Hello Everyone! I was wondering if there is anyone out there that has tried the It Works body applicators or any of the other products from this particular line??? I have a cousin who is selling these products and seems to love it, but I am looking to find experiences from more than just one person. Please, if you know anything about this product, share your experience. I don't want to pay for something if it is just a waste of money. However, if it really works fairly well, then I would love something that could jump start my weight loss since I have quite a bit to lose. Thanks and I hope you each have a wonderful day!!! :)

Thanks so much for the input! I greatly appreciate it. :)

Hello, I have a question, please. My husband was laid off right at 1 1/2 months ago from a job he had for 22 years. He is actively looking/applying for jobs, but so far nothing much is happening. He does have a severance package, but that will run out in a few months as well. He brought up the subject of applying for unemployment. Now, I know nothing about this and he doesn't know much either. Is this something that is smart to do at this time? Also, will it hurt us in any way to accept unemployment until he finds a good job? We just want to be sure before we move forward with this decision. Thanks so much and have a wonderful day!!! :)

Mine did come with the recipe book, but I must be bad at choosing because nothing tastes very good so far. This morning I did my own thing & used half a can of coconut water, half orange, half banana, pineapple & some honey. Oh, & I put in 1 tablespoon of powdered creamer. Weird, I know, but it was sitting there & I added it.:) Turned out good! I have also looked at the strawberry freeze, so it is good to hear positive reviews of that recipe. Thanks so much!

Hello, We have just gotten a Vitamix. We have both the wet & dry containers. We have made a few recipes, but haven't been thrilled with the taste of many of them. Please share some of your favorite recipes. We are looking not only for healthy recipes, but yummy tasting ones as well. Smoothies, sauces, dips, breads... I am looking for them all. Thanks so much! Everyone have a great day! :)

This guy would be considered more of an old acquaintance probably at this point. My husband was friends with him back in high school, but has only spoken to him a handful of times since then. He does seem like a good, trustworthy guy, but I definitely will recommend to my husband to check him out thoroughly first before moving ahead with anything. Thanks!

Thank you sooo much! You guys have given great advice & suggestions. There is a ton to think about. This is indeed a sales type job involving advertising. It would not be 100% commission. There is a base salary. Also, IF this were to work out, the guy already told my husband that everything would be written up in a legal contract form. Thanks again! :)

Hello All, My husband was laid off from his job of 22 years just a touch over a month ago. It was a corporate job that he didn't really enjoy, but it helped pay the bills every month. Anyway, he did receive a decent severance package and is actively looking for another job. A situation came up yesterday that is interesting & I would love to hear some opinions as to what others would do if this happened upon them. Here is the gist of what happened... An old friend contacted my husband because he had seen him on LinkedIn. Anyway, this friend had worked over 20 years for a big company when he decided that it was time for him to go out on his own. He was making a three figure salary, but decided to step out in faith to begin his own business. He started his business in January this year and projects that by the end of this year the company will make a nice three figure amount. Things have been going very well for him. He asked my husband to come in and talk with him yesterday about working with him. Due to the fact that this business is so new, he can't initially offer my husband as much as he had been making before salary wise, but the amount is not just terrible and my husband would receive monthly bonuses too. My husband would be provided a laptop also, any traveling that is not local would be completely covered, eventually be able to work from home and if he did well enough... would be provided a company car as soon as January 2013. Plus, this guy is saying that my husband could own a percentage of the company if hubby proves himself to be a good, solid worker. Downsides are that this is a very new company, very small. There would be no benefits such as health insurance, 401K, etc... These things would possibly come later once the business gets bigger, but not right now. However, there could be some great things come of this IF it works out well. And as I mentioned above, this guy is doing really, REALLY well with this business so far. Hubby is kind of excited about the idea because it would get him into something new and out of the corporate crud he has dealt with for years and years. However, he is cautious because he wants to do what is best for not only him, but for our family as well. His friend said that he could join him a few times in the very near future just to get a good idea of what the job would involve. This would give hubby a chance to see if he would even like this type of job or not while still receiving pay from his old job. If he didn't like it, well, not a problem. Hubby is still going to put resume's out to other companies as well, but he is just wondering if he should give this a shot while he has this opportunity. Anyway, if you have read this far, please let me know what you would do if you were in this situation? We are going back and forth over what to do. Seems like a cool opportunity, but one to approach cautiously. Thanks and have a wonderful day! :)

Hello... We are thinking about getting the Vitamix from Costco, but I am wondering if it is worth the money? Please tell what all this thing can do. This one comes with a dry ingredient attachment too. I tried to go to their site, but it is down right now. Thanks so much! :)

