I'm a full-time mummy

I stumbled upon this website a couple of years ago and have been a regular buyer ever since. On average, I will buy from iHerb once in every 2-3 months and I usually get chocolates and snacks for our kiddos and my hubby. I do get questions on and off either from friends or via PMs I received on my FB page on iHerb, so I think it is time to write down a proper blog post with tips and FAQs pertaining to this so that it is easier for me to direct you guys to this post as well hehehe...

Some of the things I can share based on my iHerb shopping experiences for more than 2 years :

* Trial Products - iHerb use to have a Freebies page but it has been discontinued sometime ago. But still, you can go check out the Product Trials page and try out some product(s) there at a cheaper price.

Do note that the discount is only for 1 item per order. Example below shown - I selected a baby shampoo & bath product for USD0.95 instead of the usual price of USD2.95

* Delivery timeframe - Delivery takes about 2-5 weeks for my case.

* Shipping fees - I always make sure the products I ordered have a total weight below 1.8kg as that will qualify for the lowest shipping charges available. It used to be a flat USD4 shipping fees lowest but based on my last purchase on 28 Dec 2014, it seems that the shipping fees varied based on your order amount and/or weight too. The recent purchases I made shows there is discounted 50% off for orders over USD20 but if your order is below USD20, then the shipping fees varies based on your total products weight.

* Shipping methods - Since I always aimed for the cheapest shipping fees, my package does not have tracking number provided. That is the risky part but so far, I never have any packages missing. Delayed yes, but no missing items. Based on some fans who shared their experience with me, they opted for the pricier shipping methods with tracking and ended up having to pay extra as their packages got held up in custom and you will need to pay extra for the courier company to pick up your parcel from custom and deliver to you. Some fans also shared that when they choose the pricier shipping methods, their package have invoice description as 'health supplements' when in fact they ordered baby food/snacks. From what I understand, if your package is indicated as health or medicinal products, custom have the right to hold your package and investigate further.

* Credit Card Payment - If your credit card is issued by Maybank, do note that you will get the following message when you submit your order.

What happens is Maybank blocks all online transactions using credit card especially if you are transacting in foreign currencies. Due to the high number of online fraud cases, the bank resorted to this action. Don't fret, you can still proceed with your order but you need to trouble yourself a wee bit. What you need to do is call up the Maybank Customer Service Center (1300 886 688 follow their instructions so that you can talk to the operator - I normally press 0 and choose whatever options that will lead me to operator)

The operator will ask some questions to verify you are the cardholder and is trying to use your credit card for legitimate online purchases. Once all the verification is done, don't forget to inform them to extend your credit card to the max 2 weeks limit (meaning open up your credit card for online purchases within 2 weeks period). If you don't mention this, you will need to call the Customer Service again and repeat the whole process.

Once the bank have uplift your credit card to allow online transaction, you just need to go back to your iHerb order screen, click the submit button again and you will see the following screen.

Some of my personal tips to share for you to take note if you are ordering first time:

* Make sure your total items are below 1.8kg so that you can choose the cheapest shipping methods available.

- Choose the most worth it to buy items if it is your first purchase since you can only use the referal code ONCE for your first purchase

- Try not to get the organic puffs for your first purchase as I personally think it is not worth it to get in your first purchase. iHerb measures the ordered items' weight based on the size of the products, not the actual weight and these organic puffs I got are quite large and long, it takes up space in the packaging box, if possible, you should only get these puffs in your subsequent orders :)

Now if you plan to purchase from the website, do copy my coupon code below to use for your first purchase, I repeat, ONLY FOR FIRST PURCHASE!

My coupon code is: FOZ116

Please note that I get a small bit of commission from your 1st purchase and subsequent ones and there are further commission range when the people you referred to with your own unique code started buying from iHerb too, so you save, I save, everybody save, yay! Do feel free to ask me if you have any questions with regards to purchasing from iHerb! Will try to share my feedback if I can! I'll be adding my product review feedback on my iHerb.com page at: http://www.iherb.com/mypage/imafulltimemummy

 ** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I will be sharing some personal tips and tutorials on how I secure my personal Facebook page - as and when I came across any settings to edit I will share it here for your reference and hope you will be able to apply it to your profile as well.

How do I define a profile on FB as secure? When you view a profile, you can only see the least possible info, status updates on timeline and pictures shared on your profile.

