Holiday Shopping Time Has Come
Posted by: Denelle
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Things were rainy here and I spent the entire day inside eating and just relaxing. Then I worked 10 hours on Friday. The only upside was that I managed to avoid the crowds that were over-running the stores.
But even without my contribution it seems that retailers made out just fine this weekend with a 6% increase over last year. Interestingly enough the big spenders on Friday . . . were men. Seems like men were more willing to brave the early crowds and stand in long lines to snap up (yep, you guessed it) electronics.
Looks like all that practice from standing in line for sporting events is finally paying off.
Get It On-line
Personally I plan on doing a fair amount of my shopping this year on-line. As long as I have some general concept of the quality of what I'm purchasing I have no qualms about buying it on-line. But it is always good to have some additional suggestions for saving, security and quality.
1. Try comparison shopping. Bizrate.com and shopzilla.com will search over 80,000 websites for you and pull the best prices. Small retailers are great sources of amazing deals. They are willing to undercut the bigger competitors prices in the hopes that you will continue to shop with them throughout the year. All the work done for you in 1/100 of the time.
2. Use a search engine like Google and enter the company name and "sales + promo codes" or "sales + coupons". This will pull up coupons for everything from free shipping to discounts on your favorite shows.
3. Shop early and take advantage of the free shipping offers. Most companies will offer free shipping the first few weeks of December before it becomes necessary for them to make you pay for last minute shipping to cover the cost they incur.
4. When making a purchase make sure you are using a secure site. Even little known retailers now have secure sites. How can you make sure the site is secure? When you click on the checkout button the web address at the top of the page will change from http:// to https:// -- the "s" standing for secure. Thanks to GMA for that helpful tip.
In Brief
A reader had some helpful insight on the whole Borat fiasco and was kind enough to pass it along.
Thanks for the heads-up.
And finally, let us all take a moment of silence to observe the passing of yet another Hollywood relationship.
Yes, that's right. After barely four months and at least as many marriage ceremonies (LA, St. Tropez, Detroit, Nashville, I think that's all) the couple has filed for divorce. My only question . . . who didn't see that coming?
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Things were rainy here and I spent the entire day inside eating and just relaxing. Then I worked 10 hours on Friday. The only upside was that I managed to avoid the crowds that were over-running the stores.
But even without my contribution it seems that retailers made out just fine this weekend with a 6% increase over last year. Interestingly enough the big spenders on Friday . . . were men. Seems like men were more willing to brave the early crowds and stand in long lines to snap up (yep, you guessed it) electronics.
Looks like all that practice from standing in line for sporting events is finally paying off.
Get It On-line
Personally I plan on doing a fair amount of my shopping this year on-line. As long as I have some general concept of the quality of what I'm purchasing I have no qualms about buying it on-line. But it is always good to have some additional suggestions for saving, security and quality.
1. Try comparison shopping. Bizrate.com and shopzilla.com will search over 80,000 websites for you and pull the best prices. Small retailers are great sources of amazing deals. They are willing to undercut the bigger competitors prices in the hopes that you will continue to shop with them throughout the year. All the work done for you in 1/100 of the time.
2. Use a search engine like Google and enter the company name and "sales + promo codes" or "sales + coupons". This will pull up coupons for everything from free shipping to discounts on your favorite shows.
3. Shop early and take advantage of the free shipping offers. Most companies will offer free shipping the first few weeks of December before it becomes necessary for them to make you pay for last minute shipping to cover the cost they incur.
4. When making a purchase make sure you are using a secure site. Even little known retailers now have secure sites. How can you make sure the site is secure? When you click on the checkout button the web address at the top of the page will change from http:// to https:// -- the "s" standing for secure. Thanks to GMA for that helpful tip.
In Brief
A reader had some helpful insight on the whole Borat fiasco and was kind enough to pass it along.
Obviously Hollywood has thre last word in this matter, for they are the ones editing the material. The Holy Ghost did in fact tell Greg Godwin that this was a scam and he confronted Mr Cohen and he did come out of character briefly. But of course this was not shown in their final product.
Thanks for the heads-up.
And finally, let us all take a moment of silence to observe the passing of yet another Hollywood relationship.
Yes, that's right. After barely four months and at least as many marriage ceremonies (LA, St. Tropez, Detroit, Nashville, I think that's all) the couple has filed for divorce. My only question . . . who didn't see that coming?
