Scary Costumes Make for Warm Memories

I am happy to host Barry Boone and his hints on saving this year for Halloween. I hope that

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some of the following will help you out.

Barry Boone, the founder and CEO of www.DealHunting.com and www.CurrentCodes.com, wants the memories of smiling youngsters trick-or-treating this fall to remain fresh long after the last candied apple has been eaten and the last red cape has been folded and tucked away. And so he is reminding parents that they can find unbeatable savings on costumes, candy and digital photo processing online this Halloween.

“We have lots of listings of coupons and sales for retailers that sell costumes, like BuyCostumes.com and Costume SuperCenter,” says Boone, “but we also have really great coupons for stores that do digital photo processing, like Snapfish.com, KodakGallery.com and YorkPhoto.com. So whenever you take pictures of your kids in their Halloween costumes, you can find a coupon to process those digital photos at a great price.”

“DealHunting.com is a daily shopping list,” Boone explains. “You can go there on a daily basis and find a listing of all the different good sales we found on the internet for that day. These are the newest, latest, greatest sales, and if there are some really deeply discounted items for those stores, we’ll have them listed.”

Sister site Currentcodes.com is a database of coupons for more than 1,300 online stores ranging from Amazon.com to Zales and everything in between, including CompUSA, Disney, Esprit, The Gap, JCPenney, L.L. Bean, Old Navy, Orbitz, Overstock.com, Staples and more. Each has a place within its shopping cart for a "coupon code" that gives a percent or dollar amount off of a purchase.

“If you don't know the code, you can't take advantage of the discount,” says Boone. “You can find these secret discount codes and coupon codes listed on many sites across the internet, but the problem with these sites is that they're usually personal homepages, and don't maintain their lists.”

DealHunting.com and Currentcodes.com have a full-time trained staff whose only job is to find new sales, coupon and discount codes and verify the accuracy of the existing database. “We don't flood you with ads or popups, and we don’t require any personal information from our visitors.” Boone says.

What sets DealHunting.com and Currentcodes.com apart from their competitors, Boone feels, is that “we are by far two of the most thorough sites as far as the breadth of companies we cover.”

In the months ahead, Boone and his team will launch additional features for searching products more efficiently.

The Green Year

Jodi Helmer, author of The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make a Big Difference was kind enough to share tips to help make your Halloween more Green then orange and black. Thank you Jodi for sharing.

Trick or treating has a frightening impact on the environment. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spend upwards of $5 billion on the spooky celebration annually – and that adds up to a lot of plastic masks, candy wrappers and fake tombstones. Jodi Helmer, author of The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make a Big Difference offers these tips for making the black and orange holiday a little more green.

Green the goodies: Think of all the candy wrappers that one little goblin throws in the trash – then multiply that number by the millions of trick-or-treaters who are happily gobbling up their

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stash. Offer organic apples from the farmers market or buy treats in bulk to minimize packaging waste.

Come up with a new costume: Skip the racks of colorful costumes at the mall (most of them are made of non-renewable materials like plastic) and come up with a creative idea for a homemade costume. Add a bandanna to a pair of jeans and a denim shirt for an instant cowboy costume or put on your wedding dress and go as the Bride of Frankenstein. Or, host a costume swap with the neighbors. The costumes their kids have outgrown might be the perfect fit for your little one.

Choose natural decorations: Bails of straw, colorful mums and a handful of gourds are great seasonal decorations that can be composted on November 1st. If scary witches hanging from the oak tree and plastic pumpkins on the front step are a must-have, scour secondhand stores.

The Green Year (December 2008, $14.95, ISBN: 9781592578290, Alpha Books), provides 365 simple and inexpensive eco-friendly ideas for each day of the year. Organized by date, the green living tips suggest small changes and environmentally friendly ideas that make a big green impact. The Green Year is more than a calendar. It offers practical, affordable and engaging activities that help make going green a blessing rather than a burden.