Just discontinued our family landline phone: so proclaimed a friend’s Facebook status. I have serious envy. Until recently, between the 2 of us we had 6 phone numbers. Yes, 6. Through moves and job changes we’ve managed to cut it down to only 4 phone numbers: 2 landlines and 2 mobiles. Our goal: 2 mobiles and ditch the landlines.

The problem? Condo living. We split our time between 2 condos in different states, and work and life often mean we are often not both at the same condo. And for visitors to get to our home, they need to call us via the entry security system and we need to buzz them in. So we just list our mobile phone number on the security system, right? Wrong. If TBG is in Chicago and orders pizza delivery at 10pm I don’t want to be called at 11pm in Florida to let the delivery guy in. If I have guests in Florida at 9am Saturday morning, TBG doesn’t want his cell phone ringing at 8am and waking him up so I can go to brunch with my friends.

So, we have a landline in both Florida and Chicago strictly to buzz in visitors. Crazy? Yes it is. What options have we considered?

• magicJack: for $150 we can plug the magicJack system into our electrical outlet and never pay again for local or long-distance calls.  2012 Product of the Year. Rave reviews from CNBC and the New York Times. Sounds too easy…its alot to pay when we haven’t talked to 1 person who has actually tried it, and I’m not sure I want to be a $150 guinea pig (although I’m paying $29.99/month to Vonage AND $29.99/month to Comcast* I’d recoup it quickly if it works)

• Skype: with Skype I can receive calls on my computer for free, but I can’t buzz people in. So I could get pizza delivered but I’d have to run down 22 flights to pay the guy. He might as well just call me on my mobile if I can’t have it delivered to my door!

• Ooma: it reads to me like a cross between magicJack and Skype: for $200 you buy the Ooma box and connect it to your computer (bluetooth and wireless adapters are available for more $$$) and they promise free US calling, voicemail, caller ID, etc; but it has one-time or monthly fees to keep your current landline number. I’m thinking NOT.

So smart readers: any suggestions on how I can ditch our landlines but still buzz people in with our security systems?

* yes, you read that right: I’m paying $60/month x 12 months = $720/year for phones we use only to let visitors in. I could buy alot of Starbucks for $720!

My morning chai tea latte (tall, skim, extra pump, extra hot with a straw, svp!) and afternoon frappuccino (tall coffee light) are life’s little luxuries that I’m not willing to give up. But like everyone else I’m looking for ways to save a few dollars while still indulging my luxuries. My Starbucks habit is now fed by couponing.

No, I’m not a coupon extremist: you won’t be sorry to get in line behind me at the grocery. But I have developed a few money-saving habits that fund my Starbucks addiction and only take a few minutes a week. I work from home, but don’t want to turn couponing into a full-time job like I’ve seen on TV shows.

My couponing secrets?

Coupon Codes from Have Deals

I’m surprised how many people who shop online don’t know about coupon codes! When you’re shopping online, in the checkout you’ll freqently see a little box marked coupon code or promo code. This code applies a discount to your purchase: free shipping, buy 1 get one, 15% off: it varies. You don’t have a coupon code? Just get one off the internet! I go to Google and enter for example: coupon code m&ms and find a code offering a current discount.

But typically that’s just too much time and trouble, so I just go to Have Deals and find whatever coupon code I’m looking for on their website, rather than searching around all the different websites. For example, my nephew Pat turned 16 and I wanted to gift him some M&Ms customized in his school colors, with Happy Birthday Pat on one side, and License to Drive on the other. So all I did was go to havedeals.com, enter M&Ms in the search box, the site took me to the M&Ms website, and I got a 15% discount on my order!

Took 5 seconds, saved me $3.41, and paid for 1 frappuccino!

Ebates  

Sometimes there simply isn’t a coupon code available, so I go to Ebates to shop. Ebates works with different online stores, and they offer a cash refund on purchases made through the Ebates website. So, if I want to buy a new ice cream maker at Macy’s, I go to Ebates.com, and enter Macys in the search box, and Ebates will take me to the Macy’s website; then I shop for my ice cream maker. Right now, there is a 3% cash back on Macy’s purchases at Ebates, so if I don’t have any other coupon or promotion codes, my on-sale $59.99 ice cream maker will generate a rebate check to me of $1.80. % of discount varies, sometimes there are double-cash rebate deals, so shop around!

