This sweepstakes is now closed. Random winner is… 263.
We are thrilled to kick off our series of holiday giveaways with this opportunity for you to win a Windows 7 phone. A smart phone is a seemingly-critical tool of rookie moms, perfect for reading Facebook or Twitter in bed during midnight feedings. And who has room to carry a phone, a camera, an address book, and a calendar in her diaper bag (or to remember to throw them all in?!)?
Is more more or is less more?
As a parent, sometimes more is really more. Like more hours of sleep. No way around it, that is awesome. Other times, we can do more with less (less time, less hassle, less stuff to carry). Yay for less.
Doing more with less
When Holden turned three, we had his birthday party at the playground nearest our house, complete with picnic tables, play structure, and sandy area. Rather than spend time and money assembling goodie bags, I sent each kid home with a sand toy. Done and done. Easy for me, useful for them {5 tips for a cheaper third birthday party}.
When Julian turned five, Whitney was tired of the large party (due in part to the blessing of 6 living grandparents within driving distance) so Julian had one friend sleep over instead. The overnight guest’s family came over for a pizza and salad dinner. Eight is enough, right? {add homemade flair to a party with no skillz}
Tell us how you do more with less as a parent — for birthdays or any days — and you can win a cool new Windows 7 Phone. (Like… can you stock the diaper bag with just the essentials? Is the cardboard box from your neighbor’s fridge still the word’s best fort? Are your date-nights-in reaching legendary status? Can you stretch a pot roast into five days of lunches? We want to know.)
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This giveaway is brought to you by the new Windows Phone 7. As part of Windows advertising on our site, they’ve provided the latest Windows 7 Phone for us to give to you and are kicking off our not-so-Secret Santa series of sweet presents with a bang. Less MIA. More PTA: Learn more about the Windows Phone online and see it in person at local T-Mobile stores. Answer our question in the comments before November 29, 2010 for a chance to win (25 words or more, please). If you have lots of great ideas, you can enter with a different one each day! We will randomly choose a winner. Winner must respond within 5 days or we’ll pick a second random choice and so on and so on. Read the official rules including 58 other awesome sites where you can try to win!
I am loving aluminum foil as an insulation material these days, helps me shape cakes, and keep things warm
I try to stay out of the stores unless I need something and then I take a list and stick to it. I use the internet to search for the best price before I waste gas.
I find one meal that we love and then cook a giant batch of it to store in the freezer–less meal planning!
We try to take less trips into town to save on gas and get everything done at once.
I have a large extended family and we all share and pass things down to save on purchasing large items.
smchester at gmail dot com
I could send emails to my college, I could look up and send recipes to my family members, use the calender to keep track of important appointments and the kids activities.
Doing more with less can have a fantastic outcome when you’re talking about crafting. I knit, so I have *tons* of leftover scraps from various projects. Michael’s has a donation basket for Warm Up America squares, either knit or crochet, so every year I knit a bunch up. Then there is a ‘joining party’, where the accumulated squares are put together into blankets. I have made many new friends piecing together blankets.
For birthdays doing less is definitely more for us. We plan a really special day with our daughter where it’s all about her and doing her favorite things (she’s now 6). So far, we have avoided a big production birthday party.
I read the grocery store weekly ads during my lunch break. That helps me plan out my grocery trip and gives me meal ideas, so I waste less time trying to think “what’s for dinner.”
I cook french toast in the waffle iron! SO much faster than the traditional way.
I do more with less by using awesome phone apps. There are many useful, fun, and creative apps out there that help make life a little bit easier to manage.
I do more by sleeping less. It is amazing what you can get done in the morning without distractions.
I donate my used cards to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children. They take the front of cards and make new ones they can sell to raise funds. http://stjudesranch.org/help_card.php
Doing more with less means creating a tight budget and sticking to it, avoiding impulse buys, and saving for rainy days. Peace of mind generates productivity.
We use our local library and we love it! Our 5 and 2 year can pick out a ton of ‘new’ books every week and we even save by getting our movies there and we can always renew everything online–an added bonus especially for the movies which are always due in a week. We also love getting books on cd there to listen too in the car.
Making a weekly menu saves me so much time and energy during the week.
Awesome blog! Would love to win this phone!
