Bargains

A new survey of by PayPal confirms that people are spending less on each other this year than they did before the economy took a crash but that doesn't mean they have stopped giving gifts altogether.

The majority of men who took part in the survey reported that they wished they could give more to their special someone this year which may be due to the fact that nearly half of consumers will spend less than $50 this year. Thankfully, only 28% of women reported that they would like to receive more on Valentine's Day, so for the most part couples should be able to enjoy each other's company on Feb. 14.

PayPal's Can't Buy Me Love survey also showed that George Clooney and Megan Fox topped the list of celebrities you would want Cupid to hit with an arrow. It's not all love though, Kanye West better work on a Valentine's Day auto-tuned hit otherwise he might be spending the day alone as he was voted the celebrity that people would least like to see on Valentine's Day.

Another interesting bit of information from the survey revealed the differences in valentine spending between single people and those in relationships which is shown on the graph below.

General Nutrition Centers, or GNC, is hardly known as a haven for budget-minded dieters. This is, after all, the place that will sell you 24 cans of green tea for $53.69 to go along with 60 packets of low-carb fudge for $155.99.

But in my quest to gain weight and build more muscle, I've turned to GNC -- and with the easy combination of a discount card and soon-to-expire clearance items, I've found that shopping at GNC can actually be cheaper than buying junk food at Walmart.

Here's how it works: For $15 per year, you can get a GNC Gold Card, which entitles you to 20% off almost anything (including almost all sale/clearance items) for the first seven days of every month. On top of that, GNC offers deep discounts on soon-to-expire bars, shakes, and other nutritional products. If you buy stuff two months before it expires, you can save a fortune.

The Super Bowl is the only football game many people watch, and they don't gather to watch sweaty bodies collide; they are there to watch the commercials. And while the merchants pay millions of dollars for a minute of your time, it's not coming out of your pocket, right? Wrong.

If you bought one of every item advertised during this year's game that we could ascribe a dollar value to, you'd pay $163,827.25, which is $6,329.65 more than if you bought similar items from companies that don't advertise during the Super Bowl. Face it, dude; the money for the obscenely high salaries earned by the players comes right out of your pocket.

Granted, some of the difference in price between goods advertised during the Super Bowl and those that aren't could represent a difference in quality. However, I'm convinced that much of what we perceive as better quality is due to the brainwashing effect of incessant advertising.

Given that, here's how the frugal shopper can save some bucks when tempted by the Super Bowl ads to buy, buy, buy.

The products being advertised during the big game can be sorted into a few neat categories:

When a recent Nielsen report published in the Boston Globe said sales of grocery chains' own discount brands had increased 8% since 2007, I thought the number was conservative. Who is going to sweat the negligible difference in packaging and quality -- if any -- when buying ketchup when the rent is due?

So I talked to Bob Peterkins, a manager at a Foodtown in Brooklyn, N.Y. He estimated that in the last year alone, his store experienced a 20% rise in sales of products with the Foodtown label. The chain has supermarkets in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

According to a survey on Valentine's Day gift giving, overall Valentine's Day spending is up 50 cents, but the average gift people are giving to their significant other is down almost $4 from 2009. Even though this brings Valentine's Day gift spending down to the levels we saw in 2004, ladies will still make out better than their male counterparts, as men on average will spend double what their wives or girlfriends will.

Tradition says that January is the best time of year to buy linens and towels, with department stores holding "white sales." But there are more good finds right now than just cheap sheets.

Diet
If losing weight was a New Year's resolution, diet aids and programs are eager to lure you in with promotions. While there's no quick fix, there are plenty of reputable programs offering good discounts. Like 25% off Weight Watchers (for three months) or 50% off orders at GNC (expires Jan. 31).

As the federal government's Cash for Appliance Clunkers program begins, consumers may find themselves in a stew of confusion over when rebates are available, how much they'll get and from where.

