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.
Oops, you forgot to get a present!!!! The best way out of this predicarment is to send a fun animated talking card to let them know that they may have been forgotten, but aren't lost ... or whatever. Anyway, with these cards, you type out a string of text. The character choose will read the text to the recipient. It is really cool.
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.
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.
People love music. If you are looking for a great last minute gift; check out the iTunes gift card. This gift card will let your gift recpient add their favorite songs to their music collection.
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.
A gift subscription to Trails is the ideal last minute gift. For $49.95, you can give your gift recipient access to a massive collection of topos, maps and trail guides. The gift is great for hikers, bikers or anyone who loves the outdoors. This is the gift I am giving this year.
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.
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.
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.