It's time to end the suspense and to let you all know who we've chosen to attend the first ever Save Up. These lucky ladies and gentlemen will be joining us in San Francisco on November 5th for a day of savings-oriented panels and fun. We received many, many amazing entries, and it was very difficult to pick just a few.

Without further ado, here are the names of the DealPros who will be attending the Save Up next month:

Today's the day, folks. Today's the day we announce which two of our lucky contest entrants win The North Face backpacks we have to give away. We had 97 comments posted on our contest announcement blog post, and we counted over 200 tweets with our #freepack hash tag in them. We ended up choosing one winner at random from each of the entry sources.

(Drumroll, please!) And the winners are...

We here at Savings.com are devoted to working hard so that you always have easy access to all the best online coupons and deals. And as much as we know and understand the value of a dollar, we also see the value in taking time to enjoy some of the finer things in life.

This past Friday was one of those times. We invited our significant others, some business partners, and a few friends to celebrate a successful and exciting third quarter.

It's time to announce the winner of the $250 Woodwind & Brasswind gift card! We asked our members to submit their "One time at band camp..." stories in the comments section of our the contest announcement blog post, and the comments we got were all very entertaining. Thanks to everyone that shared a fond band/orchestra memory with us.

Now, down to business. Drumroll, please.

One of the coolest parts of working here at Savings.com is watching our elite community of deal experts find, post and share the best deals on the Web. From the mom who knows where to get diapers on the cheap to the tech-guru who shows us where to find the best deals on laptops and gadgets, many Savings.com users are the Web's true coupon connoisseurs. We like to call these savvy savers DealPros™.

Band geeks. Every high school has them. You all know who they were in your school, and there's a pretty good chance a lot of you were band geeks yourselves. And if you were, I'm sure you've got a story or two that begins, "One time at band camp..."

When we told Woodwind & Brasswind (one of the stores on Savings.com) about this post, they decided to ask their Facebook fans to share their band camp stories with us.

Here are a couple of snippets:

Even though Labor Day originated in Canada, Americans have taken the concept and run with it ever since it became a federal holiday in 1884. While its original intent was to recognize the labor workers with a day of parades and celebrations, Labor Day weekend has now become synonymous with barbecues, beach days, and major sales.

In the spirit of the latter, here are our top 10 Labor Day coupons. These deals are good this weekend only, so be sure to jump on it!

On August 20th, we announced a contest on our blog in which we planned to give away a copy of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 for Windows to a person randomly selected from our list of entrants. After about two weeks of receiving blog comments, Facebook wall posts, and RTs on Twitter, we received a total of 167 entries.

When I asked random.org to choose a number between 1 and 167, our winner emerged.

And the winner is...

No matter what your musical taste, there's no doubt that somewhere in the world there's a music festival planned that's right up your alley. Whether you're one of the thousands of people that descend upon Rhinelander, Wisconsin (my hometown) each summer to see Reba, Sugarland, and Neal McCoy at the Hodag Country Festival or you prefer the more rocking lineup of the Sunset Strip Music Festival, there's music being played for you. And if you're an indie music fan, there are more festival options than you know.

As a fairly avid music fan on a budget, I often struggle with spending lots of money on concert tickets, downloads and music magazine subscriptions. I want to stay connected to what's going on and to what's new, but it's rough with all the TicketMaster fees and with the ever-present temptation to pirate music instead of legitimately paying for it.

I have, however, found a few ways to maintain my music knowledgeability without spending all my monies on music and music-related purchases.

Here are a few tips to help you stay hip without breaking the bank...

We've all heard it before..."The best things in life are free." If you really think about it, you'll find that statement to be pretty true. I've polled my co-workers here at Savings.com to see what kinds of free things they consider to be priceless. Yeah, I'm going for something along the same lines as the g'zillion MasterCard commercials we've seen over the years. You know...two tickets to a baseball game - $24. Two hotdogs and sodas - $30. An afternoon ballgame with your kid - priceless.

In any case, here's what I heard back from the team...

