Zact Mobile Services

I participated in a campaign for Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Zact. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating in this campaign. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family.

When I was a kid, there was not as much technology for my parents to worry about. Like most kids, at one point I got a record player that allowed me to play the records for the read along books (remember those? - we did find them with CDs for my kids). Then, I was upgraded to a stereo and eventually had a Walkman. When I was a teenager, I asked to have a phone in my room, which I got...of course, it wasn't my own line, just my own extension so I could talk for hours with friends (we didn't have call waiting or anything fancy back then, wonder how many people tried to call the house and got a busy signal while I was on the phone).

Now, as a parent, we are faced with so much more technology. I want to be able to allow my kids to experience technology, but I want for it to be on my terms and in my control. The kids have a laptop, that sits in the family room. There is a family iPad, that is also kept in the family room. They each have an iPod, but we load the music and have to log in to allow them to download even the free apps.

The iPods have been nice, because they have given them access to e-mail, iMessage and FaceTime, which they use to reach out to grandparents and friends. It also is a nice way to check in on them when either of us is not home or when they are spending the night at a friend's house. I can send a quick iMessage and see how they are doing. Of course, they are reliant on having WiFi access to use them, so they don't work everywhere.

As my son enters Intermediate School this year, the question that seems to be looming out there, is when do we get him a phone? This would allow him the ability to call us or send us a text to check in...whether he is at a friend's house, sports or elsewhere without us. It would also allow him the flexibility to be able to text with those friends that have phones but not an iDevice.

As a parent, I have concerns with a phone. I have no precedent to say what is the right age for a cell phone. I have heard horror stories from other parents who suddenly had huge cell phone bills because their children racked up hundreds, or even thousands, of text messages in a month - far exceeding the confines of their plans. I have concerns with them having web-enabled devices and finding the wrong content by mistake (hopefully not on purpose). I worry about them using the phones at all hours. I worry about the spam/telemarketers and others that will try to contact them. I worry about them losing a phone.

As you can see in the infographic above, Zact mobile services conducted a survey that found 73% of U.S. parents are concerned about the lack of parental control of a child’s activities on mobile devices.

One of the things that I like about Zact is that the phone service can grow with your child. When the kids are younger, if you want you can limit them to a select group of contacts and make it only available for calls. With time, you can add in texting and/or open up the group of contacts. You can limit apps and web access. You can restrict access at certain times of day - bedtime, dinnertime, homework time, or whatever time you want to restrict.

You can make all changes from your own phone. Zact uses the Sprint Nationwide Network and requires no contracts. You can share minutes fully between all the phones on your plan, with just a $4.99 / month line maintenance per device.

Some other features:

Never Overpay Guarantee

If you don’t use all of your monthly plan, we’ll credit you back to the plan that fits you best and automatically lower your next bill.

Customize

With Zact, you can build your own mix of talk, text and data and adjust it anytime, right from your phone.

Parental controls

Set curfews, usage caps and app/contact list restrictions right from your device.

You can check out more about parental controls and the services on their website, www.Zact.com.

We haven't yet decided when we will get him a phone, but I am certainly intrigued by the services that Zact offers and will continue to explore the option. They offer some 'packages' which are essentially recommendations or you can choose to 'Zact-Size' your plan. I really think that we can do as well, or better with a Zact plan, than if we add him to our plan. It would cost us $20 / month to add him to our plan, on Zact even with the $4.99 fee, we could get him 100 talking minutes, 500 text messages and 250MB of data. I think that the data might be high, since he would still use WiFi at home.

What do you think? Does your child have a phone? How do you monitor their usage?

No compensation was received for this post. I participated in a campaign for Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Zact. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating in this campaign. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family.

Uncle Ben's Rice

I like rice. I guess I've always liked rice. When I was a kid, my friend and I created a recipe that we called Rice Delight - it was leftover rice and jam and sugar (how could it not be good?). It is something that I include in our menu plan regularly. I like it as a side, but also as a main meal.

