It is prom season!!! Every year Prom season comes around and with it comes new fashion trends. But Macy’s wanted me to let you know that they have your back! Macy’s Presents:Prom 2016! They will be showing you the best Prom dresses and accessories that are in this yeas. This is a series of events at a variety of Macy’s locations all over the country including (and especially) Concord Sunvalley location!

On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 2pm at the Concord Sunvalley Macy’s will be the Clackamas Prom fashion show and shopping party. There will be a great fashion show with everything you need to make a great prom look. But there will be more!

The first 150 guests who check in will get VIP access to meet the Youtube singing sensation named Jackson Harris. They will even be able to snap a picture with him after his live performance. You can get a mini makeover and get a free gift when you try on a prom dress. Snap some great pictures too!!!

If you have a prom this year (or just want to check out a great new look) make sure you make plans to be there! If you aren’t in Concord make sure to check out the list of events to find one by you!

(Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Everywhere Agency on behalf of Macy’s; however, all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.)

Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by money, economics, the stock market, and business. So I was stoked to be get the opportunity to write a sponsored piece about SparkGift!

I remember finding out that some kids were given stocks by grandparents as gifts growing up, not my family but more posh families. Oh man! I wished I had been getting stock shares since I was little. And those friends who really valued it? Well, we followed their stocks and I mean the old fashioned way, in the newspaper. But alas, for my very middle class family, blue chip stocks (like IBM, Disney, and Pepsi) were not real gift options. But things have changed!

But before I get to how…

If you are not a money nerd stop rolling your eyes. I know, you are wondering why in the world you should give stocks. Well, it is a literal investment in their future. Let us be honest, how many times do we need to get a kid gift but you have no idea what to get them? Not even just kids! I can say, I love Bath and Body Works but it seems to be the go to gift for every family or female gift where you have no idea what they want! So stocks would be a great gift in all those situations.

It is also an investment in a child’s future in a non-monetary way. It is such an educational gift and we know that I love an educational gift! Want a kid to take an interest in the stock market and over all economic theory? Give them a stake in it. Want them to understand why it is such a big deal what Apple’s profit statement is? What a stock split is? Give them a stock to follow. And when you put it in a sector they are interested in like music, tech, medical they will follow the sector news developments and see how it affects everything. I think I could even count this as an educational expense in my budget;). 

So great, how do you get stocks to give as gifts? You don’t have a broker or stock account or any of that. Don’t worry! SparkGift has equalized the stock game! You can give stocks to a ton a great, to shelf companies starting at $20! You are giving a piece of the stock instead of having to buy whole shares of stocks where the prices start over $100. You don’t need a brokerage account or anything like that. You just go to the website and buy it. In like a minute. That is it! Then it gets emailed to the recipient and you can print a fancy looking certificate to give them in person! You pay the amount for the stock ($20-$2,000) plus $2.95 & 3% per gift sent. The recipient doesn’t pay any fees that means no account maintenance fees, no trading fees, and no account minimums. They just open a Folio Institutional account and they hold the account. It is that easy!

Want to receive stock as a gift for you or your kids? Then you can set up a registry! Then you get a link you can give out! I signed in with Facebook and listed a few of my favorite companies and I was done. It was so easy!! 

Any way you look at this it is easy and awesome!!! You could get all your Christmas shopping done from the warmth of your home in minutes;). Check out SparkGift! 

(Disclosure: I was compensated to write this piece but all thoughts and opinions are mine alone!)

Pley recently approached me to write a post for the holiday season. For those who aren’t familiar, Pley is basically Netflix for Legos. And with Legos you know they got my attention;). You pay a subscription fee starting at $20 a month. For that you rent sets of Legos and K’nex with unlimited changes (send 1 back and get 1) and free shipping. But why would you want to do this for your kids or as a gift to someone else’s kids?

5 Reasons to Rent Toys!

1)Kids never get bored: When you rent Lego sets from Pley, you just send them back when you are done with them. And if you want to play with them again, just add them to your list again. There are over 400 sets available from Pley so your kids will never run out of new things to try. Boredom avoided!
2)You don’t have to store them: Toy storage is its own store department. I mean, toys and cleaning up the toys are a huge time drain. But if you are getting toys 1 set at a time, there just isn’t as much to store.
3)You don’t have to clean them: Toys get germy and gross. I try to clean them but it takes a lot of time! When you rent toys, they disinfect them between every use! I wish i could handle doing that at home.
4)Your kids play with expensive sets without paying more: When you rent toys you pay a set amount a month. For Pley is is $20 a month if you pay for 6 months at a time. If next month you get the Tie Fighter Lego set, you save $55! The Tie Fighter set is a $75 Lego! If you buy it and the kids get bored in just a month you will have spent a lot more!

5)You can easily set a toy budget: If you to a rental subscription then that is a fixed expense no matter how many sets of toys you get!!! Your kids can play with hundreds of dollars of toys in a month and your budget hasn’t been touched!

So there you have 5 great reasons to rent your toys instead of buying them. I think they are even better reasons to actually give a gift of rental for a month instead of buying toys for gifts!

So check out Pley on their website or over at their Facebook page and find some other great reasons to check out their service!

(Disclosure: I was compensated for this post by Pley. But while they were the reason for the post, all thoughts and opinions are mine alone!)

While this is a sponsored post, we actually have Sunrun solar service installed at our house!  And when people here we have Sunrun there are always questions because people have so many different ideas as to what solar service is. It is great that solar energy is good for the environment. It is also great that it reduces the amount of money that goes to PG&E. But people find the process mysterious and so they don’t even check to see if Sunrun is the right fit for them. So I am going to address just a few questions that we have heard!

1)Isn’t solar always so expensive to start? No, it isn’t ALWAYS expensive to start. It depends on what you do for solar. When you do the Sunrun solar service you are actually leasing the solar panels and everything from them. So there isn’t an upfront purchase.

2)Isn’t having solar a lot of work with the maintaining, cleaning, monitoring, etc? No! 1 of the great things about Sunrun and leasing the solar is that they monitor the system constantly. If there is a problem with your system and it quits producing, Sunrun takes care of it. 

3)So does that mean people are always around in order to monitor your system? No, all monitoring is off site. You can even see how your system is doing online. 

4)A lease? Don’t you always lose money on leases? Remember, this isn’t a car. This is a 20 year lease agreement. Technology will probably change a lot in 20 years and you probably can’t sell the panels off your house.

5)20 years? So what happens if I move? The new owner of your home takes over your solar lease. There is a simple process where a credit check is run and some forms are filled out. 

6)But are your bills really lower? Yes, they really are! My husband just put together a spreadsheet on our savings for our realtor. We have saved over $750 in the last year alone. Sunrun customers save an average of 20% on their electricity costs.* *Actual savings will vary. See http://clvr.li/1dwHGKc for details.

7)What if I do all this and my house isn’t good for solar? Some houses are solar challenged but if Sunrun can’t save you money, they won’t sell you on a system! I like honestly from a company like that. 

8)So did you get all those cool cash back rebates from the government? Well, no. Those rebates will go to Sunrun because they actually own the system and not you. But just remember, those rebates are just a portion of the money invested in your system. And you don’t have to cough up those funds. 

We have been very happy with our Sunrun solar service and encourage you to check it out! I also really encourage you to pop over to the Sunrun’s Facebook page and enter win a really neat programmable Nest thermostat!
 

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.