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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Ann Taylor Loft Offers Savings for Teachers

 Save the date of May 3rd, because that is National Teachers Day.  Ann Taylor Loft has a good idea to help teachers.  If you are a teacher, go register online as a LOFT Teacher to get special discounts at Ann Taylor Loft. You'll save 15% on purchases, plus get special event invites and, if you register you'll receive a $10.00 coupon on May 3rd to shop at Loft.  How cool is that?  Imagine the power of the purse when you double dip at Loft with the coupon for Mother's Day on May 8th. 

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Gap Royal Discount for the Royal Wedding

 
Pictured: Kate Middleton's casual look with pieces from the Gap
If you shop at the Gap, then this sweepstakes is for you. In honor of the royal wedding Gap is offering a six-day promotion, from April 25th - April 30th, where in-store shoppers can enter to win the Gap Royal Discount of 50% off regular priced items and 10% off sale items for one year.  Every day a winner will be selected from each Gap store – that’s over 6,000 lucky winners who will be chosen in total!

Winners will receive a Gap Royal Discount Card valid for one year which can be used for a discount of 50% off regular priced items and 10% off sale items at all Gap, babyGap, GapKids and GapBody store locations. There’s no limit to how often the card can be used during the year and no purchase necessary to enter or win.
 

Friday, April 22, 2011

Origins Earth Day Deal


Here's a great deal that just turned up on my Earth Day deal tracking system.  This Friday, on Earth Day (April 22, 2011), customers are invited to "trade in" any one of their existing skin care products, regardless of brand, for an Origins high-performance, paraben free cleanser.  This offer is good while supplies last at Origins retail stores and department store counters for FREE.  I love this deal! Take the opportunity to clear out some cosmetics or cleansers that you aren't using or that have harsh chemicals for an eco-friendly Origins product. If you bring in a product to trade-in to your local Origins store, you can choose between two full size award-winning products – Checks and Balances Frothy face wash or A Perfect World Antioxidant cleanser with White Tea - while supplies last. Note, this are not trial sizes.  Click here to fill in the form from Origins.com, then print it out and bring it to the store to get your free products.  Plus, all cosmetic packaging collected from the products you trade-in will be recycled or responsibility converted to energy through the Return to Origins Recycling Program.

The Return to Origins Recycling Program  offers consumers a place to drop off their empty cosmetic packaging – everything from bottles, tubes, jars, deodorant sticks and compacts regardless of brand - to be recycled, when possible, or responsibly converted to energy. Customers also receive free samples as a thank you from Origins for participating. Since the programs launch Origins has recycled more than 17,000 pounds of cosmetic packaging. Way to go Origins! No wonder Dr. Andrew Weil loves them!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Starbucks Free Coffee or Tea for Earth Day


Earth Day 2011 is on Friday, April 22nd.  Here's a a good deal on Earth Day if you are a coffee or tea lover. Starbucks will pour you a free cup of coffee or tea if you bring in your reusable beverage holder, instead of using a disposable paper cup.   So remember your fashionable reusable mug on Friday.  I know I'll be lining up at my local Starbucks with my fabuless Pink travel mug. According to Starbucks “Last year, when we did a similar promotion on Earth Day, more than 1.2 million of you participated in the free coffee giveaway. Let’s see if we can beat that this year! Although reusable serve ware and tumbler use still only accounts for a small percentage of total beverages served, those of you who did bring in reusable mugs still made a significant impact. In 2010, people brought their own tumblers into our stores more than 32 million times, keeping nearly 1.45 million pounds of paper out of landfills.”

Check out the Starbucks online Store Locator to find a store near you and give them a call to make sure they’re participating before your use your precious and expensive gas to drive to Starbucks for your free coffee.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The OUTNET Birthday Sale- Enter for a Ticket

Where can you go to get a designer item for $2.00US? The annual OUTNET Birthday sale, of course.  You may have to get up at the crack of dawn to compete for bargains against UK shoppers, but if you score, it will be worth it.   Here are the details! THE OUTNET is turning 2 and to celebrate the website is holding a $2 in the US/ 2 GBP sale on April 15th. There are only 2,000 tickets and with over 2,400 designer items priced at just $2 each,  so it’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss.