Everything everyone is saying is making good sense. That is why I posted on here because I love that I can get so many wonderful responses. It helps me when I need to make a decision about something that should really be easy and common sense driven, well, easier. I can play all sorts of "What if" scenarios in my head and they may sound great, but are not really do-able. Thanks for bringing me back to the real world. :) I do want to clarify that we were not looking at renting before we sell our home. We just thought IF we could sell our house, then rent, maybe it would be a good option. Hearing all the advice and input though, I realize we weren't thinking right. Someone spoke about putting 20% down on another home, but we were looking at going FHA and that only requires 3.5% down. Around here, homes are selling and selling fairly quickly. I am amazed at the difference I have seen with homes moving in the past couple of months even in comparison to just five months ago. It is wild! What would be great is if the seller of the home that we had a contract on would do a lease/purchase deal possibly. Again, that may be goofy thinking and probably could never work, but my mind is thinking of all kinds of things! :) Most likely, we will sit here till hubby has a job. Then we will look at re-listing our home then if the market is still looking pretty good. We will NOT put a contract on another home prior to getting a contract on ours again. We learned our lesson this time around! :O The guy who did our pre-qualify/pre-approval said that we should have no problem with our loan once hubby gets another job, so I hope he is right. Also, we actually looked into refinancing before we even looked at selling our home. Seems that we ran into snag after snag with that though and it was very frustrating! However, when we looked at selling our home as an option instead, things went incredibly smooth. Just seemed like the right thing to do. Anyway, we will just stay in our home right now. It is a good home overall in a great location. We have our son going to a wonderful charter school down the road, so we have that part covered too right now. Thanks again for all the sound advice. Good to know that others are thinking clearly when my mind is a bit muddy right now. :) Everyone have a very good day!

Yeah, we knew that most likely this would not be a real option. Oh well, that is alright. As I stated once before, it will all work out fine. :)

Hello, I was just wondering if there are any realtors out there? Either yourself or your husband? I am asking because now that my husband has been laid off, we are looking at all kinds of possibilities. We have always talked about getting our real estate licenses and doing real estate as a couple. However, there has never been a real opportunity or should I say time to see if this would actually work. My husband is now thinking about stepping out a bit and getting his real estate license since he has been laid off from his job of 22 years recently. He is not sure about getting back into the corporate world. Also, we are now both in our early 40's and think it might be time to see if this is a real possibility for our lives or not. He has a six month severance package which gives him some time to maybe explore. I do in home childcare right now, but I would love to be out of this job by the time I am 45. Yes, that is the goal I have set for myself at this time. I am about to turn 41 in August, so it gives me a little time. Our thoughts are that he could get the ball rolling on everything and then I could get my license a little later on once we see how things are going. I would still keep my childcare business for now of course, but eventually we would move to doing the real estate business full time. We know that this could be risky and may not work, but we also have seen other friends who have been laid off and take the opportunity to step out in faith to see what happened. Fortunately, many of our friends have been incredibly successful and they are so glad that they took the risk. Getting good health insurance, etc... might be tough, but I know that we can do that. Anyway, I would love to hear thoughts on all this and especially would love to hear from anyone in the real estate field. Again, we are just thinking right now, nothing is set in stone. Oh, and IF he were to try this and see that it is not working out, he would definitely go back to working in the corporate world if needed. That is not even a question in either of our minds. Thanks and have a great day! :)

Hello Everyone, I have recently posted about our house being on the market, but then having to take it off due to my husband being laid off from work. Well, my husband and I have been talking about all kinds of things and one thing that has come up is the possibility of re-listing the house and then us renting another home for a year. Why??? Well, one of the big reasons for selling our home was so that we could pay off some debts with the money that we made from the sell of the home. It would REALLY help us out. IF we can re-list and rent, then we would be able to actually pay off more debts than we thought by renting another home at this time. Renting would possibly give us time to get ourselves in a better spot career wise and even financially. I have found that there are homes for rent in all of the neighborhoods we really like around here. We could rent for a year and then move within the neighborhood to a home that we want to make permanent easily. One of the neighborhoods is a community and consists of 11 neighborhoods. There are a couple of homes for rent in the lower priced neighborhoods, so that is where we would target. Once the year is up, IF we still love the neighborhood, we could move to one of the neighborhoods that is a little higher priced and offers a bit bigger home. These neighborhoods are also in very nice school districts which is important since we are sending our son to public school for the first time this upcoming school year. Our current home is not in the best school district for elementary or middle school. Anyway, there are many reasons that this may be a great option. Oh, and when the year of renting is almost up, we aren't tied to having to sell a home like we are now. That is a nice plus too! My question is... can you sell your home and then rent another even when hubby is currently laid off??? He is getting six months severance, but I don't know if that matters at all. Also, he is actively seeking employment & even thinking of starting his own business, so it is not like we will be like this forever. So, is this possible? If so, I think I am wanting to get the process going because we worked very hard and put a lot of money into this home to get it ready to sell. It is in prime condition right now! :) Thanks so much!!! Everyone have a great day!

