GeekSugar

Geek Tip: Get the Retail Me Not Firefox Extension

GeekSugar — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:30:31 PST

Since we're shifting into holiday shopping overdrive, sales, saving money, and spending seem to top our conversations virtually every day. So I must insist that you add the Retail Me Not extension to your Firefox browser.

It's going to help you do all three: save by alerting you when there is a sale or discount available, and help you spend less than you would if just browsing online stores till all hours of the night looking for a deal. It's free to add-on, but will be worth its weight in gold once you tally up your receipts at the end of the month and see how much you've saved.

And don't forget if you're looking for a bargain, you can always check out ShopStyle's Sale Habit, where you'll find tons of deals from all across the Internet!

Geek Tip: RetailMeNot Adds Firefox Extension

GeekSugar — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:00:40 PST

If you ever used RetailMeNot to find coupon codes for stores like Victoria's Secret, JCrew and American Eagle, there's now a RetailMeNot Firefox extension that makes online shopping that much more exciting. Discussed on lifehacker, this free extension will automatically check for coupons and provide you with a notification if a coupon is found for the site you are visiting. How great is that?!

Website of the Day: Retail Me Not

GeekSugar — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:06:56 PDT

You know when you're shopping online and you see a box on the checkout page that tells you to enter a discount code, coupon number or promotional code? You can actually obtain those money saving codes and digits from Retail Me Not, a website that lists online coupon codes for stores like J Crew, Amazon, Victoria Secret, Starbucks and Avis. The website gets all of its discount codes from user-submissions, so there's no guarantee that each code will work 100 percent, but it's definitely worth a try. Just enter at the checkout page and give them a whirl, you never know what goodies you'll get at a fraction of the regular cost!

To learn how to post your favorite sites to the Website of the Day group, just

read more I know that this long list looks scary, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it'll be a snap the second time around.

First of all, join the Website of the Day group
Click "Create and Share!" on the left hand side
Choose "Blog"
Give your photo a Title
Leave the category as "general"
Change the channel to "technology and gadgets"
Add keyword(s) (for example mine for this photo was "Website of the Day")
Click on the "Add Image" link below the "body" box
A popup window will happen - click on "Browse" to find your image on your computer
Once you have the image chosen, click "Submit"
The popup will show you your image, choose size: "normal" - if you want, you can give it a title (which will show up as a caption)
Click "Insert" and the popup will go away
Your "body" box will now have some text in it. Leave it as is. If you want to add some text before the picture telling me why you love the website, do it before the code that has appeared.
Click Submit

So join the Website of the Day group and share information about all of your favorite sites! Yours just might end up on the geeksugar homepage!

Shocking Truths About the Underemployment of College Graduates

OnSugar Blog — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:15:10 PST

OnSugar blogger Beauty and the Budget shares the shocking unemployment statistics of college graduates.

As a teenager, it seemed as though the next few steps in my life were going to be easy. You go to college and you get a job. That's what all of the older kids did. What I didn't know was that I would graduate college one year after the recession began and that my dream job would be even harder to grasp, much less finding a job with a good salary and benefits.

Since graduation, I have not been able to find a job that pays more than $10.50 an hour. Even though I have liked my jobs, that doesn't mean I am not financially stressed. I have around $40K in student loan debt - and that's even after receiving a $10K scholarship. Sometimes I feel like I could have skipped college altogether considering I have worked jobs that don't even require a college degree. On the optimistic side of things, I still feel like getting a college degree is a good idea. I just wish I'd have known then what I'd be getting myself into and that I wouldn't just magically graduate with a good job.

Read on for more.

10 Things You Do to Save Money That End Up Costing You More

Wise Bread — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:15:37 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Wise Bread story here on Savvy!

Have you heard of the expression “penny wise, pound foolish”? It’s something I heard a lot growing up, from my parents, and it can have multiple meanings:

You are very careful with small amounts of money, but throw caution to the wind with large amounts. This is akin to someone who eats from the dollar menu every day but then blows a hundred dollars every month on a gym membership that’s never used.
You do things to save money now, only to have those savings cost you more farther down the road.

