American Express 10 Flip Mino Cameras Giveaway Plus $100 Bonus
Sun
How do you like the idea of having a Flip Mino video camera as a holiday gift?
If you like it, then here’s your chance to win one of 10 Flip Mino cameras in this Savvy Holiday Money Tip contest and giveaway, sponsored by American Express.
Yesterday, I wrote about the new ZYNC card from American Express. As I mentioned in the post, ZYNX is neither a traditional credit card, which allows you carry a balance from month to month (if that’s what you choose to do), nor a debit card, which draws money directly from your bank account. It’s a Charge Card.
An AMEX Charge Card is for those who want more control of their own finance, yet still want to enjoy the flexibility and benefits of a traditional credit card. By doing your spending on an American Express Charge Card, which comes with the Membership Rewards program, you earn points that you can turn around and use to check everyone off your gift list. Some of this season’s hottest items, such as an HP mini, cool video games or a Flip video camera (like the one being given away here) are available through the program. And the best part is with a Charge Card you’re not getting yourself into debt because as a Charge Cardholder, you are required to pay off your balance in full every month. This means you will not incur any interest charges while building your credit history by using AMEX Charge Card for your every day purchase. Using Charge Card makes more sense in this tough economic environment.
To celebrate the coming holiday, AMEX generously provided 10 Flip Mino video cameras to readers of this blog and let me to host this holiday contest and giveaway. The topic of the contest is:
What is the savviest way you have made your money work harder for you this holiday season?
And to make the giveaway a little sweeter, I decided to make it a two-part contest. In the first part, you can participate and get a chance to win by leaving a comment with your savviest holiday money tip*. The first contest will run from now to December 24th, when 10 lucky winners will be selected to receive a Flip Mino camera each**. In the second part, one person who gives the best, or savviest, money tip from the 10 winner in the first contest will get another $100 bonus, a small token of appreciation from me for all the support I received from my readers in 2009.
Unlike previous contests and giveaways I hosted here, the 10 winners in the first contest will NOT be selected randomly. Therefore, the quality and creativity of your tip matter a lot. The winner of the $100 bonus will then be chosen by online vote among 10 winners from the first round. The video cameras will be shipped directly from American Express. The cash bonus will be in the form of a Amazon.com Gift Card.
Interested?
Share your holiday money savings tip with us and get a chance to win a Flip Mino video camera 
BTW, this isn’t the only Flip video camera giveaway going on right. In fact, there are plenty of them. If you are really, really lucky, you could win more than one 
*No purchase necessary to enter the contest and you don’t need to have an AMEX card to win.
**One entry per household please. Duplicated/multiple entries will be voided.
photo credit: jontintinjordan
Like most people, this year has been a rough one financially for me, so I have been finding all sorts of ways to save a little money with my holiday shopping.
Most stores have some sort of clearance section or bargain bin(it seems like more than usual). For example, for those harder to shop for, I went to Kmart where they have a large bin of DVDs from $3-$10. These were not just old movies or “bad” ones, there were quite a few recent and popular movies. I was able to get 14 DVDs for around $60, so keep an eye out for the bargain bins and don’t discount them by assuming there is only junk.
Another way I have found to save some money is by searching for coupon codes when shopping online. Most online stores, both the popular and the not-so-popular ones, have coupon codes out there to save 10%, maybe 20%, sometimes even higher, off your total purchase from their store and you can find these through a simple internet search. Let’s use Barnes and Noble as an example. If you are making a purchase at Barnes and Noble and want to try to save a bit of money, go to google and type in “Barnes and Noble coupon code.” There are a number of websites that give you these codes and keep up to date with what is current and what is expired. When you get the code you would like to use, just enter it in the checkout of the store (in this example Barnes and Noble) where it asks for the coupon code. Some will save you more than others, but it is a great way to find some good deals.
When attending holiday parties, most of us like to bring something for the host or hostess but there is no reason to spend a fortune. Rather than buying a $40 or $50 bottle of wine, why not find one for under $10? It is a common misconception that the more you spend on wine the better the quality. On my way to a dinner I was attending last week, I picked up a bottle of red wine for around $8. Everyone enjoyed it and I did not hear any complaints about the quality, on the contrary there were a couple of people who asked the name of the wine because they really enjoyed it and would like to pick some up themselves. They couldn’t believe when I told them how affordable it was.
