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Still have some shopping to do?
FreeShipping.org has compiled a list of holiday delivery deadlines for more than 100 stores.
If you’re buying online any time and the store doesn’t offer free shipping, don’t click “Buy” until you check for a promo code at FreeShipping.org. The site is the best repository of free shipping offers all year.
Here is FreeShipping.org’s list of the 10 best shipping offers for Christmas delivery:
- Apple Store: Place your order by Dec. 21 to receive free Next Day Shipping on most items, excluding custom or engraved products.
- Roxy: Any orders received by 10 pm EST on Dec. 21 will include free 2-Day Shipping.
- Neiman Marcus: To get free rush delivery on orders of any amount, use code NMQUICK and choose “promotional shipping” as your shipping method. This offer is valid until 11:59 am CST on Dec. 22.
- Under Armour: Enjoy free two-day shipping on any order using promo code FREESHIP.
- Blue Nile: Enjoy free overnight shipping on all orders – no coupon code required.
- 6pm: Order before 1 pm PST on Dec. 22 to get free shipping and guaranteed Christmas delivery when you spend $50 or more.
- Bass Pro Shops: When you spend $75 or more, Bass Pro Shops will upgrade your shipping method to ensure Christmas delivery at no extra cost. All orders must be in by 12 pm CST on Dec. 22 to qualify.
- The North Face: As long as you place your order of $100 or more by 11:59 pm on Dec. 20, you’ll be upgraded to 2-Day Shipping for free.
- Cabela’s: Use code WSLEIGH to get a free upgrade to Guaranteed Express Delivery on orders of $100 or more. This offer expires after 10 pm EST on Dec. 20.
- American Eagle: Orders of $100 or more placed by 6 am EST on Dec. 21 can be upgraded to 2nd Day Shipping for only $5.
Still have last-minute holiday gifts to buy and mail? Friday is Free Shipping Day, when more than 1,800 merchants have agree to ship your purchases for free and have them delivered by Christmas Eve.
The list of participating merchants includes large and small stores, including Toys R Us, Sears, DSW, Barnes & Noble and more.
The website organizing the event, FreeShipping.org, is a good source of information about free shipping deals any time of the year. Don’t buy anything online any time without first checking for a free shipping code.
Amazon is offering 25 days of free music, with a new holiday song for to download free every day from Dec. 1-25.
If you miss a day, you can go back and download all the songs through Dec. 25.
Amazon is an advertising partner of On the Cheap.
Here’s some good information from CouponSherpa’s Cyber Monday page to help you save more money today.
According to CouponaSherpa, these are today’s top 10 Cyber Monday coupon codes:
- Dockers
Get 30% off when you spend $100 using coupon code GOBBLE.
- Gap Stores
Take 30% off any order at Gap, Athleta, Old Navy and Banana Republic with coupon code HUGECYBER.
- Chico’s
Receive 30% off any order.
- Macy’s
Enjoy free shipping on orders of $75 or more using Macy’s promo code CYBER.
- SnapFish
Get free shipping on orders of $25 or more using coupon code FSNOV25.
- Footlocker
Take 15% off all orders with coupon code LKS13VN6.
- Avon
Enjoy free shipping on all orders using promo code CYBER2011.
- New York & Company
Get 50% off all orders plus free shipping with code 2129.
- Kohl’s
Receive 20% off any order using Kohl’s coupon code CYBER20.
- American Eagle
Get free shipping plus 25% off your order using promo code 49827101.
Restaurant.com wants to meet your friends. Through the company’s Feed It Forward promotion, you can send one free $10 Restaurant.com dining certificate to each of 40 friends every day through Dec. 25.
You can send only one certificate to each person during the promotion. I think it’s a safe guess that the recipients also will receive promotional e-mail fromRestaurant.com, but they can always ask to be removed from the mailing list later.
Restaurant.com nearly always has a deal on its dining certificates, which are already discounted. Regular price is $10 for a certificate worth $25 at a participating restaurant. Frequent discounts bring the price as low as $2 each.
Some restaurants offer a limited number of discount certificates, so the selection is best at the beginning of the month.
Through Nov. 23, the certificates are $2 each with promo code SHOP. You can also get$175 worth of gift cards for $19.99.
You can search for restaurants by ZIP code. The rules vary for each restaurant, so be sure to read the details before you buy.
Restaurant.com is an advertising partner of On the Cheap.
Loser and Subway are offering free downloads of their workout mix “Wake Up and Workout.”
To download your free mix tape, click here.
When the link stops working, the deal’s over.
Many of you are proud to have in your homes a new college graduate. He doesn’t have a job yet, but surely that will come soon.
In the meantime, you have a new roommate.
That’s right. These days, as young adults live at home with their parents for years after they leave school, 50something and 60something adults are finding themselves living with roommates again for the first time in decades.
