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20+ Christmas Gift Ideas Under $100

This article was written by Flexo in Consumer. 19 comments.

While I’ve already offered my suggestions for this year’s best holiday toys, not everyone on your Christmas or gift-giving list is a child. You may have a special adult someone on your list who would appreciate something more useful. Although it’s early in the holiday shopping season, at least for me, some of the best deals are already starting to materialize, well before Black Friday.

If you’re looking for a great Christmas gift for one of your favorite people, consider one of these Christmas gift ideas under $100. Of course, these apply as well to Hanukkah or any other gift-giving activities you might partake in before the end of the year.

Have any good suggestions? Please leave them in the comments and I’ll add the ones I like to my list.

Gift ideas under $100: Around the house

1. Dremel Multi-Max Oscillating Tool Kit (Home Depot, $99.00). “The Dremel Multi-Max 2.3 Amp MM20 Oscillating Tool Kit incorporates a powerful, efficient motor that provides cool, smooth operation under load. This versatile tool features a compact design that makes it easy to handle in tight spaces..” For anyone who likes or wants to do work around the house.

2. Black & Decker B&D Convection Toaster Oven (Sears, $95.63). This convection toaster oven also comes with a rotisserie capability. I need to replace my toaster oven, and this is a capable option.

3. Task Force 204-Piece Standard/Metric Mechanics Tool Set with Case (Lowe’s, $89.98). With 204 pieces, this tool set is complete for any would-be handyman or handywoman, yet it is still portable.

4. Pure Beech Jersey Knit Sheet Set, 100% Modal (Bed, Bath and Beyond, $29.00 – $79.00). “The softness of these extremely soft and light silk-like sheets is reminiscent of your favorite T-shirt, offering incomparable comfort.” I’ve been a fan of jersey cotton sheets for several years. I find jersey cotton to be much more comfortable than sateen or other bed sheets.

5. Framed art (Amazon, up to $99.99). Adding art to the walls adds color and excitement to any room in the house. If you don’t know an artist willing to create work for you, shop for framed art.

6. Merkur Shaving Gift Set (Amazon, $106.50). “The set includes a chrome stand that holds a Merkur Classic Safety Razor and a fabulous badger Shaving Brush with a Chrome Handle. Also included in the set is an elegant Chrome Bowl that holds a Colonel Conk Shaving Soap.” Since April, I’ve been shaving the old-fashioned way, with a badger-hair brush, shaving soap, and a safety razor. My face has never felt healthier and I get a smooth shave. Add some inexpensive Feather blades and have smooth skin all day.

7. Helen Of Troy Hotspa Professional Ultimate Foot Bath (Amazon, $95.93). “Ozone (active oxygen) helps to control, reduce and eliminate bacteria Motorized Pedicenter rotates with the press of a foot.” These devices are quite relaxing, whether you’ve been on your feet all day teaching, hiking, or giving presentations to the board of directors.

8. Sterling Silver 1/8 Carat t.w. Diamond Heart Bracelet (Kay, $99.99). “Heart-shaped sterling silver links accented with round diamonds create playful style in this bracelet for her. One-eighth carat total diamond weight. 7″ in length. With lobster clasp.” For any women who like jewelery.

Gift ideas under $100: Electronics

9. Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray Disc Player (Amazon, $98.00). “Enjoy Blu-ray Disc movies in brilliant high-definition resolution or upscale the quality of your DVDs to near HD. Instantly stream a wide variety of movies, TV shows, live sports, videos, and music from Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, Hulu Plus and many more.” If you have a high-definition television, you must adopt Blu-Ray and replace your DVD player. There is simple no comparison between (even up-converted) standard definition and high bit-rate Blu-Ray video and audio.

10. Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W530 14.1 MP Digital Still Camera (Amazon, $99.99). “Shoot more life with the Sony DSC-W530. Capture landscapes with one touch using Sweep Panorama, get that perfect portrait with Smile Shutter, snap wider scenes with the 26mm wide angle lens, get high quality photos with 14.1 megapixels, and automatically get clear shots with SteadyShot image stabilization and iAuto; all in a sleek little design.” This camera features a Carl Zeiss lens, offering a great quality picture sure to beat the camera built into your phone.

