The store will receive a certain set of merchandise. For this scenario let’s use gift cards. The store will receive the materials to build the actual display case, along with the materials needed to set the display up and stock it. Sometimes they will set up the display themselves other times a merchandising company will send out a merchandiser—or two to set it up. That’s where we come in.

We go in, unbox the display case, assemble it, add the hanging pegs and then set the cards to a planogram and are paid for our services. Then either the store will keep the display stocked OR they will send the merchandiser back once every 1-4 weeks to restock it. Depending on the company the merchandiser gets paid anywhere from $8 to $15 an hour to do the job.

We have each acquired several repetitive weekly jobs. That means guaranteed income weekly until the project runs out. Once the project is set-up often times the hourly rate will drop slightly because it will simply be a short walk in to verify the display is still in good shape and the move onto another project. We’ve been blessed enough on some of our merchandising shops that we have been able to “stack” jobs. Meaning that Sean or I will have a job from one company in a certain store. The other of us (or sometimes the same person) will have 1-2 more jobs in that certain store from other companies. That makes the gas usage is far less and the possible income for each of us greater on a single stop.

I once spoke with a person who did nothing but merchandising and she said she cleared after taxes and expenses over $4,000 per month. We would like to achieve that goal. That could really speed our gazelle along! We aren’t there yet, but we are working toward it. Be aware though merchandising has to be done between certain hours, like a regular job, but generally you have 1-5 days to get the project done. So it is a great “part time” job if you are going to be staying home. We didn’t do these the last two years because we were traveling, but now that we are home for at least 2-3 years it is the best plan for us.

Don’t get me wrong, some of these merchandising jobs are HARD and tiring. Some sound simple to do—repackaging a product and do an inventory of said product—13 hours later you are worn out and the job still isn’t finished. So if you decide to do merchandising READ the instructions closely BEFORE you accept the work, including the fine print. Also be prepared to stand for LONG periods of time.

Another possible source of income is demonstrations. You know the people you see at Sam’s Club handing out samples. This is also contract labor work and can be applied for through several companies at volition.com as well. All three types of work are listed at volition.com.

If none of the above is for you check out the legit jobs at ratracerebellion.com Most of them are work at home jobs. There are all sorts of jobs for all sorts of talents. So if you want to become a earn a little extra money to survive unemployment, earn extra money for the holidays or become gazelle intense volition.com and ratracerebellion.com may have the answer for you.

As always if you need more info or a referral to certain companies feel free to leave me a message and I’ll answer as soon as time allows.

Jan who has no affiliation with any of the websites she mentioned in OK.

WORLDFEST, SILVER DOLLAR CITY, BRANSON, MISSOURI

April 14-20, 2010


From Arkansas we traveled to Branson, MO to do numerous shops in the area and to maybe get a little R&R while there. Worldfest was going on at Silver Dollar City and we had agreed if we did a certain amount of jobs we would go ahead and purchase annual passes for SDC to use throughout the year.

Once again Gary’s age was a benefit for us. His senior pass was lower than mine by a few dollars. Some may say it’s not very Total Money Makeover to purchase and amusement park annual pass, but I disagree.

First of all Dave Ramsey says to include some blow money in your zero based budget. We choose to put ours for the last few months into these tickets. For less than the price of two one day admission tickets we will be able to visit as much as we like throughout the year. Considering how much we like the Blue Grass and BBQ festival in May, the Harvest Festival in October and the Old Time Christmas during the holidays that money was well spent as long as we can tie days of profitable mystery shopping to them.

Second the annual passes also get you discounts on meals, and other parks around the nation. Because of the way we travel we are hoping to take advantage of the other parks part this year. We’ll see. It all depends on the work. The meals part is not that big a deal with us since we tend to take in food from our camper at any amusement park we visit. In the days we went in this trip we purchased one BBQ sandwich and split it. We had taken our refillable Silver Dollar City mugs in full of a beverage from the camper, but by the time we had that sandwich we purchased refills as well. The total meal for two with the refills and the annual pass discount came to slightly over $6 for the dinner. We sat and watched a good show as we ate. Not often you can do a dinner show for $6 bucks for two now is it.

Third this was a pleasant way to get exercise. Some of you may go HUH? Others, those of you who have been to Silver Dollar City are nodding in agreement. Everything in SDC is up a steep hill both ways no matter where you go or what you do while there. You definitely get your walking in there.

If you have never been to SDC it is not your major thrill ride type park. It’s a slow paced enjoyable family theme park, where the staff is not afraid to say “God bless you” and who salute the American veterans and mean it. There are arts and crafts abound, good clean kid fun, great shows and of course rides.

