Archive for February, 2011

Presidents Day isn’t until Monday, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until then to find deals. All of these offers are already in full swing in honor of your favorite public officials.

$100 off Mattress Giant

If you’ve been putting off buying a new mattress (because man, they’re expensive), now’s a better time than any. This weekend at Mattress Giant you can get $100 off Simmons Beautyrest or Sealy Posturepedic sale mattresses or $100 off regularly priced Kingsdown mattresses. Print out this coupon to take with you. Plus, most of the store is already on sale for the holiday, with 50 percent off Embody and Stearns & Foster mattresses. Locations across Atlanta area.

Outlet sales

There’s nothing better than finding outlet prices compounded by a holiday sale. Shop more than 140 discount designer stores at North Georgia or Calhoun Premium Outlets this weekend. At North Georgia outlets, get 30 percent off menswear at Hugo Boss, 50 percent off women’s cardigans at J.Crew or 25 …

Continue reading Presidents Day sales: Mattress Giant | outlet discounts | Home Depot paint »

Want your car to last forever? You’re probably out of luck until the 2060 models come out. But until then you can attend to the details that will help your auto over the long run. Who doesn’t want their car to last an extra year or two?

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This Kiplinger quiz highlights 10 steps you can take to keep your car running smoothly. Some of the answers you’ll probably know, like the answer to “Which U.S. coin do you use to check your tire treads?” But some information might surprise you — so go ahead and take it.

If you’re looking for a deal on your maintenance, don’t forget to check the Kudzu automotive page and Valpak’s auto tab for deals in your area, as well as the website of your …

Continue reading Proper car maintenance can save you money »

$20 for $10 at Cafe Nineteen

There’s one restaurant in Atlanta whose egg croissant sandwiches I crave  – Cafe Nineteen at Atlantic Station. Day, night, whatever. It’s my go-to staple there. And Cafe Nineteen’s coffee beverages are perfect for those who take a more European stance on mochas — not too sweet. This week you can get $20 worth of food for $10 at Cafe Nineteen from Double Take Deals. $20 is a lot of money at such a casual dining spot, so take a friend and spend a leisurely afternoon together there.

New Balance shoe sale

Avid runners know they need to replace their shoes every six months to a year. But that doesn’t mean you have to buy the priciest pair on the market. Get up to 80 percent off today at Joe’s New Balance Outlet. Score the men’s 74 retro sneakers for $24.74, the 767 women’s running shoes for $26.99, or the women’s 662 running shoes for $27.99. Not your bag? Browse the hundreds of other items. Plus, you’ll get an extra 10 percent off plus free shipping …

Continue reading Half off Cafe Nineteen | New Balance sale | Pizza deal »

Would you pay more than $1,000 for SAT or ACT prep courses?

Any parent knows that standardized test preparation can be key in your student’s life as he or she gets ready for college. But some preparation costs more than others (up to $1440 for some Princeton Review courses? Eek!).

There is some variation in the inherent value of these courses (Are they group practices? One-one-one studies? Do they feature real tests?), but it’s difficult to discern whether a $1440 course that much more valuable than a $12 SAT study book.

The eKnowledge Sponsorship Alliance is leveling the playing field this year by giving away free PowerPrep ACT and SAT programs to local high school students. The SAT and ACT programs come in a single DVD and include more than 11 hours of video instruction and 40 hours of student participation time, 3,000 files of supplemental test prep material, practice tests and graphic teaching illustrations. Students select the training they need and can study at their …

Continue reading Free and cheap ACT and SAT prep programs »

Consumer expert Clark Howard’s column appears here each Thursday in conjunction with Deal Spotter, a weekly print section in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Last year, when my son Grant was 4, I told a story on air about buying him $10 shoes that were two sizes too big because I was upset how quickly he outgrew the last pair. So many people were horrified with me about the harm I was doing to my son’s feet.

Recently, I bought Grant another new pair of shoes and to my horror they were $12! But based on listener feedback, I only went one size too large this time around. I’m not sure how people will react to that news. But the shoes seem to be fitting him just fine.

Well, there are parents who clothe their kids in a way that’s a lot smarter than I do. They’re swapping clothes and shoes with other families to save money. I recently read about a website called ThredUp.com where parents can arrange the swaps via mail. The website’s slogan is “Clothes don’t grow. Kids do.”

Boy, is …

Continue reading Clark Howard: Save by swapping your kids’ clothing »

40 percent off The Gap

For today only, get 40 percent off any one regularly priced item at The Gap. If you use your Gap, Banana Republic or Old Navy credit card, you’ll get 45 percent off. To redeem, print out this page and give to cashier at purchase time.