The same is true for platters of food or desserts. Instead of spending upwards of $30 or $40 on a platter of cookies, you can just make them yourself. You can even just get some cake mix and icing for just a few dollars and make a cake to bring with you while saving yourself a lot of money.
Finally, another way I am trying to save money this year is on wrapping paper and holiday cards. I decided against sending holidays cards out this year. Most people throw them away at the end of the season anyway so why not just make a phone call or send an e-mail to say Happy Holidays and save yourself the price of a card and a stamp. I’m sure people would appreciate a call more than a card anyway and will understand if you say you will not be sending out cards this year.
In my opinion, the most important way to save yourself money this holiday season is to pay attention. Many of us think a dollar here and five dollars there don’t really make much of a difference but remember this adds up. If you are shopping for 20 people and save $5 on each of them, that’s $100 you’ve saved on the gifts alone!
With regard to wrapping paper, I purchased a few large rolls of generic wrapping paper that were on sale. It is just gold wrapping paper with no holiday designs on it. This way I can wrap everyone’s presents with the same paper whether they celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, or something else. Not only this, but since there are no holiday decorations on the wrapping paper, it can then be used for other holidays as well such as birthdays, Valentine’s Day, etc.
I’ve been really aggressive about watching sales and price matching. I’ve also written a budget and am sticking to it. I turned in airline miles for a gift card, too. I will not be flying in the foreseeable future and the miles would just expire at some point.
I have made my money work harder for me this holiday season by using peer-to-peer (P2P) lending sites to squeeze out a few more percentage points on a small portion of my portfolio. I have lent money to others on both Lending Club and Prosper.
The savviest way I have made my money work for me this year was to receive 2% cash back rebate with my American Express card. I use my AmEx card to buy gas, groceries, shopping, and so many other items and at the end of the year, the cash that I receive back is enough to cover for the holiday presents!
Take advantage of CC with cashback (or better yet promotion offers e.g. Discover’s double cashback for online purchases).
We saved up by putting a certain percentage plus any extra into savings – rainy day fund. The rainy day came…and we are glad we have the fund to get us through it.
We also cut out holiday gifts to a much lower budget. We skipped any unnessary purchases.
Went with VOIP phone service instead of our old land line.
Got prepaid cell phones since we don’t use that many minutes. We are saving at least $500 a year compared to contract phones on this.
Signed up for ING Electric orange to take advantage of the Black Friday bonus! Can’t beat free cash. We always pay off credit cards in full, if we can’t afford it, we don’t buy it until we can. The credit card’s rewards points turn into extra cash for expenses.
Using coupons, both online codes and paper based has saved us hundreds over the year.
Hopefully win this Flip camera with these tips! I can definitely use a gift for myself this year
I have been working on being a better parent – and learning to say “NO” to my grown children when they ask for financial help. I know that bailing them out hurts them, and takes away learning opportunities. They need to go without to learn to truly control their finances. It is very difficult to say no – buy I think this is the best way I can actually help them gain the financial freedom they deserve. This gives me the opportunity to better control my own finances too!
For big ticket items, we’ve been using the internet to determine exactly what we want. Then, we use the internet and a bit of time to comparison shop and get the stores competing on price.
We have saved over $200 plus our time-which is worth a lot- by using our iPhones to pice compare while we were shopping. I found many items that were significantly cheaper on Amazon.
For instance we wanted a particular videogame for our son. A local Target had it for $25. I looked on my iPhone while in the store and saw Amazon had the same game for $19.99.
Later while in a different store we found it for $14.99 and knew that was the lowest price, so we scooped it up.
We are also using a list (and checking it twice) to make sure we stay on budget and have something for everyone.
I paid myself the difference between the sale price and regular price of Christmas gifts, and put in the interest bearing account.
Almost everything is on sale this season. For example, when I “saved” $20 on a purchase, I paid myself $20 and deposited into my IRA. That money will earn interest and I am sure I’ll appreciate having it later in life, whereas Christmas gifts provide short term appreciation.