When I am out, I like to get brown rice, because I've always heard that it was better for me, in the same fashion that whole wheat bread is better than white. As with bread (and pasta for that matter), I have a hard time convincing the family to eat the brown rice. So, when I heard that Uncle Ben's offers a whole grain white rice that has "twice the fiber of Brown Rice", I was excited to give it a try.

When we tried it, I was happy to discover that there really wasn't much of a difference in taste or texture. It would be very easy to include this product with 45g of Whole Grains per serving and chance are the family wouldn't notice the difference.

I am planning to try some of the flavored varieties of the Whole Grain White Rice as well. I think the Taco style one would be a great side to serve with our favorite Mexican dishes. In addition, I could see us trying the Chicken flavor or the Sweet Tomato as a side with grilled chicken. My husband doesn't like Broccoli, otherwise the Broccoli Cheddar flavor sounds good as well.

Want to try it yourself, visit the Uncle Ben’s website for a coupon!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour for Mom Central. I received samples through Mom Central on behalf of Uncle Ben’s in order that I could share my opinion. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate. I also received some additional samples and aprons that I shared with friends.

Zing Zang Zoom (The Circus is Coming to Town & a Giveaway)

The Circus is coming to town!

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey presents Zing Zang Zoom, playing at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland from October 21st through October 26th. In Zing Zang Zoom, "fun-filled magic merges with traditional circus arts". I can't wait to see what they mean, it sounds like a combination of a magic show and a circus - should be a great show.

There are both weekday and weekend evening shows at 7:30 pm and two weekend matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 11:30 am and 3:30 pm.

In addition to the circus, all ticket holders are invited to come to the show an hour early and experience the Ringling Bros. Clown College® at the All Access Pre-show for free.

I am looking forward to taking my kids to the circus, neither of my children have ever been to the circus. We read a book from the Harold and the Purple Crayon series called, Harold's Circus. In the book, we see Harold walk the high wire, ride on the back of a horse, tame lions, play with the clowns and more. My kids were excited when I told them we are going to go to the circus. I can remember going to the circus as a child. I remember one time, my aunt and her boyfriend (now my uncle) took me and a number of my cousins to the circus, when it came to town.

As a special offer to my readers, Mom Central and Feld Family Entertainment are excited to extend the following special family offers: You can purchase a 4-pack of tickets for weekday shows for only $44 or receive $4 off any weekend ticket by logging onto Ticketmaster and entering coupon code: MOM. You can get additional weekday tickets at a price of $11 each, 4 tickets is the minimum required purchase for the discounted tickets.

Thanks to Mom Central and Feld Family Entertainment, I have the opportunity to offer a chance for one of my readers to win 4 tickets to the opening night performance in Cleveland.

How to enter:

Primary entry - leave a comment telling me your favorite circus act.

Additional entries:

• Follow me on Twitter (@ABusyMomofTwo) and tweet about this giveaway. Come back and leave a comment with the link to the tweet. (this can be done daily!)

• E-mail your friends to share the coupon code and opportunity to win, cc: or bcc: me (abusymomoftwo at gmail dot com). Come back and leave a comment letting me know you sent an e-mail. One entry per e-mail. (e-mail addresses will not be collected or used in any way other than used to determine completion of entry).

• Sign up for daily updates or e-mails and leave me a comment letting me know you subscribe.

• Post about this giveaway on your blog with a link back. Leave a comment letting me know you blogged, with a link to your post.

Giveaway will remain open until Monday, October 12th at 9 pm Eastern. Winner will be selected using a random number generator. Winner will be contacted by e-mail and have 36 hours to respond or a new winner will be selected. If your e-mail is not available through your profile, please be sure to include with your comment, so that I may contact you if you are the winner.

I did not receive any compensation for this post, but Feld Family Entertainment and Mom Central are providing my family with a complimentary set of tickets to the circus.