Think back to the crappiest car you've ever driven. Now think of how nice it would have been to get $4500 to trade in your hooptie for a sweet new ride. $4500...that's more than my last car was worth! Our favorite blog posts and articles from the past week are themed around the Cash for Clunkers bill that was passed by the Senate last night. So, without further ado, here are our favorite clunker-related posts of the week.

Our favorite blog posts and articles this week span a wide range of topics from the pros and cons of carrying cash to Apple's plan to boost iTunes sales. So, if you're looking for a potpourri of reading delights, you've found it.

Despite the sweltering summer heat in the San Fernando Valley yesterday afternoon, almost 300 people showed up to attend BargainBabe's Frugal Fe$tival. The Fe$tival took place in Woodley Park in Van Nuys, and the park's little picnic area was filled to the brim with expert and amateur coupon hunters alike who were looking for tips, tricks and ways to save a buck or two.

It's Friday, and that means it's blog round-up time! Our favorite blog posts and articles this week have to do with jobs...finding a job, quitting a job, secret jobs, etc. So if you're in on the job market, thinking of changing your line of work, or if you just want some good reading, check out the links below.

Well everyone, it's nearly time. BargainBabe's Frugal Fe$tival is upon us. This Sunday, July 26th, the frugal folks of Los Angeles will flock to Woodley Park in Van Nuys to meet up and converse about saving money and about, well, being frugal.

Wingardium Leviosa! Furnunculus! Expelliarmus!

If you're looking to learn charms to make things float, to inflict boils on an enemy, and/or to disarm your dueling opponent, the Harry Potter books and movies are certainly a good place to look. I'll bet, though, that you didn't realize you could learn some sound financial advice from the wizards of Hogwarts. Well, it's true.

Here are five financial tips from the magical world of Harry Potter.

The economy sucks. No big secret there, right? And it's no secret that the federal and state governments are feeling similar economic pressures as their residents. I don't think this could be any more evident than it is for those of us who live here in California.

This week's financial blog roundup defies categorization. The posts we've pulled together for this week deal with topics ranging from recession lingo and financial zen to tips on organizing a yard sale for the ages. We hope you enjoy this week's blog roundup: The Eclectic Edition.

Last week, KABC-TV in LA ran a story called Online Coupons: Beware of the Bargain that tells the story of a woman that was scammed by an online coupon service. Via a popup on their site, this service promised her a great deal in exchange for some of her personal information. She ended up with a load of phony charges on her credit card statement, and she's still in the process of straightening out her finances.

It's that time of the week again, time for the Savings.com blog round up for the week of June 28th. We've picked some of our favorite blog posts from the past week and compiled them into a concise list for your reading pleasure. This week's theme: Financial Crimes.

For the past two weeks, we've been running a Twitter Roomba contest. Everyone that followed our new Twitter account @savings and everyone that RTed (retweeted, for those of you who are not Twitter lingo savvy) one of our posts has been entered into the drawing to win a brand new iRobot Roomba 530 robot vacuum cleaner.

We amassed 382 followers at our new Twitter account, and many of those followers RTed us during the course of the contest. When all was said and done, we had 529 entries. We used random.org to choose a winner from our list of entries. And the winner is...

This past week, a big group of us from Savings.com headed to New York City on a couple of different missions. One team attended the LinkShare Symposium East, which Tom talked about in his post a couple weeks ago. I was part of a second team that was in the city to meet with some great people who are interested in getting the word out about our company. Loren and I met with people from all sorts of publications, and they all seemed stoked to hear about Savings.com, the great things we're doing and the exciting things we're working on.

This week's blog round-up features articles and posts on the theme of transportation...air transportation, mainly. These posts cover a little bit of everything, from major airline blunders to ways to fly hassle-free with your kids. Not all of it is money/savings-oriented, but it's all interesting and certainly worth knowing.

This week's roundup of our favorite blog posts is centered around the topics of money and friendship. From paying for friends to staying within your budget when entertaining your friends, there's a load of interesting opinions and ideas out there on these topics. Below you'll find a few of our favorite pieces from this week.