Ebate rebate checks are sent quarterly, so typically my rebate checks are about $20-25: enough for 3-4 chai tea lattes!

Viggle  

Since I work from home I also have the TV on alot so I’m pretty caught up on reality and talk shows! Recently I discovered Viggle, a free app I downloaded from the iTunes AppStore to my iPad and iPhone. Once you download the app, you select your cable provider. Then when you’re watching the show – either live or on DVR – you just go to the Viggle app, select check in and Viggle matches what it hears and records your check in. Each check in awards you points, and different levels of points provide you different awards. A $5 Starbucks card costs 7500 points.

This week I Viggled about 15,000 points, enough for $10 at Starbucks: 3 frappuccinos!

Just think how many Starbucks drinks I could fund by couponing if I actually worked at it!

Lil Sis Mary was being released from the hospital after surgery, and had to be sure not to get her incision and staples wet in the shower. I’m on it: my friend Carla just shared a showering after surgery tip and I was thrilled to be able to pass it on to Mary:

Press’n Seal! Cut off a piece of cling large enough to cover the area you need to keep dry, press carefully around the edges to “seal” the cling to the skin, then shower! When finished, just toss out the used cling and tear off a fresh piece for the next shower. In addition to surgical scars, Press’n Seal would have worked great when TBG had a PICC line after surgery, and when he had his knee in a cast.

Simple, effective and cheap! Press’n Seal can be found at your grocery or home goods store, $5 – $8 depending on size.

Who knew?

Global Lighting asked me if I’d like to look through their lighting gallery and blog about my favorite pick. Here’s my choice: what do you think?

Global Lighting: The Lampara! Read all about it here

Or would you have picked the red shades?

You all know: I’m a Kindle addict, and am hanging on to my Kindle Classic (the original version) while also reading books on my iPad and iPhone with my Kindle apps. And truth be told: I do read more books thanks to the Kindle: its just so easy to get a book when I hear about it (and btw…TBG released his first book, Linebacker in the Boardroom, earlier this month and it’s available on Kindle too: I downloaded it in seconds!)

But my gripe…and everyone else’s…is still Kindle book pricing. I was OK when books were $9.99 or less, but when e-b0ok prices on Amazon crept up, I was furious: of course they have to do marketing, of course the author and publisher are entitled to their royalties. But there’s no printing, shipping, handling, or other overhead costs so why are e-book prices increasing as their popularity increases…its just WRONG!

I’ve spent time tracking down free e-books, library e-books, and other ways to read what I’m interested in…but not spend so much money on books that I can’t share.

And now Amazon has quietly introduced the Kindle Daily Deal: a daily, one-day only discount price on a selected e-book.

So far, I haven’t downloaded one but I’m sure I will. But why not: because Amazon has a long way to go in figuring out how to publicize the Kindle Daily Deal.

On the Daily Deal website, it instructs users that the deal is available 12:00am pst, and posted on the Amazon Kindle site, on twitter, facebook, and the Kindle Daily Post. But at 9:49am cst on the Kindle Daily Post it still reflects yesterday’s Daily Deal, I can’t find today’s deal posted on FaceBook or Twitter, and I had to click around quite  a bit to find today’s deal on the Amazon site: even when I entered Kindle Daily Deal in the Amazon search field, I was not directed to the daily deal: instead, it took me to Kindle books with those words in the title!

From the screen print above you can see a great deal on The Lincoln Lawyer for $2.99: except its no longer available: that’s yesterday’s deal and today’s deal isn’t posted though its long past 12:00am pst.

Amazon has some work to do so the Kindle Daily Deal is more easily available. From what I’m reading online alot of other users are similarly frustrated: they’re trying to download yesterday’s deal today, because that’s what showing up in their in-boxes and online!

They’ll work it out: but what if I miss a deal! Come on, Amazon: this is low-tech stuff: fix it today please, so I can get my deals too!