And the last thing you want at this stage in life is a deadbeat roommate. That means it’s time to discuss the rules of the house and the division of labor, including the financial details.
The first question to consider is whether your young adult should pay rent.
My vote is yes. You may not need the money, but your son or daughter needs the experience of paying rent. If you don’t feel right taking rent money from your offspring, consider putting the money in a savings account and giving it to your child when he moves out, as a down payment on a new home or a contribution toward a wedding.
Then decide how your grad will contribute to the household. Will he or she buy groceries? Cook dinner? Take out the trash? Wash dishes? Do laundry? Take care of younger siblings or grandparents?
If you can work and do household chores, so can your kid. Good roommates share chores. If you decide not to charge rent, consider assessing an in-kind fee and requiring a major non-financial contribution toward the running of the household.
Set some ground rules. Do you want him or her to call if she’ll be late or stay out all night? Are significant others allowed to spend the night? Is the house available for parties? Are there rules for houseguests?
You wouldn’t share housing with any other adult without talking about how the house will operate and who will pay for what. Your new grad is an adult. Treat him like one.
One of the joys of getting older is offering young people sage advice, whether they want to listen or not.
As graduation time nears, I can’t resist offering today’s graduates the advice I wish I’d gotten when I was their age. Or maybe I got the advice and didn’t listen. I should have.
Last year I advised graduates to learn to cook, exercise, eat a healthy diet and stay in touch with friends. That still goes, but this year I’ll add to it some financial advice.
The time to start living within your means is now. Below your means is even better. I’m sure there are all kinds of things you want to buy for your new life. Buy only those you can afford without depleting your savings.
Save money automatically. You can do it through payroll deduction, automatic withdrawal or putting money in a jar. Whatever your method, put money into savings every week before you can think about spending it.
Pay your bills on time. Companies are making it ever more expensive not to. A $35 late fee here, a $35 late fee there and you’re talking real money and way too much to waste.
Don’t hang out with people, and especially don’t date people, who encourage you to squander your money. Those attitudes rub off.
Don’t be afraid to splurge occasionally, especially on experiences. That automatic savings? It’s OK to blow it on the trip of a lifetime. Just don’t blow it on a TV.
Life isn’t always about money. You may discover that you’re happier doing a job that pays less. As long as you can live on what you make, go for it.
And here’s a small but useful piece of advice I heard when I was young and did heed: Don’t agonize over splitting restaurant checks. In your lifetime, you’ll come out even.
When it comes to financial advice, you may not think to ask Elmo. But the furry Sesame Street character is the latest advocate parents can call upon to teach their children about money. April is Financial Literacy Month, so there’s no better time to start.
PNC Bank has teamed up with Sesame Street on a new initiative to teach preschoolers about money. While a 3-year-old is unlikely to grasp the dynamics of spending and saving, she isn’t too old to start learning about how money is used and about making choices.
The Sesame Street characters – Cookie Monster and Grover are involved, too – talk about spending, saving and sharing, using jars to hold money in each of the three categories. They also talk about earning money from jobs and helping others.
Anyone who has ever taken a 3-year-old to the store knows it’s never too early to start teaching the lesson of delayed gratification.
Kits for parents and kids are available free at any PNC bank branch or by calling 1-877-PNC-GROW. You can also download resources and watch the Sesame Street videos at www.sesamestreet.org/save and www.pncgrowupgreat.com. The material also is available in Spanish.
Start now to teach your kids that the response to “Cookie!” sometimes is “We can’t afford it.”
Summer is nearly upon us. In South Florida, that means high electric bills.
Except for a hardy few, going without air conditioning is probably not a practical cost-cutting measure. Still, there are ways to save energy and cut your electric bill.
We consulted the websites of Florida Power & Light and the U.S. Department of Energy for tips about how to save:
• If you don’t have central air conditioning, consider a new window unit. These have improved considerably in recent decades, and a modern window unit uses half the electricity of one from the 1970s, according to U.S. Department of Energy website. Look for a unit that is Energy Star-rated and has an energy efficiency ratio (EER) of 10 or higher.
• Keep your thermostat at 78 or above in summer.
• Use ceiling fans to stay cooler, but turn the fans off when you leave the room. The fans don’t cool the room, just the inhabitants.
• Seal air leaks around windows, doors and vents.
• Change your air conditioning filter every month.
• Don’t run your pool pump more than six hours a day in summer and four hours a day in winter.
FPL has some useful online tools you can use to analyze your energy use and find ways to cut back. You can do a free customized home energy survey at its website, www.fpl.com. Click My Home, then Energy Efficiency, then Online Home Energy Survey. If you want to see how much it costs to run individual appliances, there’s an interactive graphic, plus some tips, under Information and Resources.
Have you heard these tips before? Of course. But when was the last time you changed your air conditioning filter? Confess. This may be the summer to get serious.
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