CheapTweet Blog

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Every day, we’ll post links to great deals, as well as CheapTweet.com site updates, company news and pictures from various events. Feel free to ask questions in the discussion board or post links to your favorite deals.

In CheapTweet Happy Hour #3, we discuss National Wear Red Day, Valentine’s Day, and the Super Bowl. We’ve got lots of great deals to tell you about this week, so sit back, relax, and just enjoy the fact that it’s Friday!

Links to the deals we talk about are posted below the video.

• Wear red, save 20% at Macy’s
• Some of our favorite jewelry designers on Etsy:
  • Naked-Jewelry
  • Sterling Roses Design
  • Lilly Queen
• Free two-day shipping on Kindle from Amazon
• Free bowling from Brunswick
• Super Bowl baby booties from Curious Workmanship
• Deals on new HDTVs

This week, Heather – mom and our Happy Hatchling guest blogger– shares tips on how to make memorable baby shower gifts. You can also follow Heather on Twitter.

1) Start with a theme. Some ideas: nursery, bath time, bedtime, car seat accessories, diaper changing station, etc…

2) Purchase one item from the registry. Be sure to buy at least one item from the registry so that the expectant mother feels good that she is getting the important must-have items.

3) Add one or two items that are not on the registry. These can be inexpensive or not, but go with your theme. Chances are that plenty of people will buy items straight from the registry, so you shouldn’t feel compelled to buy it all. Furthermore, while the registry is for important and necessary items, they often do not include the really fun stuff.

4) Don’t waste your time wrapping. Throw it all in a useful basket and tie on a bow. Then everyone at the baby shower can ogle your gift before the opening begins. My favorite spot to get future gift baskets is Cost Plus World Market – they have a huge variety of inexpensive baskets.

Here are a few examples of great gifts under $40.

A Nursery/Toy Theme: Bugs ~ $35
Wrist Rattles and Socks & Wooden Bug Puzzle & Bug Car Seat Toys

Bed Time Theme ~ $32
Bed time books (Books sets by Sandra Boynton or classics like Goodnight Moon) & swaddling blankets & Baby Einstein Lullaby CD

Bath Time Theme ~ $35
Boon Frog & Johnson’s Baby Wash

In addition to these suggestions, we recently compiled a long list of other good gifts for baby showers and expecting parents. Plus, be sure to check out all the deals on baby items on CheapTweet.com.

What are you some of your favorite baby shower gift ideas?

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another CheapTweet happy hour. This week, Hayes and I found good deals on tax preparation, Valentine’s Day gifts, and the most important Super Bowl accessory of all – a new TV. Links to the deals we mention in the segment are posted below the video. Enjoy!

• Taxes
  • $20 off tax preparation at Jackson Hewitt
  • $20 off tax preparation at H&R Block
• 20% off at Coach Outlet (printable coupon for in-store use)
• TVs for the Super Bowl
  • Sharp 32″ 1080p LED LCD HDTV for $748 (regularly $999)
  • LG 42″ 1080p LED LCD HDTV for $1,050 (regularly $1,529)
  • Mitsubishi 82″ 1080p DLP HDTV for $2,779 (regularly $3,999)

For the TVs in particular, the sale prices are likely to change, so if these exact deals aren’t valid anymore, just look for the TV you want in all our HDTV deals.

Have a great weekend!

Football season might be almost over, but there’s still one more big game. Which means you have one more chance to throw a Super Bowl party your friends will never forget. (Besides, if you’re like me, the party is much more important than the game itself!) Here are a few tips to help you keep your party costs low.

Stick to beer, soda and water.

You can almost always find discounts on beer and soda at your local grocery stores. Start checking for sales a week before, and you’re bound to find a good deal. Beer is actually one of the big loss leaders for many grocery stores; advertising beer discounts is a good way to get shoppers in the door, so you can almost always find a sale. Liquor and wine can take a big chunk out of your budget, so avoid those. But, if you and your guests really like mixed drinks, consider making a large batch of a signature cocktail instead of offering individual servings of a lot of different drinks. By the way, @FLSouthernSaver says to check CVS this week for great deals on soda.

Keep the food simple.

Instead of serving gourmet food with expensive ingredients, keep your menu a bit more basic. Good football food is finger food – think about dips and things on toothpicks. You can still be creative with simple (and affordable!) ingredients. @Todds_wife has a great idea for an easy and inexpensive game day appetizer. If you want to try some Super Bowl-themed dishes, check out @Diana512’s blog for lots of great party recipes. Finally, Heather (who writes our Hatchling posts) has a yummy recipe for mini tacos:

1. Arrange Tostito’s Scoops on a baking sheet
2. Put ground beef (or beans) and taco spices in the scoops
3. Sprinkle chips with cheese
4. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes til hot and cheese is melty
5. Add dollop of sour cream and salsa

Go potluck.

Why not encourage your guests to pitch in and bring a drink or dish to share? Football parties are perfect for a potluck. You could assign roles (one person is in charge of dessert, another in charge of chips, etc…), or just let everyone bring what they want. You’ll have lots of variety, and it guarantees that every person will like at least one thing on the table. As a bonus, you won’t have to do all the cooking.

