The Blonde Diaries

Cyber Monday - Did you score anything fabulous?

Cyber Monday has come and gone.  I actually forgot it was today until I logged into my email account and saw the email that flooded in from a few of my favorite online merchants.  I have to admit that I restrained myself and avoided shopping all day long.  My only exception today was my purchase at Restaurant.com in which I found that one of my favorite sushi restaurants here in Houston, Toyokohana, had gift cards available and broke down and bought some.  The gift cards for Toyokohana always sell out at the beginning of the month on that website and they were also running a promo through my rewards program that allowed me to get the $25 gift cards for $5 or 50% off regular price.  How can you pass up a deal like that?!  So I walked/shopped away with $100 in gift cards for $20.  Not too shabby!  Did you find any cool deals?  Want to check out Restaurant.com and use the promo code I used?  No problem just drop a comment or send me an email and I’ll point you in the right direction!

Moving Right along

Well, our music workshop at church was cancelled last night so Mike and I were able to start moving into the new apartment as soon as he and my mom arrived around 7pm. We decided to move kitchen and clothing since those are the easiest things to pack and unpack. So far everything that we both have from our respective apartments are fitting into the new apartment with room to spare. I did notice though that it might be time to upgrade some of our kitchen ware as both of us have very old and very cheap appliances, pots, pans, and bakeware.

I found that Sears is running at Cookware and Bakeware Sale right now. Everything is on sale right now and if you shop today, you receive an extra 20% off when using your Sears card. I really liked the basic essentials 8 piece roster set that came to $4.99 after the mail in rebate ($10 rebate). Talk about a pretty darn good deal. Sears carries all of the well known kitchen brands like KitchenAid, Wilton, and Cuisinart so if there is something you have been eyeing for a while you might want to head over there and see if you can score a deal. I did notice the famous KitchenAid mixer is on sale which doesn’t happen very often. You might be able to find some items to put aside for Christmas or even future wedding gifts.

Are you ready for the biggest shopping day of the year?

The countdown to black friday has begun. In just twenty three days the official start to the holiday season and shopping bargains will be upon us. I remember growing up how my mother and I would sit at the kitchen table after Thanksgiving dinner looking at all of the Black Friday ads in the newspaper and plotting our course for the next day.

Now, the need to spend Thanksgiving day scouring ads and then camping out to get in line at places like WalMart or BestBuy has been eliminated. How? Thanks to a site called Black Friday Online, you can sign up to get email alerts any time a Black Friday ad has been released and posted on their websites. You probably didn’t know that the stores plan months in advance their sales and develop their advertisment circulars did you? You also probably didn’t know that they are the ones that “sneak” them out to the general public in advance to drum up buzz for the sales. You can start researching today by looking at ads from last year and looking at the ones released so far this year to get your game plan going. One company that jumped out in late October is Sears with their “Sears Black Friday Deals” ad and they have some deals on electronics. Another great thing you can figure out is which stores will offer their sales online through these ads and websites. Last year, I was able to stay in from the cold and shop from home on Walmart.com and was able to get everything I wanted with the click of a mouse. No need to wake up at 5 am or camp out overnight.

Want to expand your memory??

Well it seems like Buy.com is having a sale on all memory. I was over there today checking on the status of my order from two days ago - the digital camera memory cards - and noticed that system memory for your computer is on sale as well. If you are running a dinosaur like I am with my desktop, you might want to consider upgrading the memory cards to make it run a tad faster. I found a 2gb card for just under $30 which is pretty darn good. I wonder what else they have on sale over there.

Deal Alert: Memory Cards on the Cheap!

Deal Alert! Deal Alert! Are you planning a vacation, need a budget gift idea, or just need more memory for your digital camera (or digital photo frame), or your wii? If you answered YES to any of these let me tell you about the deal I found this morning.

I woke up and decided to check my email like usual when Mike has to drive to Beaumont. Checking email that early, while it seems a bit obsessive to be on the computer that early, gives me something to do as I eat breakfast alone. Normally I just delete advertisement emails or emails from stores I infrequently shop at, but with needing to stick to a budget and cut down on recreational spending I am actually unsubscribing from most email lists I am on. In order to unsubscribe you have to actually open the email, scroll to the bottom, and then click on the link in very fine print to unsubscribe. Still with me? Good.

So I received one of these emails from Buy.com and in the email ad was the SD sized memory cards for $4. Yes you read that right. 1GB cards for just $4. Since I have vacations coming up and we need memory cards I headed right over there to see if that was a typo. Nope!! I ended up going with the 2GB cards for $9 each. I ordered 4 of them to be exact for Christmas presents, 2 for Mike and 2 for my friend Mikki who is also heading to Europe on a cruise and just happened to ask this weekend how many cards I was bringing since she needed some. I also grabbed two 2 GB Compact Flash cards since my camera uses those for just $11 each. Quite the bargain since two years ago I paid about $40 for a 1 GB card.

So if you need cheap holiday gifts run to Buy.com. There were a ton of things on sale besides memory cards, I just didn’t need any of it so I stayed away from the other categories. Don’t forget to shop through Sunshine Rewards for a 2% cash back reward. If you need to sign up for Sunshine Rewards click on my Earnings Tracker link on the left as there is a sign up link there and get started. With this economy every penny saved is worth it.