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Gift guides: Are they ever really useful?
December's a tough month to be a magazine reader, for one reason that can be summed up in two words: Gift guides.
Nearly every magazine has a block of pages devoted to "helping" its readers find presents for everyone on their list. This premise alone is a little oddball: presumably, you're subscribing to, say, Outside or Entertainment Weekly or Sunset because you like outdoorsy activities or pop culture or entertaining. Unless everyone on your gift list likes the same things you do, how will a gift guide targeted toward you as a reader help you when shopping for someone else?
Then there are two other big problems inherent in gift guides: the vague categorization of gift recipients ("The girl on the go!" "The man's man!") and the price points for the merchandise. In the case of the former: Are you really sorting through the people in your life by their retailer-defined traits? Or are you thinking, "Okay, Mom, Aunt Gail, my brother, his partner Todd, my college roommate who just had a baby ...?"
(Although I will cop to being entertained by how American shoppers are sifted by market researchers and/or market editors. If you'd like to see this in action, go to "You Are Where You Live," punch in your zip code and see whether any of the consumer profiles fits you. Are you Bohemian Mix? Money and Brains? Urban Achievers?)
In the case of the second point: there's no denying that the merchandise in many media gift guides would make lovely gifts for someone. But the price points are usually such where you'd either have to have a gift budget stretching into four figures or a very small list. If I'm dropping three figures on someone's gift, chances are I already have a very specific thing in mind.
To be fair: Some gift guides do an excellent job of rounding up merchandise at all price points and they can provide quick, easy an budget-minded inspiration. For example, New York magazine's "Gifts for Everyone You Know" feature had the usual eye-rolling categories ("For your mistress," "For your mumblecore boyfriend") but in those categories were several affordable items that would actually be pleasurable or useful after the holidays. And continuing in the to-be-fair vein: Sometimes, you just hit a wall and need a little outside inspiration, and gift guides can provide that.
Let's throw this open to debate. Are magazine and website gift guides a harmless-yet-useless part of the holidays, like Old Spice gift packs and plastic tubes of red and green M&Ms;? Or do they genuinely add something useful to the goings-on? You tell me at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| December 16 2010 at 09:50 AM
When financial fitness motivates physical fitness
I just signed up as a beta tester on Health Month, a new, web-based game that lets you set specific, healthy-living "rules" and awards you points for following them all month.
When you write your "rules," you're asked to assess how entrenched you are in a current bad habit and how difficult it may be to adopt a new behavior. Your rule is then assigned a points value, and you are placed in a pool with other players. By the end of the month, your points total will reflect how consistently you maintained your effort, and you'll see how you fared against the rest of your player pool.
What I found very intriguing about Health Month: If you want to play for the month of October, you can set three rules for yourself and the game is free. But if you want to set four or more rules, that'll cost you $5 per month, or you can sign up for $50 per year.
This idea is brilliant: People already pay for online healthy-living communities and programs (Weight Watchers, South Beach) and they pay for games. Health Month combines both. For folks who love playing games, trying to optimize the maximum number of points they can earn will also help them optimize their healthy habits.
Aside from the money-making potential, Health Month recognizes what researchers have been finding all along: When people have financial incentives to adopt healthy behaviors, they'll do so. And while $5 -- or $50 -- may seem cheap relative to your average gym membership, it's still money out of pocket. Wanting to feel like you haven't "wasted" that money could provide an extra incentive on top of the points system.
My Health Month game starts in October. I'll report back and let you know how it goes.
| September 14 2010 at 03:58 PM
Oh, baby: Where to buy used
Springboarding off yesterday's post, if you're in the market for baby or child gear and you don't want to buy new, you've got plenty of options beyond yard sales and Craigslist.
First up, however, bookmark these sites for future reference: BabyCenter's product recall finder; Parents.com's toy & product recall finder; the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission; and finally, Consumer Reports' text notifcation service for child product recalls.
