Idea Queen Tips & News

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Usually when someone asks me if I’d rather shop online or offline, I’m pretty quick to say “online”. I can look around at several stores at the same time, price compare, and find EXACTLY what I want in a whole lot less time than I can offline.  Shipping is usually not an issue to me, since most of the time you can find the best price online saving you more than it cost to ship. Plus of course with gas prices as horrible as they are, you save that cost yourself too.

This time though, I find myself rushing down to my most hated of all stores - Walmart.  Yes before I even think about buying online, I’m looking there first. Why you ask? Well, we have no TV. My kids ignored our one and only rule in the house of keeping water on the table and away from the electronics. Ironically enough, one got in trouble just a few weeks ago for this same thing when a knocked over water glass almost fried our brand new GameCube. Luckily it was safe, but the TV the other night was not so lucky.

I really shouldn’t be so anxious to get a new TV. If I waited, I could save so much money. But I’m ashamed to say we are a TV family that enjoys watching certain shows in the evening together. Last night was not such a problem because it was such a busy day and we didn’t get home until bedtime, but tonight might be a different story. Plus of course we use the GameCube as reward for my oldest, which he can’t play without a TV of course.

Now the really bad thing here is everything is switching to HDTV, making the prices of TVs three times as much as they use to be. Honestly I could care less. I spent some time chatting with the local electronic store owner, and was told since I’m on DISH it won’t matter much. Alright, so give me an “old fashion” TV because I don’t care. Unfortunately that’s easier said that done, since no one seems to sell the “regular” TVs anymore. *SIGH*.

So even though the weather is looking like it’s going to turn ugly today, I have to run to the next town and hopefully find a TV that’s not going to max out my credit card. At this point I’m really wishing we had another somewhere so I could take my time and order online. But alas, this isn’t the case.

Wish me luck - I’m going to need it!

More “After Christmas” sales! You know, I’ve been surprised I haven’t seen more. But at least the ones we did find were some pretty good ones, right?

This one comes from our sister site, Prairie Soy Candles. While the list isn’t quite done yet, I figured I would go ahead and give you the link now. On the discount shelf, you can find all the overstock candles at a discount price. Once I finish adding them all, you’ll have a huge selection of 12oz, 8oz, and 4oz candles that will ship immediately after ordering.

Some of the scents on this list are ones we plan to discontinue, but most are just candles we have already made up. We want to clear out our stock to add new scents in 2008.

Happy Shopping!

ClassicCloseouts.com is offering 25% off everything on the site. What makes this deal a good one is the fact they already have deep discounts on most of their products.

You have two chances to catch the 25% off discount. From now until December 30th, use the code GFT4U. From January 5th - 12th, use code CJ25OFF. Just be sure you don’t miss it!

As promised, we’re posting the After Christmas sales as we find them! This first one comes from Fabric.com, one of our favorite places to shop for fabric online. They always have some pretty good deals on nice fabric, and their clearance area isn’t bad either.

If you are a new customer, you can get $2.95 flat rate shipping. But for everyone they are offering 20% off everything until Jan 3rd. All their available coupons can be found at Fabric.com Coupon Corner
.

Happy shopping!

While you can get some pretty good deals right before Christmas, there’s also some pretty good sales right after as well. This is a perfect time to shop for things like trees, lights, decorations, and other seasonal items.

Lots of stores are busy planning their big after Christmas sales, so it’s important to keep an eye on them as they are released. For example, we’re planning to do an overstock sale at Prairie Soy Candles late next week. You’ll see a lot of our Christmas scents sitting on the discount shelf, as well as other candles we had made up for all the craft shows we did in November.

Be sure to sign up for blog updates if you haven’t already, because we’ll be posting the best deals as they are released next week. For now, be sure to enjoy they holidays!

I put this under money saving, but it’s really not a tip. I figured it does have something to do with money saving though, and hopefully it will save you some time too.

Several months ago I mentioned the product review blog was coming soon. Well, I got busy and forgot to post that it’s up and running. It actually has been since October.

Mom’s Market features product reviews from family run businesses. You’ll find mostly products for kids and babies, but there’s also quite a bit for just moms. We have some strict policies on what we will and will not review, so you’ll only find high quality family run businesses featured.

Within the next few weeks you’ll also see site and blog reviews as well. But for now be sure to stop by and see reviews on some really fantastic products!

Need some ideas before or after the holidays for home decorating? We’ve got a whole page of cheap home decorating ideas! There’s a few general ideas featured on this page, but a whole lot of wonderful tips that were sent in.

As always, if you have your own ideas, please be sure to share them. While the ideas listed on this page are pretty good, you can never have too many ideas and tips. 

This is one of those websites you can get lost on. Meaning once you get there, it’s hard to close the window. I could spend hours browsing eBay, and easily spend a small fortune. I mean there are some really good deals for awesome products on eBay!

I’ve managed to do a nice chunk of my Christmas shopping on eBay, including my son’s largest gift. I always said I refused to buy a game console of any kind, but my oldest begged me and we made a deal related to homework. He’s coming through on his deal it, so I gave in. But still I wasn’t sure how I was going to afford a game system - even a GameCube that’s cheaper than some of the newer consoles out right now. So I turned to eBay.

Granted it’s used, but I made sure I read the auctions carefully. I made sure the auctions stated they were in good working order with no problems what so ever. I also took care to read the feedback on the sellers. One or two negatives out of several hundred happy customers I can understand. After all, you can’t please all people all of the time. I still was very careful to read the negative - it’s not hard to judge if it’s truly a negative, or if the buyer was just having a bad day (or didn’t read the auction very well).

What I finally won I was quite proud of. Slightly used with 5 games for just over $60 (including shipping). Really you can’t beat that! I also managed to pick up another game for less than I could have even used in a store. Plus my son wasn’t the only one I shopped for - my daughter is getting 2 brand new computer games for $13 (shipping included).

So really it’s worth checking out eBay, especially if you are on a tight budget like we are. Spending several hundred on Christmas just isn’t an option when you are barely getting by, which makes eBay an awesome choice to find perfect gifts.

Clothes can make perfect Christmas gifts for kids. Especially for girls. My daughter has been excited to get clothes since her first birthday!

While there are lots of places locally you can get cheap clothes, there are also some really good places to go cheap clothes shopping online too. There are two recommended places I wanted to share.

The first one is a store you may not have heard of. ClassicCloseouts.com has some amazing deals on clothing for the entire family. You can find clothes for women, men, and kids here. Worth checking out!

The other place I recommend looking just about everyone knows. You just may not have thought about checking it out. That place is of course eBay! Not only can you find clothes here, but do half of your Christmas shopping here. In fact, I just picked up my son’s big gift for half as much as I would have paid for it brand new. Just be sure you read listings very carefully, and check the ratings of the sellers too. eBay can be a FANTASTIC place to find stuff, but it can be very easy to get scammed too. Just as long as you check everything out carefully, your eBay experience will be a good one.

So there are two places to get you started at least, and help cut down your shopping expenses!