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20+ Christmas Gift Ideas Under $100

This article was written by in Consumer. 20 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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Put Your Credit Card on Ice

This article was written by in Credit. 11 comments.

One of the most popular suggestions for people trying to cure themselves from overspending with credit cards is to freeze credit cards in a block of ice. It’s a cute approach to removing the temptation to overspend. It’s a fun concept to consider. You can make an event out of the freezing process. Invite your wife or husband and your kids to help. Partly fill a bowl with water, freeze the bowl for a few hours, drop in your credit cards and continue filling the bowl with water, place the bowl back in the freezer, and check back in a few hours. The result is a block of ice with credit cards securely frozen in the middle.

The block of ice prevents you from carrying the credit cards in your wallet or bag. You won’t have them with you, so, in theory, you won’t be able to give in to the temptation to spend. If you do need them in an emergency, you can go home, break the block of ice, and present a wet card. The frozen cards aren’t completely inaccessible, they’re just inconvenient.

It’s a nice gimmick, but this just isn’t a good long-term solution in reality.

  • Overspending can be an addiction. Certain activities are addictive because they trigger the brain’s pleasure centers. For individuals whose spending habits have become so bad they need to continue buying things to feel good, a block of ice is not going to get in the way of having a good time. Not everyone’s spending habit approaches the level of addiction, though. For many, a block of ice will work as a deterrent, but it won’t last forever.
  • Freezing a credit card doesn’t solve the desire to spend on credit. Removing the ability to fulfill a negative desire, such as spending to the point where income can’t cover the purchases on a long-term basis, doesn’t address the root cause. Anyone who is a compulsive credit spender needs to address the issue directly. Sometimes, spenders need to seek professional help. Again, not every over-spender’s behavior is damaging enough to warrant outside assistance.
  • The block of ice can’t always be the first step. When people hear the advice to freeze their credit cards, they may find the idea innovative and clever, and jump to this approach before carefully considering their financial situation. If income is a problem, quitting credit cards cold turkey isn’t going to work. You can’t tell the parents of a family of several children to stop buying food if they have no income. Some situations call for a gradual reduction of credit card spending.

What do you think? Is the concept of literally freezing your credit cards a gimmick without proven effectiveness or is it a great idea for resisting the temptation to spend?

Photo: Jökull Sólberg Auðunsson

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Florida’s Beach Property Boom: A Real Estate Lesson

This article was written by in Real Estate and Home. 29 comments.

This is a guest article by Dr. Dean Burke, author of The Millionaire Nurse Blog. Many years ago, someone I knew was fascinated with the real estate market in Florida, and he set up an investment company to allow others to invest through him. He promised his investors 20% returns. Needless to say, I didn’t participate and I thought he was a little nuts, but this is what the market was like during the bubble. Thanks to Dr. Dean Burke for sharing his experiences and lessons learned.

Unless you were there, it is impossible to visualize the Gulf Coast of Florida’s beach property boom just a few short years ago.

The Redneck Riviera was making a lot of people rich beyond their imagination. This area known for Spring Breaking bikini babes and beer-buzzed bozos was hotter than a teen at his first wet t-shirt contest.

Realtors were flipping or subdividing tracts of sand and scrubby shrubs and making hundreds of thousands in profit. To hell with 6% commission!

Everyone I knew was playing the game. The talk from the beauty shop to the coffee shop was not about Millionaire Housewives, high school football, or American Idol, but about 1031 property exchanges, setback zones, and building codes…

You might be saying, “Where were the grown-ups?”

Well the bankers were lending money to anyone with a pulse and a signature. In this case, “no doc” didn’t mean being without a physician, it meant no paperwork or proof of income required to qualify for a mortgage. “Step right up!” the carnival barker yelled!

My story

I had been visiting the Gulf Coast since I was a kid. My family rented a small concrete block home for a week every summer. My brothers and I had great fun digging fox-holes, waiting 30 minutes after eating to swim so we wouldn’t die of cramps, and building bonfires at night. When I was teen I kissed my first girl and had my first sip of Boone’s Farm while strolling these same beaches.