Hello Everyone, I thought this post wasn't receiving any more response until I just checked it this morning. :) Just an update: we ended up having to remove our home from the market right now because my husband was laid off from his job just recently. We are going to re-list whenever he gets another job and we will be using a different agent. Right now the priority has shifted from selling our home and getting into another one, to making sure my husband has a job. Our attitude is very good and our faith is strong. We see exciting things in our future and we know that God is in control. Thanks so much for all the helpful advice. It is greatly appreciated! Everyone have a wonderful day! :)

Thank you very much for the responses. We did go ahead and call. We will be pulling our home from the market and getting out of the other contract for the time being. Hopefully, if everything is meant to be, things will still happen, just a little later than we planned. I feel that this is the smartest thing for us to be doing right now. I am going to keep praying that my husband is able to find another job fairly quickly. The whole situation stinks greatly, but I have great faith that all will work out for the best. Thanks again! :)

Hello, I hope everyone is doing well. My husband and I have a situation going on and need some advice on how to handle everything. We have our home on the market right now and actually have a contingency contract on another home as well. Unfortunately, my husband was laid off from his job just last week. He received a pretty good severance package, but plans to get a job asap. He has already had one interview and hopes to have more very soon. Anyway, my question... can we still move forward with this other home now that he has been laid off? I don't know if we are supposed to call the guy who did our pre-approval, etc... and let him know the circumstances or if we just wait. I am thinking that if we tell him the situation, we are looking at having to pull our house from the market as well as having to remove the contract from the other home. However, I am not sure if that thinking is correct. Does anyone have any kind of advice for this type of situation? Thanks so much.

Wow, thanks again for the great responses! :) As far as our kitchen and baths being "outdated", please let me clarify that they are not bad at all. It is just that they don't have brand new appliances, granite countertops, etc... Everything is in great condition though in all of the rooms. Plus, things are very clean. I know that this has to be somewhat important because as my husband and I have looked at other homes any that were dirty, cluttered, or had icky smells were ones we couldn't get out of fast enough. It really makes a difference when walking into a clean home even if it is slightly outdated as opposed to one that has not been kept up well. Our home is move in ready and would not need immediate work unless someone just had to have granite countertops, etc... Plus, I did also think about how many people like to come in and make a home their own by putting their own stamp on it. It was interesting to read that someone else felt that way as well. :) I think we will get some flyers for the front of the house. It sure can't hurt! I appreciate the opinion on Craigslist. It just confirms my thoughts on it not being a great idea. As far as pricing, I totally believe that ours was overpriced at the beginning. I think that has hurt us a bit and that is why we have dropped the price now quite a bit. I feel that we are finally at the proper price point for the homes in our area. Oh, and yes, all the improvements to the home are listed on the listing. Our neighbors put their house on the market two weeks prior to ours going up and received a contract within the first week. However, they did price theirs low to begin with. They are still getting hits on the house though whereas ours is not. We have to figure out the why behind this happening. Thanks to everyone again for all the helpful input. :)

Thanks for all the input. We have talked about getting a new agent, but we have signed a 4 month contract with her. We can get out of it and also remove our listing for $50.00, but we have the contract on the other house which we really want to keep in tact. Our kitchen and bathrooms are a bit outdated, but we cannot put thousands of dollars into upgrading right now. Everything looks nice and our price reflects the outdated looks in the kitchen and bathrooms. We are not talking 20 year old outdates either, probably about 11-12 years. On the up side our home has been newly painted on the exterior, brand new architectural roof, new water heater, newer A/C units, brand new top of the line storm doors and entry door handles and locks, plus more. If we can just get people in to see all of this, I think the house would sell quickly. We are also on a cul-de-sac which is a huge plus for most people. The realtor open house really does sound like a promising idea. I have thought about even posting on Facebook, but I am not sure about that. One of my husbands friends is a real estate agent and post his listings on Craigslist. Again, I am not sure about that idea and the safety involved. Our realtor did not go over a marketing strategy with us aside from telling us what she would price it at, putting the sign in the yard, and printing some flyers that are placed on the inside of our home. When we drive around we tend to like picking up a flyer from the yard, but our realtor says that is not something she likes to do. She has a number on her sale sign and relies on that. Problem is that it is getting no hits. We also have a sign at the front of our neighborhood letting people driving by know that there is a home for sale. We can only put it out from 6PM on Friday to before 9AM on Monday or else the city will come by and pick it up. We just think that the longer it sits, the worse odds we have of selling. Anyway, thanks again for all the input. I am still not sure what we are going to do, but I do know that I am going to do everything possible to try and sell our home, with or without our realtor's help. The one showing we have had received incredible comments. The agent said that the house showed perfectly and that everything was just beautiful. That was wonderful to hear. We have greatly decluttered, put stuff into a rented storage room, de-personalized all rooms and it really did pay off. However, we need more people to see that. I have tried posting pics, but I obviously don't know what I am doing. Thanks again for the help. :)

