Holt Renfrew Shopping Bags

Shopping The Holt Renfrew Winter Sale

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In hot pursuit of luxury labels at Holt Renfrew’s Winter Sale.

Holt Renfrew Shopping BagsBest For Less | As annual sales go, the January clearance at Holt Renfrew is one of Vancouver’s big ones and absolutely worth checking out if you are looking for luxury brands at up to 70 percent off regular retail price.

Yesterday we cruised Holt’s racks with an insider who helped us home in on some incredible deals, listed below. And while our guide happened to be a personal friend, you could have your own guide too, if you want. Holt Renfrew offers complimentary personalized shopping assistance to customers. On-staff personal shoppers work by appointment, which can be made over the phone or by dropping by the store. Their intimate knowledge of the merchandise and where to find everything quickly has got to be nothing short of awesome for time- and/or budget-crunched shoppers.

What We Found At Holt Renfrew’s Winter Sale Read more

Is Nespresso The Espresso To Die For?

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Once you’ve had Nespresso, there’s no drinking regular joe.

BEST FOR LESS  | A couple of years ago when the world fell apart and everyone began scrambling for ways to economize, personal finance journalists everywhere put No More $4 Lattes at the top of their Things to Axe list.

I don’t drink lattes, but I do love espresso and could drink professionally made Americanos all day long if it weren’t a stupid waste of money. Still, I didn’t need pundits to tell me to revert to home brew because I’d already found a less expensive, dead simple way to get a high-octane espresso fix. Read more

Cheap Sheet - A. Nelson

Get All Of YVR’s Daily Deals In One Place

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Too many online deals flooding your inbox can be more annoying than helpful. Here’s a way to manage them.

Cheap Sheet - A. NelsonSAVE TIME + MONEY | Do you suffer from inundation saturation? Have you signed up for and subjected yourself to a tsunami of daily deals, subdeals and dedicated emails that now rip through your inbox like winter waves along the beaches near Tofino? On the surface, social shopping websites are a great idea. After all, what can be wrong with receiving a daily email inviting you to save 50 to 90 percent on amazing local merchandise or services? The problem is that social shopping behemoth Groupon, the granddaddy of social shopping sites, has spawned legions of worthy contenders, all of them now delivering awesome deals every day. Just keeping up with the Lower Mainland’s dozen or more daily deal offerings can feel like part-time job. Read more

Listel Christmas Lobby

Cheap, Chic & Boutique Hotels In Vancouver

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Where to get an awesome room in a great hotel in Vancouver right now.

Listel Christmas LobbyTRAVEL ADVISORY | If you read Frugalbits routinely, you already know that when we travel we prefer hotels with big personalities, either in appearance or the overall experience. Of course we wish no less for our friends when they come to visit us in Vancouver. If you are expecting Christmas guests this week like we are, and you’re already tapped out room-wise chez vous, consider putting up your visitors in one of the following three stylish boutique hotels that are offering super deals for great quality.

Cheap & Chic In Vancouver Right Now Read more
SeaFolly Swimsuit

It’s Time To Swim Down To Bikini Avenue

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Laurel Zapke stalks a wild bikini along West 4th Avenue, Vancouver’s one-stop-shopping swimsuit street.

SeaFolly SwimsuitSAVE TIME | I’m just in from Cancun. I went there on “spring break” in December like so many of us timesharing fools do before our week expires. Get ready for your own upcoming tropical adventure with our one-stop-shopping swimwear primer: Kitsilano’s West 4th Avenue is swimsuit alley, featuring swimwear shops from Burrard to Blenheim. Read more

Santa Picture

Shooting Santa: A Print Photo Has its Place

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In this age of age of digital photos displayed in electronic flip frames, a print photograph taken as part of a tradition definitely has its place.

Santa PictureHOLIDAY SHOTS| My longtime friend Elyse is an incurable romantic who still lives in the big, old house she grew up in surrounded by furnishings that belonged to her mother (who had exquisite taste), and interesting, idiosyncratic things she and her husband, Ben, have acquired over the years.