11. Roku 2 (Roku, $59.99 to $99.99). “With Roku, get instant access to tons of entertainment — with more choices added all the time.” This device allows you to watch any media content on your (most likely high-definition) television, accessing the internet wirelessly from anywhere in your house. It seamlessly links to your Netflix and Hulu content as well as many other services.

12. Garmin nüvi 1300 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Amazon, $98.94). “The thin nüvi 1300 has a widescreen display, yet it’s slim and light enough to take along on all your travels. This affordable GPS comes with regional mapping, announces streets by name, offers pedestrian navigation options and calculates a more fuel-efficient route with ecoRoute.” I’m looking for a new GPS navigator for my car, as I’ve been using my phone since my last device was stolen.

13. Kindle Touch Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display (Amazon, $99.00). I have been using my iPad for reading books purchased via Kindle, but if you have no need for an iPad and just want the ability to access your library from anywhere, choose the Kindle. Now members of Amazon Prime can read books without paying for each.

14. Coby DVD938 5.1-Channel DVD Home Theater System (Amazon, $90.01). “Dynamic sound meets sleek design in Coby’s DVD938 home theater system, which includes a progressive scan DVD player plus a 5.1-channel home theater speaker system (subwoofer and five satellite speakers).” This is a bargain if you don’t need HDMI and you’re looking for compatibility with USB players, SD cards, or karaoke.

Gift ideas under $100: Fun stuff

15. Tauntaun Sleeping Bag (ThinkGeek, $99.99). “In the sub-zero wasteland of the planet Hoth, only the strong survive… and of course those lucky Jedi protected by the thick skin of a Tauntaun.” Any Star Wars fan, adult or child, would appreciate the comfort of avoiding the cold by sleeping inside a tauntaun. ThinkGeek offers lots of gifts for science fiction and fantasy geeks and tech nerds.

16. Bicycle Premium Mega Masters Poker Chip Set (Amazon, $99.95). “The Bicycle Mega Masters Poker Set is a premium poker set for the poker enthusiast. It includes a handmade, high-lacquered wooden case with 500 11.5-gram Bicycle clay filled poker chips in a four-color assortment of red, blue, black, and green… [and] two decks of Premium Bicycle brand playing cards.” Invite your friends over and lose more money to them than the cost of buying this set.

17. Halex Premium Vivace 113mm Bocce Set (BocceBallSets.com, $94.98). With this set, you can entertain your friends with both backyard games: bocce and croquet. Best to buy these sets during the off-season for the best prices. This set normally costs $140.

18. Bob Ross Deluxe Oil Painting Set In Wood Box (Amazon, $85.00). “Bob Ross Art Sets enable the beginner artist to create a beautiful oil painting through Bob’s easy and informative instruction methods and top-quality materials. This Deluxe Art Set contains everything needed to get started in the Bob Ross ‘Wet on Wet’ technique.” Thankfully, this set comes with an instructional DVD. You recipient will be on his or her way to creating masterpieces.

Gift ideas under $100: Financial stuff

This is a personal finance blog, after all.

19. $100 Treasury Bond (TreasuryDirect, $100). TreasuryDirect offers gift functionality, so as long as you have an account and have the Social Security Number of your recipient, you can give the gift of a savings bond, a low risk investment that will earn interest over time.

20. Stock (ShareBuilder, $100). If you would like to give someone a financial gift, particularly a young individual who has an interest in the stock market but is a beginner, consider a ShareBuilder gift card to get them started. This is a good time to introduce young investors to the concept of transaction fees, as well.

21. 2011 United States Mint Silver Proof Set (United States Mint, $67.95). “The 2010 United States Mint Silver Proof Set contains all 14 circulating coins in stunning proof condition displayed in three protective lenses, each bearing the S mint mark of the United States Mint at San Francisco.” Great for collectors or non-collectors, and it can inspire and create young numismatists.

