Julie's Journal

Shopping during the holidays can be a stressful time. Well shopping in general is stressful to me. I’m one of those weird girls who doesn’t like to shop, and I haven’t stepped foot into a mall in over a year. I can fill up an online shopping cart in less than 5 minutes, but actually going to a mall isn’t how I want to spend my day.

T-Mobile brought a little holiday cheer to the Woodfield Mall in Chicago with a surprise performance of “(There’s No Place Like) Home For The Holidays”. This is such an awesome video, and it helped me get in the holiday spirit. Enjoy!

This post is sponsored by T-Mobile.

I had the chance to try out Vons Home Grocery Delivery for the first time last Saturday, and it was such an awesome experience! We had planned to have a yard sale all day, so I ordered my groceries on Friday night for delivery on Saturday.

Ordering my groceries from the website was really easy. I used the “Shop By Aisle” feature to quickly find the products that I wanted, which made it super easy. They also list the sales, and Von’s card savings items, so I ended up saving $25.00 on my order.

My delivery guy Rod was super professional and friendly. He knew that this was my first time ordering, so he gave me a tour of the truck to see where he stored the different type foods. His truck has a dry section, the freezer section, and the refrigerated section. My delivery number was 005, so he checked in all the sections for the crates labeled with 005.

I was pretty busy with my yard sale at the time, so I didn’t notice that I was missing some items until about 30 minutes later. I immediately called the customer service number on my invoice, and Rod called me back from his cell phone within minutes. He was back at my house with the missing items within 20 minutes. Now THAT’S excellent customer service!

I was VERY satisfied with this service, and will use them again when I know I’m going to be too busy to get to the store. Do any of you use home grocery delivery services? How do you like it?

If you haven’t used home grocery services before, I have an exclusive promotion code for free delivery and $7 off your first online order. Just go to Vons Home Grocery Delivery and use JLSJRNL at checkout. ENJOY!

I received two gift cards from DEI Worldwide to facilitate this blog post and help with the expenses. Special thanks to Vons Home Grocery Delivery

How is your holiday shopping going? Are you able to get something for everyone on your list? Times are tough right now so shopping at T.J. Maxx and Marshalls is the best way to stretch your budget to include everyone on your shopping list. They carry the latest brand-name toys to electronics, beauty products, gourmet food and entertaining essentials–they are one-stop shops for all your holiday needs.

Do you need a little help getting in the holiday spirit this year? How about a little Carol-oke! One lucky person will win a $5,000 shopping spree – just for singing their favorite Holiday Carol! Check out the specially created YouTube Caroling Channel. There, you can select from one of three carols, create your own “Carol-oke” video and upload for entry into the contest. Additionally, for each off-price “Carol-oke” video that is uploaded, a charity donation will be made.

I have two (2) $25.00 gift cards (one for T.J. Maxx and one for Marshalls) to giveaway on my blog. That’s two (2) winners! Just follow the instructions below to enter to win.

T.J. Maxx & Marshalls $25 Gift Card Giveaway
Each one of the following is worth one entry into the giveaway – make sure to leave comments so I can include each thing you do!

MANDATORY FOR CONTEST ENTRY

1. Sign up to receive the T.J. Maxx newsletter by email. (top right hand corner of their web site).
2. Sign up to receive the Marshalls newsletter by email. (top left hand corner of their web site).

EXTRA CONTEST ENTRY

1. Follow @T.J. Maxx on Twitter.
2. Follow @Marshalls on Twitter.
3. Follow @JustJulie on Twitter. (I follow back!)
4. Subscribe to receive Julie’s Journal in your email
5. Tweet: Enter to win T.J. Maxx & Marshalls $25 Gift Cards on JuliesJournal.com http://bit.ly/4UAg2L

Contest ends Sunday December 27, 2009 at 12:00 noon PST. I will choose two random winner from all the entries and notify you by email. You have 48 hours to respond. First responder will get their choice between the T.J. Maxx $25 gift card or the Marshalls $25 gift card. Second responder will get the remaining one. I did not receive any compensation for this post. Special thanks to T.J. Maxx and Marshalls for sponsoring this giveaway.

This post was sponsored by Kmart. All the opinions are mine.

Do you remember the days of the Bluelight specials at Kmart? I remember being a kid and getting excited when I saw the cart come around the store with the flashing blue light and the loud speaker saying “Attention Kmart Shoppers.” HA!

Kmart has sure come a long way since then, especially with the opening of the Super K’s. Once our Super K opened here, I rarely ever shop at Walmart anymore. Super K just blows them away in my opinion. They have a better selection, and the stores are kept much more clean!

Starting tomorrow, on August 1st, Kmart is bringing back the Bluelight Specials for one day only. You can get special offers throughout the day on everything from patio furniture, to grills, to jewelry… all at the Kmart Bluelight Specials prices! In fact, there will be over 40 great Bluelight Specials throughout the whole day. But remember it’s only going on TOMORROW so make sure to add Kmart to your list of places to go while out doing your errands.

Make sure to follow follow @kmartdealsnnews on Twitter for all the latest Kmart deals and specials.

I still have a hard time getting over the fact that Sears is not just appliances and tools. They have been that place for those two things since my childhood, and it’s hard to change that view in my mind.

I went shopping there during the holiday season and I was pleasantly surprised at all the other things they had their besides appliances and tools. From a really nice bedding section, to a branded kids clothing section from Hanna Montana and other Disney brands. Plus the company is really embracing new media so they are doing really well in re-programming my brain, and updating their image.

For instance from now until April 18th, Sears is having a 75-80% off original prices on all their fall and winter apparel. I found these Camis from $7.98-$3.98 on sale and what a great price to stock up on them! I wear them a lot under shirts and blouses.

Other items on sale:

• Layered Vest Blouse for $5.99
• Yarn Dye Cuffed Crop Pants for $5.99
• Layered Mini Skirt for $5.99
• Long Slim Pants for $5.99

So as you can see, they do carry some trendy fashions at very affordable prices and at 75-80% off original prices you can really save a bundle.