When I was able 15 years ago, I bought a vacation home in the same area, and I traded up three times since then.

The property boom hit in the early to mid 2000s. Prices began rising overnight. All my friends were making spectacular money! After watching their success, I wanted a piece of the action. The lot across the street from my beach place went up for sale and I jumped on it. No money down, interest-only, baby! Just a couple of months later with prices rising daily, I put that lot up for sale.

Later that same day, while I was nursing a cold one on the beach, a real estate agent trudged across the sand with a contract in his hand. With only the sweat equity involved in digging two holes to place the for sale sign and a signature, I had a pile of money! As I wanted a place on the bay so I could dock a sailboat, I tripled my money by selling my beach front home. (Sorry kids!)

Six months later I had three other properties, nearly worth a million bucks in all. One of these was my dream lot, a bay-front, with deep water dock — a perfect sailboat parking place!

Flexo suggested I include the details of my thought processes, whether there were any financial calculations that went into my purchases and how the decisions were made to sell. I laughed when I read that. The only calculations were greed on my part, making money. The idea that the lots might go down in value never even entered my mind.

Most of you are probably thinking, “I know how this ends: The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and a spectacular crash.” You’d be wrong.

The needle that pricked this bubble was born in a little low-pressure weather area off the western coast of Africa. Once the levees broke from the Category 5 power of monster Hurricane Katrina, the nation’s spotlight was on how fragile the man-made dwellings on the Gulf coast were. We were 300 miles from the storm, but it might as well have been in our back yard.

Property values plummeted and the lives of everyone connected to that area of the country were changed forever. Businesses closed. Bankruptcies, foreclosures, and shattered dreams were common stories, all a couple of years before Lehman Brothers fell. The subsequent second-round real estate body blow was like pouring alcohol on an open sore.

I was only a bit player in this theater of the absurd and the sand. I had not mortgaged my future on my real estate venture. I learned many valuable lessons from those heady times. I’m reminded of it every month when I make my payments on land that is worth 30 cents on the dollar now.

I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m a big boy. The more cynical among you will think, “He got what he deserved!” I’m glad to say I have survived those days, and I am a much smarter investor today because of it.

Now I ask myself these questions before any major investments, particularly in real estate. They’ll help you too if you will let my pain be your gain.

  • How does this investment relate to my overall goals? If buying a home in two years is your top goal, investing in gold futures may not be the safest place for that money. Make sure you weigh your time horizon and risk tolerance when you are saving for a large investment.
  • Is this investment low-risk or speculative? If speculative, make sure it is only a very small portion of your net worth. In my case even with a 60% loss on the value of land I was and am able to make my nut as they say. Make sure your speculative investments won’t take you down with them if you suffer a total loss.
  • Who will I sell to? When everyone seems to be making the same investments around you, stop and think who the next buyer will be. If you encounter people making the same investment or gamble as you are, that normally aren’t a part of that world, your alarm bells should ring. You owe it to yourself and your family to consider potential negative outcomes. Can you say, “Bubble?”
  • What are the steps and potential outcomes during each step of the project/investment? If large investments makes you nervous, when you consider the investment, create a mind-map on a whiteboard outlining your potential good and bad outcomes. Do this for each step of the project. Get expert help. You can’t predict hurricanes or tsunamis, but when you live on or near a coast, they need to be considered. When you purchase a rental, consider the possibility of a fire or going months without a lessor. When you are investing in an oil company, what happens if oil prices drop or rise by 50%, or in the worst case, there is an oil spill? Think of as many outcomes as you can and weigh them appropriately.
  • What is the reward potential? Make sure you understand the possible gains and compare them to possible losses. Is that risk worth taking?
  • When will I divest myself of this investment? Know when to cash in your gains or minimize your losses. You know the old saying: Bulls make money, bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered. Don’t be a pig. (Oink oink!)