To win a $2 sale ticket, you'll need to ENTER THE DRAW between April 4th and April 12th. Here's what you  need to know:

    * Enter the $2 sale draw and every day 200 winners will be picked at random to win a ticket to the sale on April 15th.
    *  You only need to enter once to be included in every daily draw.
    * There are more chances to win! Tell your friends  (if you're feeling generous) to enter and you could win a ticket – the top 200 sharers will automatically receive a ticket.
    * The OUTNET is  also giving away 20 prizes of $200 store credit and all those who enter the draw will receive free shipping. Everyone's a winner!
  

See below for a sneak peek at some of the fabulous designer items that will be up for grabs in the $2 sale. Since I'm a giver :) here's my invite for a chance to shop the sale on April 15th? Click here.



Pictured: Sneak Peaks from the OUTNET B-day sale.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

What has happened to The Recessionista Blog on Blogspot? Blogger Locked It!

Some of you have been Tweeting me and leaving comments on my Facebook page to ask, where is The Recessionista Blog? Well, the thoughtful folks at Blogger have locked it up without any notice or warning. Three years of hard work and intellectual property just disappeared.  Puff!  My heart is still not beating regularly. I learned about this disaster from my readers via Twitter late Friday night, coincidentally April Fool's day.  Naturally, I thought maybe this was some cruel joke.  But it's no joke.  If you click on therecessionista.blogspot.com, you'll get a lovely message from Blogger telling you that the blog has been deleted. Nice huh?   This is a cautionary tale to be sure.

In the last three years, I've been a loyal user of Blogger and resisted going to Wordpress or Tumblr where many fashion bloggers have found good homes.   During the time I was on Blogger, The Recessionista was featured in the New York Times, The Huffington PostReuters, Life & Style Magazine, and on TV via NBC news and ABC news (both National & Local.) If I was working in PR at Blogger, I would hold that type of success up as case study  reasons that bloggers can succeed using Blogspot/Blogger.  And isn't that the dream of every blogger? To be read and find an audience. Unfortunately, the robots at Blogger who monitor the blogs don't read the press or watch the news.  In their infinite wisdom (or lack thereof), they determined that The Recessionista might be spam and decided to take it down.  Here's the note I got on my Blogger Dashboard after I tried unsuccessfully to restore the blog:

"Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog.  Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive. We received your unlock request. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam."

Nice huh? Those robots really have good manners and are very conscious of Intellectual Property rights.  Not. Despite my emails and Twitter messages to individuals at Blogger, there has been no  response.  Oh, I did get a response via a Blogger help forum, from someone called "The Katney"  that it could take up to 2 days to restore the blog, which is so very comforting, not to mention sympathetic.

So what's next for The Recessionista? I will get my content back if I have to engage legal counsel.  Then the blog will move off of BlogSpot and find another home.  If the folks at Blogger  think that a blog that has won awards and has been featured in the worldwide press is spam, then why stay with them?  Apparently, they don't want a successful, highly trafficked blog that generates revenue for Google via AdSense, or they just don't care to look beyond their robots.  This is the second time Blogger robots have locked The Recessionista--the first time was after the Blog was in the New York Times.  Nice way to help a blogger build audience right?

Maybe someone at Blogger will read this who is not a robot.  That is my hope. Put this right, and I'll go on my way to another home, and your robots can have at it. Meantime, Bloggers reading this back-up your content ASAP and think about ways to protect your work.  That's the morale of this story. The Blogger help forums are full of legitimate bloggers complaining about their blogs being locked.  Meantime, many of the "splogs" (spam blogs) that take my posts from The Recessionista and paste them on their blogs are still up and running.  Go figure.

Neiman Marcus "We Love Our Fans" Sweepstakes

Neiman Marcus is running a fan appreciation sweepstakes on their Facebook page with some pretty fabulous prizes.  The event will run through the month of April and anyone is eligible. Just go to the Neiman Marcus Facebook page,"like us", click on the "We Love Our Fans" tab and enter there. Included in the amazing prizes to be won are a Tory Burch dress, Manolo Blahnik ballet slippers, and an Alexis Bittar bracelet.

In my constant effort to win expensive items for nothing, I already entered.  I only shop at Neiman's when they have sales, so I like the idea that they are giving something back to those of us who give them our business.  A more reasonable approach to Neiman's merchandise is to shop their Last Call outlets.  Be sure to check those out for chic fashions for less.