Now, on to the hunting. There are a lot of children's consignment stores in the Bay Area that buy or sell children's clothing and toys. In the East Bay alone, there's Fashion After Passion (1205 Lincoln Ave, Alameda), Lauren's Closet (1420 Park St, Alameda), Crackerjacks (4009 Piedmont Ave, Oakland); Solano Kids (1820 Solano Ave, Berkeley); Little Raspberries (10400 San Pablo, El Cerrito); Child's Play (5858 College Ave, Oakland).
In San Francisco, you can hit Chloe's Closet (451 Cortland Ave) or Peekabootique (1306 Castro St). You should also bookmark the website for the annual San Francisco Parents of Multiples Consignment Sale; it was in May this year.
If you're at that stage in parenthood where the very idea of loading up the minivan, getting all the kids strapped in and taking the whole brood bargain-hunting makes you want to cry, you can stick with online sites that traffic in used baby and child gear. Here's a very partial list of what's out there:
- Babyloot -- a classifieds site
- Gently-used.com -- it's an online marketplace for buying and selling kiddie gear
- Swapbabygoods.com -- Which asks rhetorically, "Why buy when you can swap?"
- Swapmamas -- Another gathering place for the baby gear-swapping set; one imagines swapdaddies are welcome too.
- Hand-me-downs -- A local classifieds site for children's clothing and gear. Try not to be put off by the assumption that only mothers will be the ones buying stuff for the kids.
- Mykidscloset -- Bills itself as an online consignment shop
- ToySwap -- You can list toys for sale, purchase toys or swap tehm on this site
- Toys to Trade -- Another online swap site for toys
- My Used Diapers -- Buy and sell reusable cloth diapers
- Finally, this is not a used baby or child gear site, but Baby Cheapskate might be worth putting in the RSS reader to see what fresh online bargains there are to be had.
Happy hunting for your kiddies bargains!
| August 10 2010 at 03:24 PM
We love bargains more than privacy
There is an excellent article in Business Insider, "Here's Why You're Going To Give In And Start Using Foursquare And Groupon Whether You Like It Or Not," which explains why we consumers so blithely give personal information to any retailer who wants it:
Check-in apps are rapidly becoming more focused on deals -- coupons and discounts that are only available to people using these services. Loopt CEO Sam Altman describes his new app as "a virtual loyalty card" for participating businesses.
Loyalty cards -- the ones you whip out at Safeway or CVS -- have effectively set up two sets of prices: One for the regular consumers, one lower set for the consumers who willingly let the companies track your buying patterns via the card. And now, the tradeoff between personal information and pennies on the dollar will move into other areas, like where you happen to be every day.
At what point do you decide your privacy is more valuable than the demographic or purchasing information you give up for discounts? Tell us at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| June 17 2010 at 01:39 PM
When Mom & Dad are the landlords
Bundle.com recently had a post outlining some interesting new household statistics:
Today a whopping one in eight people ages 22 to 29 has moved home because of the recession. Indeed, 70% of those who live with their parents are under 30.
A product of the recession? In part, yes: more than 20% of 20somethings were unemployed last year. But another reason folks may be reluctant to leave the nest: "They're spending just as their independent-living peers would, without the squeeze of the monthly bills."
Surely this can't fly in all households that have a recent grad back in their old bedroom. Yesterday, Apartment Therapy ran a post asking "Moving Back Home: Who Pays Household Expenses?" Their suggestion: "Within the first week of moving back, initiate the conversation regarding household expenses. It is important to know what the monthly expenses are and how much each person is going to contribute."
The suggestions in the comments on how to keep the peace -- personal and financial -- are also worth reviewing.
Did your kids move back home after they got out of school? Or did you move back in with your folks after college? How did your family handle sharing household expenses? Share your experiences -- and Do's and Don'ts -- with dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| June 15 2010 at 10:05 AM
Excellent read: "How to Hype-Proof Your Tween"
We had my nephews over recently and when the TV flickered on for a moment, the kids were able to recite, word for word, the exact script of an infomercial. I was both frightened and impressed by how quickly a commercial message can sink in for small children.
A recent Good Housekeeping article, "How to Hype-Proof Your Tween," reports that children ages 8-12 are spending about $50 billion on their own every year, and their parents and loved ones drop another $170 billion on them. And while the Children's Television Act of 1990 limits commercial time to no more than 12 minutes per hour during kids' programs on weekdays, there are not a lot of constraints on print commercials, websites and mobile applications.
