Giveology 2009-10 by Jennifer Melnick Carota

November 24, 2009 · Filed Under , , · Comment 

This is going to be a tough Christmas for many us. Perhaps you or your spouse lost their job or had a big salary reduction. Or maybe your house is only worth half of what it was a couple years ago and now your interest rate is about to reset to a higher rate. All scary propositions, especially as we enter a time of year where we want to be buying gifts for our children, friends and family.

With this in mind, I wanted to send your attention to an incredibly helpful resource called Giveology that will actually help you “Spend Less, But Give More” this Christmas, and all year around for that matter! It is produced by my friend Jennifer Melnick Carota (AKA: The Gift Therapist). In it, she discusses ideas like The Gift of 3, The Gift of Food, Giving In Groups, Black Friday Strategies, Post Holiday Shopping Tips, and much, much more. Jennifer is always talking about how important it is to make a gift meaningful for the recipient. She explains how meaningful does not mean expensive, it just means giving thought to what they would actually enjoy. I love this advice!

And best thing of all, Giveology is a completely FREE online publication. If you find it as useful as I did, please pass it along to your friends! Just click on the banner below to get your free copy:

giveology

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Black Friday: Less Tramply This Year

November 13, 2009 · Filed Under · Comment 

Are you planning on heading out to the stores this Black Friday? I am hearing rumors of some pretty good deals. But the truth of the matter is that after an employee was trampled to death last Black Friday in a Wal-Mart store on Long Island, many retailers are taking a different approach to this crazy shopping day.

black_friday_line

Also, stores are not all that excited about their past strategies because after people lined up at 4 am, the rest of the day was rather unspectacular. So essentially they lost money on the door-busters and then had trouble selling stuff at full price the rest of the day. So I think the deals may be a little less spectacular, but they will have more actual products available at a pretty good (but maybe not great) discount. It will be interesting to see if it actually pans out this way.

So Wal-Mart, and other stores, are going to try something different this year. Instead of opening at 4 or 5 a.m. on Black Friday, they are going to stay open all night and avoid the huge, dangerous, mob standing out in the cold. So you just come in to the store when you want to and find the product you are looking for and stand by it for a few hours until ‘Black Friday’ actually begins. I think this is a great idea. Especially since I am a guy who would rather have my toenails pulled then stand in a long line for anything!

Are you heading out on Black Friday? Any strategies you want to pass along? Looking forward to your comments.

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