Every Friday is Mega Swagbucks day where you get a chance to win additional Swagbucks for your regular searches.  My first search this morning returned me with 40 Swagbucks!  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Swagbucks, it is a search engine that randomly awards you Swagbucks for your daily web searches.  Once you accumulated enough Swagbucks you can redeem for different gifts.  My personal favorite is $5 gift card which requires 450 Swagbucks to redeem.

On a typical month I usually get to redeem $10 worth of Amazon gift cards.  This extra little money is extremely helpful especially during holiday seasons!

Groupon is offering TWO mega National Deals today 11/18.

$25 for $50 worth of clothing and accessories from American Apparel – redeemable online only.  In addition, if you subscribe to American Apparel you will receive 15% off your first order.

$25 for $50 worth of Nordstrom Rack happiness, valid on in-store purchases only.

For those of you who is not familiar with Groupon it is a daily deal site where a deal is posted.  The daily deal is not active until a predetermined number of people purchases the specific daily deal.

Viewpoints, a product review site that I like, is currently offering $10 Amazon gift card for 10 reviews regarding the best and worst gifts you’ve received.  For me, the best gift I have received was a wooden puzzle set when I was about 10 years old.  I was elated for months and I played with it for hours at a time.  The worst gifts I received in my life is two bottles of shampoo.  While practical it definitely wasn’t the most exciting gift to receive.

Here is the official wording from their website:

We’re inviting you to share reviews of the best and worst gifts you’ve received, and in exchange, we will send YOU a gift – a $10 Amazon.com gift card. Now, be certain to tell us about real products – not those homemade ones. We are trying to help people shop smart.

Gift cards will be sent out within 30 days of the program conclusion. This program ends November 30, 2010.

Tippr, one of the social purchase sites is currently offering a $20 for two months at GameFly.com valued at $43.  GameFly.com is the game equivalent of Netflix where for a monthly fee you can rent your game for as long as you like.  This is especially a good deal for students whose winter break is coming up soon!

It looks like we are gearing up for a tough retail environment this season as Walmart announced today that they are offering free shipping with no minimum on Walmart’s website with no minimum purchase for 60,000 items.  This will pressure all the other retailers to offer free shipping this holiday season in order to compete with Walmart.

So if you are starting your holiday shopping early, be sure to check out Walmart’s website as they have started the price cut early even before the arrival of Black Friday!

When I worked in Washington D.C. a couple years ago I really enjoyed visiting all the different memorials especially the WWII fountain.  It gives off a sense of calmness at night and makes me feel at ease.  Here is a shout out to those brave men and women who served their country and bring peace to regular folks like me a  Happy Veteran’s Day!  If you are ever in Washington D.C. area be sure you check out the different memorials.

Just a quick reminder Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 2AM.  As the saying goes, “Spring forward, fall back” Be sure to move your clock back one hour and enjoy your 25 hour day!

I spend a lot of time in my car as my work commute is two hours on a good traffic day and three hours for a bad traffic day. In an attempt to put this time to better usage, I usually load some audio book or podcast on my ipod so I can listen to them while I am driving. My favorite podcast right now is DH Unplugged as I enjoy listening to a combination technology and financial news.

I do get tired of listening to podcast, which is more news orientated, from time to time.  It seems like the older I get the less time I have to actually sit down and read a book.  I am a subscriber to audible.com  (owned by Amazon) and it enables me to listen to full length books instead of podcast.  Audible is currently offering two free free audio book downloads.  So if you are traveling for the upcoming holiday season, you might want to get your free copy to cope with holiday traffic!