The rides tend to be country theme based. The giant barn swing is just that a huge swing that sways you back and forth higher and higher. Much like the Viking ship rides at the fair. There is a water rapid ride or two, roller coasters, slow moving boat rides and much more. If you want your true thrill ride you would want to get the dual park pass and go to their other theme park that conveniently opens just as Silver Dollar City closes for the evening.

Once the park is closed there is a free music show each night in Echo Hollow that is included in the price of your ticket. It lasts nearly two hours and is generally fairly good. It is sponsored by GAC network.

Worldfest is one of the several festivals they have at the park each year. It has entertainers from all over the world performing for a few weeks each spring. While all the shows were good we really enjoyed the Firey Fiddles, the Footprints-t Trinidad Stilt Walkers (and very good musicians and limbo dancers) and the Irish harp player. All the shows, about 9 or 10 are included in your ticket. There are other shows and demonstrations spread throughout the park as well.

This time we took advantage of Gary’s national parks senior pass to camp for $9.50 per night at Indian Point Corps of Engineers just two miles past Silver Dollar City on Table Rock Lake.

We’ve camped at this campground on and off our entire married life. It has definitely changed over the years. When we first started going there it was mainly a few picnic tables and a water spigot here and there, with a single bath house that had solar showers.

It is now more than 100 paved semi-level campsites, with two dump stations and several restrooms with flush toilets. We still only located one shower house, but it’s been greatly remodeled from when we first started coming there 35 years ago.

To my knowledge none of the campsites there have sewer hook-ups. Some have just water and others have water and electric. Our site had both, it would normally rent at $19.00 per night. The campground is clean and well maintained. It also has a HUGE marina area.

If you want to camp there during major festival times at the city you better make your reservations now. There is a fee to make a reservation with the corps of engineers campground and it is non-refundable. They have a cancelation policy you can read about online at recreation.gov

Because we need a large enough space for a 30 ft travel trailer and we have plans to be back there in about four weeks we made our reservation for that week we want to be there during the kids blue grass competition. Which just happens to be Memorial weekend. Even this early we had to change our arrival date from Saturday the weekend before to Sunday. We also had to take a site that is BARELY big enough for our camper. There was nothing else available for the amount of time we wanted and the dates we wanted. We also had to pre-pay. OUCH!

Whether you stay at the corps of engineers campground or any of the other numerous ones (Compton Ridge and the Wilderness give discounts to annual passholders) you will want to make your reservations soon because they all fill up fast. We have gone in the past and managed to find a site at the last minute, but it’s been due to sheer luck.

HORSESHOE BEND RECREATION AREA/PEA RIDGE MILITARY PARK, AR

April 6-April 14, 2010

We are camped at the Horseshoe Bend Recreational area on Beaver Lake at Rogers/Monte Ne, AR. It is an absolutely lovely area. The woods are glorious with the bright colors of redbuds, dogwoods and other wild flowering trees. As you wind down the road to enter the recreation area the view is breath taking. You occasionally catch glimpses of the lake through the trees with its high cliffs, and heavily wooded islands in the middle.

As you come out to Rogers into Monte Ne you can kiss your Sprint cell phone service good-bye. It’s spotty at best as you ride the curves, climb the hills and drop into the valleys and climb back up again for about four beautiful miles. You pass large homes with glorious views of the lake and then suddenly you find yourself at the Corps of Engineers campground.

When we pulled up to the booth we were greeted by a pleasant couple. It turned out she once lived in the same small town we live in. It is a small world after all. They seemed surprised when we said we wanted to camp for a week. I guess because it was so early in the season.

The female booth attendant asked if we had an America the Beautiful Park Pass, then went on to explain that this was one of the Corps of Engineers parks that gave a 50% discount for camping. We had already included in this season’s travel budget to pay the $10 fee for one, but had not purchased it yet. When we asked if we could purchase it at the booth we were sadly told no. We could, however, pay for one night and then go over to Pea Ridge Military Park, a short distance away, and purchase one for the rest of the nights. This was the option we choose.

Because it was mid-week we pretty much had our choice of campsites. Gary had done his research when choosing this campground and knew from studying the Sprint service area map that the campsites on the tip of the peninsula would have service. So that is where we headed. Sure enough, campsite 36 had a 3 bar service, so that’s where we choose to camp. It was an easy parking job.

The campsites here have a level paved area that held our 30 ft camper, and the pick-up with ease. It took only seconds to park the camper. The site is gorgeous. Looking out the living room windows of the camper we have a great view of the lake and the cliffs on the other side. Our closest neighbors are a flock of Canadian geese that wander through during the day. They are often accompanied by a decent size herd of deer as well. We hear the geese periodically throughout the night softly calling to each other.