22. Kids’ Savings Account (ING Direct, $25 and up). Opening a new ING Direct Kids Savings Account is a great way to teach a child or teenager good saving habits and concepts like compound interest.

Here are some more ideas:

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Sony Card From Capital One $50 Gift Card

This article was written by Flexo in Credit. 1 comment.

The holiday season is one of the best times to hold a rewards credit card and it’s quickly approaching (again). The Sony Card from Capital One is a good example of this. Each year around the holidays, Sony bumps up their credit card offer and this year they’ve done it again. Today, The Sony Card from Capital One is offering new cardholders 5,000 bonus points just for signing up. Those points can be redeemed for a $50 Sony gift card, reflecting the standard conversion ratio of 100 points to one dollar.

You won’t find a lot of extra features with your Sony Card from Capital One, but this card does include a great rewards program for those that plan to make big purchases on all Sony branded merchandise.

SonyCard Here is how the rewards program is structured:

5 points for every dollar spent at Sony stores, Sony.com and Sony authorized retailers
3 points for every dollar spent on all restaurant and movie purchases
1 point for every dollar spent on all other purchases

As an added bonus, because this card is furnished by Capital One, any international purchases made (whether online or in person) will not be charged a foreign transaction fee. Other credit card issuers charge up to 3% extra for any foreign transactions made, but that charge does not apply with your Sony Card from Capital One.

All purchases will be fall under an introductory APR of 0% until June 2012, so you don’t need to worry about paying interest. After that, the APR reverts to a variable rate of either 13.9%, 16.9%, 19.9% or 24.9%, based on your credit history. The Sony Card from Capital One does not carry an annual fee.

If you’re a loyal member to the Sony brand, the Sony Card from Capital One is a must have. Spenders can save an impressive amount of money on future Sony purchases, and the $50 sign-up bonus is a great incentive.

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Today’s Top Three Consumer Mistakes

This article was written by Kimberly Palmer in Consumer. 11 comments.

This is a guest article by Kimberly Palmer. Kimberly Palmer is the author of Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing, and Giving Back, which was published by Ten Speed Press this week. The following post has been adapted from the book.

I’ll admit it: I was recently suckered into spending more than I should have on a can of paint. I fell victim to one of the classic mistakes of modern-day shoppers: Believing the posted price was the actual price. So when I purchased the $45 can of sea-green paint for my daughter’s bedroom, I neglected to ask for “the contractor’s price.” Those three little words would have gotten me at least a 10 percent discount.

Retailers use all kinds of trickery, including lying about prices, to get us to spend more than we otherwise would. It’s tight times for them, too, so they’re resorting to increasingly extreme measures, sometimes lifted from the pages of psychology experiments. As I was researching my book Generation Earn, I discovered these three most common ones. Luckily, as long as we know what to look for, we can beat companies at their own games:

Offering us a reward that’s really not so rewarding. It turns out those credit card rewards, even an enticing $200 gift certificate, aren’t free, after all, because we spend more in order to get them. Behavioral economists even have a name for it: “purchase acceleration.” Because we’re so excited to get our free iPod or airline ticket, we spend more on our credit cards. Since reward credit cards typically carry an interest rate that’s about two percentage points higher than non-reward cards, anyone carrying a balance is paying a steep price for those rewards.

It’s not only credit card companies employing this technique. Ever been offered a loyalty card at your favorite coffee shop, or salad joint? It turns out purchase acceleration applies there, too. In one study by a Columbia University professor, people bought ten coffees five days faster than they would have otherwise in order to snag their free cup. Just say no to loyalty cards, and you’ll end up saving money – and simplifying the paperwork in your wallet.
Hypnotizing us with sounds and smells. It sounds like some kind of dark magic straight out of Harry Potter: Stores have discovered that wafting a sweetish scent of citrus at us or manly smell of Rose Maroc can actually entice us to spend more money than we otherwise would. That’s why Sony Style uses a citrus scent with vanilla overtones in its stores. (In that case, the company is trying to make its electronics less intimidating to women.) More recently, Sony Style started using a bamboo scent to send the message that the company is going green.

