The Chronic Consumer

Redenvelope.com is having their Winter Sale right now, which means you can save up to 70% on selected products. For example, you can buy a pair of men’s leather + cashmere gloves for $39.99 (regularly $78); a cashmere travel set that includes a blanket, memory foam pillow, and eye mask all in a zippered pouch for $138.99 (reg. $275); or a Wine Tasting Party kit for $39.99 (reg. $75).

Redenvelope.com has long been one of my favorite sites for corporate gifts, so I’m definitely going to spend some time looking through the sales products to see what else is available. I might stock up on a few of the lower-priced items to give away to valued clients during the year just to help ensure good karma .

Most of the products sold on Redenvelope.com can be gift-wrapped for just $4.95 extra, and many can even be personalized through engraving or embroidery.

I have very sensitive skin that’s prone to breakouts. As a result, I have to be very careful about what kind of products I use on my face, and I can only wear makeup on special occasions (rather than on a daily basis).

But recently I’ve been thinking that perhaps a change in makeup brands is in order. Right now, I use a popular brand that’s available at all department stores. I like it, but it is rather harsh on my skin, which is why I can’t wear it regularly.

So what if I changed over to something like Jane Iredale Skin Care Makeup instead? This line is specifically designed to be safe for your skin, and is widely recommended by dermatologists and plastic surgeons.

As soon as my regular makeup runs out, I think I’ll either get a sample of Jane Iredale’s stuff or buy some outright.

Hopefully it will work for my skin!

For Christmas this year, I decided to surprise my husband with a new MP3 player. He had been using a 4th Generation (I think; I can’t keep all of them straight!) 20GB iPod, but after several years of daily use, the battery life was being affected.

I briefly thought about buying my husband a different brand, such as a Zune or a Creative Zen, but didn’t know how easy it would be to transfer all of his music from iTunes to this other software. In the end, I decided to stick with the Apple brand, especially because we’ve purchased so many of these over the years (this was the seventh iPod between us: two 1GB Shuffles, one 4GB Mini, two 4GB Nanos, the 20GB 4th generation iPod, and now the new one) and have never had problems with any of them.

There are several differences between the old 4th generation that my husband was using and the new “iPod Classic”, as Apple has taken to calling these things. First of course, is the storage capacity. Eighty gigs is a HUGE amount for a portable device, and my husband is nowhere close to filling his iPod up, even though he has several TV shows, full-length movies, YouTube clips, and all of his music on there.

I could have gotten the 160GB iPod Classic for a hundred bucks more, which is a better dollar-per-gig deal. However, I figured that my husband would never use that much space and that he would probably get another new iPod in a few years, so why bother with spending the extra money now.

Another difference is that the iPod Classic now plays videos. The device requires video files to be in a special format (I don’t know what it is offhand, but it’s not AVI, DiVX, MPEG, or any of the usual types), which means you have to run your vids through a converter before loading them (if you don’t buy them off iTunes, I mean). The conversion is a long, tedious process, but my husband doesn’t seem to mind it. He loves having video playback capabilities on his iPod, so he’s willing to jump through all these hoops to put his movies on there.

And finally, the iPod Classic has a feature called Cover Flow. This essentially allows you to browse through your music by looking at album covers. For example, if you have the latest Linkin Park CD loaded on your device, you can play all the songs from it by clicking on the cover art. This admittedly looks pretty cool, but isn’t exactly a selling point. Just an extra perk.

The rest of the iPod’s features, including games, calendar, photos, contacts, etc. are the same as older generations.

Overall, I think the 80GB iPod Classic is a great portable music and video player. It’s a bit on the expensive side compared to other brands, but at least you’re getting a name you can trust. I paid the full retail price of $249 for this one, as it was a last-minute Christmas decision and I bought it from a local store, but it can be had on Amazon.com or other websites for $10-$20 less.

Definitely recommended!

Because of skyrocketing energy costs, the winter months always prove to be a major drain on my household budget. Even when I keep the thermostat at a barely-comfortable 68 degrees, our heating bills are usually more than we anticipated. So in recent weeks, I’ve been investigating alternative home heating solutions that might be viable for my family.

With a small child running around, I thought it would be best to avoid space heaters for the time being. Instead, I began looking closely at ventless gas logs that we can use in our fireplace.

I’d never really considered using our fireplace as a source of real heat before, but the more I read about the energy-efficient qualities of heating a room with ventless gas logs, the more I became convinced that this was the answer my family has been looking for.

Ventless gas logs are great for heating purposes because almost 100 percent of the heat goes into the room as opposed to up the chimney. They provide all of the cozy warmth that you’d expect from a fireplace, without all the hassles of dealing with wood logs, smoke, soot, and ashes.

I found a number of both vent-free and vented gas log products (as well as other home heating solutions) at the DESA Online Outlet website. These items were priced significantly lower than comparable products at other online retailers, so I’ll likely end up buying from there. If I do, I’ll definitely write a full review of whichever gas log I purchase!

The holidays may be over, but the savings are still going strong at many retailers. I was at the mall earlier today and saw tons of sales at nearly every single store, with many places offering at least 50% off winter clothing and merchandise.

Since it would be impractical to list all of the specific sales here, I’m just going to highlight one of them. I chose the BabyGap because I remember when my son was younger, I’d never be able to afford the adorable BabyGap clothes unless they were on sale. So if you’re in the same boat, now’s your chance to buy some name-brand stuff for your little one!

Right now you can pick up newborn bodysuits for $4.99 (regular price $14.50), fleece pajamas for $9.99 (regular price: $24.50), or thermal hoodies for $4.99 (regular price: $19.50). These are just a few of the items BabyGap has on sale now, so you really need to get to a store or check the website to see everything that they have.

Even if your own kids are too old for these clothes, you should still take a look at what’s on sale. For example, if you have a friend who’s expecting, you can buy a couple of gender-neutral presents now instead of waiting until after the baby is born. Thinking ahead like this can save you a lot of money!