Memorial Day is fast approaching -- although maybe not fast enough for those planning to enjoy a long weekend at the seashore. To pass the time between you and the beach, check out this roundup of low-cost beach gear to help all members of the family enjoy frolicking in the sand and water.
Target has a large selection of beach towels starting at just $6. The unique and varied designs win kudos from consumers posting reviews, although a few warn that these cheap beach towels are not the thickest or biggest you can buy. The cheap beach gear at Target also includes mesh beach totes with room for two towels, available in stores for $10. If you buy one before Memorial Day Weekend, you can get 50 percent off a second handbag or pair of shoes. Kmart's collection of beach towels starts at just $4. The range includes brightly colored stripe and polka-dot prints. While there are no reviews for these towels, we couldn't resist the extremely low price.
Cheap beach chairs and umbrellas.
For those who prefer to sit in a beach chair instead of on a towel, we found a sea-blue Tommy Bahama chair from Bed Bath & Beyond available at some locations for $20 on clearance (although it's out of stock online). Customers praise this cheap beach chair for being lightweight and portable yet durable and comfortable. Bed Bath & Beyond sells other cheap beach gear as well, including umbrellas with a very limited number of college and NFL team logos for $10 each. Other retailers sell the same umbrellas for twice the price. If your team is out of stock or football isn't your bag, Home Depot has a 7-foot beach umbrella for $10 available for store pickup. A similar 6-foot beach umbrella is available online for $12 from Dick's Sporting Goods.
Old Navy is well-known for providing cheap yet sensible flip-flops for both sexes and all ages and sizes, in a variety of colors. Both men's and women's styles go for $3.59 (or $2.50 for two or more) and garner hundreds of positive reviews from happy customers. If you're seeking a little more support and durability than these slabs of rubber can provide, see our recent guide to cheap sandals.
Cheap beach toys.
Try hitting the dollar store to pick up a variety of toys including foam noodles, beach balls, shovels, and sand buckets for only $1 each. An 11-piece set sells for $6 at Toys R Us.
Cheap sun protection.
Last but certainly not least, check out our reports on cheap sunscreen and cheap sunglasses. These are perhaps the most crucial pieces of beach gear you can buy. For sunblock, we recommend Banana Boat SPF 50 and No-Ad SPF 45, and consumer products experts have named the Target brand Up & Up Sport the best overall value in the SPF 30 group. A two-pack is a deal at less than $9. We'll be coming out with our latest picks for the best budget sunglasses later this week.
One of our favorite deals today is a $100 iTunes gift card for $80 at Best Buy. Make sure to stay on top of Woot deals today, including Kids.Woot, Home.Woot, and Woot.com--these deals are being replaced as soon as they sell out! Follow us on twitter for our favorites.
The days are getting hot, the kids are getting antsy -- the school year is nearing its end. Many parents mark the occasion with tokens of appreciation for all those teachers and coaches that have made such an impact on their children's lives in the past year. If you're a reader of our blog, no doubt you're looking for affordable ways to say thank you. The web is full of ideas for cheap teacher gifts, and we've rounded up some of our favorites below.
Help teachers start summer vacation off right by equipping them with everything they need to hit the beach. This idea from The Rachel Berry Blog is easy to put together and makes a cheap teacher gift. Simply pick up a magazine, a beach towel, travel-size sunscreen, and a small snack. Roll them into a bundle, secure with a ribbon, and attach a thank-you card. You don't even need to buy the card; the blog post includes a free printable tag.
Pampering Set.
This doesn't mean you have to buy a gift card to a spa -- although you can if you like (we're sure any teacher would enjoy it). Instead, the Baltimore Mommies blog suggests buying a nice bottle of hand lotion and presenting it creatively: Trace and cut out your child's handprints, stick them on either side of the bottle, and write on one of them, "[Teacher's name], you deserve a hand." This project gets children involved and can easily yield several cheap teacher gifts.
Garden Pot.
This idea from Disney's FamilyFun magazine starts with an inexpensive potted plant. Add gardening tools by poking them into the soil or attach envelopes of seeds to flower wire and stick those in. At Skip To My Lou, you can download a free printable card that says, "Thanks for helping [child's name] bloom." The beauty of this cheap teacher gift is you can make it as big or small as you like. Buy a small plant and add only a few seed envelopes or buy a big one and have multiple families contribute seed packets and handheld garden tools.
