Before it’s too late, take advantage of these 2010 Valentine’s Day deals that make you fall head over heels with saving money, all over again!  Categorized by Flowers, Chocolates, Gifts, Party, Dining, and Dress, there is someone for everyone, those with a Valentine and those looking to save a buck!  Includes freebies like 25 songs from iTunes and much more!

Continue to check back as I’ll add more as I come across them!

Flowers

ProFlowers is offering a dozen roses and 12 free chocolates!

Chocolates

Reese’s Pieces To receive your coupon, complete this order form and send along with one complete candy bar wrapper from: HERSHEY.®S SPECIAL DARK® Dark Chocolate Bar, ALMOND JOY® Candy Bar, YORK® Peppermint Pattie or REESE.S® Peanut Butter Cups. HURRY. your request must be one of the first 25,000 received and post-marked by 2/17/10 to qualify!

Ghirardelli is offering another sinfully delicious deal for Valentine’s Day!
Use CJ15 at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase! Also enjoy free shipping over $50!

Godiva Chocolate is offering FREE 32 pc. Milk Chocolate Gems on Shipments >$50!

My M&M’s lets you save 14% off your order with promo code: VDAY14.

using promocode VA1019751 at checkout to save 20% off your entire order! Now through 2/11!

Amazon’s sweet deals save you $10 when you spend $49 or more…expires Feb. 15th, use VALCANDY at checkout.

Gifts

Walgreens is wishing their customers Happy Valentine’s Day with Free Shipping for orders over $25, use LOVE25 through Jan. 30!!

Shutterfly is offering 40% off your entire order! Enter FORTY at checkout and get free shipping for orders over $30 with SHIP30!

Sephora is offering a something to pucker up about, normally $65…now only $25!

Bath & Body Works use promocode 20PERCENT at checkout 1/31.

JCPenney to take an Extra 15% OFF Select Fine Jewelry with 15HEARTS at checkout!

Pillsbury sign up to receive the Pillsbury® email newsletter, access exclusive member benefits on Pillsbury.com, and receive a FREE* Pillsbury® coupon booklet with $10 in valuable savings!

Half Price Books is having a Book Lovers Weekend – use the printable coupon to save 20% off your entire purchase!

Party

Party City is offering FREE Shipping with PCSB65 at checkout!

The Popcorn Factory is just another GREAT way to save “I LOVE YOU”! HRT5 at checkout saves you $5, now through Feb. 14th!

Harry & David is offering a $5 coupon! Doesn’t have to be Christmas and pears…enjoy Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day savings!

Dining

Krispy Kreme Buy a Dozen Donuts, recieve 12 FREE Valentine’s with coupons for free! Also, did you know that whenever their window light is lit they’re giving away FREE glazed donuts! @krispy_kreme

BJ’s Brewhouse s offering $5 off $20 food purchase, use printable coupon or 2010 at checkout now through 2/12!

Macaroni Grill is offering free Appetizer with purchase of two Entrees! Doesn’t expire until March 2010!

Dress

Urban Outfitters offers “20% off $50 Purchase, use THINKSPRING now through Feb. 14th! Also on their homepage, text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross Relief AND download and listen to 25 tracks, FREE! UO Music List !

In order of Halloween, Deals of the Week (DoWs) have a certain seasonal flair.  Discounts include photos, costumes, food, candy, and other fun tricks and treats.  A lot are for parties – not even Halloween related…stock up for office or classroom parties!

Amazon.com’s selling Nestle, Mars, and Wonka Candy for a great discount!

Amazon’s Halloween Headquarters lets you save $10 on Select Costume Orders over $50 from

Breyer’ Yogurt – Get a coupon good for a FREE YoCrunch Yogurt when you mail any Halloween Candy wrapper to: Shaina Zalma / YoCrunch / 9507 Santa Monica Blvd., Ste. 300 / Beverly Hills, CA 90210.

Nestle Family save $1.00 Off Any Bag of Nestle Candy + $1.00 Off Wonka Candies when you register or sign in to print your 2 coupons for these candies.

Oriental Trading is offering 20%off any order now through Oct. 29, 2009 use coupon code SW1019778.  Ground shipping sent today (Oct. 20^th will be delivered by Oct. 26!)

Party City is offering all kinds of $10 off on $30 or more, 50% off Halloween Supplies, KidsPatterned Tableware online w/ Coupon code: PCBARBIE10 and Coupon code: PCWELCOME50, respectively, exp. 12/31/09.  Don’t forget to follow @PartyCity and on Facebook.

