holiday gifts Archive

Today is Cyber Monday here in the U.S. This is the day when online retailers and merchants offer extra-special deals for their online customers. In the past today has been a great day to shop online although this year the deals were hot on Black Friday so I am not sure that the deals will be as hot this year as they have been for past year’s Cyber Monday sales.

One method I use to save additional money is to buy discounted gift cards. My favorite deal this Cyber Monday (actually it runs until December 5th) is from HEB supermarkets. They are running a promotion which provides the following discounts for purchasing gift cards at their stores:

• $5 off $50
• $15 off $100
• $50 off $300

Last night I purchased $300 in Southwest gift cards and saved $50 on my next flight. I also purchased a $100 Amazon gift card for $85– it’s so rare to save extra dollars on top of Amazon’s deals so this is hot. HEB supermarkets are found mostly in the south. They have gift cards from over 200 retailers and I think the best deals for gadgets and apps are the gift cards from iTunes, Best Buy and Amazon.

It appears many merchants are offering discounted iTunes gift cards so be on the lookout if you are planning to buy any music or apps for your iPod Touch, iPad or iPhone.

There are other gift card deals out there so before you click “buy now” on any items today and for the holiday season, do a search to see if there are any deals that can save you additional money by finding a deal on a gift card for the specific merchant.

Continue reading “Cyber Monday – Use Gift Card Deals to Maximize Savings” »

There are 205,000 holiday ecard websites which allow you to email a greeting card for the holidays to a friend or colleague. Even BlueMountain is still around after all of these years. But sometimes it’s hard to pick a gift for someone when you don’t want to spend a lot but still want to tell them just how little they mean to you. This is where the King comes in…the Burger King.

Burger King has launched a set of greeting cards that are mailed to the person or persons of your choosing. Each card costs $1 and will be mailed with $1 inside. It appears the cards can only be sent to U.S. addresses.

There are a bunch of saying and graphics including:

• “It’s nearly impossible to put a dollar value on our friendship – But I did it”
• “You couldn’t know how much you mean to me ’til you open this card.”
• “It’s the least I could do for the Holidays. The very least”
• “In a season rich with friendship, you’re the loose change.”

What’s interesting here beyond the cool cards and the buck inside is that if you aren’t sure of a person’s address, Burger King will help you search Facebook and White Pages for the address.

The idea behind the campaign is to promote the Burger King double cheeseburger for $1. Too bad they only have Christmas cards – why no Hanukkah cards?!? Leave a comment with which card is your favorite.

Today is the last day in the CenterNetworks holiday gifts giveaway. What this means is if you want a chance to win either of the prizes below, you must enter today. We will pick the winners tomorrow.

• Clicky free pro accounts
• Freshman Fund gift certificate

Today is also the last day to buy CN job board postings for $10. You can either place job postings today or buy certificates good for usage anytime in 2009.

Thanks to all of the companies who provided discounts and/or free prizes for our awesome CN readers.

Day #9 in the Holiday Gifts giveaway goes to Freshman Fund. We covered the Freshman Fund launch with a the company’s video demo back in November. Freshman Fund describes their service as:

Freshman Fund helps families save for college with an online registry for your child’s college fund. Create a free account at FreshmanFund.com and invite your friends and family to share in your college savings journey. Gifts made through Freshman Fund go directly into your child’s college fund, providing a transparent and meaningful gift alternative for any occasion. This $25 "Scholar Dollars" gift certificate can be used to open your own account, or you can send it to the family of a loved one who is saving for college. The recipient can use this money to either open a college fund and get started, or add it to their existing savings, all through Freshman Fund.

Freshman Fund is offering a free $25 gift certificate to one lucky CN reader. The money can only be used for a college fund, so the recipient should have a child with a college fund or have a parent to whom they’d like to "give the gift of college savings." To enter, send in your contact details via our contact form. We will select the winner on January 1st.

Editor’s note: This post is part of our Holiday Gifts series. The company listed didn’t pay CN for the listing. The content above was provided by the company.

Day #8 in the Holiday Gifts giveaway goes to Pingdom. We’ve covered Pingdom many times on CN and the company describes their service as:

Pingdom is a professional service for monitoring the uptime and response time of servers, websites, and other online services. It will alert you immediately via email and/or SMS if there is an error, for example if your website goes offline. The service is handled via an online control panel which also gives you access to plenty of reports and statistics.

Pingdom has offered CN readers 20 free basic accounts (normally $120) for a year and they are throwing in 20 sms alerts as well. It’s first come first served so follow the directions below to get your free account.

All free accounts are now gone!

Editor’s note: This post is part of our Holiday Gifts series. The company listed didn’t pay CN for the listing. The content above was provided by the company.

Day #7 in the Holiday Gifts giveaway comes from yours truly, CenterNetworks. How could we not offer a holiday gift to our readers as well! We’ve slashed the price on a job board post from $49 to $10 – an 80% savings! The sale price will last through the end of the year. If you’d like to purchase credits to be used at any time in 2009, let us know.

Just for readers of CenterNetworks, post a job opening on our job board for $10.

Please note that any spam listings will be removed and your money will be immediately refunded.

Day #6 in the Holiday Gifts giveaway goes to Knock Knock. Here’s an overview from the company:

Knock Knock is a boutique gift company and book publisher that puts the fun in functionalproducing printed organizational tools and irreverent books with great wit and original style.

Knock Knock is offering 20% off any order through 12/31. Enter code CNGIFT at checkout.

Editor’s note: This post is part of our Holiday Gifts series. The company listed didn’t pay CN for the listing. The content above was provided by the company.