For example, if you view my personal FB profile you can only see my current profile picture and current cover photo, that too I put the same pictures as what I put on my FB fan page. Also, you won't be able to see any status updates postings on my timeline except my life events that I chose to share in public such as the time when my fan page reached 100K followers, or when I was born. That's all an outsider who is not in my FB friend list can view if they are able to search up my profile or clicked into my profile when I commented or liked a posting on FB.

Now back to securing the pictures posted on YOUR FB profile. There are a few pictures setting you need to be aware of:

* Your profile picture - Your profile picture is set to public

* Your cover photo - Your cover photo is set to public

* Your pictures / albums shared in your profile - You are able to control the settings of pictures and/or albums in your profile. You will need to individually go into the picture or the album and edit the settings.

The screenshot below is taken from one of my photo album privacy settings. I set it to only Friends on my FB profile are allowed to view the pictures in the album. I also unchecked the setting where friends of those I tagged are not allow to view the pictures, so for example if I tagged my hubby in the pictures, his friends will not be able to see the picture unless they are on my FB list as well. If you see the screenshot below, you will see I have also excluded a person from being able to view my pictures. 

Some other things to consider when it comes to pictures privacy:

* I would suggest that you do not post any picture that might reveal too much information of your whereabouts and family members. Some of us parents adore our kiddos to death so we tend to post pictures of them. I'm not saying posting pictures of our kiddos is wrong, but make sure you crop off or blur off things like your house number, car plate number, school uniform badge, etc.

* As much as you want to protect your family members, do be considerate as well if you are posting picture which can show other people in it as well. Class pictures, parties etc - if possible, blur out other people faces or seek for permission before you post them up.

* You will also need to be on guard, as friends/family members on FB will be happily posting pictures of your kiddos as well. If you find it intrudes your privacy and safety, quickly informed them to take down the picture or best is make sure you informed your family members not to simply share pictures of your kiddos/family members/whereabouts without your permission.

* Tagging / tagged. Again, I will not advice doing this unless you have the permission to tag someone. If you are being tagged, you can go to the picture and under the option, remove your name from being tagged.

I hope I covered enough info for the pictures settings for now. Let me know if I missed anything!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I will be sharing some personal tips and tutorials on how I secure my personal Facebook page - as and when I came across any settings to edit I will share it here for your reference and hope you will be able to apply it to your profile as well.

How do I define a profile on FB as secure? When you view a profile, you can only see the least possible info, status updates on timeline and pictures shared on your profile. 

For example, if you view my personal FB profile you can only see my current profile picture and current cover photo, that too I put the same pictures as what I put on my FB fan page. Also, you won't be able to see any status updates postings on my timeline except my life events that I chose to share in public such as the time when my fan page reached 100K followers, or when I was born. That's all an outsider who is not in my FB friend list can view if they are able to search up my profile or clicked into my profile when I commented or liked a posting on FB.

Now back to securing YOUR FB profile, in this post, we will go over the 'Privacy Check-up'. To do this, go to your profile and look on top bar for this icon that looks like a cute little padlock. It's all the way to the right near a drop-down arrow. Click on it.

You will then see a drop-down list of settings you can choose to edit further. Click on the 1st one in the list.

You will then see the following - a quick check on 3 things : Your Posts, Your Apps and Your Profile.

The following is my personal setting. I choose 'Custom' and selected 'Friends' only. I also removed the check on the option for 'Anyone tagged can also see this post'. If this option remains unchecked, when you post something and tagged your friends, their friends will also be able to see what you post. Save your changes once you have put in your settings.

Next is Your Apps. I put 'Only Me' as the setting for the apps I allowed on my personal FB page. I try not to grant access to many 3rd party apps in my personal page as I'm worried with what these apps can do with my personal info. I currently have 3 apps on my page.

Once you have saved your apps privacy settings, you will then be prompted for the last item - Your Profile settings. The following is my personal settings. I choose 'Friends' for most items and 'Only Me' for info such as my birth year and my interests.

Once you have saved your profile privacy settings, you will see the following message. You can continue to further enhance your privacy settings or click on Finish to complete your settings for now.

If you want to check how your Facebook profile looks like in public, do the following steps as shown in my blog post here.

I hope I covered enough info for the quick Privacy Check-up settings for now. Let me know if I missed anything!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.