Black Friday ads leaking out
The much-hyped “biggest shopping day” of the year is just around the corner. I’m not usually a go-out-at-midnight shopper, but I might find something to tempt me this year.
The ads for big retailers are starting to leak out and tech deals are at the top of the list. If you are shopping for some new gear this year (like HDTVs, cameras, netbooks, computers, and more) check out these deals and plot your plan of attack.
And of course, don’t forget Cyber Monday.
Pinx! to track prices for online gifts
Christmas is coming, and I have started my kids’ wish lists over at Kaboodle.
This year I am taking it one step further with registering the prices for items I want with PricePinx!, an online price-watching service.
It’s free, and they do all the time-consuming work. No need to keep checking multiple web sites daily to see if prices have dropped. Just Pinx! them and then you get an email when the price drops or when it reaches a pre-determined price.
You just have to sign-up for a free account and then add the Pinx! tool to your bookmarks. When you find an item you want to watch, simply highlight the item’s price from the product description page and then click the Pinx bookmark. The site will track your item and send you email updates with price notifications.
A penny saved is a penny earned. Let PricePinx! help you save them!
Interstellar Marketplace
Space, space, space, space. Problems abound and development continues, there is never a lack of news. Even in this economic climate you can always count on interest in the last frontier whether or not anyone can actually pay for it.
In recent news Virgin Galactic’s spaceport has gotten the green light to begin construction in New Mexico. The concept art is pretty fantastic, better than any airport I’ve seen.
In other news NASA is considering selling its shuttles (Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor) when they are decommissioned. For a mere 42 million dollars part of space history can be yours. I’d love one, it’s be a heck of a club house. I doubt I can afford it.
Muppet Magic
I grew up on Sesame Street (the show not the place) and I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like Kermit the Frog. Lets be honest muppets are a part of everyone’s life whether we want to admit it or not. Well now they can become a real member of the family, and you get to design who you want to join you around the kitchen table.
FAO Schwarz now has the Whatnot Muppet Workshop where you can pick a body, eyes, hair, nose, and outfit for your own personal muppet. It’s all online! Think of the holiday possibilities! Muppets have never been just any old puppet and at last it seems we the young at heart can do our childhood stories justice with the real thing.
At $90 each they’re a bit expensive, but so are a lot of things at FAO Schwarz. What price can you put on childhood dreams anyway? It’s the holiday season, splurge.
This Shopping Season
It’s black Friday and the holiday shopping season has officially begun. This holiday season there’s no excuse for your average old style gift card gift, things have been upgraded, shop accordingly.
This year Best Buy and Target offer your most intriguing gift card options. They’ve both taken tech to the extreme in their packaging. Best Buy gift cards now double as speakers, while Target offers a gift card in digital camera style.
If you’re looking for real quality in either speakers or photos this is probably not your best bet (and you’re probably not shopping for a gift car anyway). But for those looking to make a splash in the holiday grab bag with a less than creative present to begin with, this is the way to go.
Coupons go mobile
The days of clipping coupons are numbered. First there were printable coupons, and now there are digital coupons downloadable directly to your cell phone.
Cellfire deals can be downloaded from your PC directly to your phone or even your store rewards card. In addition, if you see an ad online with the Cellfire logo you can click on it to save or if you hear or see and ad on TV, print or radio where Cellfire is a sponsor, you can “text to save” the deal. When you get ready to use the deal, you access the saved deal from your phone and view the code needed by the retailer. It’s that easy!
Cellfire deals are available from regional and national stores like Kroger, GameStop, Hardees, Ralph’s, Hollywood Video, Fry’s, KFC, and more.
I hope this catches on. I always finding myself at the store and my coupon at home!
A Modern Day List for Santa
For the past few years, I’ve been trying out various online wish lists to organize the grandparents, aunts and uncles on how to buy for my son.
Originally, I used Wishlist but now I have moved to Kaboodle. The genius of both of these sites is letting you choose gifts for your site from any retailer rather than just one like Target or even Amazon.
I prefer Kaboodle now because it is part of a whole community so it is easier to see what everyone else has on their lists, making it easier to get ideas that might work for me. I also like having my own Kaboodle lists to keep track of things I find online that I might like to buy one day or so my husband can see what I have my eye on.
Kaboodle is easy to use with their helpful toolbar add-on so you can quickly add items you find online to your list complete with pricing, picture, and description. You can also add things you find on other people’s lists directly from the site without having to locate them online.
On Kaboodle you can create multiple lists under your account so you can have wish lists for various holidays or topics like “If I Had A MIllion Dollars” or “Baby Shower.” You can also create Polls if you can’t decide what you want and let others make the choice for you.
Another cool trick is a widget to add the list to your blog or MySpace page–perfect for advertising it to potential gift buyers.
If you’re just someone who likes to shop anyway and stay up on the latest styles, Kaboodle is a great way to keep up. It has featured Kaboodlers and continually updates with what’s hot on people’s lists.
For those with older children, they can add their own wishes as they browse the web–a modern Santa’s list.
This holiday season I highly recommend Kaboodle to keep track of everyone’s wishlists.
For The More Organized …
I know I own a lot of DVD’s. I own more DVD’s than I do CD’s, Computer Games, and video games combined. I’m a movie person. But you don’t have to be a movie person to appreciate organization.
The Groqit is basically a miniature bar code scanner. You can scan anything with a bar code (thus my example of DVD’s). Groqit can organize your DVD’s, video games, even your CD’s on separate list within it’s 128MB of storage. Sounds like a good idea, especially for people with larger movie collections than mine.
I kind of like the alternative use for the Groqit, not cataloging what I do have but what I don’t. I have more trouble remembering what movies I’m in need of than the ones I have. With the Groqit at a friends house or in my backpack I can keep of list of those DVD’s I need to pick up without carrying around scraps of paper everywhere I go. At this point though I’m gonna have to hold on to my $95 for those DVD’s I may not think of right away.
Craigslist rocks
Craigslist really is one of the greatest things since sliced bread, and I just learned a new way to make it even better.
One of my favorite sites–Lifehacker–pointed me to a wiki from Wired about how to search every Craigslist for an item. Now this may not be necessary if you are looking for something relatively common like a sofa or bookcase, but for an obsure item, this tactic is awesome.
For example, I cloth diaper my baby and that isn’t very common in my city so there are slim or no pickings on the local craigslist board. However, in other areas of the country there are lots of CD-ing mamas. Also, the shipping is cheap for something so light so it is worth my while to expand my search.
Wired warns that some people won’t return your emails because craigslist is designed as a “local” board, but it’s worth a shot, especially if you explain why you are looking further away.
OK–the nitty gritty . . . basically in your Google search box just type:
site:craigslist.org “search term”
where “search term” is what you are looking for like “cloth diaper.” For me I might type in a particular brand of diaper that I am searching for like “Bum Genius 3.0″.
You can also use Google’s “Advanced Search” page and indicate what search terms to use, what site to search and what terms to discard (like “directory”).
Have fun shopping!
The Evolution of Shopping
As if cell phones weren’t useful enough already Japan is working to make them even more so. Sure it’s still just a demo, but hey, the concept looks pretty cool to me.
With a new robot (the demo version at this point) people can shop directly from home (starting in Japan). I know what you’re thinking, old news with the invention of the internet and everything, but this is different. This isn’t browsing a website, it’s browsing a store, an actual mall using a robot controlled by cell phone technology (more specifically video capable cell phones).
I don’t know that I’d ever feel the need to have a robot do my shopping (especially if I’m going to be using my time to give it directions anyway) but that doesn’t make it any less cool. Now if only they’d come out with a robot that could do a bit of homework for me.
