Saving On Mother's Day Flowers

Mother's Day, May 12, is just around the corner.  If you are late out of the gate with buying flowers, there are still a few things you can do:

1. Check the daily deal sites.  I just got an offer from Bloomspot for $25 for $50 of flowers at Teleflora. 

2. Check out Visa discounts.  They have listed several flower delivery companies offering 20-25% off.  Not as good as Bloomspot offer, but another option.  If you don't have a Visa, click the logo to find a good card for you.

3. To avoid some of the steep prices associated with flower delivery, consider sending them a day or so earlier.  That will definitely save a few bucks.

4. If you're lucky enough to have your mother near-by, go to a flower shop and hand deliver them.

--The Edge

Valentine's Day Guide to Romantic Savings

Valentine's Day, which is coming up on February 14, is a great time to appreciate someone special.  It's also a great time to get soaked if you don't watch it.  

First, if you are going out for dinner, I highly recommend using OpenTable for reservations.  The site is free to use, convenient, and you can earn "dining cheques" good for money-off savings on future visits to partner restaurants.  Second, see if there's a non-fixed price menu to order from.  If not, expect to get overcharged for ordering the same food you would normally.  And, restaurants love couples who are lost in the moment and not thinking about their wallets.  Third, if you are going to buy flowers online, get them early.  Last minute orders may come with an extra surcharge due to massive demand.  You don't want to disappointed your loved one.



Bottom line is that you can have a nice Valentine's Day and feel the love, and not the burn.

Maximizing gift cards

Chances are, you will be receiving a store gift card this holiday season.  It's easy to see why.  They are convenient, never go out of style, and easy to ship, or even send electronically.  But, actually using them might come with some unforeseen headaches, namely, what to do with a balance of only a few dollars left after a purchase.  I will discuss what you can do to make sure that gift card is truly a gift and not a lump of a coal.

Did you receive a gift card for something you like?  Great!  Did you receive a gift card for a restaurant that you never go to, and that was famously mocked in the movie "Office Space?"  Not so good.  Did you receive a Visa/Amex gift card?  There is another strategy you can use to get their full value as well.  Let's address each scenario below.  

First, for when you received a gift card for a place you like, do a bit of research before buying something to see how much it will cost. Certainly don't overspend, but it's much easier to just use the full value of the gift card in one shot rather than having an annoyingly small amount left.  Did you use it all?  Good.  No?  See the next scenario.

Second, if you are not able to use the full value of your gift card and don't want to fork over extra cash in order to use it, or just don't want the gift card period, you can do a couple of things.  Depending on how much is left, say, over $10, you can see how much the card is worth on a gift card re-seller aggregator site, such as Gift Card Granny.  Visit the site, pop in the name of the retailer, and hope that it is listed.  If it's an obscure store, you might be stuck with that balance.  But, if its a big name store, such as Home Depot, there's a huge market for their used gift cards. Depending on the site listed on Gift Card Granny, you will take a hair cut between 10-30% of the remaining value  From there, you can either get a PayPal credit, or be sent a check.

Third, if you received a cash/debit gift card, they can be used just like credit/debit cards, but sometimes combining them with other payment forms, when you are short the value of your purchase, can be cumbersome.  For example, if you have a $25 Visa gift card and an item costs $27, you need to make up the difference somehow, or n item costs $23, and you have a balance.  Just as with scenario 2, if you don't want to just spend to use the card, you have a great option.  Amazon's gift cards can be purchased for minimal amounts.  I recently had $0.24 left on an AMEX gift card and used it to give myself a $0.24 electronic gift card.  When I redeemed it, the value just got transferred to my Amazon account and now I can use that towards a future purchase without carrying around a cumbersome debit card.

The bottom line is to not get discouraged with gift cards if you have remaining value.  There are viable options that will serve everyone's interests.

Mother's Day Savings

According to Aboutflowers.com, Mother's Day represents approximately 25% of all flower purchases during the holidays.  It's easy to see why; the Census Bureau estimates that there are about "82.5 million mothers of all ages in the U.S.," which would make May 9th a very busy day indeed for the floral industry.

It's no secret that buying flowers, really any time of the year, can be pricey, if being purchased online.  Since not everyone gets to live with their mothers past the age of 18, a great deal of flowers are likely ordered over the phone or the web.  This service can make flowers a pretty pricey endeavor.  But, there are ways to blunt some of the cost.  As I have mentioned in a previous post during Valentine's Day, you can use web flower services like FTD.com to get an idea for an arragement and simply go into the store and have them made.  It will probably save you a few bucks on shipping at least.

If buying flowers in person is not an option, than mitigate some of that cost by employing other tricks I have mentioned.  Promotion codes abound for sites like FTD.  Also, your frequent flyer mile program of choice likely has an offer to earn miles for shopping through their website.  For example, United offers 30 miles/dollar spent at FTD.  At about $.01/mile value, a $40 arrangement netting you 1200 miles is like getting $12 off, or about a 30% savings.  An interesting side note about this particular offer is that it was emailed to me.  United's normal offer with FTD is for only 25 miles/dollar.  Another case made for signing up for promotional emails.

Remember also that the crush for delivery of flowers will cause your shipping price to go up.  So, try to ship them on a day where they won't be as busy.  Think Friday, May 7, as opposed to Saturday, May 8.