Today’s PhoneNews.com giveaway got delayed a few hours… I was stuck in the rebate zone. But, the good news is, I now have virtually all my Christmas shopping rebates done. All 20 (or so) of them.

Which, brings me to today’s public service announcement: Do your mail-in rebates now. Many rebates have a postmark date of 12/23… just to make sure you have wrapped the item up, under the tree, and to make sure you miss out on the rebate. Don’t feel bad about wrapping the item up sans-UPC… nobody’s going to think bad of you for recouping the mail-in rebate price, it’s what enables me to give so much during the holidays (since these people aren’t camping out to shop, let alone are rebate-savvy to begin with).

Now, here’s my personal quick-and-dirty way to mail rebates. Using your all-in-one copier (which I assume by now, you have), duplicate everything (bar codes, receipts, forms, packing slips). Fill everything out in duplicate. When that’s done, pin the copy to your wall with a sticky note, and write down the date you mailed it off along with the date that you should get the cash by. Mail in the physical copy (with all those nifty original UPCs).

Now, just sit back and wait. You’ll know when you should have your money just by looking at the wall. If there’s no money by the due date, you’ve got all the documentation, and you can just call up the rebate handler to get status.

So go, do them now. And, a word of advice: Any rebate worth $100 or more should be sent USPS Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation. That way, nobody’s going to claim that it’s the post office’s fault that you don’t get your rebate. Pin that receipt to the wall with your copy… and you have nothing to worry about.

Oh, and yes, there are about 20 packets of documents pinned to my wall right now.