Oh, and the agent hasn't offered up much which is frustrating. We are the ones who have been trying to figure out things to get the house shown. She just seems to be doing whatever we say without any other beneficial input.

Thanks for the quick responses. I do not feel comfortable showing the link on here, but I will post some of the pictures we used later today. I am about to head out in a few minutes. The pictures are pretty good overall. There are 22 photos and the only rooms not shown are the 1/2 bath and our laundry room, everything else is shown. We have several of our backyard too because it could be a great selling point. There are two of our kitchen. We have tons of cabinets in our kitchen which shows great storage. Our agent was referring to a public open house, but I know that my husband mentioned the realtor open house too because I had brought that up as well. I think we will mention that idea again because it sounds very smart. Thanks again and I will try to post pictures later when I get back. Hope I can remember how! :)

Hello, We have had our house on the market for one month now and have only received one call and one showing the whole time. We are baffled! Homes in our area are definitely selling and selling well. We have dropped the price quite a bit already, but still nothing. Our home is in multiple listings, photographed well, in a great location, etc... We do have a contract on another home, but it is contingent upon us selling this house. We are keeping the house crazy clean, have done many repairs and home improvements, and are keeping the yard looking nice. It seems we are doing everything we need to do and yet no calls are coming in on the house. :( How can we get a contract if we can't even get people to look at the house??? Anyway, does anyone have any great ideas or tips that we may be overlooking? Our agent doesn't like open houses because she says they don't really work. That is fine, but we need to know what does work. Thanks so much and have a great day!!!

Thanks, everyone! :) Tbog: Can you please share some of the most important things that need to be taken care of in order for us to do this possibly? Any great advice, suggestions, etc... Any would be very much appreciated. We are just wanting to start out small and slow, see what happens and then go from that point.

Well, I really don't know. I have never done this before and that is why I am asking the question. I think I am mainly trying to figure out the whole process of doing this business. It is all new to me. :)

Hello, I am not sure if this would ever work, but I thought I would ask and see what kind of responses I get. My friend and I would love to create a business together, but we live in two different states (not neighboring states). We would be creating our own handmade items to sell. An Etsy shop is one thing we are considering, but I am still not sure that would even work. Any ideas? This may be something that we just can't do right now. Does anyone know if this is possible? If so, how? I am looking for any good advice on this matter please. Thanks so much and have a wonderful day! :)

Thanks to everyone for all the thoughts on each of these places. Unfortunately, it looks like we won't be going to any of them after all. :( There has been a ton to happen in our family since Sept. of last year. My husbands father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung Cancer in Sept. 11' and then passed away early Nov. 11'. After that, my MIL was in a very bad car accident on Christmas Eve. She has been in the hospital and in rehab the past three months and just came home finally last Saturday. She is back in the hospital again due to heart problems. They will be releasing her tomorrow, but she has to go back for an ablation procedure very soon. Anyway, needless to say our lives have been upside down and out of whack. I was still really hoping we could celebrate our 10th anniversary in a special way. Unfortunately, I have been the one trying to plan and my husband has not thought about it much at all. I finally came up with an idea to stay home and just do some day trips. I told him that I would be willing to do that even though it was disappointing somewhat to me. I still agreed that we could have a fun time. Well, we ended up in a huge argument last night (something that never happens between us) and so now I have no idea what we are going to do, if anything. It really stinks! :crying: We have said our apologies, but he has been gone to the hospital all day, so we haven't really gotten to talk. Hopefully, we will have a great time despite everything. That is what I am praying will happen. Anyway, thanks again for the input. Maybe one day in the future we will visit one of those places. :) Everyone have a wonderful day.