The DeaLoco team would like to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas filled with family, love, and happiness! It’s snowing pretty steady outside my window here in Dallas…time to pour myself a cup of hot chocolate and enjoy some quality time with the family. HO-HO-HOOO…
And remember, the DeaLoco elves don’t stop on December 25th. They’re hard at work 365 days a year to bring you the latest and greatest deals from every corner of the Internet!
Starting 8:00am this Saturday, Wal-mart will begin selling the 8GB iPod Nano for $145 (normally $149) with a FREE $50 iTunes gift card – In-Store Only. The offer will go through December 24th. [Gizmodo.com]
Amazon has put together a list of toys discounted up to 60% off. Don’t forget most orders over $25 qualify for FREE super saver shipping. Here are just a few of the great deals:
Monopoly Seinfeld Game – $4.99
ChixOs Design-A-Luxury Loft – $7.98
Wild Planet Hyper Dash – $9.99
Crayola Crayon Town Lrg Mat Construction Set – $4.98
See the complete list of discounted toys.
December 8-12 Kohl’s is giving $10 in Kohl’s Cash for every $50 you spend in stores or online on all sale, regular and clearance priced merchandise!! Check out these amazing deals!
10-50% Off Selected Kitchen Electrics
40-50% Off Selected Sweaters & Fleece for the Family
40-50% Off Entire Stock Apt. 9 Sportswear
40-60% Off Entire Stock Croft & Barrow Sportswear
50% Off Selected Coats & Accessories for the Family
50% Off Selected Sheet Sets
50% Off Selected Carter’s Sets, Microfleece Sets & Coveralls for Newborns
50% Off Selected Jumping Beans, SO & SONOMA life + style Tops & Bottoms
50% Off Selected Coats, Jackets & Fleece
40-60% Off Selected Sportswear for Plus-Sized Women
Free standard shipping on all orders when you spend $75 or more! (Ends Today)
We’re renovating our house and have moved into a rental for the next six months or so. I decided to do a little experiment and ditch my long-time cable TV provider, DirecTV. We were spending over $100 a month for one of DirecTV’s zillion-channel packages (of which we watched maybe 10 on a regular basis). After doing much research online, I decided on the following setup in our living room.
Here in Dallas we can catch over 30 channels over-the-air using a cheap antenna…and 13 of these are in HD! So right now my $2000 HDTV has an antenna proudly perched on its top. Getting NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS over-the-air takes care of probably 90% of the shows we watch. Your mileage may vary regarding OTA reception. In many cases an external-mounted antenna may be required to get decent reception.
To help bridge the satellite TV gap, I’m running free software called Boxee on my desktop PC. Boxee is an amazing program that allows users to access multiple Internet video and music sites, and to bring them to a large monitor or television. I’ve placed my PC just around the corner from our living room and am running a 15ft DVI to HDMI cable from the PC to our TV. Boxee also gives us a great interface to access all the photos, video and music on our PC hard drive, along with a wide range of television shows, movies and songs from sites like Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, CNN.com and CBS.com.
This evening, Boxee announced it is releasing a set-top box in 2010. This product will bring Boxee to the masses and is likely going to sell like hotcakes.
So far the biggest drawback of our new setup has been the lack of a DVR/Tivo. Not having the ability to fast-forward through commercials has been pretty frustrating. And having to actually watch programs when they air has been a bit of a challenge as well. My wife and I were joking we didn’t even know what day of the week most of the shows we watch air. There is yet another free solution to this problem though. It’s called MythTV. This software requires a bit more setup (including the installation of some relatively inexpensive PC accessories); but being the computer geek that I am, I’ll probably have that up and running in the next few weeks.
Another major drawback is the lack of the 5+ ESPN channels we were getting from DTV. I’m a college sports fanatic, so this is a pretty huge void for me. ESPN360 does provide a decent amount of live programming, but it’s no replacement for ESPN and ESPN2. I guess I’ll be heading to friends’ houses for any major ESPN broadcasts.
Has anyone else ditched their cable/satellite provider? Let us know in the comments. I’ll keep you updated on how this setup works out for us.
Christmas will be here before you know it. If you plan to shop online this year (and who doesn’t), keep the following retailer deadlines in mind in order to avoid hefty, last-minute expedited shipping fees.
