If your mother lives in the UK, you might be surprised/alarmed to discover it’s Mothering Sunday on 14 March.

Mother’s Day (which comes nine months after Father’s Day in Australia – only joking) falls on a variety of days across the world.

If you just know your mother doesn’t want any more stuff (ie she is NOT a Taurus, Cancer or Libra) and she’s a little bit altruistic, she might appreciate this gift idea from Save the Children.

Pay for a baby kit for a newborn, a school uniform so the child can go to school, a clean water filter for potable water, four tree saplings to grow crops, mosquito nets so they can sleep safely at night or a sewing kit so they can make a living, for example.

In return, your own mother will receive a personalised card from you containing a gift certificate of what you’ve bought for a struggling family or child in a Third World country, such as Zimbabwe.

If you spend more than a few hours a week online, your time could earn you free gift cards that could cover someone’s anniversary, baby, birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day or housewarming gift.

If you live in Canada, the UK or US (sadly it’s restricted to those three countries so far or I would sign up in a flash), you can sign up for free with Swagbucks.

You earn gift cards – and plenty of other merchandise which could be good to cross off certain gift-giving obligations (such as those endless children’s birthday parties for example!) – simply for surfing the net.

After registering, you install a Swagbucks toolbar at the top of your screen. It will give you results from Google and Ask.com which will periodically allocate you a certain digital dollar value per search. You can also earn SwagBucks by referring friends to join, filling out polls, shopping in the Swagbucks mall and recycling mobile phones.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites have made it possible for everyone to know about an amazing deal in your neck of the woods or your area of interest.

A number of US social media merchants have sprung up where merchants can entice new customers to try a new product, get an amazing deal on a close-out item or to be one of the first to trial a brand-new service.

The biggest and best-known are Groupon (which pays you $10 if you refer friends), LivingSocial, BuyWithMe and NimbleBuy.

You simply sign up with one or more of them to get daily emailed deals for your city (or for national and/or online-only deals).

Is there a catch? Natch. To make it worth the merchants’ while, they require a minimum number of customers to ”buy in” to the deal. So if you’re keen say to pick up a luxurious massage in Miami or a baby hamper in Baltimore for a ridiculously reduced price, you’ll need a number of others in your area wanting that same thing.

Which is where social media comes in. You Twitter it and/or facebook it like crazy to your mates and get them to pass the word on so you can all benefit from the low, low prices.

This could be great if you’re seeking some bargains on upcoming gifts for an anniversary, birthday, christening, engagement, Mothers’s Day, new baby or wedding gift.

If you can add a little magic to their birthday, you make your favourite Pisces so much happier.

Pisces are the agony aunts of the zodiac who people come to with their problems, wanting a sympathetic ear, a hug and a little wallow of self-pity. Unlike say, Capricorns or Scorpios who’ll gruffly tell you to snap out of it, Pisces really want to help.

When they’re at their best, they’re selfless, kind, compassionate, sensitive and supportive. To BE at their best, they need support in return, which means remembering their birthday.

You can make their birthday a wonderful one by making an effort. Since Pisces rules the feet, they are especially fond of shoes. Teenage and twenty-something Pisces boys will always appreciate another pair of cool runners. Pisces women usually have an enormous shoe collection so a shoe bag would make a thoughtful modest gift. Splashing out? Give them a gift certificate for beautiful shoes - and you get extra brownie points if they’re for handmade and/or customised shoes.

You can also give them magic! They love tinkly windchimes, terrariums, crystal ornaments that refract the light into a thousand little rainbows and velvet throws which are vaguely Stevie Nicks. Most New Age shops have a “Oh, wow!” item that’s sure to intrigue them.

If they’ve got the right lifestyle, you could melt a Pisces heart by giving them a little puppy or kitten – bonus points if you go out to the local animal shelter to go and save one. If they live in an apartment, you could give them a pair of goldfish and decorate the bowl with a castle, treasure chest, diver and plants. Very calming (that’s why dentists have aquariums in their waiting rooms).

