Randoms

I spent the past three days in Nashville at the Opryland Hotel attending the Blissdom conference. I had such a fun time meeting and reconnecting with all of the bloggers I talk to regularly. Plus I got to meet several new ones too!

It was a great opportunity to network and have fun with some of my favorite people but it was also exhausting! Please bear with me today as I get caught up on my inbox and posting deals. Usually Sunday is my catchup day but I was so exhausted I didn’t even watch the Super Bowl!

If there’s a great deal that I haven’t mentioned, feel free to post it on the Facebook fan page so others can take advantage of it too. Hopefully I’ll be back up to speed by tomorrow.

I just wanted to extend a huge thank you to each of you who linked up and commented on my post about Haiti. Together we were able to give a significant amount to Compassion International and The Red Cross. I thank you from the bottom of my heart and thank you for all that you continue to do to help those less fortunate.

I urge all of you to continue to pray for the nation of Haiti. They will need them long after people have stopped donating money.

Thank you again for your overwhelming support!

This post will remain at the top of the page today. Please scroll down to see more deals.

Over the past few days my heart has broken for Haiti. I have had the opportunity over the past several years to work in orphanages, impoverished villages and aid in hurricane relief in some of the poorest countries around the world. But the images and survivor stories coming out of Haiti leave me with a heavy, heavy heart.

For those who know little about Haiti, they are the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. About 80% of the population were estimated to be living in poverty on $2 or less per day. 50% of the population are children under 20 and half of them are unvaccinated. Poverty has forced many of these children in slavery as unpaid household servants.

Even before the earthquake their situation was dire. Now, even more so. They need our help for food, water, shelter and medical supplies. There are numerous ways you can help – even if you don’t have a penny to spend. Here’s how:

Pray: Lift up the nation of Haiti in prayer. Pray for peace, comfort, hope and above all for miracles.

Give: There two organizations I personally would like to support:

• Compassion International: This is an organization dedicated to help children who are living in poverty. With the majority of Haiti’s population under 20, many of whom are now fatherless and motherless, this organization has a daunting task ahead.
• Red Cross: This is an organization known around the world as one of the first responders in crisis situations. Any amount will help bring food, water and medical supplies to those in need. Donate HERE or Text “Haiti” to 90999. This will send a $10 donation to the Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

Regardless the amount you can give, the people of Haiti will be grateful for any amount. When you live on $2 a day, any amount can mean a world of difference.

Blog: Now is the time to show the world how powerful social media can be. There are numerous bloggers around the web today concentrating their efforts to help Haiti. Many of them have creative ways they are helping. It may be a donation for every comment, a raffle for advertising space or a mass prayer vigil. But by visiting their sites and linking up, you can help the Haitian relief efforts. A huge thanks to Money Saving Mom for coordinating the efforts.

Use the linky below to link to your post about how you’re helping Haiti. Don’t have a blog? Leave a comment.

For every blog link posted today (1/15) about Haiti, I will donate $2 and for every comment saying how you have helped, I will donate $1 to be split evenly between Compassion International and the Red Cross.

Thank you for participating. I know together we can make a huge impact.

Note: If you are subscribing through a Feed Reader or Facebook, you will need to click HERE to comment or view the Linky.

UPDATE: OH NO! I set this to post on Thursday morning and somehow it missed the schedule. A very belated Holiday wishes to you.

I have had a wonderful year and feel truly blessed this holiday season. I will be taking today and tomorrow off to spend time with my family. One of the benefits to having a large extended family is that you always have people clamouring for you to visit at the holidays. So we’ll be spending the next few days visiting as many branches of the family as possible.

I’ll be back Saturday with your drugstore matchups and other hot deals during the week. I know many of you will be busy over the next few days but here are a few things that you won’t want to miss:

• Old Navy Jean Sale (12/26)
• FREE Video on Demand from Amazon (Expires 1/3)
• Restaurant.com is 80% off (Ends 12/25)
• Cheap Magazines from Amazon (Ends 12/26)
• Last Chance to print December coupons from Coupons.com and Smartsource (12/31)

Also, I have some exciting things planned for the New Year. January 1 marks the anniversary of this site and as a thank you to all my fabulous readers I will be hosting 7 days of giveaways beginning Jan 4. You’ll definitely want to tune in for that!

