Land of Shopportunity

$30 off coupon for The Limited

2007-11-14T14:55:00.000-08:00

Some lucky shoppers may have received a set of coupons in the mail from The Limited recently.

If you weren't one of them, maybe you can track down a friend who'll give you her "For a Friend" coupon, or buy one on eBay for a few dollars.

There were three coupons in total in the mailing:

For You: $30 off a $100 purchase or $15 off your purchase
For a Friend: same thing
For Thanksgiving Weekend: free black or white cami with $50 purchase

Unfortunately, none of these coupons is combinable, but they're still a good deal. If you're stingy like me, you can keep the "For a Friend" coupon for yourself, and go twice.

The discount coupons are good until December 2. The coupons say they're not good for clearance merchandise, but I've found if you spend $100 or more, the associates will let you do it.

If you don't feel like spending much and just want to get something for free, try the Perfect Tee ($15 exactly). Or accessories -- the coupon doesn't say anything about not being able to use it on accessories. But previously, they did give me trouble for that, so you better check if you want to use it to buy accessories.

I used my coupon for a big-ticket item: a $98 strapless red, flowy dress. I had to spend $100 to get the $30 off, so I also bought a marked-down brocade corset-type thing for $14.99. So my total, after tax and the coupon, was about $80.

Say olE to high fashion

2007-11-13T21:21:00.000-08:00

When I was in Spain, I fell in love with Mango and Zara, two women's clothing retailers that bring high fashion to the masses.

Now both have stores in the US, but I don't think many people have discovered them yet. Oh, but when they do, all hell will break loose.

I love these Spanish clothing retailers so much because you can't find anything like what they sell in the US. They refresh their collections frequently, so when you buy something, you're almost guaranteed that nobody else in the US will have the same item. I feel as though buying clothes from a European retailer puts me on the cutting edge of fashion -- ha ha ha! I also love how their Web sites show you how to put everything together, right down to the accessories.

You can buy clothes from Mango online at Mangoshop.com, where you also can watch video of the chain's fashion show and check out pictures of Monica and Penelope Cruz dressed in the items from their line. I've previously mentioned that Mango has a new line by Monica and Penelope Cruz, and that there is a coupon code available from hauteshopping.com for 20 percent off most orders.

Zara also has a fun Web site, but it doesn't appear you can place an online order yet, so you'll have to make a trip to NYC or Las Vegas, or one of the other lucky cities that is home to a brick-and-mortar Zara. Zara, unlike Mango, also has men's, juniors' and kids' clothes, as well as a new Zara Home line.

Waiting for markdowns at Target

2007-11-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

I used to be addicted to buying clearance items at Target for 75 percent off. Can you blame me?? That's so cheap. I got a couple leather jackets at different times for $20 each!

I would visit Monday night right when they were doing markdowns and grab the clothes out of their hands before they put them back on the rack.

Everything at Target eventually gets marked down to 75 percent off, if it stays around that long. So if it's something you really, really want, or if you don't make it out to Target much, it's OK to pay full price, but otherwise, you should always wait.

I don't go anymore because I live in a college town, so all the sorority girls usually beat me to the good stuff.

The Gold Standard in hairdryers

2007-11-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

"It doesn't cost much more to go first class." -- spoken by some smartass, a long time ago, and repeated endlessly by my father at times of impending big-ticket purchases.

But it's not so easy to go first class when your monthly credit card bill exceeds your total income as it is!! At least, that was always my reaction to the phrase. I mean, sure, who wouldn't go first class if they could afford to in the first place? And I beg to differ, but have you checked airfares recently? It abso-$%#*-ing-lutely does cost a heck of a lot more to travel by plane in first class than in coach. If it didn't, the first class section would be a lot bigger!

Anyway, as I was blowdrying my hair this morning, gazing lovingly at my T3 Tourmaline ionic hair dryer, I finally forgave myself for spending the $200 on it three years ago, and came to the realization that it was probably the smartest purchase I've ever made.