I also used my CC for all purchases because it earns cash-back, which is like having an additional discount. I paid the card off every week which makes it feel like using a debit card.
There’s no better feeling than cleaning out your purse or your pockets and finding $20 that you completely forgot about. You can get that feeling every month by opening a second savings account at a bank that you don’t normally frequent.
Just open up a savings account in person or online (I’m a big fan of ING’s online banking options, which include high-yield savings accounts), make your initial deposit, and forget about it. Better still, arrange to make a small direct deposit from every paycheck into this new savings account. Because the savings account is at a separate bank, there will be a delay of at least two days to transfer funds to your “home bank”. This makes it less tempting to dip into your savings for impulse purchases.
If you are easily tempted (like me), try opening the savings account at a bank that is not in your hometown, and has no ATMS in your area.
Oh wow, I’d love a chance to win!
The savviest way I made my money work harder this season was by earmarking a certain amount of money exactly LAST season!
On Dec 21st, I decided to invest $2000 in the SPYDERS etf (SPY). I figured if I could invest some money then, and keep it in the market for 1 full year, any profits I make would be taxed at only 15% (long term capital gains tax)! Otherwise, I’d have to pay 28% in federal income tax on short term capital gains.
And so I bought 24 shares of SPY at around $84, and watched the stock dive to $70 in March to my dismay. I stayed strong though, and patiently waited for SPY to finish this year around $112! With the $550 in after tax proceeds, I’ve bought 12 gifts for family and friends.
Now, if I only had more money to invest last December!
Thanks,
Reb
I learned who to use my money by using coupons, buying in store deals, not eating out as much, entering giveaways, and looking for new ways to earn income with my blog.
I found coupons online before I head to stores like Target. The other day, I bought 3 pack of 12 can Pepsi (36 cans!) for $3 after using $4 worth of manufacture and Target coupons.
I am a pastry chef so my family and friends really appreciate baked gifts. This year everybody is getting something edible. I maximized my holiday spending budget by buying ingredients and creating fantastic desserts. I splurged on decadent ribbons and glassine packaging to complete the look of my gifts.
My Xmas strategy goes as follows:
1) Make a list in Excel of what I want to get everyone and list the MSRP price next to it. (A month or so ahead of time)
2) Set up price alerts with Price Grabber to alert me when anything drops below 50% off. You’d be amazed how often this happens.
3) Frequent Slickdeals.net to see if anything I want to get has a crazy sale going on. The forums are full of deals where people will stack coupons and special promotions to get the product very cheap and even free sometimes!
4) Sign up for an Amazon Prime trial. This entitles me to FREE 2 day shipping on all Amazon purchases. A lot of deals I find are through Amazon, so no shipping is a great deal.
5) If I have family / friends I won’t be seeing until after Xmas anyways, I don’t stress. Hopefully some after holiday sales will pop up
Last year I beat my Xmas budget by about 70% (I budget @ MSRP of all the gifts I want). I’ll usually donate half my savings, still falling well within my budget.
I opened bank accounts using promotional offers to get free bonuses.
My strategy for shopping this year was simple. Shop locally. I work in microfinance so I love to support local business. How does this translate as a money tip?
Strong local businesses create vibrant communities that are great places to live– this generates a fulfillment that cannot always be translated in dollars but is often shown as a smile.
I was able to give some phenomenal gifts this season by starting early and keeping my eyes peeled for internet freebies and discounts. Just because a gift didn’t cost the giver much, doesn’t mean the value is less. On the contrary, I am often able to find something much more personal and meaningful by starting early and finding discounts which give me more product for the cost. There were several photo websites which give away some incredible offers. These gifts took some time to prepare but they were free or no cost and every single person I gave one of these gifts to said it was an exceptional gift.
I did lots of things.
* I cashed in all credit card points for whatever money I could.
* I opened a PenFed account to get their Visa card, now I get 5% discount on all my gas purchases.
* I opened a Schwab account to get their Visa card, I get 2% cash for all my non-gas purchases.
* I’m selling lots of used and some new items on both Craigslist and Amazon. Amazon is very easy and well worth it.