I’m highly competitive, and love word games so I’ve been a Scrabble addict since I was a kid. When we lived in Paris I bought the Scrabble version Francaise to help expand my French vocabulary, but never mastered French spelling so stopped playing that game. Moi husband and kids have refused to play Scrabble with me for years. Now with Moi iPhone and iPad I’m a Words With Friends addict: I have simultaneous games going with a young mother in England, a Marine in California, a Canadian in France, and countless sisters, nieces and nephews, and friends across the US: even my daughter will play WWF with me. I play in bed, in the car, on buses and train, in planes with WiFi, in line at Target (and to the annoyance of TBG at the dinner table, while watching TV, and anytime or place I can sneak a peak at my iPhone.)So while searching for the perfect birthday gift for a young friend turning 10 this month I bought him Bananagrams: sort of a free-form Scrabble/cross-word game. For 2-8 players aged 7-97. I’m ensuring I’ll be playing WWF for years to come! Completely portable and with its own case it’s perfect for home or on the road. $14.95  Fruits games also available: Appletters and Pairs in Pears.

Friend me on WWF!

I was invited last week to brunch at a friend’s who just bought a condo in SoFlo. So of course the hunt for the perfect hostess gift begins. Brilliant: specialty breakfast treats from Florida!

Everyone likes food gifts, and what’s better than introducing a friend to some of my favorite local foods: a gift of Florida sunshine!

Palmalito Jams and Preserves: Moi faves are the Guava Jelly and the Orange Marmalade, but love the Jalapeño Pepper and Key Lime jellies too. I buy mine at the local Publix, but you can also buy it online and ship it as a gift (or to yourself!) About $3.50/jar.

McCoy’s Honey: I looooove McCoy’s Florida Orange Blossom on my yogurt and TBG squirts it on his toast. Perfect for a little tea sweetner! And we still love our bear squeeze bottle. I buy mine at the local farmer’s market, but you can buy it online. About $4.50/jar. Also sold in larger jars (which we buy to refill the bear.)

Kermit’s Keylime Pie: I buy and send several Kermit’s Key Lime Pies a year to friends up north in the dead of winter: just a taste of Florida Sunshine in all the snow! Ships frozen overnight. About $75. Try the Key Lime Pops on a Stick too!

Honeybell Oranges and Tangellos: These special Florida oranges are only available for a few weeks every year: typically late December thru early February, depending on the weather gods. I once gifted brother Tom 40 honeybells to celebrate his big 4-0! Prices vary, but usually around $25 for 5 lbs, plus shipping. The perfect post-holiday healthy gift! I buy mine at Woolbright Farmers Market, but when shipping I use Cushman’s.

Moi Tip: Check out the recipes from the local producers: Palmalito suggests adding a jar of Guava Jelly to your Thanksgiving yams: sounds yummy!

For sister Lisa’s 40th I needed to celebrate both the big 4-0 and her recent move to the burbs.

With two little girls she’ll soon hit soccer mom status, and cold windy Chicago Fall days ensure some long Saturdays with a folding chair and a venti extra-hot Starbucks while the teams learn the rules of the game.

How to heat-up the day? Try a mini-flask studded with pink Swarovski crystals, and personalized with her name.

39 years 51 weeks...and counting

I bought it at McAdams Ltdfor $35.00, plus engraving. Lisa can provide the liquid heat.

Tres chic! Bon Anniversaire Lisa!

Moi tip: if anyone is reading, Christmas isn’t far off and Moi would love her own personalized crystal flask!

The reminder email just landed in my inbox: Fathers Day Brunch hosted at my sister’s, pool-side. No time to procrastinate: I needed a Fathers Day gift for my 81 year old father; who tends to toss all gifts on the end of the couch, and ignore them, denying he received any gifts. A quick exchange of emails with the Queen Mum, and Dad’s gift is ordered and in the mail. Check below what Dad’s getting!

