Restaurant.com is having an 80 percent off sale. $25.00 gift certificates for local restaurants are available for $2.00 when you use the code “TOUCHDOWN” at checkout.
Most restaurants require a purchase of least $35 dollars worth of food,   so out of pocket expenses  will be $12.00  plus tip for a 35 dollar meal.

Buckhead Life Restaurant Group is giving away thousands of $25.00 gift cards.   Like them on Facebook and provide your address to get the card.   The gift cards are good for dinner only at Buckhead Diner, Blue Pointe and many other restaurants in the Buckhead Life corporation.   Bistro Niko is not included.   This offer ends on  Tuesday, September 14th. 14th.

Cobb County Restaurant Week continues through next Saturday. Participating restaurants will provide fixed price lunches and dinners for $20.10.Those restaurants include The Grape and Soho on Paces Ferry, The Marietta Fish Market and Shillings On The Square.  For the full list go to the Cobb Convention and Visitor’s Bureau website.

B.J.’s Wholesale club has another free trial membership available. Customers can activate the card any time before December 31st, 2010 and use it free for sixty days.  Click here to get a BJ’s temporary membership.

Here are some other bargains you can find around metro Atlanta this week:

Beginning Monday, the City of Atlanta will host a week-long liquidation sale to empty out City Hall East before it’s sold. There are more than five thousand pieces of furniture including desks, chairs, sofas and bookcases. City Hall East previously housed the Atlanta police department.

Dean Gardens is holding an estate sale on August 28th from 4 to 8pm. The sale will feature furniture, house wares, rugs and more. Ten percent of the proceeds from the sale will benefit the Fragile Kids Foundation. Owner Larry Dean sold his multi-million dollar estate to Filmmaker Tyler Perry.  Those who plan to attend should call (770) 951-6115 to RSVP

Now and Again is having its once a year Art Markdown sale. The store is located at 56 East Andrews Drive, Atlanta. The sale is August 21st through 28th.

In the same Buckhead neighborhood, Global Living is closing. The store, which sells home décor from around the world,  has items marked down up to 75 percent off of retail.

The Fernbank Museum store sidewalk sale is August 21 and 22nd. Hours on Sunday the 22nd are noon to 5pm. Merchandise is marked down up to 75 percent off of original prices.

Ann Taylor Loft is having a summer clearance sale with some items below $5.00

On Saturday, June 26th The Mall of Georgia’s Movies Under The Stars features  Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.  Musical entertainment before the free  movie begins at 6:30 pm.

IKEA has free meals for kids from now until July7 5th. No adult purchase is necessary. IKEA serves breakfast, lunch and dinner with a Swedish theme.

The Georgia Aquarium now offers free admission on your birthday.  Proof in the form of a valid I.D. or birth certificate is required.

For tooth grinders, Plackers has a free sample of disposable night guards you can order plackers.com. Shipping and handling is $2.99. 

Check It Out Reading is a summer reading program offered jointly by the Atlanta Hawks and Thrashers. Kids who register and read five books by get a free ticket to both a Hawks and Thrashers game. (From fieldtripswithsue.com)

For updates on freebies and deals, follow valuesval on twitter.com

My Gym will offer discounts on classes and birthday parties and will be running other specials as well. Parents can learn more about the classes while kids play in the gym.   My Gym is located at 267 West Wieuca Rd. NE, Suite 101, Atlanta, GA 30342

Scoutmob.com has the following deals this week:

Monday: 50% off TAP (Midtown) -
Tuesday: 50% off Wasabi (Castleberry Hill) -�
Wednesday: 50% off Carroll Street Cafe (Cabbagetown)- Thursday: 50% off Coldbrew’s Sports Bar & Grill (Roswell)-     Friday: 50% off Demure Clothing (Westside)

Amazon.com has Forbes, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and others on sale. Some are as low as $4.99 for a one year subscription but subscribers much cancel the subscription after one year or it will automatically be renewed.

Finding discounts on golf can be challenging.  Halfoffdepot.com currently has a deal at the Charlie Yates Golf Course at  Eastlake for $13.50.   Diningperks.com offers gift certificates for 50 percent off golf at the Stone Mountain and Indian Creek courses. These deals are for Atlanta but both have varied offers for different cities and offer some great deals!

 Big Lots:
Char-Broil Grill $99
Tool Chest 59.99

K and G Superstore
Men’s Designer Suits $79.99
Dockers $19.99

$$Hot Deal$$  Sears:
Spend $50 on Men’s apparel; get $50 Come Back Cash. Come Back Cash is Sears store credit and customers must fill out a mail in rebate form.

Pike Nursery:
Annual Red Tag Sale with some items marked down 70 percent.
Also, select plants and shrubs on sale, buy two get one free.

Tools and home improvement supplies also make good Father’s Day gifts. Home Depot and Lowe’s promise to match each other’s prices as long as you bring in a sale flier that indicates the competitor’s price.

Ghazaleh Coulter has two small children and another one on the way. She didn’t want to worry about chemicals in plastic baby bottles so she came up with the CuteSip cup system.

CuteSip is a dishwasher safe stainless steel bottle system with interchangeable lids that include nipples for newborns as well as transitional sippy cups and sport bottles.

The bottles are $17.95 each but Coulter says they are less expensive because they last for years. “You can buy two stylish bottles and put them in your diaper bag and you can just change the tops as the baby grows. The bottles last for a very long time, it’s not like the plastic sippy cups that smell after a while or get scratched or lost,” she said.

