Pocket Change - Shopping Blog

Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up and–

You know what? I’m about ten words into this post and I’m already tired of the carnival jokes. So without further ado, let me say a few things before we actually get to the interesting bit. (Get it? That IS further ado! Man, I should really go back to carnie jokes.)

Ado #1: Thanks to all the folks who submitted their great posts. One of the best parts about reading blog carnivals is discovering all the great blogs that are out there–turns out it’s one of the benefits of hosting a carnival, too.

Ado #2: We’ll be doing one of these every two weeks, except we’re going to push the next one up a bit so that we can run them on Wednesdays. So if you’re reading this and thinking, “Boy, I gotta get in on this action,” send us your shopping-related post by Tuesday, October 17 at noon PST for the carnival that runs the following day. You can either submit through BlogCarnival.com or by emailing us at pocketchange at this domain.

Ado #3: There is no further ado.

First up, from Debt Free is Be Really Cheap – 5 Ways to Get Way More for Your Money, a Lot More, which has great tips to help you join the Never Pay Retail club. (Their membership cards are on slightly off-color stock, but they got a great deal…)

RadicalHop points out a fine product, and one that my roommate just narrowly avoided needing the other day as I spilled a soda all over the table (I haven’t told her, but I think she probably noticed from the fact that her stuff was all sticky and smelled like grapefruit): a liquid-proof keyboard. (By the way, as Colin on the sales team is about to discover, I’m a terrible terrible roommate, and frankly kind of a hazard to those around me.)

Jennifer at Suite 101 leads a very harsh life, if her posts on shopping in St. Thomas and bubble bars and bath melts are any indication.

Free The Drones has some good tips on how to buy a mattress. I would add, from my own personal experience: don’t call the guy who takes out a small classified ad in the back of your college newspaper advertising queen mattresses for $79. He’s a jerk.

Supermom In NY at Getting Out Of Debt writes about how to save money yet still shop at the mall. Again, from personal experience, I would say don’t bring me and leave me in the tools section at Sears. 1) Ooh, I can get an impact driver for only $40 more if I buy the set… 2) Like I need a damn impact driver. 3) I now own an impact driver.

The New England Car Guys (no, not THOSE guys) have an absolutely revolutionary idea for car-buying research: freakin’ tahk to some people ahready!

Austen at RedInked has guiltily-mixed feelings about Lucky magazine.

Plaid is back, and Omiru: Style for All gives you the tips you need to avoid looking like an extra from Britney’s “Oops!…I Did it Again” video.

Lauren at Tra La La found some good sales (scroll down slightly, her page layout is a bit skewed) on nice clothes. (Quick question: does anyone else spot something funny about that picture?)

One supposes that Mad Kane has just bought a new home. How can I tell? “5. Meet with highly touted broker. Wonder if he ever sold used cars. 6. Advise broker of preferences about neighborhood, school system, house type, cost. Watch him laugh.”

Wenchypoo (which, incidentally, was my nickname in prison) notes that Timex has created quite a nice little revenue stream for itself by making it so that customers have to return their watches to Timex to replace the batteries (for a small fee, of course.) Nice, that is, until customers get fed up with hidden costs and stop buying Timex watches altogether.

I don’t think I really have to elaborate on the title of Michelle’s post at AmericanInventorSpot.com: 10 Valuable Life Lessons…Learned From Coffins

And last but not least, Erin at A Dress A Day went all out (baby, baby, you flatter us) and wrote a post especially for us. She lobbies for outlawing the Bedazzler, laments the lack of decent handbags, calls out stupid store credit/warranty programs, and throws down the gauntlet for a Pantone-color search engine. (Which I throw right back by saying hey, if you’re reading this and saying, “Yeah, why doesn’t somebody do that–I could totally build that in an afternoon,” well, let’s see what ya got.)

In conclusion: Wow. We never expected such a high-quality, high-quantity response to our first shopping carnival. I mean, we knew you guys were out there, but who thought you’d pay any attention to little old us? So we leave you by saying “thanks” to our contributors, “enjoy” to our readers, and “we’re leaving early to get beers” to our bosses.

Aram