Holiday Roundup

There's nothing like shopping from the comfort of your own keyboard, especially when it's so easy to find promotions and bargains. Before I pressed the "buy" button at any retail site, I opened a separate browser window and searched for the retailer's name plus the keyword "coupon." Up popped places like Dealcatcher, which collect and post promotional codes from hundreds of sites.

Best Buy did a good job of handling gift returns/exchanges: an employee standing just inside the front door put a hot-pink sticker on any item being brought in for return; shoppers were told to pick out a replacement and then go to the customer service desk to complete the transaction. I had no problem exchanging the Stargate set I had received as a gift (which, horror of horrors, came with DVDs from both seasons 1 and 9!) and I was also able to buy additional items right at the customer service counter (instead of being directed to a separate checkout).

Good digital photo prints at good prices--fast! Thanks to an article in PC Magazine, I found Sony's ImageStation site and ordered 150 prints of holiday photos. Prints were sale-priced at a mere 10 cents each and shipping was cheap too. Best of all: the prints arrived in under 3 days, packaged very safely and professionally.

Happy new year!