Zumba Wear
Some people wear their everyday gym clothes to Zumba, but Zumba wear is different than gym clothes. It’s a cross between street wear and dance wear. Zumba wear is available from the Zumba online shop and will cost you anywhere from $14.95 for a pair of Zumba flip flops to $94.95 for a pair of Zumba athletic dance shoes. A safe bet for any Zumba lover is a top to wear to class. A Zumba wear top will cost you anywhere form $14.95 to $39.95 + shipping. Shop now if you want it to arrive by Christmas!

Zumba DVDs
The gift that keeps on giving – a Zumba class right in your very own home! There are two authetic Zumba DVD sets available: the Total Body Transformation System (as seen on TV) or the Zumba Exhilarate DVD Experience. There is even a set of Zumba DVD’s for children called Zumbatomic. The DVD sets are expensive ($89.95 for Exhilarate on Zumba.com, $49.95 for TBTS on Amazon.com), but contain five DVDs including a live workout and choreography to tone the arms, abs, buns, and thighs. Shop for DVDs on Zumba.com or Amazon.com.

Zumba Video Game
I was lucky enough to participate in the Best Buy release of the original Zumba Fitness video game for Kinect on the XBox 360 at the Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota last year and let me tell you, it is amazing! The Zumba Fitness video game is available for Wii and Playstation and WILL give you a workout. This year, the Zumba Fitness 2 video game is also available for Wii. Shop for DVDs on Zumba.com or Amazon.com.

Here are some other ideas for Zumba lovers:

• Dance lessons – Maybe they’re ready to start salsa dancing???
• Exercise clothes – Bright, neon colors are popular in Zumba classes. Popular exercise clothing brands in my classes: lululemon athletica, lucy, C9 from Champion available at Target, Victoria’s Secret PINK (yes, Victoria’s Secret), Old Navy
• Hip Scarf – Belly dance and Bollywood songs in Zumba have inspired some Zumba lovers to wear colorful hip scarves during class.

Zumba lovers, do you have any other suggestions?

Inspired by the mellow “About Her” Malcolm Mclaren version of The Zombies “She’s Not There”  on the Kill Bill Vol. 2 Original Soundtrack and the instrumental cover of “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by the The Smiths in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off I am looking for popular music covered in a yoga-class appropriate style for the yoga class I teach once a week.

I know some yogis would frown upon this, and I want to be clear that I am not a professional yogi. I teach a free yoga-Pilates-stretching hybrid class once a week for 45-minutes. It is in a group fitness studio in a busy college wellness center so I like to use music to try to create a yoga-like atmosphere.

In my search, I came across the Yoga Pop Ups on Amazon.com. I like the concept, but not the music. You can download music to yoga to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Morrissey and The Smiths, Sublime, Jimmy Buffet, Journey, Lady Gaga, and Mötley Crüe to name a few. Mötley Crüe? Really?

If you’re interested in doing yoga to Girls, Girls, Girls, check out Yoga Pop Ups on Amazon.com MP3 downloads.

At the university where I completed my B.S. degree, we borrowed our textbooks for free. At the beginning of the semester, undergraduate and graduate students went to a part of the library where textbooks were stored. We picked up our required textbooks, checked them out the same way we checked out library books, used them for the semester, and returned them at the end of the semester. Of course, there are some books professors recommend buying those as time and money allowed.

I heard my classmates grumbling about spending $880 USD we had to pay for the 12 required textbooks through the university bookstore. I planned to use Amazon.com to save money. My total on Amazon came to $742 and I received free shipping using an Amazon Prime account. Although I saved almost $140 buying textbooks on Amazon.com instead of from the university bookstore, I was still concerned about how I was going to pay for these books before my fall financial aid and student loans are distributed.

At checkout, I received an offer to apply for a Amazon.com Store Card from GE Money Bank with six months interest free. This would allow me to put my textbook total on the Amazon.com Store Card and pay off my balance when I received the excess of my financial aid and student loans, which usually come one week after the semester starts.

This offer did not come without risk: If there is ANY balance on the Amazon.com Store Card at month six, six months of interest will be charged to the account on the interest-free balance of my textbooks $742 and the interest rate is very high at 25.99%.

As I plan to only use the Amazon.com Store Card to purchase my DPT textbooks and pay the balance when my excess financial aid and student loans are reimbursed, I decided to take the risk and put my textbook total on the Amazon.com Store Card.

I won my hip scarf at a Zumbathon, a Zumba fundraiser event for charity, but many people ask me where they can buy a hip scarf with coins for Zumba. Here are some possibilities:

International Markets
International markets often have Middle Eastern vendors that sell hip scarves, but please be aware of the quality of the hip scarf you are buying. The low-end hip scarves are perfect for Zumba and could cost you $5-20 USD. Do not pay more than $20 for a low-end hip scarf because these hip scarves are “disposable” – you will have to replace it often. It will get sweaty and the coins may tarnish. The strand of thread could break and you could lose a string of beads and coins.

In Minnesota, the Festival of Nations International Bazaar held annually in early May is one place to find several vendors that sell coin hip scarves for Zumba. The Midtown Global Market also has vendors that may (or may not) sell coin hip scarves for Zumba.

Online
Search for “coin hip scarf for Zumba” on Google, and you will see there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of online sources of coin hip scarves for Zumba. Many vendors sell in bulk at a discount so if you are considering buying online, you might want to talk to your Zumba friends and see if anyone is interested in splitting the order with you. As always, please be aware of the quality of the hip scarf you are buying. The low-end hip scarves are perfect for Zumba and should cost you $5-20 USD each. Do not pay more than $20 for a low-end hip scarf because these hip scarves are “disposable” – you will have to replace it often.

I recommend starting with a search for coin hip scarf on eBay, Amazon, or another trusted online shopping source.

Please keep in mind that there are also very elaborate, beautiful, high-end hip scarves with coins available for performance dance. When you hear the low, rich tone of the coins and feel the weight of the beads, you will know the high quality of the costume hip scarf. These high-end hip scarves are very heavy and expensive and probably not appropriate for a Zumba class because of the cost, weight, and potential beadwork disaster that would stop class if a strand of thread broke.

My 60-something-year-old mother in rural Wisconsin wanted a Snuggie after seeing a commercial on cable (probably Lifetime). I didn’t want her to be taken advantage of by calling the 1-800 number from tv, so I told her I would go online and order one for her for her birthday.

I went to getsnuggie.com first, but really didn’t want to pay the $7.95 s&h fee on top of $19.99 for a blanket with sleeves!

I next tried searching for Snuggie on Amazon
and got results from Target… I discovered my local Super Target had Snuggies on the “As Seen on TV” end cap in the Housewares department near the kitchen utensils for $14.99 (+ tax)!

Shop locally, and you can get two Snuggies for the price of one!

If you are like my parents and the nearest Target is still 60 miles away, you are still better off ordering from Target.com or Amazon. Wal-mart does not appear to carry them at this time.