I pretty much use it every day, and it still hasn't konked out on me! The drugstore-variety models used to last me for six months, tops. So I definitely would have spent $200 by now anyway, not to mention potentially having to endure the frustration of a hairdryer dying in the middle of a blowout.

There's also the reason I bought it -- it drastically reduces drying time, and makes my hair look as close to a professional blowout as I could ever make it with my limited hairstyling abilities.

Vamos de compras!

2007-11-02T19:59:00.000-07:00

I've gotten some of my best shopping inspiration from a magazine called Latina, even though I'm not (Latina).

I started reading it on the recommendation of an Ecuadorian friend about three years ago, and have been buying my subscriptions at bestdealmagazines.com (for about $4 a year!) since then. It's regularly $4.69, but sometimes you can find coupon codes at bensbargains.net that let you get them for around $3.69. Right now, there's a code for $5 off $30.

I love the fashion ideas in Latina, especially because the items featured aren't as ridiculously priced as the ones in other magazines. There's also a shopping section toward the back called Cositas We Love that always has really neat stuff.

Fashion for normal people

2007-11-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

There are three new reasonably priced collections that I'm verrrrry curious about this season.

Unfortunately, I live in a small Midwestern town, so I've only had a chance to see one of them in person, and when I did, it was obvious everyone else size 2-8 in the small Midwestern town had already picked it over.

That was Simply Vera, Vera Wang's more reasonably priced line of women's clothes, shoes, accessories and home furnishings at Kohl's. As I said, I did see it, but there were only a few items left in gargantuan sizes. OK, that was mean, they were not gargantuan sizes, they were very average sizes. I was just upset that there was hardly anything left. Also, as I'm not exactly used to spending more than $15 for a clothing item at Kohl's, so I was a little shocked by the prices.

Even though I haven't seen the second collection in person, I have been drooling over it online. That one would be Monica and Penelope Cruz's line for MNG, also known as Mango. Mango is a Spanish chain that just recently opened some stores in the US, and now they have a US Web site, also.

And it seems appropriate that I'm watching Sex and the City reruns as I tell you about the last collection, Bitten by Sarah Jessica Parker, available at Steve and Barry's. All items are $20 or less, and they're based on items from Ms. Parker's own closet. Don't get too excited, though, because Bitten's not available at locations in college towns (like the one I live in).

Get your coup'on!

2007-10-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, you're probably a pretty savvy shopper. So maybe we don't have to tell you the obvious: if you're planning on making a purchase, or there's something you buy frequently, make sure you use a coupon!

Don't have one? Find one.

The first thing to do is visit the Web site of the store you're planning on patronizing. Say you're planning on buying Juicy Couture arm warmers from Saks Fifth Avenue. OK, well they're out of stock, but pretend they're not. A 10 percent-off coupon pops up when you visit Saks.com. There's also a code for free shipping on $150 (it's AUTUMN, in case you're wondering).

Don't stop there. Google "Saks coupon code." Lots of sites claiming to have coupons or coupon codes for Saks.com will pop up. In this case, we didn't hit the jackpot -- all we found was a duplicate code for the free shipping on $150 from quicktoclick.com. Or you can go straight to your favorite coupon code site to look for codes, I just figure it's easy to do the shotgun approach with Google.

If there are no coupon codes available for free, you can buy them on eBay. This spring we had our eye on an empire-waist dress from The Limited for our brother's wedding, but it was $98, not on sale. We looked for free coupon codes online, but eventually ended paying $2.50 for a "$30 off $100" coupon.

The other thing you can do on eBay and other sites is buy gift certificates for a percentage of their face value. Or, you can trade some of your unwanted gift cards at SwapaGift.com and get the one you need.

Global shopping without the jet lag

2007-10-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

Looking for exotic gifts and accessories, but not so keen on Montezuma's revenge? The Internet is ripe with new sites to make buying global as easy it is to order a white blouse at jcrew.com.

Stock up on your favorite European toiletries at sites like Cambridge Chemists. We've heard that L'Oreal Elnett is a favorite for long-lasting hold without stiffness that's supposedly prohibited for sale in the US.

