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.

There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays

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

Vons Home Grocery Delivery Rocks!

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.

T.J. Maxx & Marshalls $25 Gift Card Giveaway-CLOSED

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.

Bluelight Specials Are Back At Kmart

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.

Sears HUGE Clearance Sale

I had a great time reading all the things that people would buy if they won the $100 Sears gift card, and now comes to time to grant someones wish! Ted Murphy from IZEA made the winner announcement on TedTube just a few minutes ago, and you can watch the show here.

Were you the winner? You’ll have to watch TedTube to find out!

JUST KIDDING!!! (But you should watch it, he’s a funny guy)

The winner of my Sears $100 gift card is…Jeanette Malan and she said she would buy the Kodak 9.2MP Digital Camera, EasyShare C913 – Pink Sears item# 00353288000!

CONGRTULATIONS! I will be contacting you through the email you entered on your comment.

[tags]Grant a Wish, Sears, gift cards, shopping[/tags]

Sears $100 Gift Card Winner!

We currently own about 3 or 4 of these now and they are way better than a regular power strip. The number one reason I like them is that it fits all my electronic devices no matter how large the plug is.

When I use just a regular power strip there is always one or two plugs that I can’t use because of the size of plugs on my printer, or cell phone power adapter. These plugs spread out and allow me to plug in all my stuff on one squid.

Features:

• Input Voltage – 125 V AC
• Output Voltage – 125 V AC
• Power Cord/Cable – 3 ft
• Receptacles – 5
• Weight – 1.55 lb
• Surge Energy Rating – 1080J
• Current – 15A Line Current

Make sure to check out the Weekly Deal sale on Buy.com every week. They have great deals on all kinds of electronic items like external hard drives, USB flash drives, GPS units, and hi-def digital camcorders. They even feature diamond necklaces, DVD’s and software, and cool things like this.

[tags]Buy.com, electronics, weekly deals, sale[/tags]

Weekly Deal on Buy.com

It has been many many years since I have shopped at Sears. Not because I don’t like the store, it’s just that I always picture Sears as the big ticket items, and lately there are no big ticket items on my wish list. Speaking of a “wish list,” what’s on yours this year? What’s on your families? What’s on your favorite charities?

With the layoffs in my family, and the struggles we’ve had to endure these past few months, wishes are what get me through most days. Just the other day I was talking with my boys about what they wished for Christmas this year. They know we are struggling, but I wasn’t prepared to hear their answer. I thought they would still rattle off all the high dollar electronics that they normally want, but they didn’t. They said they wanted socks.

Now like any mother of a teenage boy will tell you, there are never enough socks. With all the sports they do, and the the general roughness of boys, you can’t keep enough socks in the house. They’ve even resorted to raiding their step-father’s sock drawer, leaving him with no socks to wear.

So when I got a $100 gift card to go shopping at Sears, what do you think I bought? Yes, socks! $100 worth of socks! My boys wish for socks was granted! I was pleasantly surprised at all the things Sears has in their store. It’s not just appliances and Craftsman tools.

So there you have it. My boys will receive their wish of socks for Christmas, and I had an absolute blast going to Sears with my gift card. The Sears gift card is a great gift idea because you can use it to purchase any item of your choice, yes…even socks!

Now for the fun part! I want to give one of you a $100 Sears gift card for you to go shopping and grant a wish for yourself, a family member, or your favorite charity. You can enter up to three times using the different entry methods listed below.

Have fun and good luck to everyone! I feel like freaking Santa Claus all of a sudden! This is great!

Sears Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish Giveaway Rules

3 Ways To Enter:

1. Receive one entry by going to Sears.com and pick out the items you would buy with a Sears gift card (up to $100). Then come back to my blog and in my comments tell me the item #s of the things you would buy.
2. Receive one entry by Twittering the following
   “RT @JustJulie please grant my wish to win a $100 #Sears gift card – tweet to make your own wish http://urlbrief.com/73028a”
   Leave a comment telling me the URL of your Twitter (example: http://twitter.com/JustJulie/status/1050355129).
3. Receive one entry by writing a blog post about the Sears Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish campaign with a link to my contest Julie’s Journal – Sears Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish. Leave a comment with your blog post URL so I can check it out.

Contest Details:

1. December 23, 2008 – Contest ends at midnight EST
2. December 29, 2008 – Winners chosen by IZEA at random based on all the entries
3. December 29-31, 2008 – Winners will be shipped Sears gift card

Official Rules

Now get to entering and good luck again!

[tags]Grant a Wish, Sears, gift cards, shopping[/tags]

Sears – Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish (Closed)

I think most people have a card reader on their newer laptops, but if you don’t this is a handy little gadget to have in your laptop bag. Plus it has pink on it, so you know that I love it already. I have a card reader slot on my Dell laptop, but I still have to use an adapter for my Memory Stick Pro Duo that came in my Sony camera.

This little gadget supports all the cards that you may have. MicroSD, MiniSD, Memory Stick (MS); Memory Stick Pro; Memory Stick Duo; Memory Stick Pro Duo; Secure Digital (SD); MMC & RS-MMC

Features:

• Compliant with USB 2.0 specification
• Fast data transfer – up to 480 Mbps, between your cell phone / smartphone / PDA and computers
• Backward compatible with USB 1.1 specification
• Plug-n-Play, Hot swappable, and Hot pluggable
• Limited 1 year warranty
• Cord storage
• 125 watts

Make sure to check out the Weekly Deal sale on Buy.com every week. They have great deals on all kinds of electronic items like external hard drives, USB flash drives, GPS units, and hi-def digital camcorders. They even feature diamond necklaces, DVD’s and software, and cool things like this.

[tags]Buy.com, electronics, weekly deals, sale[/tags]

Weekly Deal on Buy.com

Social Spark and Kmart gave Jeremy Schoemaker $500 bucks to go shopping at Kmart. He picked out all sorts of things for himself, his daughter, and the rest of his family, and it’s all documented in pictures on his blog.

The cool thing about this contest is that he’s giving away a $500 Kmart gift card to one of his readers, and that could be YOU!

All you have to do is click here and go to Jeremy’s site. In his comments he wants you to write what items you would buy at Kmart (with SKU numbers), and for extra points you can retweet about his contest on Twitter.

How easy is that? I know that $500 would sure help my family out this Christmas, and I bet it would help yours too! So hurry! Click on the banner below and enter to win. The contest ends at 11:59 p.m. EST on December 16, 2008.

[tags]Kmart, Shoemoney.com,contest,gift cards,blog giveaways[/tags]

Easy $500 Kmart Gift Card Giveaway