A Fountain of Bargains - Last Minute Gifts
Last Minute
The Internet is a great place to find great deals on great gifts. Unfortunately, most internet gifts require shipping.
This page lists products that do not require shipping and make great last minute gifts. Among the list you will find gift certificates and subscriptions. The hottest last minute gift is downloadable music.
Friends that enjoy digital scrapbooking would love a subscription to the ScrapGirls Monthly Club. You can start a digital scrapbooker off on their journey with the free eBook - 15 Things You NEED to Know to Become a GREAT Digital Scrapbooker.
Netflix is the ultimate last minute gift idea. Their program rocks. Netflix lets you rent DVDs online! It is an extremely clever way to distribute movies. With the basic subscription, you get to have three movies out at a time. What you do is make a list of movies you would like to see. Netflix sends the the first three movies in the mail. You return the movie when you finish watching, and they will throw the next movie from the queue into the mail. When I belonged to the program, I added a hundred movies I wanted to watch to the queue. Not only will your last minute gift recipient enjoy watching the movies, they will enjoy reading movie reviews and building and rearranging their NetFlix queue.
Zinio offers digital versions of popular magazines. These are high resolution PDF quality versions of the magazine delivered through the Internet. You can give set up the Zinio reader, subscribe to a magazine and get the current issue of the magazine online. Additional magazines in the subscription will automagically show up as they go to digital print.
Give data security this year for Christmas. Magic Softworks offers an online remote backup system. You install the program on a couputer and it automatically makes secure backups to the Magic Softwork's secure remote server in Fort Collins. (NOTE, the way to give this gift is simply to sit with your gift recipient and install the program. They will remember you fondly the first time they recover a file they thought lost forever.)
Restaurant.com is one of the most popular sources for last minute gifts. Not only can you purchase and print a gift certificate for a local restaurant, you can save a bundle on your gift. Restaurant.com doesn't sell a $25 gift certificate for $25. They sell gift certificates at half price! You can buy a $25 gift for $12.50. The program is easy to use. You browse to your state. Select a local restaurant, purchase and print the certificate. Restaurant.com doesn't need to ship the gift certificate to you, your friends simply ship themselves to the restaurant.
Rhapsody is an online music service. They have hundreds of thousands of tunes from top artists. If your gift recipient is a music lover, then Rhapsody just might be the last minute gift that touches their fancy. Yes, Rhapsody costs a bit more than pirating music from P2P servers (assuming you don't get caught.) But I am old fashioned and prefer that musicians get paid for their work. At the time of this review, the subscription was $10 a month, or $25 per quarter. Your subscription starts with a seven day trial period. Giving you a chance to cancel if you so desire. This is a great last minute gift for students.
Prepaid calling cards are the ideal gift. I worked in telecom for several years. Prepaid cards save all the expenses of billing and collecting money (billing customers costs more than the phone calls). The result is that prepaid cards are both the best way to cut your calling expenses and control your long distance bills. As for last minute gifts, a phone card is really nothing more than an account number. It is a string of numbers. The least expensive way to buy a number is to buy prepaid cards online. You can print or simply write down the number. You do not need a physical card. I did a lot of searching, Nobelcom has the best prices of all the different cards I found. Nobelcom has great rates both in the US and abroad. Nobelcom has domestic long distance for 1.5 cents a minute. Best of all, they make great gifts. I've found calling cards give people the impression that you believe people enjoy talking to them. Giving a phone card gives a positive self image.
Is their a blogger on your gift list? MicroStock credits make a wonderful gift for people who enjoy blogging or designing personal web pages. Microstock refers to images made available by photographers and graphic designers for use on web pages. So, for about a dollar an image, bloggers can buy the rights to include an image in their post. Adding images to posts can make a blog more enjoyable. As a blogger myself, I like to find images that highlight points made in the blog. Microstock provides a means to do this without violating copyright laws.
Buying a blogger a stack of microstock credits shows that you are appreciative of their work, and they will have fun finding designs to illustrate their words. Above all, it feeds starving graphic designers.
Show your financial savvy. Subscriptions make great last minute gifts. The Wall Street journal knows that they have one of the best newspapers in the country, and are one of the few newspapers that can get away with charging a subscription fee. An online subscription to the WSJ is $39.00 per year. That is a great deal considering the quality of the information. Students can subscribe at half price. The WSJ is a great last minute gift idea.
Do you remember when you were a kid and your grandmother always gave you underwear as a gift? Yeah, back then you wanted a toy. Now that you are an adult ... you want the underwear. Go figure. You can get through the last minute shopping blues with a gift certificate for Bare Necessities. Bare Necessities specializes in the things we hold closest to the skin.
Is there a gamer on your last minute shopping list? Direct 2 Drive provides downloadable PC games. You could send your favorite gamer a gift certificate allowing them to chose and start downloading the game today. The Direct to Drive collection includes Action, RPG, Strategy and mobile phone games.
Give the gift of endulgence. SpaWish has gift certificates for spas and salons across the country. The site lets you look up spas by service and location.
Treat the world to a movie! You can buy tickets online and pick them up at kiosks in select theatres. Buying online saves you the wait in the ticket line and guarantees you a seat ... which is critical if you hope to see popular shows on holiday weekends. You can also simply gift Fandango Bucks.
Is there a musician on your last minute gift list. Well, this one is super easy. They want music! MusicNotes is a program that lets musicians download sheet music for the songs they want to learn. The music is custom designed for various instruments such as guitar and piano. A musicnote card is a great gift for both aspiring and accomplished musicians.
The Living Language Online classes by Random House offer a great tool for students seeking to master a foreign language. The site offers online classes in Spanish, French, German, Italian and English. The program lets you choose your skill level and the focus of your linguistic pursuit (business, travel, student).
Does your friend love books, history and learning? If so, then Questia online library is the ultimate online resources. Questia has tens of thousands of full length books online. The books are in simple to copy and paste ASCII text. This is what academics originally dreamed that the internet would be...a repository of the greatest writings of all times. Of course, acquiring and displaying books takes resources. This is a perfect gift for students. The full year subscription is just $100. It is a great service at a great price and the money spent on the gift helps spread knowledge.
One Great Family is building a massive family tree (we are all on the same tree after all). A One Great Family Subscription is a fun idea for family members. The subscription will give your gift recipient access to this humongous database of genealogical information. This is also a project that will let your work with a family member on your family history...which is always a fun project.
BigStockPhoto is another of my favorite sources for Microstock. This is a great gift for bloggers. Microstock companies sell the right to use graphic designs and photos in blogs. Using stock photo adds an extra degree of thought to blog posts.
Category Specials
- SkinIt A SkinIt gift certificate lets your gift recipient choose a fun, colorful, customized protective skin for their favorite portable electronic device.