The second definition is what I’m focusing on today, because it’s a lot easier to fall into the trap of saving money only to have it bite you later on. Here then are 10 things that you may be doing to save money that could actually cost you a lot more in the weeks, months, or years to come.

RELATED: The Case For Expensive Shoes

1. Avoiding Regular Checkups With the Doctor, Dentist, or Optician

It’s something I did in college when money was tight. “Aah, who needs to pay money to a dentist to have him tell me I should floss more?” Well, after leaving the dentist alone for a few years, I paid the price. Avoiding the regular cleanings and checkups left me facing a hefty bill later on when I needed a bunch of costly fillings. I was lucky that I didn’t need root canals or replacement teeth. Now I have a dental plan that covers free checkups twice a year, but even if you don’t, get to the dentist and doctor for health checks. It’s a lot better to pay a co-pay now than pay for major surgery later on. And worse still, it could even cost you your life, especially as so many conditions can be treated if they’re caught early enough.

Read on for more.

Shopping For Candy-Colored Glass Pendant Lamps

Elka Karl — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:00:02 PST

When Feldman Architecture updated a Victorian home, the kitchen benefitted from the addition of multi-colored, playfully bulbous hanging glass pendants. Similarly, any home would quickly move in a more modern and laid back direction if a few candy-colored pendant lamps were added to its ceilings.

You can actually source lamps like these through a local glassblower. Years ago I bought a rich, gold-hued handblown pendant lamp for an unbelievable $50 from an open studio art crawl event in Berkeley. This lamp has traveled with me through several moves, and remains a favorite home decor piece.

Of course, you can also look to larger retailers to find these glass pendants. I adore the ballooned shapes of the Cisco Glass Jug Lamp ($400, bottom row, middle). Each lamp contains unique variations, since it's blown by hand. Sizes range from eight to 16 inches wide.

In a perfect world, I'd splurge on half a dozen of these Niche Modern Mineret Pendants ($650 each, top row, left). Inspired by Moorish architecture, each handblown piece features a teardrop bottom and is made in New York.

Reminding me of the gold wrapper on a Werther's butterscotch candy, the Produzione Privata Acquamiki Pendant Lamp ($840, bottom row, left) is handmade from Murano glass, and would add a luxurious touch to a lady's dressing room or bathroom. To shop the rest of the look (including a much more economical option when you mouse on the bottom right hand photo), just click on each image!

Beware of the Hottest New Grocery Scam

Business Insider — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:30:00 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Business Insider story here on Savvy!

Celebrity chefs have made olive oil a $720 million business in the U.S., but a new book is blowing the lid off an industry that might be built in part on the backs of crooks.

That's the argument Tom Mueller makes in Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil.

“I was sitting in a dark bar with an undercover cop in Italy, and he was telling me about deals being cut with high-level politicians and millions of dollars in EU subsidies being misappropriated,” Mueller told the New York Post. “He was speaking in this hushed tone, and I had to laugh, because this was not black-market plutonium or drugs, this was olive oil.”

Mueller contends that because true olive oil is so pricey to produce, some companies have taken to doctoring bottles with chemicals and disguising cheaper oils with added flavoring.

Then they slap on fancy labels with buzzwords like "Made in Italy" and "Cold-pressed" and ship them to stores without any rigorous quality control from the FDA, he says.

It wouldn't be that big of a deal, except the knockoffs offer far fewer of the health benefits that made olive oil such a cash cow to begin with.

The best way to tell a fake from the real thing?

Read on to find out.

Save on Eating Out in 2012 With These 12 Realistic Tips!

Emily Co — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:05:07 PST

One of the hardest thing to budget in the past year was eating habits, according to SavvySugar readers. Of course, there is always the simple solution of just eating at home more often, but you can still cut your food bill here and there when you're eating out. We've given you plenty of tips in the past on how to save when eating out so we're rehashing some of the best ones as well as throwing in some our new frugal ideas! Here they are:

Use coupons. Go to Restaurant.com and enter in a coupon code for restaurant.com that'll get you a $25 voucher for only $2. You can find the coupon code by searching the keyword "restaurant.com" on the coupon site RetailMeNot. Buy a local Entertainment book worth $15 that will give you lots of buy one get one free coupons for restaurants.