Neptune, which rules Pisces, rules glamour and they can’t have enough of it. Take them away from their ordinary humdrum existence with items which suggest an otherworldly, special glittering place. It could be as fun as a silk palm tree for them to pretend they’re in the tropics or a beautiful artwork which takes their breath away. If they were in a movie, what character would they play? Ask them. If they haven’t had it done yet, treat to them to a feng shui consultation.

Music simply transports them. A guitar could thrill a male Pisces while the girls might be happy to spend hours browsing through CDs thanks to a gift card. Again, you can’t go wrong with an iTunes card.

Most of them just lurrrve getting their fortunes done, too. You could delight them no end by paying for them to enjoy a reading with a clairvoyant, psychic, numerologist, astrologer or tarot card reader. Many Pisces might like a gift voucher to their favourite esoteric bookshop.

Some of them have weak constitutions and like their polar opposites, Virgo, can be inclined to get a little too ill a little too often. Give them a boost with a consultation with a homeopath. If you don’t want to go that far, a massage will do. Flush with cash? Treat them to a swanky health retreat for their birthday.

Those Pisces who are not of a materialistic bent will appreciate you giving money to their favourite charity on their behalf. Make sure you include the receipt in their card.

What do you give your wife for Christmas and her 30th birthday who you’ve scorned publicly and worldwide?

If you’re Tiger Woods, you give your deeply unimpressed wife Elin Nordegren a cool $300 million in cash so she can buy herself a little something. Hell – you could buy an entire department store chain with that.

By Valentine’s Day he would have been emptying his bank account faster than his little Capricorn Sun could have handled thanks to his dwindling sponsorships, so he “economised” with a $3 million customised sport boat for Elin, called um, Solitude so she could go diving, which is her favourite sport.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner. I’d love to see what he comes up with then. I honestly don’t think he can buy his way (or his wife back) out of this one…

What will they think of next?!

A New Jersey-based company called Cold Cuts Media has created a new iPhone/iPod application called REGIFT that will catalog the gifts you want to pass on. Since two in three adults have regifted at some time (I certainly have), this could prove very useful to keep out sticky social situations (such as eventually giving the gift back to the original gift-giver).

Costing just $0.99 from the ITunes App store, you can: track what you want to regift, take a shot of it, record who gave it to you, when and for what gift occasion, make notes on who NOT to give it to, categorise it, and then mark it off as “regifted” once you’ve rewrapped it and sent it on its merry way.

Just to make extra sure your regifting effort goes um, unnoticed, it even prompts you to check for receipts, engravings, cards or some other identifying factor that would indicate it had been originally given to you.

Perhaps this is one app that all couples should add to their wedding gift registry…

Now that Valentine’s Day has passed, the roadside rose vendors have disappeared, the black velvet jewellery boxes have been stashed away in the vaults and those ENORMOUS white teddy bears have been put away somewhere (where on earth do they fit – and more importantly why on earth would anyone buy one?), some couples may be reassessing their relationships.

One cheery little infidelity expert from New York, Ruth Houston, has come out to suggest a number of ways to tell if your partner cheated on Valentine’s Day. I think in fact this could also include Christmas Day based on what she says.

1. “Discovered” gifts disappear
Remember the awful scene in Love, Actually when Emma Thompson opens the little white box containing the gold heart necklace, thinking that’s what her husband Alan Rickman has bought for her for Christmas? And then she gets a pathetic Joni Mitchell CD while the flirty skank at work gets the expensive necklace? If you find something “gift-y” before Valentine’s Day and then don’t get it, ask some questions…

2. Receipts for identical,different or non-received gifts
Paper trails undo presidents, criminals and cheating partners alike. If you find a receipt for say TWO identical lingerie sets but receive only one, someone has the other set (and at best, your husband likes dressing up).