Are you looking for gift ideas for the Dad’s in your life? Here are a 5 tested, sure-thing Dad-pleasers:

1. Zaggmate: In our house I’m the iPad-aholic. TBG gifted me for Christmas, and it’s pretty much been glued to my left hand ever since. (I have iPad-thumbitis: am I the only one? So far its not listed on webmd.com)  TBG also gifted me a gorgeous blue Burberry iPad cover, which j’adore, but for Mothers Day our kids gifted me a Zaggmate. This protective carrying case/ keyboard is made of aircraft-grade aluminum, weighs practically nothing, and features a bluetooth connection keyboard that allows your iPad to function like a computer. If your writing long emails, business documents, journals, scripts, business accounts: the Zaggmate will make using your iPad so much easier, while protecting it: with style! On the beach, on a plane, or in the car: Zaggmate and iPad are the perfect combo!

Zaggmate for iPad  $99.99

I love the aluminum case that matches the iPad, but you can style Dad up by adding a standard or custom skin to personalize Dad’s iPad. How about his favorite sports team or mythological character? From $19.99 up.

Tips: Be sure to order the correct Zaggmate: there’s a different version for iPad and iPad 2.

2. Car Cup Charger: I talked about this great car accessory on my last year’s Father’s Day gift post, but it’s still a no-brainer for the wired Dad. This great cup-shaped charger for the car is one of my favorites. Cameras don’t work well when the battery is dead. Same for mobile phones. Or iPads. Traveling by car requires multiple adapters and accessories to charge the iPhone, Blackberry, camera, and baby bottle heater. What’s a guy to do? This clever latte-cup shaped adapter plugs into the car’s cigarette lighter and rests in the cup holder. Brilliant: it charges both 120 volt and USB ports.

PowerLine On-the-Go Power Supply Cup $29.99

Last month we used the PowerLine on a 22 hour roadtrip, with 4 adults, 1 dog, 2 iPads, 1 laptop, and 4 mobile phones: all fully juiced and ready to go!

3. George Foreman Indoor/Outdoor Electric Barbeque Grill: We’ve recently transitioned from a 300 square meter NYC rooftop terrace to a small SoFlo condo balcony: where gas and charcoal grills are forbidden. There are 5 gas grills on the property to share, but too often TBG has gone down to find the closest is all out of gas, or a neighbor is already grilling, or its just too dark to grill. So for his last birthday, the kids gifted him the George Foreman electric grill. He was skeptical at first. But after I assembled it (in less than 10 minutes, no tools required!) then grilled shrimp, TBG wandered out to the balcony and pronounced it really hot. And easy to clean. And definitely convenient: I plug it in, heat for 10 minutes, and its ready to go!So far we’ve grilled shrimp, burgers, steaks, swordfish, vegetables and salmon: love it!

George Foreman Indoor/Outdoor Electric Barbeque Grill $109.99

Tip: I have the George Foreman Next Grilleration G5 countertop grill, and it simply didn’t get hot enough. So I am really happy with the patio grill, which could be used indoors: but why?

So, what’s on moi Father’s Day shopping list? Shhhhh, don’t tell: it’s a secret:

for Dad:

For years I’ve been gifting Dad the tiny white traditional anis candies from Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, a picturesque little town in the Burgundy region of France. We first discovered Flavigny after reading that the charming yet-to-be-released film Chocolat was filmed in Flavigny. Just a few hour’s drive from our Paris home, we drove down one Sunday, and along with the charming little village, we discovered Les Anis de Flavigny: tiny little anise-flavored mints, presented in charming oval retro tins and made in the village’s abbey. We adore the original anis flavor, but there are other flavors including violet, rose, lemon and mint.

I carried them home on the plane to Dad for years, but now we’re able to easily find them in the US at specialty groceries or online, including Williams-Sonoma or amazon.com. But what I haven’t found yet in the US is the large refill bag that I still carry home from Paris. Good news: this week I contacted the manufacturer in France, and the large quantity bags will soon be available in the US. This year, Dad’s getting a gift box of 8, for about $25.00.

for TBG:

Forty Beads: The Simple, Sexy Secret for Transforming Your Marriage book and The Forty Beads Gift. I saw it on The Today Show last week and it looked fun: after all, he’s not moi father! I bought the book for $10, and the gift set for $40. (I tried everything I could think of but I had to purchase them separately online: no vendor sold the book and bead set, not even the author’s website: annoying!)