You will never bat one thousand when it comes to being successful with your money. Losses will happen. The secret is minimizing your catastrophic losses that take you down or take decades to overcome.

I have been an active investor through two investment bubbles. The dot-com bubble of the late 1990′s and the real estate bubble.

Investment bubbles are like being a married guy at a party without the wife, and having J Lo and Katie Holmes all over you. Resisting temptation can be almost impossible, but not giving in is what makes a successful marriage. Resisting the siren call during the peak of a bubble will make you a more successful investor, but it’s damn hard!

With luck maybe I’ll have those lots paid off by the time my future grandkids are grown. They will enjoy their beach property. When I get sand between my toes hopefully I’ll be able to remember the good times I had as a kid and not let my adult stupidity get in the way of those great memories!

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ING ShareBuilder Review

This article was written by in Investing, Reviews. 11 comments.

Read to the bottom of this article for the latest ShareBuilder bonus.

I’m not a frequent trader. With my long-term view of investing, looking at stocks every day and executing costly trades does not make sense for my approach to my own finances. My strategy does not involve trading stocks or ETFs, timing the market in search of better returns. That being said, once in a while, I set aside a relatively small portion of money to test some theories. Here is an example from about a year ago: After a company received some bad news, I purchased about 10 shares of its stock, with the thought that the recalls were temporary problems that shouldn’t significantly affect the overall value of the company over time.

The stock price has recovered since then, but after the fee to buy the stock, I’m only ahead about $20 right now. If I had to sell, my profit would be even less. These fees cut into profits and should be minimized as much as possible. If you want to play in the stock market, it makes much more sense financially to use a discount brokerage than a full-service operation, due to the smaller fees. The accounts that hold my small investments in this company, as well as similarly small investments in an ETF and two other companies, are held at ING ShareBuilder. Here’s my ING ShareBuilder Review.

Opening the account

It has been a while since I’ve opened my account at ShareBuilder. I did so before the company was acquired by ING. ShareBuilder offered a variety of bonus codes to invite new users to join. In fact, they allowed the same individual to open several accounts, earning a bonus for each. The Internet went crazy, and there were reports of people opening as many as 50 accounts, earning a $25, $50 or $75 bonus for each account. This was apparently, not against the terms, but some customers who took excessive advantage of the offers were asked by the company to consolidate or close their accounts.

The typical personal information is required when you apply for a discount brokerage account with ShareBuilder, but current customers of ING Direct will have a streamlined process where some of their information is ported directly.

Transaction fees

ShareBuilder Flip 300x250Many discount brokerages offer roughly the same set of tools. Each company may have a few bells and whistles, but for the most part, this type of service is a commodity. Many of the resources offered by discount brokers, like charting and analysis tools and access to some analyst reports, can be found in other locations for free. When it comes down to it, the most important aspect of a discount brokerage is the cost. Paying a $20 fee to sell $100 worth of stock immediately and significantly cuts into any profit you may have had or amplifies a loss. For this reason, look carefully at all the costs involved in buying and selling.

ShareBuilder has two tiers of membership, Basic and Advantage. The Advantage plan requires a monthly fee of $12, but with this membership, you receive 12 free trades each month, if those are done by automatic investment. Each automatic trade in excess carries a fee of only $1. Real-time online trades, on the other hand, are $7.95. Real-time trades are executed as soon as possible after you place the order. Automatic trades are less expensive because they are bundled together with other customers’ automatic trades and effected only once a week. In other words, ShareBuilder gets the benefit of combing your sale of 30 shares of Microsoft with another investor’s purchase of 30 shares on Microsoft. ShareBuilder does not need to go into the open market to settle these trades, so everyone gets a better price, including ShareBuilder who still collects the same fee as the would with other automatic trades.

With the Basic plan, automatic investments carry a fee of $4 and real-time trades are $9.95.