What time we are at the camper we have enjoyed sitting outside watching the geese as they wander around peacefully grazing. We saw little of them over the weekend when the campground partially filled up. As soon as the main group of campers left on Sunday the flock was back. They brought with them some beautiful hawks, ravens and miscellaneous small water fowl. Occasionally a large blue heron will sweep past as well. Overhead four or five large birds that were bigger than buzzards, but not marked quite right to be golden eagles rode the air currents as graceful as the lightest of ballet dancers. All this beauty played to music of frogs singing their spring song as evening approached.

As we sat we looked around for beavers. We could see numerous trees bearing the results of their need to chew, but we never did catch sight of them. Each evening we’d hear loud splashing of water that at first we thought to be really large fish jumping, but the more I think about it the more I think it might have been beavers slapping their tails against the water.

By the way the trees here are a combination of tall straight lodge pole pines, stately oaks, and of course redbuds and dogwoods.

Our campsite has electric only. It is normally $19 per night, but with the America the Beautiful card it is $9.50 per night. A huge savings. There is a water hydrant just across from our campsite, so if we should run low in our holding tank we could hook up the hose and refill. However, they are under a “boil” notification right now because they had a water main break. So we are doing without putting their water in our tank for now. The main has been repaired and they expect the boil notice to end today or tomorrow.

There is a free dump station for campers near the entrance booth, with a $5 fee for non-campers. It has been blocked off while they worked on the water main, but we noticed they were taking the barricades down as we were leaving today.



If you come here for daily use the entrance fee is $4 and there is a deadline for you to vacate the area. It has a designated swim area as well as a nice boat dock and then there is a marina in another area.

Most of the toilets are vault toilets and port-a-johns, however a few single stall flush toilets do dot the area. The one near our campsite has one toilet and two showers in each of the two sides.

The window is missing in the men’s shower house. Gary said that makes for a breezy shower this time of year. He said the scalding shower quickly made you forget about the breeze though. Once again the shower head is high on the wall and it is a non-adjustable push the button type set-up. I choose to do fast showers in the camper rather than drown showering.

The next morning we went to Pea Ridge before doing any mystery shops and purchased the National Parks Pass. Because Gary is now 62 he qualifies for the senior citizen version of it. It was a one time purchase price of $10 and is good for the rest of his life. With the amount of travel we do that is going to be a huge money saver for us. It has already saved us a total of $76 on camping and entrance into Pea Ridge to tour the park last Saturday.

If you are not familiar with this pass I suggest you go to http://www.nps.gov/fees_passes.htm and check it out. You can purchase one if you are not a senior citizen as well, but it’s $80 annually. Basically it includes discounts for all national parks, and corps of engineers, locations, as well as some state parks for anything that has a fee. Many entrance fees for the museums and such are free to the pass holder and three other adults in their party. It can add up to some major savings if you travel very much at all.

Speaking of Pea Ridge Military Park, located at Pea Ridge Arkansas, we went there to tour the museum and battlefield on Saturday. It is one of the numerous civil War battlefields that dot the United States. This one is of particular interest to my husband and myself because in all likelihood we both had great grandfathers that fought there on both sides of the conflict.

The information center, from what I was told, has recently undergone a renovation. It is modern, clean and well done. There are the usual uniform reproductions, cannons, cannon balls and such located throughout the two main areas of the building.

The third area has a movie theater, complete with comfortable cinema seats that shows a well produced movie that follows the battles of the area up to and including the one at Elkhorn Tavern. The movie is approximately 30 minutes long. If you don’t have the America the Beautiful pass visiting this battle site will cost you $10 a carload. The movie and museum are included.

The fourth area of the building is of course the gift store. It is mainly books on the Civil War and the Trail of Tears, which came through Pea Ridge, with the usual gift store type pricing.

They close access to the seven mile driving tour at 4:30 pm, it has approximately 10 stops along the way, so allow plenty of time in your schedule to take the tour. Once again we were treated to the beautiful spring scenery that this part of Arkansas has to offer in mid April.

We had been told we could gain access to the Elk Horn Tavern until 4:30, but when we arrived at just after four we found it locked up tight and no caretaker around. However, the curtains were conveniently pulled to the side to allow us to look in to at least the lower level.

Throughout our driving tour I thought of those brave soldiers on both sides that fought there for a principle each believed to be just. The movie had depicted the hard march they had participated in to come and fight. I looked at the steep hills they had to climb in the snow to fight and knew in my heart that my ancestors were of far sterner stuff than I am.

The park is a simple affair, but it is well maintained. It includes special horseback riding areas as well as hiking trails, picnic areas, and biking trails. It is truly a place you could spend a lovely day enjoying. I know we did.

We leave this area for Branson, Missouri on Wednesday morning. We haven’t decided yet how long we’ll stay there or for certain where we’ll go next. Because I have a good chunk of jobs waiting for me at home we might swing by there for a few days, do laundry and head out again. It just all depends on what work we find where.

Jan who is enjoying spring in the Ozarks away from OK