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I do more with less by cooking dinner and staying home to eat. The family gets to spend time together cooking, eating together and cleaning up. This cost less than going out, but our family gets a lot more out of it.
I would love to win this amazing phone!
I always have a weekly meal plan
I get more done by using the Microsoft Outlook junk filters to see less spam.
I would surely get more done with fewer devices if I had one good one that consolidated the functionality of several!
So far, so good! I finished my husband’s Christmas shopping today and we are at the $100 mark we set for each other this year! More (well I guess just, the same..) Christmas joy for less money!
I do more with less by baking from scratch and cooking meals instead of grabbing fast food or eating out. It not only saves money, but it’s also healthier. I really need a new phone!
During Thanksgiving, we eat more with less time! Haha, how do we do this? We always have a potluck for every Thanksgiving dinner. And we’re all luck that everyone brings delicious food! It would be awesome to win!
I shop from a list always. I plan every meal and snack weekly to stop impulse buys. If we want burgers and fries we make them at home. I sew/craft so alot of gifts are handmade for the kids and familt members.
I think that if I could hit up my twitter and face book accounts on my phone, I’d let out more, and leave this hermitude behind
I get my screen more organized with less hassle using Windows 7’s Snaps feature.
I do more by making the most of my time at work rather than procrastinating…well, MOST of the time.
I bring snacks with me everywhere, especially while travelling. This helps avoid the low-blood-sugar rush to an awful fast-food meal.
Doing more with less means keeping your cars as long as possible especially when they are paid off.
We do more with less by periodically holding garage sales to help us de-clutter. We then use the proceeds to buy the whole family dinner at a nice restaurant!
I make photo books online and have them ready when there is a two for one sale. I also follow them on facebook or twitter, and get email reminders so I will never miss a great sale.
I would love to win this amazing phone. It would keep my busy household running more smoothly!
One example of me doing more with less is carpooling with friends to school (when I don’t take the train). Being college students, we’ll save all the money we can and it’s so convenient that I have a group of friends that all live pretty close! It’s fun to see each other in the mornings, ha and eat breakfast on the go. We try NOT to make a mess haha. It’d be so awesome to win!
Practically all of my daughters clothes are either from Goodwill or friends and family! And they still look great so she isn’t complaining!
It’s so hard to avoid the trap of more! But being a single income family in the Bay Area does help stifle that impulse. I do try to schedule one big thing a day and no more. Too much stuff and we’re more stressed by the transitions than relaxed or enthused by the activity.
Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for people who pour their hearts and souls into blogging! I am especially thankful for the phone giveaway as I am in desperate need of a new one!
Doing more for less means buying a gently used car that’s been cared for and maintaining it carefully for another ten years.
i love giving out coupons for watching your kids for an hour or clean your house its cheap and effective so everyone is happy
We make more out of less by having family movie night! We build out own pizzas, pop popcorn, the works! It’s really more fun (and less expensive) than going to the theater.
Happy Thanksgiving! During the holidays, when I’m camped out on so many deal sites, I make sure to keep an eye out for kid’s books and toys. This helps stretch my giving-to-charity budget so I can donate more to Toys for Tots, school libraries, etc. Amazon has a Flat Stanley boxed set for $7.50 now!
We do more with less by making a list before we go out shopping and sticking to it.
I recycled the cotton batting from an old quilt and am using it as snow in my Christmas village display this year.
This might be a little too simple, but I do more with less by always having my laptop with me. Nowadays, since I’m in college, it seems like everything is being moved online, from turning essays in to math homework. It definitely helps me do more when I have free time and I have less stuff to carry around!
I buy cake mixes on sale at Target. The Halloween ones were a quarter. I bought over 20 of them so whenever I have to make cupcakes or cakes for special occasions, I have cake mix. I used them to make my son’s birthday cake. Instead of spending $20 or $30 on a cake, I just made a quarter sheet cake myself. With all the ingredients, it costs me less than $3 to make it.
I would love to win this amazing phone! Happy Thanksgiving!
Doing more for less is all about doing dishes before, during, and after thanksgiving dinner. Saves a lot of time the next day.
P.S. happy thanksgiving
More for less: Host a get together with your friends and have a clothes swap …exchange your don’t-likes and never-worns for things you can use. Everybody wins!
I like making more than I need to so I can have lunch to take the next day.