Find handmade treasures at sites like Novica.com or mi-arte-es-su-arte.com.

The former, which is associated with National Geographic, lets you shop by clicking on a specific area of the world. Items shown for sale are accompanied by the profile of the artist who created them. A search in Bali turned up a silk batik scarf by an artist named Yuni Kristina selling for $32.99 (A code for a $10 discount pops up when you enter the site, so you would end up paying $22.99 plus shipping).

Mi-arte-es-su-arte.com offers handcrafted fair-trade art from several countries in Latin America. Many of the items are made with recycled materials. A handpainted clay statuette of a nursing mother for $18 by Peruvian artist Zoila Ralaiza was just featured in Latina magazine in the "Cositas We Love" section.

Import your favorite international food items by using country-specific sites such as the Spanish La Tienda. La Tienda even sells the ever-popular jamon serrano, although we swear we heard it was illegal to bring it into the US (Not fans, ourselves).

The appeal of the farmers' market

2007-10-24T21:55:00.001-07:00

The weekly farmers' market is a very big deal in the small Midwestern city where we live. We lived here a year before we went, and during that time, everyone was always, "Have you been to the farmers' market? You should go to the farmers' market!". We finally decided to get up before noon on a Saturday, and went to our first farmers' market this summer. We have to agree that the farmers' market is really, really cool.

We can't explain exactly why we loved it so much....maybe it was the enthusiastic company of our boyfriend, who was just as fervent as we were about cheap, fresh veggies, if not more so. Or it could have been the sights and sounds -- Amish ladies in blue dresses and white bonnets, vegetables spread out on yellow tablecloths, a local band playing in the background.

When we got home, our boyfriend made the most amazing omelet with the fresh green peppers, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers and jalapenos he had bought. He also cut slices of the French bread we bought (at half-price since it was the last hour of the market) and toasted it with butter. He cut the juicy peaches into quarters and drizzled honey from a local orchard over them. It was de.li.cio.us.

Later on, we learned that buying local is better for the environment, because the food travels less distance to its final destination. Whether that's true, we're not sure, but it sounds good, and just adds to the appeal of the FM.

There's still some time to take advantage of farmers' markets before the harvest is over. When we went this summer, peaches, green beans, tomatoes and peppers seemed to be in harvest. We imagine that now, apples, pumpkins and squash are the main attraction.

Top 10 ways to get books and magazines for free

2007-10-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

You should never pay full price for books and magazines.

Here some of my ideas to get them free or cheap. I'm sure I'm missing some, and as always, I'd love to hear about any tips you can offer.

By the way, I've noticed that some people write their blogs using "we" instead of "I," and I--er, we, think we'll start doing that because we think it's cute.

1. Our favorite way to get books and magazines for free is to request that your local library purchase them for you. They'll usually put you first in line to receive these items when they come in. We scour our magazines and newspapers for book reviews, and then go to the library's Web site, where we request all of them at once. We receive an e-mail when the items are in, and it's so exciting to be the first to read the book.

2. We love bestdealmagazines.com, where magazine subscriptions can be had for as little as $3.69 (or so)! To get that price, look for the "Free Gifts," and use a coupon code from BensBargains.net. He usually posts some sort of coupon code that lowers the "handling price" for the "free gifts." Besides the "Free Gifts," you can get most magazines for cheaper there than anywhere else.

3. Yard sales?

4. Friends of the Library sales?

5. Amazon.com and other used book retailers?

6. Trading books with friends and family

7. When we were little, we loved Babysitters' Club books, and we wanted ALLLLLL of them. Instead of buying them for us, our mom put an ad in the paper to trade books with someone. We tradedour old books with another girl, and got two grocery bags fullllllll of Babysitter's Club books!!! It was great!

8. Download classics from Project Gutenberg.

9. Sale shelves at Barnes & Noble, Borders.

10. If you work somewhere that receives magazine subscriptions, or know someone who does (think doctor's offices and other service-oriented businesses), ask if you can take home the old magazines.

