With just a few weeks until the turkey hits the table, more ads are leaking out for Black Friday, including rumored deals from Old Navy and Lowes. In addition to Black Friday-only deals, Old Navy is celebrating with "Gobble Palooza" with deals starting on Thanksgiving Day at noon and continuing on Friday, when they open at 3:00 a.m.!

This morning I braved the frosty morning to join 5-10 other shoppers in line at Verizon for the new Google-powered Motorola Droid. Sure, the Droid didn't come with nearly as much fanfare as Verizon would have hoped, and no professional line-sitters showed up like they did for the iPhone, but the release of the Droid will have a big affect on the cell phone business.

One long standing retail tradition is to offer gift card bonuses leading up to the holidays to give gift givers a little extra incentive to give a gift card. This year the trend continues, and we are seeing bigger bonus offers coming in from retailers beyond the restaurant industry.

Retailers offer these deals to spur the sales of gift cards for others, but many bargain lovers like myself pick up these deals just to save money on our own purchases.

DealNews has a roundup of several great gift card bonus offers that could be great for gifting or saving money on your own purchases, including;

• 20% off gift card purchases at Eastbay with coupon code.
• Free $5 gift card with $25 gift card purchase at Boston Market.
• 10% bonus on Marriott gift cards.
• $20 gift card on $100 gift card purchase at Outback and other OSI restaurants
• And many more deals including Ruth Chris, L.L. Bean and others.

If there's an online industry that likes to add to your purchase price with fees more than Ticketmaster, it has to be online flower-sale companies. It's nothing for a $30 birthday celebration bouquet to turn into a $50 purchase by the time you hit the pay now button. Once you add in delivery fees, which can change on a daily basis, and other miscellaneous extras, you can easily spend another $20. But now a new company, Flora Flora, is shaking up the world of online flower sales with a pricing model that has no additional fees.

The company, which is part of the ShoeBuy business, launches today with "what you see is what you get" pricing on all of their flowers. The business model of avoiding extra fees and showing the true cost from the beginning may seem obvious to me and you, but in the flower market it's a rather "fresh" one.

Last year marked the start of a Hallmark holiday of sorts that quickly gained popularity with last-minute holiday shoppers; Free Shipping Day. On Free Shipping Day last year, more than 100,000 shoppers picked up Christmas gifts with free, guaranteed-in-time-for-Christmas shipping at more than 250 retailers including big names like Kohl's, JCPenney, Victoria's Secret and many more.

Thanks to its first year success, Free Shipping Day is back for a second year and as founder Luke Knowles told WalletPop in a phone interview, "Free Shipping Day wants to join the ranks of Black Friday and Cyber Monday as an annual tradition."

Another day, another Black Friday ad leaked and viewable online for your Black Friday planning pleasure.

This time Kmart's 40 page Black Friday ad has leaked, revealing exactly which toys, electronics and other goods will be getting special Black Friday pricing.

Invoking their famous Blue Light Specials, Kmart is celebrating the day of shopping with "Blue Friday" deals from 6-11 a.m.

Leaving your wireless carrier can be an expensive undertaking, and starting Nov. 15 it's about to get more expensive for users of smartphones like the Motorola Droid, Blackberry Storm 2 and other "advanced devices" on the Verizon Wireless network.

While employees have been ordered not to talk to customers about the change, starting on Nov. 15, the Early Termination Fee (ETF) for these devices will increase from $175 to $350. According to a leaked document the higher ETF, "fairly reflects the higher costs associated with offering feature rich advanced devices to customers at attractive prices."

In June 2001 Apple introduced the world to iTunes, a music marketplace that largely changed the way we buy music. And now, almost a decade later rumor has it that Apple wants to revolutionize the way we get our television delivered by offering all you can watch TV for $30.

Before Apple can offer consumers the opportunity to ditch their cable subscriptions for an all-you-can-watch plan it has to convince the television networks that it's a good idea, just like it did with the music labels.

Given the numerous side projects of networks, like CBS' TV.com, and the attempts by cable companies to restrict online streaming to customers, Apple faces a big hurdle before it can offer a $30 unlimited TV package.

Today at WalletPop we have a special treat. We packed our backpack, grabbed an oxygen tank and took off to the top of Deal Mountain in search of Coupon Sherpa, a master of deals who answers questions about deals at the Ask Coupon Sherpa Blog, to find out how he does it and share with you his 6 tips to gear up for Black Friday and holiday shopping.

WalletPop: So, Coupon Sherpa, we know you're all about reliable coupons. What can you tell me about getting ready for Black Friday and holiday shopping?

Coupon Sherpa: Thanks for making the trek up to my summit on Deal Mountain. My first tip for shoppers is to save wear and tear on your feet and wallet by checking your junk mail for Black Friday sales, many of which include useful coupons. If you don't have a subscription, Thanksgiving is an excellent day to pick up your regional papers as Black Friday advertising consistently makes this the fattest newspaper of the year.

One thing you should never do is run a Windows computer without some form of virus protection. In the past, in order to get any decent virus protection, you had to spend big bucks on security suites like Norton and McAfee; but now AVG Free protects you against the viruses and spyware for free.

AVG has been in the virus protection business since 1991 and the free version of its AVG Anti-Virus program have been widely used by myself and many other users for many years as a free alternative to high priced year-by-year antivirus subscriptions.

Another added bonus of the free AVG Antivirus software is that the program uses relatively few systems resources so it won't slow down your computer.

The free version of AVG Antivirus works on the newly released Windows 7 and offers the following protection.

• Anti-Virus - Makes sure you can't get or spread a virus, worm, or Trojan horse.
• Anti-Spyware - Prevents unauthorized information access by spyware and adware.
• LinkScanner - Ensures every web page you visit is safe – even before you go there.

In addition to the free version of AVG Antivirus, the company offers two paid versions of the AVG Antivirus software with additional protection against downloaded files and identity theft.