Order pizza.

Lots of pizza companies offer game day specials, so check around for a good deal. It can be a fairly inexpensive way to feed a group, and pizza is always a crowd-pleaser, particularly with kids. Be sure you call around before game day to make sure you have a game plan (ha, get it?), to make sure you know which pizza places are offering the best deals. Check the sale flyers that come in the mail the week before, as lots of the larger pizza chains offer coupons there.

Stock up at the dollar store.

For your game day decorations and paper products, look at your nearest dollar store first. They usually have a great selection of color-coordinated plates, napkins, cutlery and party decorations, and it all costs only $1! Buy plates in your your favorite team’s colors and you’ve got an instant party theme, especially if your guests will be wearing team colors.

Buy a new TV.

Okay, this last tip doesn’t really help you save you money on your party. But if you’re looking for an excuse to shop for a new HDTV, the Super Bowl is a great time to do it. We’ve found a lot of great TV deals the past couple weeks. So maybe we can save you a few hundred dollars on a nice new (and big) flatscreen TV.

Got any other money-saving tips for a great game day party? Leave a comment; we’d love to hear what you think. Enjoy your party!

From time to time, we like to check in with our mailroom clerk, Andrew Ishak, and see what sorts of mail we’re getting at CheapTweet headquarters. Here, Andrew gets a letter from a reader with a big problem, sending him on an investigation of how to save money by buying spices in bulk.

Got a question for Andrew? He reads emails, too, so feel free to send him your questions. Maybe he’ll read it in the next CheapTweet mailroom video!

If you like this video, be sure to check out Andrew’s other work. He produces Yakademics, a hilarious video series about the field of communication, and created a film called Out of Egypt, a documentary about Coptic American culture. You can also find him on Twitter (@ishak).

Valentine’s Day can be stressful and oh so expensive. There’s a lot of pressure to have the perfect romantic day; jewelry stores start running Valentine’s Day commercials right after Christmas, restaurant reservations are booked a month in advance, and roses get more and more expensive every day. But, you don’t have to spend a ton of money to have a memorable Valentine’s Day. Here are five ways you can save money this February 14th.

1. Cook dinner at home.

Eating Valentine’s Day dinner at a fancy restaurant can be very expensive, not to mention crowded. Instead, cook something at home. You can experiment with a new recipe or cook an old favorite. Add some candles and presto, a romantic, candlelit dinner! As a bonus, if you have special occasion china, this is a great opportunity to use it.

2. Skip the roses.

Around Valentine’s Day, the price of roses skyrockets, especially red ones. If you want to give flowers to your valentine, try another variety. There are so many beautiful kinds of flowers; roses are definitely not the only option. In fact, you could buy a potted plant and it will last even longer.

3. Buy handmade.

Why spend hundreds of dollars on overpriced chain store jewelry when you can buy a handcrafted, one-of-kind piece of jewelry for much less? Sites like Etsy offer so many beautiful choices and almost all of them are considerably less expensive than what you’ll find at the mall. Plus, you’ll be supporting an independent artisan.

4. Start a new tradition.

Instead of celebrating your love the same way everyone else does – flowers, candy, fancy dinner out – try something new. Think of something silly, fun or just different that you can do together, and make a commitment to do it every year. A friend of mine and her husband go to Waffle House on Valentine’s Day. They’ve been doing that for ten years, and it’s sweet and cheap! Check out the fun and inexpensive things you can do in your town. For example, there are a ton of free things to do if you live in the Bay Area and here are a few cheap dates ideas if you live in Austin.

5. Make your own cards and gifts.

One of the best ways to show your love and appreciation for your partner is by making a gift. Some of my favorite gifts have been made by the gift-giver. For example, think about making a photo album or scrapbook, a framed photo or artwork, a thoughtful note, and so on. Anything that reflects how you feel about your valentine or an important part of your relationship will work. Be creative!

Also, be sure to check out all the Valentine’s Day deals we’re finding on CheapTweet. From the biggest name brands to the smallest local and independent sellers, we’ve got the best sales, discounts and coupons for all your Valentine’s Day needs.

Welcome to the first CheapTweet Happy Hour! Every Friday afternoon, Hayes and I will sit down to talk about – on camera – our favorite deals of the week. We’ll post the happy hour videos here on our blog, as well as on our YouTube page. We’ll also post links to the deals we discuss below the video.

So, make yourself a drink and sit down with us for a few minutes as we talk about the week’s best and most interesting deals. It’s Friday, after all. You deserve some time to rest with your feet up. Cheers!

Here are the deals we mentioned in the video. See you next week!