The article outlines some strategies for inoculating your kids -- and yourself -- against the overt or subliminal pressure to spend. Among the strategies: teach your kids to be critical thinkers, point out product placement, and set prearranged limits on spending so your kids have some say in shopping trips, along with the understanding of the opportunity costs that their decisions incur.
You can also sit down with your kids and go through the site Don't Buy It, courtesy of PBS Kids. But the article's got one last tip for parents -- put the kids on a media diet. It's hard to succumb to the lures of a TV ad when you don't watch TV.
The media diet works for adults too. The fewer opportunities you have to absorb consumer culture via TV and glossies, the fewer times you'll be tempted to just pick up some new trinket.
| June 09 2010 at 02:21 PM
Think you know your credit cards? Take this quiz
Philly.comfeatured a post, "10 Questions to Test Your Credit IQ." The ten questions pack in a few interesting factoids -- the average American carries $5,500 in credit card debt, for example -- and they'll confirm how much you know about the way banks calculate your card's interest rate, or what rights you do and don't have as a credit card customer.
| May 07 2010 at 12:44 PM
Another link between TV-watching and purchasing -- or not
Jason Kottke had a really amusing post today on the pretend problems that infomercial products pretend to solve. I can't be the only one who's ever seen a commercial for the Slap-Chop and been like, "Wouldn't it be easier just to cut your onion with a knife?"
Have you ever bought anything after watching an infomercial for it? Admit it at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.
| April 22 2010 at 02:49 PM
An unwelcome way for your ATM to cost you money
Run a search in Google news on "ATM skimmer," and you'll see dozens of articles on how thieves have hacked into ATMs, collected bank users' account information as they used their cards at the adulterated machines, then stolen thousands of dollars.
Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security has a great two-part series on how difficult it is to spot a possible skim situation and how some ATM skimmers have looked in past cases.
And Wisebread has ten tips on how to avoid being skimmed. Among them: Look for mirrors or leaflet holders set up near the ATM, as they could be hiding cameras meant to log your keystrokes; beware of portable ATMs in non-bank locations or ATMs in out-of-the-way places, and try to stick to ATMs inside bank lobbies if possible; be dubious if someone offers to help you use the ATM. Go read the post for more. And exercise caution when using unfamiliar-to-you ATMs.
What if you're the victim of ATM skimming? First: Notify your bank the minute you see any suspicious charges. Second: Cancel your debit card. Third: While you have your customer service rep on the phone, ask where and when you can sign an affadavit stating that you didn't make those charges, and get an estimate for how long it will take for the bank to refund you any money stolen through fraudulent charges. You should also get someone to confirm that the bank will be canceling any overdraft fees your account racked up if the thief overdrew on your account; get the time frame on that.
I'd also suggest filing a police report. It'll come in handy if the skimming escalates to identity theft. Then, consider putting security freeze on your credit profiles at Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. The security freeze will prevent anyone who is not you from making any credit queries in your name. This way, anyone who's got your bank account information can't open up new lines of credit.
Good luck, and safe cash withdrawals.
| April 08 2010 at 01:50 PM
Buy some candy, go to the movies for free
We've covered the topic of bringing your own concessions to the movie theatre -- now, you can use those concessions to pay for the tickets. Buy four (4) 10-oz. bags of Hershey candy, mail in the proofs of purchase and get a Fandango promotional code for a movie ticket with a value of up to $12.
I checked the terms and conditions, and there appears to be no limit to the number of tickets redeemed per household.
This promotion would be especially effective for those of you who had bought bulk bags of Hershey miniatures for filling up Easter baskets. So long as you kept the bags, you can cut out the UPC codes. Or keep an eye peeled for a 2-for-1 deal in the coming weeks -- you can always buy a few bags of candy (for less than the cost of the ticket, of course) and stockpile the chocolate for later. Maybe to bring to the movies?
| April 06 2010 at 01:20 PM
Dollars and Sense is about finding new ways to inject dollars, cents and sensibility into your everyday spending.
By Lisa Schmeiser, Read Bio
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