2009 Christmas Shipping Deadlines
| Shipping Method | Order Deadline (for Dec. 24 delivery) |
|
| Amazon.com | Free shipping Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 17 Dec. 20 Dec. 23 (3:30 pm PT) |
| Bed Bath & Beyond | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 17 (11:59 am ET) Dec. 22 (11:59 am ET) |
| Best Buy | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 21 (10:59 am ET) Dec. 23 (10:59 am ET) |
| Crate & Barrel | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 22 (12 pm CT) Dec. 23 (11 am CT) |
| Dillard’s | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 19 (11:59 pm) Dec. 21 (11:59 pm) |
| DisneyShopping.com | Standard shipping Express |
Dec. 17 (9 pm PT) Dec. 22 (9 pm PT) |
| EddieBauer.com | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 22 (11 am ET) Dec. 23 (1 pm ET) |
| FedEx | Ground Express Saver Standard Overnight |
Dec. 17 Dec. 21 Dec. 23 |
| Guess | Standard shipping Express |
Dec. 14 (12 pm ET) Dec. 22 (12 pm ET) |
| JCPenney | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 18 Dec. 23 (11:59 am CT) |
| Lids | Standard shipping Express |
Dec. 14 Dec. 22 |
| L.L.Bean | Free in-store pickup Standard shipping Express |
Dec. 17 (9:30 pm ET) Dec. 20 (11:59 am ET) Dec. 23 (11:59 am ET) |
| Macy’s | Standard shipping Express |
Dec. 21 (11:59 pm ET) Dec. 22 (11:59 pm ET) |
| New York & Company | Standard Next Day |
Dec. 21 (1 pm ET) Dec. 23 (1 pm ET) |
| Nordstrom | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 20 (3 pm ET) Dec. 23 (3 pm ET) |
| Pottery Barn | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 22 (9 am PT) Dec. 23 (10 am PT) |
| Ralph Lauren | Standard shipping Express |
Dec. 20 (11:59 pm ET) Dec. 22 (11:50 pm ET) |
| SmartBargains.com | Standard shipping Next Day |
Dec. 13 Dec. 23 (12 pm ET) |
| UPS | Standard shipping Next Day Air |
Dec. 16 Dec 23 |
| USPS | First Class/Priority Express |
Dec. 21 Dec 23 |
| Victoria’s Secret | Standard delivery Next Day |
Dec. 18 (3 pm ET) Dec. 23 (3 pm ET) |
| Williams-Sonoma | Standard delivery Next Day |
Dec. 21 (9 am PT) Dec. 23 (10 am PT) |
This offer is good TODAY-ONLY, but they seem to have some pretty sweet deals. Check it out!
ToysRUs.com One-Day Sale, Up to 50% off-Offer good 12.2 Only!
Bing cashback is in turbo-mode through December 2nd!! Cashback rates have been upped to entice users doing their holiday shopping.
I can vouch for this truly awesome service – I cashed in on a Bing cashback deal back in June when buying an iPhone 3GS (they weren’t excluded by AT&T at the time) and saved $104! Don’t forget you can combine these cashback offers with the upcoming Cyber Monday deals! Here is the complete list of stores. Check out the participating gadget sites below:
Highlights:
AT&T — 35% cashback (iPhone excluded, unfortunately)
T-Mobile — 35% cashback
Dell — 20% cashback
HP — 20% cashback
Lenovo — 20% cashback
Walmart — 15% cashback
Overstock — 15% cashback
The Rest:
Sears — 8-13% cashback
Circuit City — 8-12.2% cashback
Tiger Direct — 8—12.2% cashback
eBay — 8-10% cashback
Best Buy — 5-10& cashback
Buy.com — 5% cashback
Keep in mind it does take up to 60 days until your cashback money is available.
[Gizmodo]
Sample sales are an amazing resource for heavily discounted goods…particularly for luxury brands. In the past few months, online private sample sales sites have been popping up left and right.
TechCrunch gives a nice overview on how they work:
Big designers, such as Marc Jacobs or Versace, place excess inventory on a sale site at 50 to 70 percent discounts over a several day period. The sales are private, available only to members, with upcoming sales from brands announced via emails. Products include clothing for men, women and children as well as jewelry, handbags and home accessories. You can get invites from other members or request invites via the site.
Among the most popular sample sales sites are: Gilt Groupe, HauteLook, Ideeli, and RueLaLa.
A newcomer to the sample sales sites – and one that caught my eye with twin daughters in my household – is Totsy, an invitation-only site with a focus on baby & kids products. Too bad this wasn’t around a year ago when I was purchasing the $550 double-stroller! Totsy marks down products 40 to 70 percent and features a nice selection of toys, baby products (strollers, cribs, etc..), children’s clothing and bedding. As with most other sample sales, shopping events are designer-specific and held over a 72 hour period.
Check these out and drop us a comment to let us know what you think!
• Don’t wrap your gifts until after you’ve arrived at your destination. TSA officers will open wrapped packages if X-ray machines show anything inside that looks suspicious.
• Never put valuables, such as jewelry, expensive cameras or laptops, in checked luggage. Instead, put them in a carry-on bag (and make sure the carry-on is within size limits).
• Bottles of liquids, gels and aerosols in carry-on bags must be 3.4 ounces or less. And all of your bottles must fit in a quart-size, zip-lock plastic bag.
• The busiest travel days according to the Air Transport Association are, in order: Monday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 30), Sunday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 29), Friday before Thanksgiving (Nov. 20) and Wednesday before Thanksgiving (Nov. 25). So plan ahead and allow extra time in the parking garage, at the ticket counter, security checkpoints and gates.
Featured Deals