For a simple an exceedingly cheap teacher gift, the blog Nothing But Country shares this idea: Buy a pack of highlighters (you can find them at the dollar store) and attach a card that says, "Thanks for making my school year bright." The highlighters not only set up the cute play on words, they're also something any teacher can use in the classroom. Nothing But Country provides free printable cards.
Group Gift.
If you want to make a much bigger gesture, you can always pool resources with other parents'. Ask the family of each kid in the class or on the team to chip in and splurge on a big gift such as a spa trip. If you don't want to deal with cash, ask each family to provide a gift card that fits within a theme. For example, treat a teacher or coach to a night out with gift cards for dinner, a movie, and ice cream. You can also try using a group gifting site to collect payment.
If you were inspired by our recent cheap cables blog, today we've got an amazing deal on 10' HDMI cables under $3. There are also several great toys and board games--all under $20--so it's a good time to consider stocking up for parties and prizes!
While longer days and warmer weather are obvious indicators of a fast-approaching summer, for many people it also signals the beginning of a fast-paced wedding season. If you're planning multiple bachelor parties this summer, here are several ideas for a cheap bachelor party that will leave you with cherished memories but not a battered budget.
A walk in the woods is a great opportunity to get a large group together to celebrate a groom without worrying about cost. There are plenty of free trails out in the country that are manageable regardless of the group's overall skill level. You'll be able to use the money saved for a nice dinner in one of the surrounding towns, further enhancing your celebration of an important life transition. For some suggestions, check out the Top 100 trails, according to Trails.com.
Roast your groom.
William Shattner. David Hasselhoff. Donald Trump. Guys love giving their friends a hard time (in a good-natured kind of way), so get together with some of your groom's closest friends for a cheap bachelor party that involves an old-fashioned roasting. Whether you rent a room at a bar or simply meet at someone's home, everyone should come prepared with treasured tales about the groom. Go a little easy on the guy, though, as this won't be the most opportune moment to remind him of the demise of his favorite childhood teddy bear.
Roast something for your groom.
Regardless whether or not your groom eats meat, nothing says "male bonding" quite like a night in the backyard, replete with all kinds of food on the grill and a cooler stocked with the group's favorite beers. Crack open a cold one and revel in a laid-back night with good friends, good food, and with any luck, a riotous sunset.
Take your groom to a video arcade.
He might be on the verge of eternal marital bliss, but that doesn't mean the groom wouldn't appreciate revisiting video games from his youth. Include a few friends in this cheap bachelor party and let him loose in a video arcade, where his inner child will break out in full force. Be on the lookout for arcades geared towards adults that let you play like you did when you were kids but drink like you do now that you're grown up.
If you happen to live within striking distance of a professional baseball team, bleacher seats can still be had for about $15. However, tickets to a minor league game in your area are often more reasonably priced, as is the fare at concessions. Dust off your old mitts and head out to the park. The added bonus for this cheap bachelor party: Most minor league parks only hold several thousand spectators, which gets you much closer to the action than you would at any professional stadium - and at a cost-effective price point.
Make your groom sing.
There's a diva hidden somewhere deep within the recesses of your groom's soul, and you all know it. Most karaoke spaces charge per hour, regardless of the size of your group, giving you the perfect opportunity to hear your groom wail at the top of his lungs while you all reminisce over tunes you listened to while growing up.
Poker night.
Dust off the old poker chips from college, fill the fridge full of your groom's favorite beer, order a few pizzas, and you've got a simple and cheap bachelor party on your hands. This is the groom's chance to fleece you out of some money even as the gamesmanship of poker lends itself to recalling old times and giving the groom a last ribbing before he makes his way into married life.
This week at Cheapism we recommended the best cheap bras and published money-saving tips on buying cables for your gadgets, planning summer travel, and getting the most out of garage sales.
Bras. Usually we limit our picks for the best products in a category to two top choices, but bras come in so many incarnations that we're recommending four: the best everyday, strapless, push-up, and sports bras under $25. The cheap bras on our list use molded cups, gel pads, and/or underwire to enhance support and sculpt a flattering figure, but don't worry: All earn high marks for comfort. Two also boast convertible straps that can crisscross in the back to stay hidden under certain tops.
New Blog Posts.