CuteSip bottles can be purchased at cutesip.com. The infant version is also featured on thegreenhalf.com.

Piedmont Park Pool is free to the public from 3 to 5pm Monday through Friday.

IKEA stores are serving free breakfast Saturday May 29th through Monday May 31st. One small breakfast per customer.

Lowe’s Build and Grow Kids’ clinic at 10 a.m. this Saturday is a wood race car project. Sign up at Lowe’s build and grow.com

Panola Mountain State Park in Stockbridge is having a kids fishing festival on Saturday May 29th from 9am to 2pm. There will be fishing instructions, tree climbing workshops and archery.  Bring your own rod and bait.  Parking is $5.00  (From fieldtripswithsue.com)

Sonic restaurants have free ice cream cones for kids who are finishing prekindergarten through grade 5 on Saturday May 29th. A coupon on pathtocollege529.com is required.

And Marthastewart.com has free downloadable clip art you can use to make stickers for gifts, photos, kitchen pantry items, party placecards and more.  All you need is your computer and a few supplies from any office supply store.

From Viewer Karen Duke: Kids can bowl one free game per day at Oasis Bowl in Buford and Loganville.  Sign up at www.oasisbowl.com

Scotia Salon in Roswell is having a Cut-A-Thon Sunday April 18th from 12 to 5 pm to benefit the Foster Care Support Foundation. Wet haircuts are $10.00.  Scotia is located at 1055 Canton Street, Suite 120, Roswell, GA 30075. (770) 645-0811 

Oxxo Dry Cleaners in Buckhead will offer a 60 percent off coupon on Scoutmob.com this week.  The store is located at 3165 Peachtree Road, Suite C, Atlanta, GA 30305 (404) 660-0023

Other Scoutmob deals this week:

Monday: 50% off Luckie Food Lounge (Downtown) - 

Tuesday: 50% off Fuze Burger (Midtown)

Wednesday: 50% off Tavern 99 (Buckhead

Thursday: 60% off OXXO Cleaners (Buckhead)

Friday: 50% off The Village Jerk (East Atlanta)                    

Global Freight Liquidations in Norcross has a new shipment from a local warehouse club store. The stock includes baby items and clothing. Global Freight Liquidations has changed the pricing on its clothing: men’s and women’s clothing that retails for $50 or less is all priced at $6.95, kids’ clothing is $4.95.

Thursday, April 22nd is Earth Day. Customers who bring a container from their current facial care products will receive a full size facial cleanser FREE at participating Origins counters in local department stores.  For details go to Origins Facebook page.

April 17-24th is National Park Week. and entrance fees are being waived in National Parks across the U.S.  In metro Atlanta the Chattahoochee National Recreation area is normally $3.00 but it is free this week.

Evos Restaurants in Atlanta are serving FREE organic milkshakes in biodegradable cups on Earth Day. The restaurant specializes in fresh, healthy food and has 3 metro Atlanta locations including one at the Prado Shopping Center.

Participating Pottery Barn Kids have Earth Day activities for kids at 11 am and 3pm Tuesday. The festivities include a free giveaway item kids can plant while supplies last.

The Salvation Army is giving away gift cards:  Donate some gently used clothing or household items by May 31st and receive a $10.00 gift card to use at Van Heusen, Izod or Bass retail stores. For dropoff locations go to satruck.org

On Saturday April 17th and Sunday April 18th the Boy Scouts of America Adventure Base 100 will be at Piedmont Park.  Kids can try out a ropes course and other scouting activities.

Some of the items are later claimed by their rightful owners but thousands of others are auctioned off on propertyroom.com, a website started by a former police officer in 1999. The site, which is based in California,  features items from thousands of law enforcement agencies across the U.S. 

Propertyroom.com is similar to EBay but the payment system is different. Those who bid must register a credit card number first and the high bidder’s credit card is automatically billed. The website keeps a portion of the proceeds and returns the rest to the law enforcement agency.

Browsing through the site, I saw some pretty amazing deals on jewelry in particular as well as electronics and tools.  But I also felt a little bad; I mean, most of this stuff was stolen from people who, for whatever reason, never got it back.  It reminds me of the old “it fell of a truck” type of  sale we used to see before internet sales became popular.   Still, buying on propertyroom.com is perfectly legal;  a judge has to approve each sale.  And Lt. Van Hobbs, who oversees the unit,  tells me Georgia law prohibits donating evidence items to charity (like the thousands of kids’ bikes stolen each year.)

The stolen property is sold at auction  only after it has been in the property unit for 90 days and all attempts to contact the rightful owner have been exhausted, including a public notice in a local newspaper.

Each listing on propertyroom.com indicates the condition of the item. Some fine jewelry pieces even have appraisals. Sales are final in most cases.

Hobbs said if a crime victim spots their own stolen property on propertyroom.com and can prove it, it will be returned to them. The website also has a section where people can register the serial numbers of their computer, television and other household items. That way if their items are stolen and later end up on propertyroom.com the company will match up the serial numbers and  return them to the original owner.

I wonder if many of the crime victims whose property is on the site got their insurance money and moved on? 

Anyway, buying stolen property is legal and can be a bargain.   (Buyer beware obviously) It is a bit icky, perhaps, but I’m tempted to browse and check it out.  Before the story airs at 11pm.

What do you think?