I thought that every day through Thanksgiving we could all write one thing here on Addicted to Saving that we are thankful for.  I know that schedules are getting busier for most of us.  The thing I keep reminding myself is that this week is not just about busy schedules, Thanksgiving cooking and baking, Black Friday sales, Cyber Monday sales and more.  This week let’s take some time to really be thankful for the blessings we have been given.  I also want all of you to know that I truly realize some of you are struggling this year – some of you have dealt with death, financial loss, marriages ending, sickness and so much more.  My heart hurts for you as I have BEEN there.  I know that sometimes, our losses and trials seem so horrible that it is tough to find a positive light through all of the pain.  But, if you can, look to find something you are thankful for and try to focus on these good things this week. 

So – for today, let’s write one thing we are thankful for.  I will remind all of you of this post every day through Thanksgiving so keep thinking of things you are Thankful for.

My Thankful Thought for the Day:  I am thankful for my family.  When you experience the loss of loved ones, you sometimes appreciate the blessings of your family a bit more.  While I don’t have a large family due to more losses than I would like to think about, each and every member from my husband, to my mom, to my “second mom”, to my brother, to in-laws play such a pivotal role in supporting me.  My husband and I are blessed to have such Godly family members who are constantly encouraging us and supporting us through the good (and sometimes bad) decisions we have made throughout our lives. 

Leave a comment with your Thankful Thought for the day.

Have you been missing any of Addicted to Saving’s Facebook updates? Facebook has been making MANY changes the past few months and sadly, they have affected the way we see updates on our Facebook pages. I receive a lot of emails from people asking me if Addicted to Saving is still on Facebook. Don’t worry – I am still there! But, because of Facebook’s changes, you will want to do a couple of steps to insure you don’t miss any updates! **You will especially want to follow these steps for the next couple of weeks because I will be posting pre-Black Friday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals non-stop!

So – to stay on top of all of Addicted to Saving’s updates, you will first want to make sure you “like” Addicted to Saving on Facebook. Go HERE to like Addicted to Saving. Or – if you prefer to follow me on Twitter, go HERE to follow Addicted2Saving on Twitter.

Then, follow the two steps below to insure that you see each and every status update I make on Addicted to Saving’s Facebook page:

1)  When you are logged into your Facebook page, go to your “News Feed.”  While there, on the top right of the page, you should see where it says “Sort”.  (see the picture above).  Make sure you click where it says “Recent Stories First”.  That way you can see each and every post as soon as I make them.  **NOTE – I have to click this multiple times throughout the day.  So, make sure your sort is always showing as “Recent Stories First” otherwise, you may have to reclick this setting.

2)  The second step for you is to add Addicted to Saving to a List.  (Once you create a list for your favorite blogs, you can click on the list and see all updates at once).  To create a list, click List which is on the left side of your page (see step one above).  Then, click on “Create a List” which you will see on the top right (see step two above).  Once you do this, create a title for your list.  I titled my list Addicted to Saving.  After titling your list, you can add friends/pages/etc to your list.  Note that Addicted to Saving is a page so you will have to set your options to “Pages.”  See the picture below.  Once you add Addicted to Saving to a list, you will be able click on your list and see all of my updates!

Let me know if you have any questions or any further tips!

So which one of these pictures best describes me this week?  How ’bout all three combined???

For most of you, my site has been up and running just fine this week.  However, for many of you, you’ve experienced very long loading times, no page load at all, or random posts from days prior showing up.  If that’s your experience this week, PLEASE READ THIS POST. I’m not promising a cure-all, but hopefully for most of you this will help!  =)

Long Load Times or No Loads
If your internet service provider is in any way affiliated with Time Warner, then you probably experienced slower than average load times.  Time Warner had severe technical difficulties this week, and because Addicted to Saving is also hosted with a company that uses Time Warner, this created tremendous loading time for pages, and sometimes caused the page to not load at all.   If you have a Road Runner or AOL internet account (Brighthouse, Adelphia, Comcost), then you were probably affected in some way.  This problem has been resolved as of about 5 p.m. today, so hopefully you are not finding this to be an issue.

Today’s Posts Not Showing
This is probably because of a caching issue. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, we really didn’t either before this week. Basically it’s your computer browser’s way of temporarily remembering what you’ve done. What you’ll need to do is clear the temporary files on your computer to fix the problem of not seeing my current posts.  Here are some suggestions:

1) Hit F5 – this gives a “super reset” of your temporary files and may do the trick.  If you see the most current post, then you’ve fixed it!

2) Clear your cache and delete your cookies – I’ve provided some helpful quick videos below depending on which browser you use.

Internet Explorer

Mozilla Firefox

Safari

Google Chrome

3) Finally, if none of these tips work for you, turn your computer off and turn it back on.  Sometimes it’s the simplest thing that I think of last, and many times that works!

Thank you for your patience with the site this week.  We were racking our brains all week, yet it looks like this was a problem that was actually totally out of our control, due to the Time Warner issue.  Or as my husband said, it’s “life.”  😉 

Please let me know by leaving a comment if this worked, or you can always come to Facebook where the conversation is always going!

This morning I saw a very unsettling Facebook status update on NoMoreRack’s Facebook page.  And then, upon further investigation I saw that No More Rack was deleting any negative comments left on their Facebook page regarding the situation.  There is a part of me that does not want to post this, but I know that you all have to be 100% aware of what is going on.  So, if you have ever used No More Rack and if you have given them your credit card number, you need to be on alert.  From the what I have learned, it looks like No More Rack was somehow hacked into last night and as a result people’s credit card information was visable for everyone to see.  People were copying and uploading pictures of other people’s credit card info onto No More Rack’s Facebook page.

Below is the current Facebook status provided by No More Rack:

“Hello, as valued customers, we take your privacy and ensuring the security of your data very seriously. In the middle of the night last night, our technology team was alerted to an issue involving ability to login and our login process. In order to properly diagnose the issue and continue to ensure the security of the site, on notification we disabled the checkout process. We can assure you no billing information was compromised. Nomorerack does not store any card holder data, rather card holder data is stored within a PCI compliant environment and our billing gateway. Nevertheless, our team is reviewing all accounts accessed during the period of time when the login function experienced abnormalities to ensure the integrity of each customer’s account. Please feel free to contact customer service with any questions or concerns you may have.”

I recommend you do two things 1) Call the bank/credit card company whose card # you gave.  Make them aware of the situation.  2) Cancel your No More Rack account.

If you want to contact No More Rack’s customer service, below is their info:

 Email: [email protected]
Nomorerack Retail Group
#154 – 1917 West 4th Ave
Vancouver, BC
Canada
V6J 1M7

My Words For You:  I am so sorry.  I know that I have posted about No More Rack quite a bit.  I’ve used them in the past and received great deals on both a purse and a wallet.  That said, I would never have posted about them if I knew this would happen.

So you may have noticed that my normal posts have been lacking the past 24 hours.. I’ve been trying to put out multiple fires behind the scenes on Addicted to Saving.  It seems that some of you are noticing website issues when you go to www.addictedtosaving.com.  But, it also appears that not all of you are noticing problems.  Which makes this very confusing to a computer coding novice like myself.

If you are experiencing problems, please be patient with me.  I’m working on it and doing my best to resolve the issues quickly.  The only tip I have that MAY help you (no promises) is to click the F5 button when you are on my site and noticing problems.  This will refresh my blog and possibly take care of the issues.

Please leave a comment if you are experiencing problems and also please tell me what browser you are using.  If F5 works, leave a comment about that as well.

Thanks everyone!