Image from Flickr.

When it comes to the Dell Mini 10v Netbook, the price and the size are just right for many consumers and their holiday shopping lists. The Dell Mini 10v Netbook, which is just slightly smaller than the Dell Mini 10, is now retailing for just $279, a price that would have been unheard of for a laptop computer a few years ago.

Google is making sure to get the word out that the Dell Mini 10v Netbook can run the Google Chrome operating system. I’m not sure how long this price will last for the Dell Mini 10v Netbook, but don’t do anything rash like getting payday loans from a direct lender unless you’re sure you can afford to pay it back.

Dell goes greener

While Google wants to get the word out about running Google Chrome on the Dell Mini 10v Netbook, Dell wants you to know that it is trying to help the environment by using more Earth-friendly packaging.

The outer box that the Dell MIni 10v Netbook comes in is recyclable, and the strong inner protective layer is made of bamboo. With all of the wrapping paper, boxes and other extra waste that comes along with the holiday season, every little bit helps when it comes to conservation at this time of year.

More about Dell Mini 10v Netbook

Those familiar with netbooks know that they don’t have any type of disk drive, they’re small and they’re geared toward internet use. The Dell Mini 10v Netbook has a 10-inch display screen, weighs only two-and-a-half pounds and has a keyboard 92 percent of the size of a regular keyboard.

The Dell Mini 10v Netbook come with 1 GB of memory, and it comes is black, white, red, pink, blue, green and purple. To see more details about the Dell Mini 10v Netbook, check out the Dell web site.

The almighty internet

Netbooks are a result of the fact that more and more business is being conducted on the internet nowadays. These small, portable laptops are great for checking Facebook and Twitter, playing games online and conducting any other internet business. You can’t watch DVDs on a netbook, but you can watch YouTube files and downloaded video files with surprising speed.

For some netbooks are small enough to fit in a purse, and they fit neatly into backpacks. Netbooks are great for students who take their laptops everywhere, and thanks to their size and weight they’re much easier to lug around than a traditional sized laptop. The Dell Mini 10v Netbook is one of the least expensive available right now, but other companies make similar products for similar prices, so make sure you do your homework and pick out the right netbook.

Holiday shopping is hard to handle sometimes. Online payday loans can help, but budgeting is the real way to go. (Photo: Christoph Michels)

It’s that time of year again: the debt season. This is the time of year when most people throw caution to the wind and spend money they do not have on gifts to maintain the image of success. To do this, they fall into the trap of using online payday loans as they were not intended – to simply get through to the end of the year.

Am I describing you? Are you still paying off last year’s holiday shopping spree and worried about what to do about this year’s shopping spree? Never fear, because if you follow these suggestions to keeping your holiday shopping in check, you will not only save money but also create lasting good will with your family and friends.

Create a Gift List

Before you can decide how much money you are going to spend, you need to figure out who should be on your list. This list can include your immediate or extended family, close friends, co-workers – anyone you are close to. Or it could just include your immediate family: kids, spouse and maybe your parents, if they are still living. Whoever you put on your list, you must make sure that you can afford to give them gifts without breaking your budget. Reduce if necessary, and continue to refine your list as you work out your budget.

Create a Budget

When you have your list done, the next step is to figure out how much you can spend on each person. Say you have 10 people on your list that you want to buy gifts for, and these are the final 10 after shaving your list down from 40. Let’s reasonably assume that you have enough cash to spend $20 on each person, making your gift budget $200 for the season. The assumption here is that you will not be whipping out your credit card this season to buy more than you can afford. You cannot use what you have not earned, right?

Food and Decorations, If You Please

If you have your gift budget carefully planned but do not have your food and decorations budget in order, your budget will be ruined in no time, leaving you with higher credit card and loan debts to pay off later. As the decorations are not consumable and can last for several years if they are put away carefully, the only reason you would need to buy decorations is if the lights do not work, or they have been ripped apart horribly by pets or kids. We have had the same stockings since my oldest was born almost 14 years ago, and they have held up extremely well.

Focus on the Feast

Your feast should be planned out, right down to the last little ingredient of the pecan pie. What type of feast do you want? Can you afford this feast without the use of online payday loans and credit cards? Generally, if you are careful to live within your means throughout the year, and have a bit left over in your monthly budget consistently, most people can handle spending an extra $50 to $100 for the holiday feast. If your food budget is normally $200 for two weeks, you may be able to bump that up to $300 for one payday, with a nice feast for an extra $100 without overspending.

Give Up the Guilt

One reason that many people overspend on gifts is that they feel pressured to do so out of guilt and duty. In this society, money and expensive gifts have been linked to the amount of love you hold for someone—the more you spend on a gift, the more you love the receiver of that gift. Commercialism has had something to do with this. Have you seen those jewelry commercials that say, “When you love enough to give the very best?” The implication here is that if you love enough, you will spend a lot of money. This really should be turned around to say that if you love enough, you will save a lot of money as a legacy for your children.

What people really want is time with you, regardless of how much money you spend on them. Give up the notion that you must overspend to show people how much you love them. Instead, come up with creative gift giving ideas, such as printing out coupons for a free housecleaning or a night out—something that shows you care by volunteering your time for them. This means more than money, and you don’t need to feel guilty.