Searching for discontinued products

2007-10-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

When you use as many beauty products as I do, it's inevitable a certain number of them eventually become discontinued (especially when you have "special" beauty needs that the rest of the public doesn't).

Some products I can learn to live without or replace, but others I can't. For example, I cannot for the life of me find a replacement for a certain product I use, which is a tinted moisturizer with salicylic acid (I break out using anything else.). Neither could I find something comparable to a bronzing and firming moisturizer I use that has hair growth inhibitors and DHA, a self-tanner.

Both of these products are ones I use regularly, and both were discontinued by their manufacturers this year. This is especially traumatic for me because my acne and my ghostly white skin are two of my top five insecurities about my body (The third is my strangely disproportional spare tire. The fourth is cellulite, which also has to do with my skin being so white, because the cellulite shows up more easily. The fifth would be that my veins sometimes show through the skin on my legs, which ALSO has to do with my skin being so frickin' white!).

So I, like many other savvy shoppers, turned to the Internet to get my fix. I found the tanning lotion at Amazon, and I found the tinted moisturizer on eBay. I'm not going to link to where I found them, because I fear they are in very short supply, and I didn't order as many as I should have.

Fake a homemade gift

2007-10-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

Not crafty, but wish you were?

You can fake out your friends and family by purchasing their gifts (not to mention cute accessories for yourself) at etsy.com.

It's an online marketplace where individuals can sell their handmade wares, ranging from stationery and birthday cards to jewelry and knitted accessories. Many of the items are for sale at very reasonable prices, and shipping and handling fees are usually minimal. You link up your PayPal account to your etsy account, and from there, it's pretty much one-click ordering.

There are several ways to browse the merchandise -- you can look at items that have just been posted, or you can browse by color or geographical area. They've probably come up with some new features since I've last visited that give you even more options to spend your money.

It's almost too easy. I definitely had an etsy addiction about a year ago, but now I just try to stay away because the stuff is just too cute!!

I think my favorite purchases were the three sets of notecards that malien00 personalized for me and two of my friends (I'm the redheaded salsa queen in the upper right corner.). I've also bought a trio of kitschy crocheted potholders from christinacoghill, and tons of other cute stuff.

How to eat on a grad student's budget

2007-10-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

Here's my game plan for eating on my grad student budget for this week:

Kroger has Lean Cuisines on sale for $2 each, and I found a coupon for $1 off two, through Mommy Saves Big. I wonder if they'll let me double up....prob not, oh well.

Lean Cuisines are, by the way, delicious. One of my favorites is the salmon with basil and orzo. I also like the chicken pecan.

Gifted

2007-10-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

I love picking out gifts for my friends, but when it comes to my 80-year-old grandpa, I'm at a loss.

Luckily, I remembered Gifts.com, a Web site that acts as a sort of personal shopper, guiding you to appropriate selections for those hard-to-buy-for people.

You can specify who you're buying the gift for, then narrow the gift selection down by search by categories like personality type or age. The site came up with some pretty good ideas for my grandpa, things I never would have thought of, like a History Channel box set of military DVDs.

Just for fun, I used the site to try to find an appropriate gift for myself, and I did like most of the suggestions it came up with. I noticed, however, that there's a lot of overlap among categories; the selections aren't as personalized as they could be.

Aerie

2007-10-15T21:05:00.001-07:00

I love that new store aerie, as in the women's lounge wear offshoot of American Eagle.

This weekend I went to the aerie store at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Ill., where practically the whole store was on sale. All the underwear were on sale for $2.95, which with my 40 percent-off coupon, came to $1.77 each (About the coupon, sorry, it was just a one-time use from my AE Rewards Pass. Anyway, the new rewards coupons should be coming out next weekend).

Besides everything being on sale, I love the aesthetic of the store!! It's so colorful and arranged so beautifully. There are rolls of colorful ribbons behind the counter, and when you buy something, you get to choose which ribbon you would like them to tie onto your bag. They also wrap your purchases up in tissue paper and secure with a cute sticker.