Bonne Fête de Pères!

]]> http://shesshoppingnow.com/fathers-day-gift-dilemna-no-worries/feed/ 4 http://shesshoppingnow.com/barely-there-bare-escentuals/ http://shesshoppingnow.com/barely-there-bare-escentuals/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:00:03 +0000 Moi http://shesshoppingnow.com/?p=3841

A few months back I was searching for a tinted moisturizer…I never found one I really liked, and resorted to mixing my SPF moisturizer with a few drops of liquid foundation. But my readers had some great ideas. Recently I was killing time at the mall (I hate malls, even the gorgeous Gardens Mall in Palm Gardens) while TBG was at Apple trouble-shooting a software problem. I wandered past Sephora…and remembered the advice of Toma T, who suggested I check out Bare Escentuals.

I admit: I was a skeptic. I’ve never worn liquid makeup. And I’ve never worn powder: this did not look promising. I’d managed to ignore the Bare Escentuals bareMineral Original SPF 15 Foundation hype the past couple years. Yes, I’d vaguely heard InStyle, Teen Vogue, Allure, Seventeen, Glamour and Cosmopolitan Magazines repeatedly vote it the best foundation. That Sephora and QVC routinely vote it a top favorite. I’d even scrolled past the 2 hour (2 hour!) sales promos on QVC TV. But with time to kill, and still needing to find a better solution to my need for a little facial cover-up, I decided to do some personal research.

Easier said than done. At 2:00pm on a Tuesday afternoon, Sephora at Gardens Mall was deserted. Which meant the sales staff was talking to each other, but not to me. So I played around at the prominently displayed Bare Escentuals counter, picked a foundation color that seemed to match my skintone (I picked Light W15 out of the 20 colors, for all skin shades). I paid my $25 plus tax (No, no one helped me today, thank you very much!). And took my little pot of bareMinerals home to test.

Wednesday morning I applied my normal Olay moisturizer and fave YSL Touche Éclat concealer, then opened up the little jar. First, read the instructions to figure out how to open the new snap and click dispenser. Hmmm, powder. I had a make-up brush handy, so dipped it into the powder and puffed it onto my face. And onto the counter, and my shirt. Not a good start. Back to reading the directions: Swirl   Tap   Buff.  OK, less mess but still doesn’t seem right. Next stop, the internet.

The Bare Escentuals website had instructions and demos, but also talked about QVC programs and sales, so I decided to see if there was a sale coming up soon. Perfect: the next night there was a 2 hour Bare Escentuals demonstration and sale. 2 hours! To put on make-up? So I set the DVR so I could watch and fast-forward.

The product demonstration made all the difference: once I saw the models applying the make-up, I totally got the Swirl Tap Buff system: sort of like a friend (or a salesperson at Sephora???) showing me how to use it. But QVC also showed me another tip: for $29.99 plus tax and shipping, I could get a starter kit containing the foundation, an application brush, and a few other

goodies including a how-to DVD. Another jar of foundation, plus the brush and other products: sold! I received my kit a few days later, and tested out the new brush. They were right: the application face brush holds the powder foundation much better than mines does, so no more messy bathroom counters. I watched the DVD, yes it did provide a few more tips on applying, storing and transporting the bareMinerals foundation. Plus, I got another brush for the other products included (Mineral Veil Finish Powder and All-Over Face Color in travel sizes), a mascara, and some product samples.

Am I happy with my bareMinerals foundation? YES: I love it! It doesn’t look like I’m wearing any foundation, but it evens out my skin-tone and provides a little color to my fact. My skin feels dewy and clean, I look like me: only fresher.

My next Bare Escentuals purchase: the refillable travel brush, that lets you take bareMinerals foundation with you in a handy all-in-one brush and powder holder. $29.50.

Thanks for the tip Toma T!

Moi tip: you can’t beat the price for TV starter kit offered on the Bare Escentuals website or on QVC. Watch the video: application of the powder foundation is different, but the videos or product demonstrations on QVC make it simple. I’ll probably by refills at Sephora. When I get over being irritated at them.