ING ShareBuilder offers real-time market orders, limit order, stop-loss orders, and several types of options. Some customers might also qualify for margin trading.

One of my favorite features is the lack of an inactivity fee. Most brokers want to make money off of you, which they can only do if you trade. The more actively you trade, the more money the broker earns from you. When they are not earning money from you through trades, many companies want to find other ways to make holding data for you on their servers worthwhile. That’s the beauty of the inactivity fee from the broker’s perspective. Active trading is not generally a sound investing strategy, so buy-and-hold investors are discouraged when charged a fee just for leaving an account open. Perhaps it’s wrong to assume that any company should hold money or investments for free, but since some do, those who charge fees appear to be unfair.

As long as there still are brokers who don’t charge fees for an inactive account, I’ll continue seeking them out for my business.

None of the above can be said without pointing out there is another important fee that often goes unmentioned: the account transition fee. If you decide to close your account and transfer your investments to another without selling and triggering tax ramifications, ING ShareBuilder does charge a $75 fee. If you’re not closing your account and transferring only a portion of your assets, the charge will be $15 per security, up to $75.

Linking accounts

A nice benefit of having an account with ING ShareBuilder is the ability to link your ING Direct savings and checking accounts with your ShareBuilder account. This ensures that you can easily and quickly transfer money from your ING Direct account whenever you want to trade, even if you don’t have cash in your ShareBuilder account. You can link other bank accounts as well, but this “Express Funding” service costs $6.95 if your linked account is not held at ING Direct. Sometimes it’s better not to have cash available because you’re prevented from making rash purchasing decisions. Active traders or those who want to aim for a certain time on a certain day do not need to worry about having cash in their ShareBuilder account if they are a customer of ING Direct.

Bonus

Currently, ShareBuilder is offering a $50 bonus for new accounts. This is perfect for people who are interested in getting their feet wet with stocks or ETFs. This is the type of deal I took advantage of to get started with ShareBuilder. Open a ShareBuilder account, and fund the account with $50 of your own money from a linked ING Direct account or another bank account. Buy $46 worth of stock or ETF using ShareBuilder’s Basic plan for $4. You just used a total of $50, the same amount of your bonus. When you receive the bonus within a few weeks, transfer $50 back to your savings account. In effect, you’ve made your first trade with free money. If you’re willing to spend some of your money, transfer more to ShareBuilder and see how your investments perform. The bonus is available only for a limited time, and will currently no longer be offered following March 31, 2011.

ShareBuilder-Welcome page

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Shaving: Neither Electric Nor Expensive

by Smithee

I have trouble shaving, and it seemed to be getting worse with age. It seemed that no matter what I did, I’d end up with a red bumpy neck and hairy spots I had missed. In the last eighteen years, I’ve tried every normal razor and electric razor I could find, and none of them ... Continue reading this article…

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List of Failed Banks, Updated April 9, 2010

by Flexo

Over 100 banks failed in 2009. Most of these are smaller regional banks who, in order to compete with larger banks, offered risky loans and are now facing customer defaults. Larger banks were offered government bailouts to prevent failure, but these smaller banks whose failures are not seen as major risks to the economy are ... Continue reading this article…

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Money With Your Honey, Tips for Freshmen, and the Frugal Life

by Flexo

As I find time, I write articles for websites other than Consumerism Commentary. This will always be my home for writing about money, but I’ll take whatever opportunity I can to share my thoughts online with more readers. Here are a few of the recent articles I’ve published around the internet. Please read these and ... Continue reading this article…

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Podcast 14: ING Direct’s “We, the Savers” and the AICPA’s Feed the Pig Campaign

by Flexo

Episode 14 of the Consumerism Commentary Podcast includes interviews with representatives from ING Direct and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Our discussion with Jim Kelly, the chief operating officer of ING Direct, focuses on the bank’s “We, the Savers” campaign and we also discuss ING Direct’s beginnings in the United States and ... Continue reading this article…

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