While both Elyse and Ben have careers that distract them, they are determined to stay focused on family at Christmas, making time for (at least a few) rituals that result in strong memories that contribute to their family’s story. For as long as I have known them, one of the things they do every year is take silly Santa pictures, and I love visiting their house over the holidays to see them set out in individual frames, their three kids, who are now young adults, looking progressively more sheepish as the years go by posing on some random department-store Santa’s knee—and then finally reaching an age where you can see in their pictures that they have embraced the tradition and find the experience kitschy good fun. Read more

Truffle Puree Appetizer - C. Phaisalakani

Easy Appie #4: Gruyère With Truffle Purée

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Like nothing you’ve tasted before, this decadent truffle infused hors d’oeuvre is made under 10 minutes.

Truffle Puree Appetizer - C. PhaisalakaniENTERTAIN SMART | When she isn’t busy shooting portraits or working as Frugalbits’s photo editor and chief photographer, Casey Phaisalakani loves to eat and then blog about it on fingerlickineats.com. Phaisalakani grew up in Hong Kong, a city rich in culinary diversions, in a family jazzed about eating good food. Her mother, a keen amateur cook who enjoys entertaining, first whipped up this appetizer—a dead easy three-ingredient affair made of truffle purée and gruyère on toasty bread—as an amuse bouche to enjoy before a soup course at a formal diner she was hosting. It proved so popular her family now serves it as an hors d’oeuvre at cocktail parties or for tea time. Read more

Chef John Bishop’s Top Shops & Nosheries

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Celebrated Chef John Bishop shares his favourite shops and nosheries (and what to order) on Vancouver’s Westside.

Regional, seasonal cuisine made with fresh, organic, local ingredients is common- place at many restaurants in Vancouver today, but this notion was revolutionary in Vancouver in 1985 when John Bishop opened the casually elegant restaurant that bears his name on 4th Avenue.

Consistently listed among restaurant guidebooks as one of the city’s top fine dining eateries, award-winning Bishop’s seasonal menus continue to reflect Chef Bishop’s original commitment to sustainable ingredients and the growers who produce them, a dedication also affirmed in his now-classic 2002 documentary, Deconstructing Supper, that investigates food safety in the age of GMOs (genetically modified foods) and industrial agriculture.

This past year, John Bishop received the first-ever Governor Generals’ award for culinary arts, plus a coveted Edna. The Edna, a Canadian Culinary Book Award, is a lifetime achievement prize given to someone who has contributed significantly to the promotion of regional cuisine In Canada.

John Bishop’s 5 free, cheap or worth it things to see, do or buy in Vancouver Read more
Tracy Anderson

Try This Rebounder Workout At Home

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Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson will put a bounce in your workout with a rebound routine that’s free on YouTube.

Tracy Anderson

 

FIT FOR FREE | Don’t hate her because she has an unattainably perfect body and fabulous celebrity best friends like Gwyneth Paltrow. For the past 11 years, Tracy Anderson has worked damn hard for her money, developing workout studios both in New York and L.A. and creating a series of eight killer DVDs based on the Tracy Anderson Method. And while her lifestyle advice and exercise routines continue to have their detractors—who feel her views on dieting are too extreme and her routines for dance-based workouts too quick and complicated to follow—her program has been proven to work if you can hunker down and stick with it. Read more

Kraft Paper Christmas Wrap

Make Your Own Kraft Paper Gift Wrap

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Simple white kraft paper offers infinite wrapping possibilities. Here are three to get you started.

Kraft Paper Christmas WrapWhite kraft paper, the kind that comes in big rolls from art supply stores, is the perfect blank canvas to use for wrapping  gifts. I like it plain, dressed up with beautiful ribbon topped off with greenery such as sprigs of holly or bits of twig. I also like it decorated in the ways I’ve shown here. Read more