They might be onto something; research from Washington State University shows that using Rose Maroc in men’s clothing stores and vanilla in women’s can increase shopping time, number of times purchased, and dollar amount spent. Research has also found that music can have a similar effect.

So be aware of the smells coming your way when you’re out and about, because researchers say they work on an unconscious level, sort of like pheromones.
Posting an inflated price that’s just for the most gullible shoppers. In the case of the paint, that gullible shopper was me. But I’m certainly not the only one. The failure of customers to negotiate prices, not only at places like farmer’s markets but also retail stores such as Best Buy, which have been known to accept competitor’s prices, can cost us hundreds of dollars a year. So don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. And if you’re in the market for a can of paint, I hope you can learn from my mistake.

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Power-Saving Televisions on the Way

This article was written by Smithee in Consumer. 1 comment.

I’ve always been a big fan of saving energy, both mine and my household’s, but more for efficiency reasons that a desire to “save the Earth”. If there’s nobody in a room, it just doesn’t make any sense to leave the light on. If turning off unused devices helps reduce global power consumption, then so much the better.

Separately but relatedly, if a TV is on within earshot, then the TV is the thing I’m made to concentrate on. I simply can’t tune it out, and I don’t understand when people say they like to have it on for background noise. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong, I just don’t understand it. Unfortunately, it also means there’s a significant energy drain lighting up that TV screen for no reason.

But what if the TV screen could get dimmer when you look away, and return to full brightness when you start looking at it again? Enter the new Sony LX900 TV which has multiple settings you can employ to save energy when the TV isn’t the most important thing in the room.

It features:

Sony’s Intelligence Presence Sensor, a face detector that tells when a user has stepped away from the television and then dims the backlight, eventually switching itself off should the viewer not return. It also alerts the viewer to being too close to the unit and detects the position of a user to optimize video and sound balance.

Yes, the TV has a kind of camera in it, and it’s watching you. My optimistic guess is that the resolution is just good enough to recognize a face, not any one specific face, and that these images aren’t being uploaded anywhere. But I can’t prove any of that, yet.

Weird? Creepy? Practical? Do you want a TV that dims the screen when you leave the room or look away?

Sony BRAVIA XBR-LX900 leads the 3D charge, Mick Webb, Gizmag, January 8 2010

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Google Editions: E-Books From Anywhere

by Smithee

In addition to Sony’s and Amazon’s electronic bookstores (about 100,000 and 330,000 titles available, respectively), booksellers now have another huge option for getting their books into our hands: Google Editions, which will launch next year with between 400,000 and 600,000 titles. Not necessarily a store or a device Google Editions is built on top of ... Continue reading this article…

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Comparing the Visa Black Card With American Express Platinum and Centurion Cards

by Flexo

American Express created a frenzy among the wealthy when it decided to take advantage of rumors of an exclusive black-colored charge card, used by movie stars and music celebrities for purchasing jets and other items beyond the financial reach of us mere mortals. In 1999, American Express introduced the Centurion Card, a black charge card ... Continue reading this article…

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HD DVD Officially Dead: Long Live Blu-ray

by Flexo

When VHS finally emerged as the market leader over Sony’s Beta format, we gave our immediately-obsolete player to my grandmother. I’ve been following the high definition format wars with moderate interest, since I was a “late early adopter.” Last fall, I picked up an HD DVD player and during the holidays I received a Blu-ray ... Continue reading this article…

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Netflix to Support Blu-ray Exclusively

by Flexo

Netflix has been offering movies to rent on both high definition media formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray, will now be exclusively supporting just one technology: Blu-ray. Citing the decision by four of the six major movie studios to publish high-def DVD titles only in the Sony-developed Blu-ray format, Netflix said that as of now it ... Continue reading this article…

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