Cheap Home Electronics Cables. Whether you've just upgraded your electronics and are in need of new cables or you've lost your camera's all-important USB cable (join the club), our guide to cheap cables will get you up and running in no time -- at a much lower cost than your local electronics store.
Cheap Summer Travel Tips. Airfare is one of the most expensive parts of a vacation, which means all the more opportunities for savings by booking smart. Check out our cheap summer airfare tips to know when to book, where to book, and generally how to keep a lid on travel costs.
What to Buy at a Garage Sale. Spring cleaning is in the air, and with that comes garage-sale season. Make sure you know what to keep an eye out for -- and what to leave on the table -- at your local garage sale.
Deals sites are gearing up for the summer with outdoor grills, picnic food carriers, and floatable toys. Check out our top picks of the best daily deals below.
It's always exciting to bring home a new TV, home theater receiver, printer, or other electronic gadget, but many of these products don't include the cables you need to connect them to other devices and begin using them right away. You have to buy the cables separately, and if you don't shop around, you can end up paying way more than you need to. Big brick-and-mortar retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart sell a variety of cables at different prices, and some may seem like a bargain. But as you'll see below, you can often find even cheaper HDMI or USB cables by spending just a little time shopping around. We looked at the prices of three common types of home electronics cables to see how much you can save.
HDMI cables are used to transfer high-definition video and audio between home theater components, such as a TV and Blu-ray player. HDMI cables are the only cables currently available that can transfer 1080p video signals, the highest resolution for playing video on a flat-screen TV.
The prices of HDMI cables vary quite a lot. In stores, you may find a cheap HDMI cable for less than $10, but you'll discover that most of the HDMI cables retailers display online cost a lot more. For example, we found a 6-foot HDMI cable from AudioQuest at Best Buy for a whopping $60. Best Buy also sells a 6-foot HDMI cable from Monster, one of the most popular cable makers, for $40. Radio Shack offers a 6-foot house brand cable for $25, which seems pretty reasonable compared with the prices of the other cables. Still, you can do better. Radio Shack also sells an NGX Basix cable for $9, and if you swing back to Best Buy, you can find a cheap Dynex Direct HDMI cable for a mere $7. While those are pretty solid deals, you can top them if you head to Newegg and buy a Link Depot HDMI cable for a mere $3 plus $2 for shipping and handling. You shouldn't see a difference in video quality if you use a cheap HDMI cable rather than an expensive one, so use the extra money you save to buy a few extra Blu-ray movies.
Cheap USB cables.
USB A/B cables are often used to connect PCs to external peripherals such as printers and scanners. The "A/B" refers to the two types of connectors on the ends of the cable. The "A" connector is the familiar, flat rectangle that plugs into a PC's USB port; it's the type found on USB mice and keyboards. The "B" end of the cable is square-shaped and plugs into the printer or scanner. You may find that some printers or scanners include a USB cable in the box, but more often than not, they don't; you have to buy a cheap USB cable separately.
USB A/B cables aren't very expensive to begin with in most cases; you can usually find a cheap USB cable in stores for about $10 to $20. But there are still savings to be had if you shop around. For example, we found a Belkin USB A/B cable at Walmart for $15, which isn't too shabby, but a quick trip to Target turned up a GE-brand USB A/B cable for only $10 -- pretty reasonable, right? Before you put your money down, stop by the Amazon Marketplace. We found a cheap USB cable made by Hitech for only $2.76, with free shipping no less.
Cheap optical digital audio cables.
Optical digital audio cables transfer audio signals from one device, such as a CD player, TV, or Blu-ray player, to a home theater receiver. Prices for optical audio cables vary quite a bit, but you can usually find one in stores for about $20 to $30. Radio Shack offers an Auvio optical digital audio cable for $27. At Crutchfield, prices for optical cables start at $18 and run as high as $162. Best Buy has a Dynex-brand cable for only $18. That's still a little pricey for our taste, though. We found a Belkin optical digital audio cable at Buy.com for only $8.59, plus free shipping. That's a steal, especially for a well-known brand such as Belkin.
($42.99; $69.95 value)
($2.15; $44.99 value) 
($149; $379 value)
($19.99; $39.99 value)
($8.99; $15.65 value)
($19.08; $30.00 value)
($22.30; $67.27 value)
($9.95; $19.99 value)
($23.14; $79.95 value)
($9.99) 
($16.37; $39.99 value)
($58.52; $120 value)