Sears lets you take 40% off Halloween costumes w/ $5.00 OFF $25.00.  Coupon code: S5OFF25.

Spirit Halloween is offering all kinds of Halloween deals, don’t forget to follow them on Twitter @spiritonline and fan them on Facebook.  Use the following to save $5, $15, $30 on entire purchase w/ SAV5, SAV15, and SAV30 respectively.  Also take 20% off any single item, online with coupon code: SOCIETY, exp: 10/31/09, print here.

SplendidLife.com is offering a free Gift Cookie Cutter Set with Purchase AND 25% OFF with Free Shipping!!  Coupon code: AFOCT and NEWS.

The Scholastic Store is offering 10% off all online AND free shipping for purchases over $25!  Use coupon code SSHLWN by Oct. 26th!

Walgreens is offering 20% off Halloween Costumes, Accessories & Décor w/ coupon code: PUMPKIN, Exp: 10/27/09.

Walgreens Photos is also offering 25 FREE when you purchase 25 using coupon code EXTRAFREE by Oct. 24^th.  Walgreen’s mailing list frequently sends out good offers.

Yankee Candle – $10 Off a $25 Purchase (Online+ In-Store) exp. 11/14, coupon code: H4XFOP.

Haven’t caught the fall spirit yet this year?  Have to much stuff to do already?  Kids can’t stop talking about the big day?  This post includes all kinds of Halloween tailgating events to get you and your family psyched for the big day!  Fun things to do and entertain through the upcoming weeks!

This Halloween series of posts will include:

• Halloween WoW – Holiday special, this website of the week is a real treat!
• Halloween Tailgating – Tailgating events to get you psyched for game day!  Get Halloween to “go green” and find friend and family fun!
• Trick or Treating – Check out my ideas to breathe new life into an age old tradition!  Great ideas for individuals, families, neighbors, and friends.

Go Green!!  …and not from candy…

Go green, win big!! ChicoBag and Green Halloween’s® 2nd ANNUAL TRICK-OR-TREAT BAG DESIGN CONTEST – “Children ages 1-13 are encouraged to enter the contest by submitting an original drawing best depicting the spirit of a Green Halloween.”

Who: Ghosts and Goblins ages 1-13

What: An original design depicting the “spirit” of a Green Halloween

When: Images due October 24, 2009 by 5:00 PM Pacific Time. (Winner will be notified no later than 11/5/09.)

Ghouly Girls and Bootiful Boys Boys can create the 2010 Green Halloween ChicoBag™ and win a bag of green goodies!

Monster Mashup – Oriental Trading Company came up with a great website to easily make mashup video with up to 5 of your closet friends with an awesome Halloween backdrop!  I made one with my daughter of her and her friends and she almost died laughing! Easily share with your friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Check out the one I did of San Antonio Social Media super stars @ColleenPence, @Nanpalmero, @1337wine, @ashleypalmero, and @anaflores!

Bonus:  Upload your pictures or use existing pictures from Facebook!  Using FacebookConnect, you can select from your existing photo albums or use friends!  It was super simple to do!  Don’t forget you can also resize the area around the face to select – for optimal mashup potential!

Halloween Tailgating

There are a lot of fun events going on before Halloween even gets here!  Don’t wait until the end of the month; check your newspaper for local events!

1 – Bass Pro Shop! You heard me right!  I have been more and more impressed with the activities offered here!  Oct. 24/25 and Oct. 30/31, get there early and stay for different crafts and activities offered throughout the day and store!  Make a leather craft, rope a bronco, partake in kid costume parades, paint a craft pumpkin, roast marshmallows, and lots of other GREAT events!

2 – Lakeshore Learning Store! Enjoy making a different Halloween themed craft each Saturday during the month of October.  Crafts include silly scarecrows, countdown calendars, and other things to drive you batty while your child has a lot of fun!  All locations from 11am-3pm.

3 – Pumpkin Patches! This was one of my favorite October traditions!  Find a local pumpkin patch, maybe as cool as this one – South Texas Maize!  Right outside of San Antonio, TX…it even has a corn maze (one kid friendly and one more difficult!)  Help you kids select their own pumpkins, snack on fall snacks, take a hayride, and automatically have the picture backdrop for Halloween pictures.

I’ll also continue to update this post as I find more family friendly events as well!  Check back for that and my next post on alternatives to trick or treating or ways to spice it up!

