General

Follow 'The Cheapskate' on Twitter!

Calling all Twitter users! Want to be notified when there's something new and exciting on The Cheapskate? Now you can.

To subscribe to the feed, just head to my Twitter page and click Follow. That's it!

Note that I'm still field-testing this new endeavor, so it might take a day or two before you start getting updates. In the meantime, if you like it, don't like it, or have something to say about Twitter in general, feel free to leave a comment. I'm all tweets and ears!

Five bargains less than $10

Got a sawbuck to spare? For no more than 10 smackers, you can walk away with any of these five goodies. The only challenge is deciding which one to get.

Amazon MP3 has U2's just-released new album, "No Line on the Horizon," for $3.99. iTunes price: $9.99. (If you've never checked out Amazon's MP3 store, you owe it to yourself.) Buy.com has a Targus Stow-N-Go Wireless Optical Mouse for $9.99 shipped. Perfect for notebooks, the mouse features a USB receiver that tucks away underneath when not in use. iTunes has the … Read more

Get a free one-day pass to Sam's Club

Want to stock up on batteries, toilet paper, rice, and other bulk essentials? Head to your local warehouse club.

Of course, normally, you have to pay an annual membership fee to reap the savings, but Allstate has a coupon (PDF) that'll get you into Sam's Club for a day--and waive the usual 10 percent upcharge that nonmembers pay.

I realize this isn't a tech deal, per se, but Sam's Club does carry a variety of computers, electronics, and the like. Plus, the coupon lives on the Web, so it kinda sorta fits, right?

Anyway, there's … Read more

Nominate 'The Cheapskate' for a 2009 Weblog Award!

Hey, there, you awesome bunch of readers. I have a favor to ask. If you like The Cheapskate, would you consider nominating it for a 2009 Weblog Award?

I feel guilty--downright cheap, in fact--for asking, but, well, it's one of the best ways I know of to spread the word about the blog.

All you have to do is head to the Weblog Awards site and nominate at least three different blogs. (Hey, as long as I've got my hat in hand, mind throwing a nom at Business Hacks, too? That's two right there!)

What's the … Read more

Save big on textbooks at Chegg

While I sit here rotting--er, working happily--in the Cheapskate Labs basement, the lovely Mrs. Cheapskate is busily pursuing a degree in nutrition. That means lots of chemistry classes, which, in turn, means lots of insanely expensive textbooks. And I mean insanely expensive: for some classes, the books cost nearly as much as the credit hours!

Fortunately, we've discovered Chegg, which allows us to "rent" textbooks for significantly less than buying them new--and, in many cases, for less than buying them used.

For example, when Mrs. C needed Macroscale and Microscale Organic Experiments, 5th Edition, for an organic-chemistry … Read more

Print news is fading, but the content lives on

It's been about 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web on the back of the Internet. For more than a billion people on the planet, the Web today is an alternate, digital universe that is gradually overtaking the analog, physical world as a source of information and connections.

Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted a survey that rendered two obvious conclusions: the Internet has overtaken newspapers as a source of national and international news, and television, led by CNN, continues to serve as the main source.

According to the Pew survey, … Read more

Four last-minute gifts you can print!

Need a last-minute gift for an office party, your trusty mail carrier, a beloved blogger, or anyone else on your list? As long as you have a printer, you can churn out something special in a matter of minutes. Here's a list of four stores that let you print your own gift certificates for in-person giving:

Amazon.com On any Amazon page, click the Gift Cards link, then choose Print at Home. The minimum amount is $5, but you're not limited to increments: Your certificate can be in the amount of $10.57, if you want. Gifts.com … Read more

Five dirt-cheap tech gifts for the holidays

Two-week warning, folks. That's how long you've got left until the fat man sings. (Chanukah-celebrators have even less time.) If you're still shopping for stocking stuffers, secret-Santa gifts, fifth-night-of-Chanukah trinkets, or whatever, look no further: I've got five guaranteed-to-please gift ideas:

Buy.com has four HP-branded 4GB USB drives for $29.99 shipped (after a $10 mail-in rebate). That works out to about $7.50 per drive. Knock out four stockings with one purchase! Buy.com also has a refurbished 4GB SanDisk Sansa e260 media player for $37.99 shipped, though you must pay with PayPal … Read more

Track price drops with ShoppingNotes.com

Want to know when there's a price reduction on that PS3 you've been eyeballing? Or the Amazon Kindle? Or just about anything else sold online?

ShoppingNotes.com tracks individual products and sends you an e-mail alert whenever there's a price drop.

There are two ways to use ShoppingNotes. First, you can copy and paste a product-page URL into the site's Web form, then enter your e-mail address for receiving alerts. Alternately, you can install the ShoppingNotes bookmarklet, which greatly simplifies the price-watch process: when viewing a product page, just click the bookmark.

You can also sign … Read more