GreenFitnFrugal Gift Giving Guide 2009

It’s that time of year again. No, not tax time. Not Arbor Day either. OK, I’m doing a poor job of masking the obvious. Of course it’s getting closer to that time of year when you spend way too much time trying to find a parking space at the mall than planning those sentimental words you will write in a card for your dry cleaner. (I know you just sign your name.)

For all of you readers who appreciate a green, fit, and/or frugal lifestyle, I thought this would be a great time to kick off the holiday season with some gifts relevant to each of those lifestyles, if not a combination of them all.

In addition, if there’s more to your gift-giving plans than just these categories, I have partnered with several other travel-related blogs that are providing gift suggestions for other niches in our lives, so hopefully you will check them out too. After all, who knows where you’ll find that perfect gift that will keep the back-packing hippie cousin in your personal fan club for the next twelve months?

Gift Categories and Partner Blogs:

Holiday Gifts for the Adventure Traveler
Holiday Gifts for the Guy Traveler
Holiday Gifts for Women Travelers
Holiday Gifts for the Sports Traveler
Holiday Gifts for the Budget Traveler
Holiday Gifts for the Travel Writer

And here are my recommended goods:
Go Green with Gifts for the Eco-Conscious Companion:

• CamelBak BPA-Free Water bottle ($8-24) – Not just for gym enthusiasts, these bottles will keep you hydrated wherever you go, and you won’t have to worry about Bisphenol-A contamination.
• Eco Coffee Cup ($10.99) – That friend who can’t live without their Starbucks? Help them out with this reusable and microwave-safe coffee cup that looks just like their landfill-destined current option.
• Energizer Rechargeable 15 Minute Battery Charger ($28.98) – This set of chargers works at home, in your car, and at the office to charge AA and AAA batteries within 15 minutes.
• Suncast Recycle Bin Kit ($49.96) – It’s a lot easier to get on the recycling train with these bins helping you sort your recycling materials. Who do you know who could use a little assistance in this area?
• Kindle Wireless Reading Device ($259) – Besides being handy, portable, and instantly able to access over 360,000 books, an electronic reader like this Kindle is the more environmentally-friendly option over paper after only seven books!

Fit & Healthy Help for the Fitness Fanatic:

• Women’s Health Magazine, 1 year subscription ($14) – With new studies and reports being published daily, a healthy magazine is a necessity for keeping the exerciser in your life on top of the latest and greatest in workouts, products, and news.
• Quick Dry Towels ($16) – Great for the gym, for travel, or in your bathroom, these towels are great for soaking moisture from your skin to keep your complexion healthy and help you continue with your workout.
• Nintendo Wii Fit with Wii Balance Board ($94.95) – Complimenting your Wii game system, this board helps you perfect your poses all in the privacy of your own home, tracking your progress and monitoring your personal improvements.
• FitFlop Women’s Inuk Boot ($189-199) – This line of calorie-burning shoes continues to expand past flip-flops, and these boots are both stylish and useful.

Frugal Finds, Deals and other Stocking Stuffers for the Cost-Conscious Friend:

• Purse Size Deluxe Coupon Holder ($6) – For those of us who cut coupons (and we all should!), this coupon holder makes saving money more stylish, aside from keeping you organized.
• Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom ($6.99) – Stephanie Nelson runs an interactive website on grocery shopping secrets, and this book will share those and other useful tips for helping you stretch your household dollar.
• Eagle Creek Nylon All Terrain Money Belt ($14.95) – Your uncle has spent so much time making sure he gets the best deals. Help him secure those dollars when he’s on the move with the secret compartment in this everyday belt.
• Target Gift Card ($50) – Can’t decide what to get the penny-pincher? A cash gift is sure to be allocated to bills, but gift cards? More likely to be spent on something fun – especially at Target!
• Quicken Deluxe 2010 ($80) – Know someone who has trouble staying within their budget? This software makes it easy for anyone to know their net worth at a moment’s notice.

Not finding the perfect gift yet? Check out my full list of ideas and recommendations here. Happy shopping!

Coupon Queen

When I was twelve, I was struggling for cash. I had reached that age where the generic version of anything was no longer good enough; I wanted the Gap jeans – not the JCPenney ones. I wanted Keds – not the imitation white shoes without the famous blue label in the back. My mom brilliantly required me to pay the difference between what she would pay and what I wanted, but this very quickly became a challenge for my amateur income status. My $10-a-week allowance was not cutting it. I also happened to live so far out of town in rural Connecticut that the proverbial lemonade stand was not an option. I babysat as much as I could, but I was still looking for any available method to obtain that financial success I had discovered I needed.

An avid coupon cutter, I had always seen my mom clip the discounts relating to items on her grocery list. I’m not sure how I noticed my discovery – but I must have been in one of my “I’m bored” states of mind that mom reminds me I was famous for at that age. Have you ever looked closely at these coupons? Where the fine print is? I am not referring to checking expiration dates. On every one of those coupons it will say “Cash value 1/20 of one cent” or something similar. I bet you probably never noticed that. The day I happened to notice, I thought I had found my answer to my money issues. Free money? Sure, it would take a lot of coupons to amount to any real worth, but I could do it! I had the ambition! It was not until my mom found me cutting my own coupons into an already full shoebox of the same that she broke the news to me that I couldn’t actually cash those in at a bank.

Since then my relationship with coupons has cycled. I’m not sure if that was the moment prompting me to no longer think so highly of these slips of paper, but it was several years before I revisited the art of coupon-cutting. In college I went through a phase where I was definitely tight on money, but I was absolutely too proud to admit that I needed to save anywhere I could (and I should have been). Why was I embarrassed to hand over coupons to the cashier? Obviously thousands of people use these things or they wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Well, with the economy currently in the toilet and my income essentially non-existent, coupon cutting is a bright spot in my financial quandary that gives me hope that I can make ends meet every month. I have saved more than 30% off of several grocery bills thanks to these pieces of paper, justifying the 2 minutes it takes to collect them from the Sunday paper each week.

If you aren’t a coupon cutter, but you are reading this blog, you are missing out! Grab some scissors and get started – what have you got to lose other than excessive spending?