If you're buying a gift, they will wrap it for you on the spot, using one of four different cutely shaped boxes, the aforementioned tissue paper and the ribbon. Right now, they have these cute bird-shaped sachets that they're throwing into the boxes and giving away with every purchase.

Oh, and the staff at that particular aerie is great. They are very helpful and pleasant, and give great suggestions if you're shopping for gifts, as I was (I did my Christmas shopping since I had that amazing coupon).

AE rewards

2007-10-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

Just FYI, I talked to a customer service rep at American Eagle, and she said the quarterly rewards coupons should be arriving in mailboxes around October 22. Here's hoping for a 40-percenter.

My Wist list

2007-10-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

I've found a great way to feel like I'm shopping without spending any money.

It's a site called wists.com. I've known about it for a while now, but I just started my own Wist when my mom asked me to make a Christmas list (yeah, in September -- she's really on the ball!).

I installed some software on my laptop, and now whenever I'm online and see something I'm wisting for, I can just click the "Add to Wists" button on the toolbar. You can also look up things you want that you've seen in-store using a search engine, and then wist those. You can add details, like how much the product costs, or where to find it, but the nice thing is that the Wist actually does most of that for you.

I have to admit, even though you don't actually buy anything while wisting, I think it does make you more aware of all that's out there that you could be buying, and as a result, you're more inclined to buy things in real life.

Here are my Wists, in case you're interested. I know I have some odd things on there (like the Goya tostones).

Redheads have more fun!

2007-10-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

-Being called "firecrotch" by the mean kids on the school bus
-Never being able to find a matching ponytail extension
-Lack of melanin
-Abundance of freckles
-People constantly asking you if you're Irish

-- Some of the crap you have to deal with if you're a redhead.

Now, one of the great things about being a redhead: products geared toward us can be had very cheaply because they're always being discontinued!! (that happens when only 2 percent of the population is your target market)

Right now, Big Lots has "lots" of Radiant Red products from John Frieda. I bought the color glaze, shampoo and hair masque. The glaze was $4, and the shampoo was $2.50, with a free mini bottle of color glaze. I think that's about half of regular retail.

I've used both products before and liked them. I didn't notice a huge boost of color, but I did notice that my hair was shinier after using the glaze.

Fun with voicemail

2007-10-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

I just read about a free service that lets you customize your outgoing messages, block unwanted calls and check your voicemail from the Internet (PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY: Voice Mail Gets A Lot More Fun With Free Services, by Sarmad Ali, Wall Street Journal 4 Oct 2007).

I tried youmail.com, and it was very easy to set up. I just spent the last hour picking out wacky outgoing voicemail messages that my friends and family will hear the next time they try to leave me a message.

For one of my friends who always pranks me late at night, I picked a message that says something like, "Thank you for calling Dial-An-Asshole. All assholes are busy assisting other assholes...."

For my boyfriend, and also for my best friend, I picked a song called, "I Like the Booty." I keep on imagining their faces when they hear my voicemail message and think I've gone crazy, ha ha!!

Oh, you can record your own greetings, too. And you don't have to worry about other people hearing the weird messages, because you assign the messages to each person in your contacts list, and if you haven't assigned them a message, they get the default, standard message.

You can also use the service if you're trying to avoid somebody, say, an ex-boyfriend or bill collectors. You can pick an outgoing message that says the number has been disconnected and associated it with the person(s) in question and choose the option that prohibits them from even leaving a message. I think the article in the WSJ said your phone won't even ring anymore when they call, so they will be completely out of your life forever. Nice, huh?

The WSJ article also mentioned a service called GrandCentral, which I see has been acquired by Google, so I'm sure it's going to be pretty popular. It offers some features Youmail doesn't, like the ability to screen callers by having unknown callers state their name before ringing through. It's currently a private beta service, though, which means you must receive an invite from GrandCentral or a GrandCentral user to sign up. However, the registration page at GrandCentral.com allows you to reserve a number for when the service is publicly available.