Skip Plastic and Use Cash

A great way to keep your holiday shopping under control is to use cash instead of plastic, which also applies to a debit card. Although debit cards can help to minimize your spending, cash is still better. When you are using a card, you do not realize how much you are spending without a concrete and visual reminder. As you are shopping, you do not have this visual reminder of how much you are spending. If you have a wad of cash in your wallet, however, you can instantly know how much you are spending by how much lighter your wallet feels after each purchase. In the event that you run out, online payday loans are an option – just tread carefully.

Think People First

As you create debt each holiday season – which may include online payday loans – you begin to shift the priorities in your life. Instead of focusing on your family and friends, you get into a “make money” mindset that shifts your focus to money and work. Eventually, you are going to wake up and wonder what happened to your relationships and realize that if you would have placed people first, then money and then things, your relationships would have been a lot better. While having money and wealth makes life easier, it still doesn’t take the place of human relationships. Nurture these first and make these a priority this holiday season. Happy holidays!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. But do you know what the next best thing that comes after Thanksgiving is? That’s right, it’s Black Friday! It’s the biggest shopping day of the year!

Black Friday is the day to go out and buy the things you have always wanted but couldn’t because those discount tags never showed up as you planned. I mean, people are even willing to take out a cash advance to fund this nationwide shopping event. However, it seems this yearly shopping ritual is only getting better with time. Ever heard of Cyber Monday? Well, I just did and, as a shopper and an online marketer, I’m pretty stoked.

What is Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday was invented by the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association. According to Wikipedia, the term Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, which unofficially marks the beginning of the Christmas online shopping season. So what this basically means is if you miss the Black Friday shopping hustle, you still have a chance to make it up on Monday. Cyber Monday is the Monday you will actually enjoy.

Great tip for Online Merchants

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/autumnal_hedge/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

A recent Yahoo! Insights team research revealed that the number of sales during last year’s Black Friday were actually not too far from the overall sales that took place the Monday following. Click-through rates were down 27% on both days compared to the rest of the month. However, online traffic and conversions went up significantly. Black Friday showed an increase in conversions by 147%, while Cyber Monday had a 73% increase in conversions.

What does this mean for me?

This study lays out a great opportunity for online marketers. You have about 1½ months before the biggest shopping days of the year. I suggest you start promoting and investing throughout the month to create attraction. Get a head-start and take advantage of the holiday traffic now. You will witness flourishing conversions not just for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but for the rest of the holiday season.

For all you holiday shoppers on the other hand, start saving now! You are already aware of how busy and expensive holiday shopping can be. You have enough time to save a sufficient amount of money for your holiday expenses, which will prevent the need of a cash advance at the last minute.

A different outlook

In “The Big Bing Blog” on Fortune Magazine’s Web site, author Stanley Bing writes about the SkyMall catalog in relation to the recession. He is of the opinion that people buying things from said catalog is a sign that the economy will stabilize.

“I still believe that in the end we’re all going to be all right. If people are buying meerkat gang sculpture for their yards and living rooms, can recovery be far behind?”

You can order your very own Harry Potter wand from the SkyMall catalog. (Warning: Wand does not actually contain magic.)

But are people doing that? Bing argues that the SkyMall catalog, and the marketing business in general, makes us think that we actually need things like cigar humidors and slippers with built-in night lights.  I admire Bing’s optimist, and I understand that his blog is meant to be humorous. Still, I can’t help but wonder if Americans are still making frivolous purchases like these.

Cold, hard facts

Statistics indicate that they are not. The Commerce Department has released its official report on just how dismal holiday sales were this season. Wall Street had predicted that the decline was about 1.2 percent, but final  figures show that sales fell 2.7 percent.

Before you go thinking that maybe Americans did their holiday shopping early this year: It was the sixth straight month of decline. I’m no financial guru, but it seems to me that if people were going to be making frivolous purchases, they would have done it for the holidays, even if they had to take out payday loans to do it.

Aftershocks

In the wake of these reports, some major retailers are announcing big changes. California department store chain Gottschalks is up for sale, and it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Famous luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group Inc. says it is going to cut 375 jobs. Macy’s department store is closing 11 stores, which will affect 960 employees. So between those two companies, I can safely assume that at least 1,335 people out there will be even less likely to be making discretionary purchases.

Job loss leads to job loss

So, because consumers aren’t spending enough on retail, employees from retail store are out of a job. If (when) those employees go on unemployment, their incomes will be slashed by more than 30 percent, leading to even less spending and more … well, you get the picture.

Thus, it comes as no surprise to me that Federal Reserve says this low-spending trend is continuing and worsening this month. An AP reporter says “job cuts, sinking home values and cracked nest eggs have made American consumers wary of spending.”

Ahem. I think that by “wary of spending” she means “unable to spend.”

A slow fix

The only way I can see to change this trend is for employers to start hiring instead of firing. American consumers aren’t going to suddenly start spending money they don’t have, especially considering the credit crunch going on.

So Obama has the right idea by including programs that create jobs in his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. You see, the government will spend money it doesn’t have to hire people to work on roads and bridges and alternative energy sources. Then perhaps those Americans will start ordering antique-style gumball machines from the SkyMall catalog and all will be well again. Perhaps.

The future of the American way

Are we changed forever? Americans, especially those who have lost their homes, have learned some hard lessons in the past year. When this is all straightened out, will Americans really go back to maxing out their credit cards at luxury department stores?

No one can tell the future, but it’s always fun to make predictions. So, what do you think? Will Americans start using payday loans because they absolutely must have that UV-ray-blocking beach canopy right now?