Today's the last day of the buy one get one Progresso soup sale at Harris Teeter, and there is a great $1.10 off ONE coupon for the High Fiber varieties.

You can find the coupon through two links. One may work better for your browser, depending on which one you use.

Link 1 and Link 2 

I found an interesting post over on The Consumerist Web site the other day. It was 10 confessions of a telemarketing insider. Having received plenty of telemarketing phone calls it was kind of interesting to read.

Here's the link... 

Sears has partnered with a company called Gazelle to launch an electronics recycling program that includes old cell phones. That's awesome because I have at least three of them sitting in my house!

The gist of the deal is that you go to http://sears.gazelle.com/ and fill out a little survey about the items you have. You get an offer and then instructions on how to ship your items to Gazelle for free. Upon receipt, your items are inspected and you are issued money back, in the form of Sears gift cards. Just in time for the holidays, too. Oh, and if your item is determined to have no value, Sears will recycle it for you anyway.

Sears is one of a number of retailers now offering such services. Another popular one is the recycling program from Office Depot that was launched earlier this year.

Mark your calendar for the Cameron Village holiday open house on Thursday, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Santa will be there, in addition to a lot of other performers and entertainers. There will be gifts for kids, and the first 800 guests to present receipts showing they've spent more than $100 at Cameron Village stores will receive a $25 gift certificate to the center (that excludes the grocery stores, the ABC store and pharmacies).

If you're more of the last-minute type of shopper, you may want to mark your calendar for Dec. 17.

That's the day that has been unofficially dubbed Free Shipping Day.

More than 200 retailers have signed on to offer free shipping for delivery by Christmas. But that really will be probably the last day you will be able to order without overninight shipping to guarantee delivery by Christmas.

If you want to see which companies are participating, CLICK HERE.

Just a reminder that tonight is the night Golden Corral restaurants will honor military veterans with a free buffet.

Tonight, Golden Corral will serve free dinner buffets with beverage from 5 to 9 p.m. to any person who is or has served in a United States Military branch, including the National Guard and Reserves.

Sorry I'm late today, everyone! I was so busy that I forgot to post today's coupon update!

Today we had a Red Plum, a Smart Source and a second small little Smart Source with Pillsbury coupons on the front. There were also some random coupons on a single-page insert from Kroger and a few in the Parade magazine (remember that depending on what the manufacturer has requested, some areas do not get those. So you may or may not have received them in your paper depending on where you live).

In all, it was almost 200 new coupons!

All have been added to the database and the new Excel version is available below. Hope everyone is enjoying the amazing weather today!

Today is the LAST DAY to enter my latest Triangle Pricebook Contest.

All you have to do is enter 25 items in the pricebook before midnight tonight to be entered to win a copy of the new Clue: Secrets & Spies board game. We will have a random drawing to determine the winner.

In addition, the person who enters the most items in the pricebook during the contest period will win coffee with me!

Thanks so much to everyone for participating! I hope you are finding the pricebook to be a useful tool! www.newsobserver.com/business/pricebook 

If you live for Sunday football, here's a promotion from Marriott you might want to bookmark.

Through Dec. 13, every weekend stay at a Marriott hotel will get you a $25 gift card to use at nflshop.com or ticketsnow.com. AND you will be entered in a drawing for a bunch of football-related prizes. The grand prize is a trip to New York to meet football commentator James Brown.

Here's the link to the offer.

I know, it seems like Christmas is still far away. But if you are planning to do some of your purchasing online, you need to start thinking about getting your items ordered.

The folks over at CouponSherpa.com have compiled a really handy list of retailers and their deadlines for regular shipping and express shipping. Most of them fall in mid-December, but some of them are as early as Dec. 3!

Start clicking!

A couple of years ago, I did a story about Cary Towne Center's Random Acts of Kindness program, in which mall representatives would go hang out in shops and randomly pay for people's holiday purchases.

It was a really cool program, but I have also been lucky enough to witness some spontaneous random acts of kindness in my years as a retail reporter. People paying for other people's groceries, people picking up checks in restaurants for others, etc.

Have you ever witnessed a random act of kindness? Please share your story!

Just a friendly reminder that the registration for my upcoming coupon class ends this Wednesday!

There will be NO late registration allowed, and NO tickets will be sold at the door.

So if you want to come, please register now.

During the half-day seminar, I will be joined by Faye Prosser, author of "The Smart Spending Guide." We will discuss using coupons, maximizing your coupon savings, using rebates and meal planning.

Don't miss it! This will be the last coupon class this year!

CLICK HERE FOR THE REGISTRATION PAGE

The folks at RealPeopleRatings.com are back with their quarterly listing of companies with the best customer service.

There are a lot of names that are not surprises and some that perhaps are.

Feel free to disagree or agree (nicely) or share your own story of good customer service.

Click read more to see the list.

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Oh, yum. I was surfing around the Internet this week looking up the pages for companies that I like and found an unexpected contest on the Eli's Cheesecake site.

Eli's is giving away one cheesecake a month.

They are really tasty and retail for like $40.

The contest is good for residents of the United States and you can enter to win here.

Starting today, there are new winter hours for the North Raleigh Farmer's Market will be held Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon and Wednesdays 2 to 6 p.m.

The market features products from local farmers offering the finest in regionally grown produce, meats and other products.

The market is in the Falls River Town Center off Durant Road. Here's its Facebook page...