50 percent off Bounce U

Are you running out ways to engage your children during the day (or even on the weekends)? Fret no more. Bounce U in Kennesaw provides a clean, temperature-controlled environment for your kids to run off all that energy on inflatable structures. Trust me, the exercise they get will help your family feel more peaceful for the rest of the day. Today pay only $15 to get five Open Bounce passes (reg. $35) on DealSwarm. That’s only $3 per session, and cheap enough that your friends can get in on the bounce action.

BOGO free Yankee Candle

Yankee Candle is one of the few brands that will make your whole house — not just one corner — smell incredible. But I can’t bring myself to pay upwards of $20 for one …

Continue reading 40% off The Gap | 50% off Bounce U | BOGO free Yankee Candle »

According to a story on ajc.com today, Delta is eliminating the expiration date from its SkyMiles program. The system had previously deleted any acquired frequent flier miles after two years of inactivity.

More from the story:

Delta — which also faces the prospect of Southwest Airlines’ arrival in Atlanta via its buyout of AirTran — has made other recent changes that affect its most frequent fliers at elite levels. But this one affects those at the other end of the spectrum: infrequent fliers.

Inside Flyer magazine publisher Randy Petersen said Delta has been “beat up a lot” about the difficulty of redeeming miles. Delta also previously allowed customers to restore expiring miles for a fee, but probably found “it really wasn’t that much income versus the badwill they were creating,” Petersen said.

Hear, hear! It’s time other airlines jumped on this bandwagon. How dare you take away miles I rightfully earned.

Will flying Delta be a better value for you now that its frequent …

Continue reading Delta SkyMiles: Now a better value? »

I have a confession to make. Although I’ve always been frugal, I’m not an avid couponer.

But I want to be. I know that if I can save as little as $10 a month on groceries, that’s $120 more a year in my pocket. I’ll probably never be one of the super couponers (see TLC’s Extreme Couponing, below) you see on TV, but I’d like to start saving some cash here and there. I hear it becomes second nature once you get going.

This small piece of the "History of Coupons" graphic retells some of the developments in the 1930s.

Savings.com sent me this creative “History of Coupons” graphic that I want to share. (I tried to put the image directly on the blog, but it’s huge! Make sure you zoom in to read all the text.) The history, appropriately for Atlanta, begins with Coca-Cola coupons and ends with a futuristic prediction for the year 2030. What do you think couponing will look like in a couple decades?

I signed up for CouponMom.com (whose column also runs in our Deal Spotter print …

Continue reading Atlanta coupon sites, here I come »

Half-off theater tickets

Treat yourself to a night out with the performance of “Fat Pig” at Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville next weekend. Follow the story of Tom, who falls in love with a plus-sized woman and is forced to question the conventional idea of beauty. This performance includes spicy language and content, so book a babysitter for your kids. The theater is offering half-price tickets available for $7.50 via AtlanTIX for several performances from Feb. 24-27. That’s less than a movie ticket! 128 Pike St., Lawrenceville.

20 percent off Environment Furniture upholstery

If recycling or sustainable living is your battle cry, these chairs are for you. Environment Furniture is offering 20 percent off upholstery through Feb. 21. Choose from popular lines such as the Recycled Army Tent Collection, Deer Run & Nottinghill Leather, Linen and COM. The sale applies to the retail location as well as the online store. All materials used in Environment’s collections are either …

Continue reading $7.50 theater seats | 20% off upholstery | 50% off Thrashers tickets »

Claire Eden worried increasingly about the sores in her husband’s mouth. She thought he might have oral cancer or something equally serious and repeatedly told him to visit the doctor, but he wouldn’t go.

So Eden took her husband’s health into her own hands.

“I just started Googling ‘mouth sores’ and something caught my eye about cinnamon gum,” the Buckhead resident says. “I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness,’ because he had recently been chewing a lot of cinnamon gum.

She perused tales of those who reacted poorly to the product. Some developed sores on the walls of their mouth, their lips, their tongue. Even swelling. The descriptions of their maladies matched her husband’s problem.

He switched to Wrigley’s Spearmint and his sores disappeared almost immediately.

Eden figures she saved herself a chunk of change by going online to diagnose her husband. “At least a co-pay,” she says, and maybe hundreds more had a doctor run expensive tests.

This is the allure of so much medical …

Continue reading Self-diagnosis via the Internet has risks, benefits »