Bloomingdales posts

Get 20% off almost all regular- and sale-priced items at Bloomingdale's in the fashion, kids, and home departments. Get 10% off small electronics and men's electronics.

The sale starts today online and in stores Wednesday, Nov. 11. Online use coupon code HOLIDAY. To get the in-store coupon click here then email yourself the coupon via the "share with a friend" link.

Cosmetics and some brands are excluded, so check the fine print before you set your heart on a pair of Uggs or something.

At 43, Marisa Acocella Marchetto finally had life in its place: she was getting married for the first time and her cartoons were in demand by The New Yorker. Suddenly all of her success took a back seat to breast cancer, which she had to fight without health insurance.

Marchetto captured this life-changing battle in her cartoon memoir, Cancer Vixen: A True Story. Her Cancer Vixen foundation pays for women, without insurance, to get mammograms at St. Vincent's Comprehensive Cancer Center.

On Monday evening on New York's Fifth Avenue Marchetto joined actor Dylan McDermott, Estee Lauder spokesmodel Elizabeth Hurley, and Evelyn Lauder of The Estee Lauder Companies and founder/chairman of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, to raise awareness and funds to fight a cancer that strikes one in eight women.

Ouch.

That's what retailers across the country were thinking Thursday after the sector collectively fell on its face -- everyone from Wal-Mart to Neiman Marcus fell below their May sales estimates.

But today's the day I feel sorry for the retail world, because today's the day the pain really sets in. Thursday, no doubt, retail execs and their deputies spent most of the day in closed-door meetings, discussing what went wrong in a big-picture sense and doing damage control with their investors and the media. Today, though, is the day everybody else -- sales teams, fashion buyers, marketing coordinators -- gets theirs.

Will our new-found miserly ways keep economic recovery out of our reach? What does the situation in Japan tell us?

Over the last few weeks, the news has been filled with stories about consumers clamping down on discretionary spending. Increasingly, analysts are drawing connections between the changes in American spending habits and the change in Japanese culture during the famous "lost decade" of the 1990's and 2000's, a period of economic malaise that brought reduced wages, a depressed stock market, and a wave of miserly behavior that continues to undermine Japan's economy.

While Japan was once among the world's top consumers of luxury items, the lost decade wreaked havoc on its spending habits. Whiskey consumption, for example, is currently one fifth of what it was during its peak, and a recent survey demonstrated that the desire to own a car has halved in the last nine years.

Part of the reason for this lies in the fact that Japanese businesses, which once offered cradle-to-grave security, now rely on temp workers. In fact, 48% of workers under 25 are temps, a trend that has resulted in less security, lower wages, and fewer luxury purchases. However, even among older workers, the trend has long veered toward saving money; in many ways, Japan's citizenry continue to display the kind of shell-shocked thrift that most Americans associate with the Great Depression.

The holiday season is already upon us, a reminder that those of us who need to purchase gifts should get our butts in gear unless navigating a packed mall is our idea of a good time.

While Black Friday is a the most publicized shopping day of the year and still one of the best times to pick up deals on electronics, friends-and-family events remain one of my favorite times to buy gifts. Traditionally shoppers would have to spend precious time making new friends and rekindling old relationships to get invitations to special friends-and-family events, but the Internet has changed all of that.

The users over at Slickdeals.net have taken it upon themselves to pull together the most detailed list of friends-and-family deals to help you to get the most bang for your buck!

Here are a few of the "Friends and Family" offers currently available.

• Beauty.com
• Bloomingdale's
• Sears
• Eddie Bauer
• Banana Republic, Gap, Old Navy
• Christmas Tree Shops
• Cole Haan
• Cost Plus
• Crazy 8
• Gymboree
• Harry and David
• Joann
• Kmart
• Kohls
• Lane Bryant
• Mandalay Bay
• Sephora.com
• The Limited

There are already over 20 stores offering discounts to friends and family members, with discounts ranging from 10 to 50% off! The full details for these deals, as well as coupons, are available at Slickdeals.net.

Many of these friends-and-family offers can be used online as well as in your local store. Be sure to check the restrictions and times as most of these deals are only good for a few days in November. Additionally some stores, like Sears, have a special after-hour's event just for friends and family. Finally, don't worry about making up an employee name to whom you are third cousin twice removed; once you have the coupon, the stores couldn't care less how you got it.

Say the words "FREE MAKEUP" near almost any woman, and she is likely to look like a drug addict looking for a crack pipe. Free? Where? How do I get some? Now? Where? Where? WHEEEEEEERE??????

Yes, ladies, there will be free makeup given away in department stores in January. A class action suit filed in California federal courts in 2003 accused department stores and cosmetics companies of colluding to fix prices. In short, the suit said that these companies made plans to sell products only at suggested retail prices, and not offer any discounts. Special promotions were also allegedly coordinated so that the stores wouldn't be competing with one another.

The settlement of the lawsuit requires $175 million of free cosmetics to be given away at stores like Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Filene's, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Shoppers don't even have to prove that they bought certain brands of makeup during the period in question. All they have to do is show up at the right counters at the right stores.

Shoppers will be eligible for brands like Chanel, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, M.A.C., Clinique, and Prescriptives. More information on the settlement can be found at a website devoted to it. You can register to be notified exactly when the giveaway will happen. You'll be eligible for $25 of products, but they'll be given away on a first-come first-served basis, so watch out for the stampede. The big winners in this case? The attorneys who are receiving $24 million in fees.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

From Pantene's website:

SK-II Facial Treatment Essence has been at the heart of Cate Blanchett's skincare ritual for the past 7 years. The secret of her skin's luminosity is Facial Treatment Essence-which contains over 90% pure Pitera. It helps rebalance the natural renewal cycle in the skin's surface and is the key to restoring a crystal clear complexion. Discover the miracle of Pitera yourself by scheduling a complimentary facial at your nearest Saks or Bloomingdales SK-II counter.

Click here to see if there's a participating store in your area.