• Hotel deals
  • Ramada, 50% off, deal expires 1/26 for stays through 4/30
  • Marriott, 20-40% off, deal expires 1/24 for stays through 3/21
  • Disney, 40% off hotels and 5-day park passes for the price of a 3-day pass
• NASA space shuttle, more than 30% off
• Amazon’s Daily MP3 deal
• Gym and fitness deals for your New Year’s resolutions
• Big Lots, 20% off printable coupon, good 1/23-1/31

Last year, I wrote a post of Twitter tips for retailers, outlining some of the best tweet practices I’d seen retailers and other merchants engaging in on Twitter. Since then, Twitter has evolved and I’ve had a chance to refine these tips. It seems like it’s time for an updated post. So, here it is – my thoughts on ways retailers and other brands/businesses can write effective tweets that encourage followers to click through and retweet.

Of course the following tips are meant to be taken as general guidelines, based on what I’ve seen to be effective in many cases. These are certainly not hard and fast rules and will not apply to every Twitter account or every situation.

Many of the guidelines I listed in the last post still apply. In particular, I included the following tips in the previous post, and I think they all continue to hold true.

Call your followers to action. Encourage your followers to do something. Be descriptive and active in your tweet language.

Tweet diversely. Yes, you want to post links to your store, your blog, or your website, but include tweets about other stuff, as well. Post links to other interesting articles or sites, post some tweets without links, reply to others – just mix it up. Most people don’t want to follow a boring or spammy feed.

Use keywords. Make sure your tweets include keywords that will help you be found in search. Not only do people use Twitter search to find other Twitterers, but tweets are also indexed by other sites (like CheapTweet, which is indexed by Google), so keyword-rich tweets will help people find your profile, both on Twitter and off.

Be succinct and retweetable. Just because you have 140 characters doesn’t mean you should use all of them. Try to keep your tweets to around 120 characters so your followers have room to easily retweet you.

Include unique links. Don’t just tweet the same link over and over. Use a URL shortening service like bit.ly to shorten unique links for each new tweet. This is especially important if you’re tweeting about different products or pages.

Now I’d like to add to that list. Here are a few more tips for making the most of your tweets.

• Include one short link at the end of your tweet. In general, only include one link per tweet. It’s such a short space; more than one link (or more than one hashtag) clutters your message. Also, to keep the tweet text clean, put the link at the end of your tweet, not in the middle.
• Respect social site boundaries. Avoid contaminating your Twitter stream with Facebook, FriendFeed, MySpace, etc.. links.  If you have content you want to share with your Twitter audience, share it on Twitter; don’t force them to go through your Facebook page to find it. The more steps it takes to get to the product you’re selling, the less likely people are to click all the way through. If your customers want to interact with you on Facebook, they’re probably already connected with you there.
• Tweet often. As Twitter grows, your followers are likely to be following more people, which means their streams fill up quickly. It’s easy to miss one tweet when you have hundreds of others to catch up on. So if you’re running a big sale or have important company news, tweet about it a few different times. And keep your stream updated – if your last tweet was several days or weeks ago, you won’t get as many new followers.
• Vary your tweets. Don’t post the same tweet more than once. Yes, it’s good to remind your followers about a sale or repost important news (see previous bullet), but it’s not good to tweet the exact same content again. Reword before reposting. If you include a new shortened link with the new copy, you can even measure which tweet gets more clicks and learn a little something about what your followers find interesting.

These are just a few of the practices I’ve seen that can help improve your tweet clickthrough rates. If you have other tips for writing effective tweets, I’d love to hear them!

This week, Heather – mom and our Happy Hatchling guest blogger– shares some of her favorite pregnancy items.

1) Bella Band by Ingrid & Isabel

This product is a stretchy band that serves to keep your pants on during pregnancy. It sounds funny, but I found it really helpful when I didn’t want to wear maternity clothes, but my everyday jeans were just a little too tight (especially during the first trimester and postpartum). The Bella Band allows you to unbutton your jeans while hiding your buttons and keeping your pants secure. If it shows underneath your clothing, it just looks like a camisole. In the last trimester, the Bella Band kept my pregnant belly tight and secure so it was more comfortable to walk around and to sleep.

2) The Versatile Dress from Pouch

I must confess, I love this dress. I found it during my pregnancy, but I am guilty of wearing it even when I am not prego. I have it in black, and it is really the perfect black dress. It has ties that you twist or knot into different dress styles. It can be worn like a halter, strapless, or one-shouldered dress, even as a skirt. Every pregnant girl needs one.

3) What to Expect Pregnancy Tracker iPhone App

From the author of the bestselling book, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, comes an iPhone application.  Yay, because I love pregnancy and kiddo applications.  This app is a fun and easy way to keep up with your baby’s development. This way you’ll always know what size fruit your little one is this week.

4) Leachco Grow to Sleep Self-Adjusting Body Pillow

Most pregnant women will agree that sleeping while pregnant is difficult and uncomfortable. A body pillow can make a big difference in your sleep. I like this body pillow because the end pieces can be taken apart, which is great if you want to remove the head portion and use your own pillow. I don’t like body pillows that are so big that they take up the entire bed. This one is less bulky in the middle so you can still share the bed. I am wary of recommending body pillows since there are so many different types out there and everyone has her own idea of comfort. So before making a purchase, go to a store (Babies R Us, Target, or maternity shops) and test them out.

What are some of your favorite pregnancy items? We’d love to hear what you think! Leave a comment with your thoughts.