Website of the Week (WoW): www.pingg.com

After exploring 5-6 different online invitation sites, my favorite is Pingg, an online invitation site with exactly the kind of functionality, versatility, and intuitiveness that I’m looking for.

To be fair, I also signed up and tried the following:

• Evite
• MyPunchBowl
• PurpleTrail
• AnyVite

…but the site that impressed me the most was Pingg.

Quick Bit: From a geeky standpoint, ping is a networking term/tool used to test if a server (“host”) is reachable. If you try to log onto a website but get a blank page, you can send out a request for a response (i.e. ping) from that website to make sure it is up (letting you see if something is wrong on your end or their end.) Since this is an online invitation with a “host” who’s sending out requests for responses, I thought this was very clever and wanted to let you know where the name probably came from.

This website boasts an incredibly CLEAN, intuitive interface. Although I’m comfortable maneuvering around websites, not everyone is. I’m not going to advertise an awesome website the average internet users can’t figure out. For me, this website is a complete one stop shop.

Send any combination of the following:

• Online invitations – charity events, showers, special events, grand openings

  -and/or-

• E-cards – Save the date cards, announcements (Birth, promotion, grand openings…)

  -and/or-

• Printed versions – wedding invitations, birthday parties, dinner parties, holiday parties

Your Pingg Dashboard keeps track of current (and past) events, sorted by date (sort also by event name.) Copy details from a past event easily, so you never have to start from scratch. Select from free or premium images to attach to invite – stunning photography, incredible choices in both sections. I’ve used this site for several parties I’ve thrown with 50+ attendees and did not lose track of one response.

Time-Saver(s):

• Entertainment Tips
  – loaded with hints for every affair, in addition to invitations, Pingg has an entire section dedicated to a diverse range of party help tips!
• List Manager
  – saves past invitees by group in address book, no need to retype the same thing twice, EVER! Drag and drop contacts from one list to another, add tags (i.e. “VIP”, “SA Friends”, etc.)

  Another feature I liked was being able to paste in a spreadsheet of my guest list instead of having to update list manually, person by person!

• Dashboard – for each event, you’ll have an event dashboard which helps you manage guest responses. See which emails failed to be delivered, keep track of who said “yes”, “no”, “maybe”, or hasn’t responded yet (and only send updates to those who haven’t/have responded). You can also see who’s “viewed” the invitation but not responded.

  Easily export your entire guest list to spreadsheet format for additional sorting functionality.

  ***Party Tip: Print out the list ahead of time and easily write down who gave what for the guest of honor if presents are involved (so right next to the gift giver, you’ll already have all the contact information!)

• Facebook/Twitter – easily post invites as Tweets in Twitter or Messages/Wall Posts in Facebook. Send reminders/links to invite website to remind guest about event.
• Money Collections – instead of collecting cash at the party or coordinating ahead of time, Pingg allows easy online donations through PayPal so guests can contribute to a group gift, party expenses, or even charitable events. You can display goal amounts for charities or keep that information private.

  ***Right now they’re also working on selling tickets through your website for events!

• Reminders – instead of having to remember to remind you guests, upon creation of the invite, schedule a couple reminders to RSVP (or come in costume, whatever!) I recently sent out an invite 3 weeks before a “Stock the Bar” engagement party, scheduled reminders for subsequent Fridays, including the day of the event.
• Thank You Cards – you just threw the event of your life, you’ve cleaned up the house, do you really want to write thank yous? Write them, personally, to each guest, thanking them for attending…and Pingg will send it out AFTER the event! No more looking for addresses, remembering who attended, Pingg will send individual responses!
• Personalized Party Website – personalize your event website that is automatically created when you create an event OR save the date e-card. Guest can RSVP, leave comments, see who else is attending. You can add pictures, Flickr albums, gift registries, other links, Google maps to the party, etc! You can even edit the website’s URL so it’s easily included in online or print invitations.

Details about all features here.

$$$-Saver(s):

• COMPLETELY FREE for online invitations, ecards, websites, guest management, and more! Only pay for printed postcards or cards/envelopes, premium images (free images are fine!), and non-ad websites (regardless, ads are unobtrusive.)
• Let Pingg Print/Mail/Stamp – Use promotional code “PRINT20″ at checkout and Pingg will take off 20% (you don’t have to but if you are printing anyways…)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pingg.wellsent

Twitter: www.twitter.com/pingg

E-mail Group:
https://www.pingg.com/login/register – Register for an account to receive promotional newsletters and to start sending invitations today! Newsletters aren’t too frequent, sent monthly, with additional emails sent around major holidays. Well worth it.