* Every time a fellow employee was laid off, I helped them (heck, these people were my friends) and I took every thing they left behind (books, mostly, things they didn’t seem to want) and sold them on Amazon. I called up my friend and treated them to lunch, then gave them the money from the sale.
* When anyone moved from my apt complex, I offered to take some of their stuff if they needed to get rid of it, I sold it on Craigslist (yes, I told them I would sell it).
* I purchased several geek gadgets on Newegg.com, highly discounted and on sale. Later, I re-sold them as new to a few friends, they got a good deal and I made a few bucks.
* I sold every stock in my self-directed IRA in Feb 2009, reinvested in Mar 2009 and have some great gains.
* I joined my company’s stock purchase plan and have made some great gains.
* I do an ACH transfer of $25 or $50 almost every day to my PenFed account, it’s slowly been building up. I only do this when I can really afford it.
* I joined car pool.
* I rented my couch to a friend of a friend for a couple of weeks.
* I do computer work for my barber for free (she buys all hardware though) and in return I get free haircuts.
My first stop for the holiday season is always the dollar store – wrapping paper, ribbons, boxes, Xmas decorations and even stocking stuffers are all SO cheap – and I often see the same exact products for 2, 3, 4 times the money in other stores like Hallmark! I’m a huge fan of the dollar store… you’d be surprised what you can find there!
If you’re looking for ways to save time (because time=money)and on shipping – e-cards are the way to go! They take seconds to buy, and seconds to deliver! I’m trying to give more socially-conscious gifts lately, so a few of my favorite places to buy gift cards are globalgiving.org (the recipient chooses from tons of causes to support), kiva.org (lend to micro-loans in third world countries), and tomsshoes.com (buy a pair of shoes, and a child in Africa gets a pair of shoes also!). It’s what the holiday season is about after all!
While the charitable organizations don’t often give discounts on gift cards, many other retailers do! I just bought a $60 gift card for Old Navy at %20 off, so I only paid $48! Combine that with future “percent-off” coupons and the savings will really add up! Sites like slickdeals.net and dealsea.com are chock-full of coupons for these types of deals!
I actually peruse slickdeals.net and dealsea.com throughout the year to catch the best deals. I’m also a fan of Groupon.com which e-mails you every morning with a 50% off coupon for a store or event in your city. My parents’ presents this year? Tickets to the city orchestra at 50% off!
Being aware of the available deals, comparing prices on different websites, and using the internet to its potential for shopping have really saved me a ton. After the dollar store, online is where i prefer to shop
My fiance and I do much of our shopping online with the help of camelcamelcamel to track prices of things we want to buy (but aren’t in a hurry to buy).
One of the other unique things which we do as a couple is we visit the library often. It seems that young people in their 20′s (our age) are all too reluctant to use the library, instead opting to buy books from bookstores and going out to the movie theater. That money quickly adds up and could be saved for other things.
I love saving money if at all possible! My family knows that and I do what I can to save anywhere. I clip lots of coupons and match their sales with the coupons. Of course checking all ads before I go anywhere FIRST.
I love using my gift cards in conjunction with sales and my coupons. If shopping online, you can get online codes for certain stores. You just do a simple search for like ‘coupon codes for Target’ or ‘free shipping codes’. You can use rebates places like Mr. Rebates for Cash back. Pretty nice ways to help save money!!
I would LOVE a FLIP Camera and would totally do FLIPS for it!!
Thanks for the opportunity to win!
I usually have to buy throwaway gifts for some lame white elephant party or Secret Santa. The $20 here and there really adds up, so this year, my friends and I did a junkiest white elephant gift ever party. We dug up stuff from our closets and drawers to give away. We still had lots of fun opening “presents” and exchanging “gifts”, and the best part is that we didn’t have to spent a single penny- some of the gifts were “wrapped” in grocery bags! Ultimately, while some gifts were pretty junky (B&W analog portable TV, a used pumpkin scented candle!), some gifts really echoed the “one’s trash is another’s treasure” sentiment.
Q: What is the savviest way you have made your money work harder for you this holiday season?
A: I went to yard sales and found gentally used or unused toys and gifts for the kids.
Katie
eklaramore@gmail.com