In the mean time, I hope you have a wonderful holiday and are able to enjoy some quality time with friends and loved ones.

Welcome to the 2009 Saving with Shellie Holiday Gift Guide. I’m sharing some great, unique gift ideas to help you make this Christmas special. You’ll see a button in the right side bar that will make it easy for you to access these items anytime.

Everything you see is under $50 and I have personally seen it and tested it out*. I broke it down into five categories for easy browsing. You’ll find my top pick in the category as well as five other gift ideas. The kids section was so big, I went ahead and gave you 10 ideas instead of just five.

I hope you find this useful and I have some giveaways planned this week featuring the items in this guide. Stay tuned for more!

Browse the categories:

Gifts for Her
Stocking Stuffers
Gifts for Kids
Teacher and Hostess Gifts
Gifts for Him
Gifts that Give Back

*Disclosure: I received a sample of each item listed in this guide so I could test the quality and craftsmanship before featuring. Inclusion in the guide was never promised in exchange for samples. The statements listed immediately following the product name are descriptions provided by the company. The opinions stated in the Why I Liked This Product section are my own and were not edited in any way by the company.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! In honor of the holiday I’ll be taking some time off. There will be a linky posted tomorrow afternoon so you can share all your Black Friday finds. I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone got! I’ll be posting the CVS and Walgreens deals on Saturday evening and then back to normal on Sunday.

Even though I’m gone, be sure to check out the Amazon deals going on all week. Plus, don’t miss any of the great deals I posted last night like Black Friday Cheap Eats and all the great deals at 6pm.com. And don’t forget to hit up CVS & Walgreens today before all the goodies are gone!

This year I have a lot to be thankful for in my life and one of those things is all of you readers. Thank you for supporting this site, sending me kind and encouraging emails and leaving helpful comments to your fellow readers. I truly appreciate each of you. I am very blessed.

I hope you have a fun day full of yummy food, good company and of course great football. I don’t really like turkey but I do love watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and the Texas vs. A&M football game. Plus my newest favorite tradition is hitting up CVS first thing in the morning!

What about you? What are some of your favorite Thanksgiving traditions?

If you live in Austin, you’ll want to set your DVR for Thursday (11/19) at 6pm. I am going to be on KXAN (NBC) talking about coupon shopping at Randalls. Though the info will be nothing new to all you frequent readers, you might still enjoy watching it!

For all of you who aren’t local, I have been told that the story will be posted on the internet. Once it becomes available, I’ll post the link.

Happy Watching!

I’m still in San Francisco today hanging out with the other frugal bloggers I got to meet yesterday at the Save Up conference. It has been such and incredible experience. I’ve learned so much that I can’t wait to come back and share with all of you!

But for all of you who have sent me emails and tweets asking about Save Up. I just wanted to give you a little taste of what it’s been like. I got to meet two wonderful ladies, Crystal at The Thrifty Mama and Rachel at Surviving the Stores. I helped them make a vlog after one of the panel discussions. If you’re interested in checking it out, go HERE.

Don’t worry! I’ll be back home and blogging like normal late tonight.

Last week I found out that I was one of 30 Deal Pros hand picked by Savings.com. They are hosting a conference for all of us today in San Francisco. I’ll get to learn about new trends in the online saving world as well as get to meet other top bloggers and savvy savers.

I am so honored to be chosen and so very excited to get to go to San Francisco and finally get to meet some of the other bloggers I communicate with fairly regularly. I can’t wait to share with all of you what I learn.

You can check out the Save Up Event website HERE and see a list of all the other attendees HERE. Or if you are on Twitter you can follow me HERE or follow along with the Save Up conversation under #su09.

So posting may not be quite as regular as normal since I’m out of town but I’ll do my best to keep you up on the deals.