the cost of gift receipts

So we received a bunch of crappy gifts for Xmas this year, and seeing as our relatives feel the need to purchase items from stores that aren't located anywhere near our home town, we usually end up taking a road-trip every January to return or exchange all of the reject gifts of Xmas past.

This year, we found ourselves driving almost an hour to visit stores like Target, Toys R Us, and Kohl's. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that the gifts we were returning weren't even worth the cost of gas to get us there and back. Apparently, our relatives were all shopping the clearance racks, which is fine and dandy, but I wish they would have told us that the toy they bought my son was worth less than $2 at Kohl's before we ventured out there to return it. I would have donated it or eBay'd it instead.

As we are growing older, I just can't stand the whole gift-giving tradition of Christmas. I can understand getting gifts for the children, as they are fun to watch when they open them, but for adults - please.

So once again, we will have to try and reinforce with our relatives to please save their cash and only buy gifts for the kids next year, and that due to the expensive return/exchange trips, they are actually costing us money. Of course, they always like to chime in that they "included the gift receipt just in case!" Gee, thanks, but we've got enough paperwork to deal with during the holidays. Now I've got to worry about yet another store receipt during the great gift unwrapping frenzy that is likely to rub blank before I can get to the store.

I wish I could convince them to start shopping online like the rest of the modern world. After all, if they send me an online gift certificate, then I can not only pick out my own gift online (thereby saving gas and making sure that it is something that I might actually wear), but I can grab some nifty Kohls coupon codes to make that gift certificate value stretch a little farther.

Avon shooting themselves (or their salespeople) in the foot?

I was recently checking out the latest opportunities on PayPerPost and came across an online coupons site called Ecouponcodes.com. Unlike the last coupon code site that I had reviewed this one is neatly organized and allows one to browse by business name or category.

One of the more unexpected stores I saw listed was Avon. The site offers various Avon coupons for 50% shipping for certain items, buy one get one free for other items, and a few other free shipping with $30 purchase deals. I didn't even realize that customers could purchase Avon products online directly from Avon.com. It seems a little self-inflicting for their representatives. After seeing the obvious effect of online shopping with other physical retailers, what makes them think that shoppers who purchase items online aren't taking money away from their local representatives?

While some might argue that I am missing the point and that consumers who shop with Avon do so for the personal service of their representative and that the website is only there as a backup, I'd have to say that they're passing up opportunities for attracting first-time Avon buyers to local representatives. It would make more sense if they required their representatives to register with the website and upon checkout had the customer select their local representative to fill that specific order. This way, they're using the website to develop new relationships with their customers, as opposed to just one time (albeit more profitable commission-less) sales.

the value of an hour

What's your time worth? It's an interesting question, isn't it? For some of us, we quickly calculate our per dollar wage rate from our place of employment. Others will judge the type of work to be done during that time and assign an equivalent dollar amount per hour to it. It's definitely a quandary, and one that you won't find yourself asking too often, providing that you don't feel you have wasted your time.

But we've all been there. Is it worth driving back to the grocery store because they charged me an extra 75 cents for that can of baked beans? Probably not. Is it worth calling the phone company and waiting on hold for twenty minutes so that I can dispute where that three dollar call to Mexico on my phone bill came from? It's arguable.

I sometimes feel that same bit of ambivalence when searching for coupons online. Sure, you might be able to save a few bucks here and there, but is it worth the time to search? For example, have you ever tried googling random sites for "coupon codes" for rental cars? You get tons of results for sites with super-long domain names chocked full of "rental car" keywords, and they all have the same coupons. But you check each one of them out, just in case on is slightly better than the one before. At the end of the day, you end up feeling like you have wasted all of this time for a free upgrade or ten dollars off. So what's a budget-restrained individual to do if they don't want to waste a bunch of time looking for deals every time you're going to make an online purchase?

Break out the bookmarks. Instead of googling for specific industry coupon sites when you need them, it is sometimes better to find a few good coupon sites that cover all kinds of industries. One of the latest sites to offer such a service is called "JJ9".

I have no idea what the name is supposed to mean, and their logo isn't very memorable, but they do offer a plethora of coupons for all kinds of online stores, from big corporate chains like Best Buy and Circuit City to tiny niche market shops that I have never even heard of, like Szul.

Keeping a few sites like this in your bookmarks (or favorites) folder can save you a few bucks here and there (or more) without wasting time clicking through pages and pages of Google results. I recommend using these types of sites mostly for the big ticket items.

My only real complaints about JJ9 is that some of the "coupons" are actually just advertisements for sales or free shipping policies. They also don't seem to have any way of searching by category. In fact, searching for words like "electronics" yields no matching results, even though they have Circuit City and Best Buy on their list. It's mainly a site to check out if you already know which store you plan on shopping at.

prepaid cell coupons

I'm still feeling somewhat indecisive about the idea of picking up a cell phone for my business. So far, I haven't really needed it. Most of my business has been net-based, with few phone calls. but I still feel like I should have something every so often for emergencies, especially while on remote Ozark road trips.

I was looking at prepaid phone options again, and ran across a listing at CouponChief for coupon codes for the TracFone. Unfortunately, the link that they provide takes me to an Error 404 not found page. It's too bad, because the deal sounded pretty good: "Buy a 60 minute prepaid wireless card and receive a Free phone + 60 bonus minutes"

I found some other coupons for Net 10 prepaid wireless service, but none of them were quite as good as the TracFone ones. I did have a job interview this week and they may actually pay for a cell for me if I get the job, so maybe I will wait for now.

saving cash quickly

Another quick way to grab some deals is to visit a site like Coupon Chief. In many cases, the coupons listed will get you better deals than if you waste an hour doing comparison shopping. Or, if you're going to do comparison shopping anyway, see what the different coupons will get you at different stores. In some cases, the base price at one store may be more, but it may be a better deal after the coupon. For example, we recently picked up a great deal on a laptop because the store didn't charge shipping. And since we had a coupon, it actually made their higher base price cheaper than their competitors after their competitors shipping charges.

Another thing that is interesting about Coupon Chief is that they even have coupons for things like live seafood! You might even find that a $10 off of a $100 purchase coupon makes it quite a bit cheaper than your local grocer, and it may be fresher, too, since there's no "middle man" and extra transport (and freezing time). I'm going to take a look at their crawfish offerings, as I grew up in New Orleans and have always missed the seafood.