Got chocolate? But the receipt was for a bracelet? Uh-oh.

Does the hotel or restaurant receipt say 13 February but you KNOW you were in bed alone with a cold and your partner had a business meeting interstate? Right. On a Saturday night. Did you know that Ruth nicknames 13 February as Mistress Day???

3. Thank note, email or text
If your spouse or partner has received or sent a thank-you message for a gift you know nothing about, them’s warning bells…And hey, especially if they’re normally an ungrateful sod.

4.  Oh honey, I’ve had this for years
Many women (and some men) avoid discussions about their spending habits but protesting, “”Oh, this old thing? I’ve had it for years!” and rely on their partner being oblivious so they can get away with maxing out their credit card. But if it’s a particularly nice piece of jewellery, beautiful underwear or even flowers that are waaaay more elaborate than what he/she normally buys turn up just after Valentine’s Day, look out.

It might be innocent (like, you’re such a bad gift-giver that they decided to indulge themselves – and if they did, that’s a clue they’re at least disappointed with your effort this Valentine’s Day/Christmas) or not. Check.

5. Who you gonna call?
If you’re really suspicious check your phone bill or your partner’s outgoing calls/texts on Valentine’s Day. Those made very early in the morning or last thing at night are possible signs.

If you have two or more of these infidelity clues, well, as Ruth’s clients might say, “Houston, we have a problem.”

It’s becoming increasingly common for couples to request cash, not gifts, for their wedding present.

But many guests feel a bit squeamish about handing over cash and many worry that it’s just going to be spent frivolously.

In 1996, the US Federal Housing Administration encourage lenders to offer bridal registry accounts where couples could stash away cash from family and friends towards a loan for their first home.

SunTrust Mortgage, a subsidiary of SunTrust Bank was one lender which created a wedding registry, where guests would make a deposit and the company would notify the bride and groom to let them know. It is such a practical way to help them get a loan together, that it’s surprising that more banks haven’t got in on the act.

A credit union in Los Angeles, Water and Power Community Credit Union (WPCCU) has just launched the MatriMoney wedding registry savings account to help couples get over the (deposit) threshold. They get gift instruction cards to include with their wedding invitations and gift-givers receive acknowledgement cards of their cash gifts once deposited.

Unlike any other wedding gift registry, WPCCU also offers free online financial webinars for newly engaged couples to learn how to budget and manage their money.

I think this could particularly appeal to couples where at least one of them is a security-conscious, long-term planner Taurus, Cancer, Virgo or Capricorn!

So many organisations now are trying to “encourage” us to switch from receiving our statements via snail mail to email.

It costs them money, paper and effort and it’s much cheaper, faster and easier for them to press a button to send them.

Some of them are even charging a surcharge if you don’t want them delivered in your inbox.

But Australia’s St George Bank is making it more palatable by offering customers who switch from mailed to emailed statements by 5 March 2010 the chance to win one of 100 x $100 Myer department store gift cards.

Have you been offered anything (other than a $2 fee) to make the switch?

If you a) think it’s too corny to get engaged on Valentine’s Day, b) too “expected, or c) you just like teasing your partner and making them wait(!), ask them to marry you on Wednesday 17 or Sunday 28 February.

The 17th February features the absolutely gorgeous Venus conjunct Jupiter in Pisces aspect. This once-in-12-months planetary line-up offers love, sweetness, generosity, joy and abundance. You couldn’t plan a proposal on a nicer day!

If you’re the type who likes to have the ring organised first and payday came after Valentine’s Day, you could also ask on the equally sweet, lovely and optimistic 28th February when the Sun conjuncts Jupiter in Pisces. It’s also the same day as the Full Moon which is the culmination or fruition of a project and plus, it’s super-romantic being proposed to under a a full moon. 

Pisces also rules karmic links and soulmates so if you’re meant to be together, it’ll just feel “right”.

Good luck!