The rebate clock is already ticking in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Wisconsin, and come February, residents of Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, New York and Rhode Island will be eligible for rebate deals. The rest of the states and territories will open their rebate programs in March and April, and some are even running second offer phases later in the year. See the chart below for a link to your state's program.

Wherever you live, the key to getting your biggest possible share of the rebate pot is understanding exactly what your state, local utility, retailer and new-appliance manufacturer are offering for your green-minded trouble ─ an equation you practically have to be a PhD to figure out.

Since Bing hit the search-engine scene, it has been trying to convert users from Google and Yahoo, in part by offering Bing Cashback on many purchases. Bing has garnered 10% of the search market share, but many users are still hesitant to switch from Google or Yahoo. Now, thanks to a new feature from Billeo that puts Bing Cashback offers directly in Google and Yahoo Search results, users can enjoy the savings of Bing Cashback without quitting Google cold turkey.

The few, the proud, the dealhunters.

Though our ranks have grown during the past year as frugal became not only fashionable but practical, dealhunters like myself have long enjoyed the thrill of finding an item so deeply discounted you almost felt bad buying it.

We loved finding deals so much that we constantly shared our skill with friends and family, tracking down the best prices on HDTVs and back-to-school supplies for nothing more than the reward of helping a friend and finding a good deal.

It seems like every personal finance guru on the planet is recommending clothing swaps as a fun, easy way of getting some new clothes and getting rid of some old ones. Just invite your friends over, have drinks, watch a Corey Feldman movie, and swap clothes!

Even celebrities are jumping on the clothing swap trend. US Weekly reports that "Newly-single Reese Witherspoon's idea of a fun Friday night? A clothing swap party with pals! 'There are three of us who wear pretty much the same size,' the mom of two tells InStyle UK mag. 'I wore my girlfriend's dress to a wedding recently. It's fun.' "

Tahoe. Aspen. Vail. Sounds like locales where if you have to ask how much the homes cost you shouldn't be buying there. But guess what? They're suddenly more affordable ... depending on what you call "affordable."

First, Lake Tahoe. Home to the fabled Heavenly and Squaw Valley ski resorts in California and Nevada's Sierra Nevada mountains, buyers suddenly have snapped-to after a long vacation from purchasing vacation homes. Following drops as steep as Heavenly's 3,500-foot vertical slope, sales of all units in the resort area climbed 22% in 2009 from 2008, according to data released by Chase International, a real estate agency specializing in the Tahoe-Reno market. The median price of a single-family home sank 22% in 2009 to $576,875, from $744,124 the year before.

"It's the first time in over a decade that we're seeing first-time buyers," said Sue Lowe, vice president and corporate broker for Chase International. "We're seeing lots of second-home buyers back now too. They finally can afford to buy."

You've probably heard a lot about electronic readers, one of the hottest gift ideas for this holiday season. The industry will sell approximately 3 million e-readers this year. Today, we'll take a look at this new reading option and whether it's a good alternative for the frugal reader.

No doubt inspired by the success of sites like Chegg.com and BookRenter.com, Barnes & Noble has entered the textbook rental fray.

In a press release, the company announced that "Barnes & Noble College has made the program easy for students, enabling them to rent their textbooks from the comfort of their dorm or home simply by logging into their campus bookstore's e-commerce site. They can also rent from their campus Barnes & Noble bookstore. This innovative rental program gives students the added flexibility of paying for their rentals using any form of tender, including campus debit cards and student financial aid."

One of the biggest benefits of being a student, aside from enriching your mind, is getting discounts on almost everything you buy.

Seriously, if you are a student and are paying full price on anything you buy you're paying too much. On top of the discounts that many insurers, stores and other companies provide students there are even more discounts. Edhance is a company that provides students with an additional discount on hundreds of stores, simply for being a current college student.

Pharmacies are so eager for your business, they're giving away the drugs!

A free-prescription program in Michigan expects to go nationwide by this summer, according to the Detroit News.

The concept is so simple that it falls under the "Why didn't we think of that?" category. It also helps two parties in need: consumers who cannot afford medicine and the recession-battered drug chains.