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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

Promo Code Button

Hello Promo: How To Work The Promo Code

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Two of the sweetest words on the Internet are Promo and Code. Here’s how to make this web-shopping tool work for you.

Promo Code ButtonSHOP SMART | If Santa didn’t have elves working furiously in his workshop, he’d be wise to buy all his gifts online.  No crowded malls, no parking traffic, no stress – in fact, if I didn’t know any better, he probably does this already.  And you probably do too. But did you know that besides saving time, you can also save money? All you need is a neat little thing called a promo code.

Chances are you’ve seen it before: that small box at the bottom of the checkout page where you can “enter promo code here”.  I burned through a lot of plastic before it occurred to me to figure out how to get one.  After all, you can find anything online, why not a promo code. Read more

Live, Potted Christmas Tree - Clinton Hussey

Super Sources For Eco- Friendly Christmas Trees

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A symbol of life after winter, the greenest tree is real, fresh, local and even organic.

Live, Potted Christmas Tree - Clinton HusseyLast year in an effort to simplify my life, I looked into buying an artificial Christmas tree, preferably one that came predecorated and opened and shut like an umbrella: I could pop it up before Christmas, then collapse and store it till next year. Then I discovered that the whole point of a Christmas tree is to bring evergreen trees or branches indoors as reminder that winter will eventually end and the world will turn green again.

Real Christmas trees are green in more than colour as they are a renewable crop and often grown on land unsuitable for growing much else. And like any crop, there are different shades of green.

3 Ways To Get A Real Green Christmas Tree Read more

Party Planning Made Easy: Try A Work-Back Schedule

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So much to do. So little time. Treat Christmas like a business and use a work-back schedule—you could find the season more enjoyable.

SAVE ON STRESS | Time to Hall out ye-old workback schedule If you’re like me, one month from now, December 12 to be exact, you will start to panic and pour on the holiday steam. You’ll shop madly, bake badly, decorate like a maniac and begin, finally, to think about the design for your custom Christmas card, kicking yourself as you do every year for not having jumped on it earlier. So much to be done in so little time and all of it accomplished in the evenings.

Christmas will never be as carefree for adults as it is for kids—we have too much work to do behind the scenes—but this year I’m going corporate and using a simplified version of a “work-back schedule” to get everything done in an unhurried, orderly and more enjoyable manner. Read more

Leather Boots - C. Phaisalakani

How To Save Your Damaged Soles

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Here’s a great place in Vancouver to resurrect your downtrodden footwear.

Leanter BootsDARE TO REPAIR | Wellies are the footwear of choice in Vancouver, but I also like luscious leather boots—fashion forward over a pair of skinny jeans or under a sexy skirt. I thought I was safe taking mine on a trip to NYC, but after a sudden downpour found myself wading through giant lakes that formed at the clogged storm drains at every intersection.

Undone and unglued, my beautiful leather boots were unwearable. A curmudgeonly cobbler on the West Side (who shall remain nameless) chided me for splashing around in puddles in my “cheap boots” and advised me to throw them in the bin. Undeterred, I hobbled over to Both Feet on Main Street. The hip young man there took them in hand, and, $15 and one week later, they were good as new. Read more

Safety Razor - George Giannakos

Just Say No To The Multi-Blade Shave

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Talk about spending dumb—gentlemen, stop the insanity by saying no to the multiple-blade shave.

Safety Razor - George GiannakosSPEND SMART | George Giannakos is 24 years old and has been shaving with a safety razor for almost five years. He learned how to shave using a multiple-blade system, but when his dad brought home a steel safety razor with a single, double-edge blade, the very one pictured here, and began using it routinely, it wasn’t long before George and two of his three brothers slipped into the groove. Now, five years on, two of the initial three and their father continue to shave with safety razors and see no advantage in returning to a multi-blade world gone mad. Read more

Red Roses - iStock

Where To Buy Red Roses Right Now

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When it’s buying long stem roses for your sweetheart for Valentine’s Day, it’s more like how deep are your pockets.

Red Roses - iStock

 

SHOPPING AROUND | A rose is a rose is a rose except the week before Valentine’s Day when it turns into 18 karat gold. At least that’s what it feels like as we watch long stem red ones everywhere jump in price. It’s not uncommon to find red roses that were $50 a dozen last week costing $75 this week. So are there bargains out there? We found a few. Read more