Don't eat out when you're dining solo. Try to save your meal excursions for when you're with friends and family. This means that if you're planning on grabbing a quick bite by yourself, it's better to prepare something at home to eat instead. A big part of the joy of eating out is ambiance and company, so save your money and skip grabbing quick meals when you're alone.

Ration meals with friends. Even if you're saving all your meals out for when you have company, don't be too liberal when you're scheduling them. Try to rotate among different people if you're planning on having one-on-one dinners and space it out. Remember you can always catch up with people over drinks or during a fun activity so don't feel bad about skipping dinner.

Opt for lunch: Oftentimes, the lunch menu is a lot cheaper than dinner. When meeting up with people, try to opt for lunch as your preferred meal. Be sure to also pick their lunch specials.

Read on for more tips.

Bookmark These Cyber Monday Deals Now!

Marisa Tom — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 06:57:50 PST

No point in losing that shopping momentum, right? Now that you've got your Black Friday strategy mapped out, it's time to canvas the Cyber Monday landscape for the best retail deals and steals starting now. Luckily, the shopping madness will be confined to your computer screen and the speed and precision with which you can click "purchase" on that cyber cart of goodies. All you'll need to do is tap into your tech prowess to navigate these fabulous designer discounts. To help you along the way, we've broken down everything you need to know to have a stylishly savvy and successful Cyber Monday. Just keep reading for all the best bets from around the web. Happy clicking!

Cyber Monday Deals

Madewell: Enjoy an extra 30 percent off sale items and free shipping with exclusive promo code ENJOY.
Bloomingdale's: For purchases of $250 or more, take $50 off plus, free shipping when you use FREESHIP11.
Intermix: Take an extra 15 percent off sitewide 15% off with promo code CYBER15.
BHLDN: Shop the coolest selection of wedding dresses and bridal accessories now through Wednesday 12 a.m. EST. With promo code THANKS, you can take an additional 30 percent off all sale items on the site.

For more online steals, just keep reading.

Make the Skies a Bit Friendly With These Holiday Travel Tips For Families

BabyCenter — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:33:09 PST

We're excited to share this post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we will be bringing you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Kristina Sauerwein about making holiday travel as smooth as possible.

No doubt you've noticed the tinsel, twinkle-light Christmas trees in stores and heard carols on the radio. Although it does seem early to get decked out for the holidays, the season is rapidly approaching and it is not too early to plan holiday air travel.

To help you avoid hassles and extra costs associated with holiday air travel, here are 10 tips from Christine Frietchen, Editor in Chief of ConsumerSearch.com, a site that helps consumers make informed purchasing decisions in everything from electronics to home and garden goods to health and beauty items to cars.

For booking air travel, start yesterday. This year is going to be tough for snagging the choice Christmas flights. With Christmas falling on a Sunday, there's already a scramble for Friday-to-Monday (or Tuesday) trips. Start looking and booking now.
Be as flexible as you can. It's hard during the holidays to be flexible, but if you can depart on Thursday, for example, instead of Friday, you can save $100 per ticket in some markets.
When booking flights with connections, be mindful of the connecting city. Winter weather in popular connecting cities like Chicago or Minneapolis can throw a big wrench in your plans. Though a nonstop flight might cost more, it could be worth it if the only connection options are dicey delay-prone cities.
Don't forget to check nearby airports. Although it can be a hassle to drive an extra 50 or 100 miles to a more distant airport, it can be worth checking. For a family, saving $50 per ticket will more than make up for the extra gas.
Check in at home. Most airlines now allow you to check in via computer or smartphone as well as print your boarding pass. If you don't need to check bags, that means you can head straight for the security screening line.

Keep reading for more holiday travel tips!