Blog - Lazy Man and Money

Lessons Learned From Spending $1000+ on Prime Day

July 23, 2019 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

I always plan any big purchases months and months in advance. I simply shut down when it comes to spending money spontaneously. That’s one of my secrets to my frugality. Spending money can often cause me incredible mental stress. (Yep, I’m not mornal.)

Before Amazon Prime Day, I had resigned myself to take advantage of one deal. I think the Amazon Fire HD 10 is a great deal and I feel that my kids need to have their own space and apps. Remember when everyone loved the $99 HP Touchpad fire sale years and years ago. This is a 10″ full HD tablet for about the same price. By buying two at the same time, it was $90 each.

My planned spending of $180 turned into $1000+. What happened?

Amazon’s ability to sell is amazing… like nothing I’ve ever seen. At the same time, I feel like I worked the system well.

What do you think? Here’s a table of what I bought along with the prices I paid and my best assessment of what the item should cost.

Product Name	Retail Price	Typical Price	Price Paid
USB Micro Cable (5)	$7.99	$7.99	$6.39
USB Type C Cables (3)	$8.99	$8.99	$7.99
IQ Screen Protector (S10)	$9.95	$9.95	$9.95
MKOAWA Clear Cover S10	$5.49	$5.49	$4.39
Samsung S10	$900.00	$800.00	$599.00
Aukey 6-Port USB Charger QC 3.0	$33.00	$33.00	$18.69
Finish Dishwasher Detergent	$14.36	$14.36	$10.75
Kindle Paperwhite 6	$130.00	$130.00	$63.75
Two Fire 10 HD Tablets	$300.00	$300.00	$180.00
Fire 10 HD Case (ESR Brand)	$18.99	$18.99	$8.55
Fire 10 HD Case (ESR Brand)	$18.99	$18.99	$8.55
Anker 10w Qi Wireless Charger	$15.99	$15.99	$9.67
Pokemon: Lets Go Eevee	$60.00	$50.00	$30.00
Bose QuietComfort 25	$280.00	$178.00	$89.00
Echo Show 5	$90.00	$90.00	$22.50
Amazon Smart Plug	$25.00	$25.00	$5.00
Fire TV Stick + Echo Dot 3rd Gen	$65.00	$65.00	$12.00
$25 + $5 Amazon Gift Card	$30.00	$30.00	$25.00
Citi Payment Promo $25 off of $75	$0.00	$0.00	-$25.00

Sub-Total	$2,013.75	$1,801.75	$1,086.18
Total (after Prime Card 6% savings)	$2,013.75	$1,801.75	$1,021.01	49.30%

The quickest takeaway is that I bought around $2000 “worth” of products for a little over $1000… a savings of nearly 50%. “Worth” needs to be quotes because one could argue that the products aren’t worth what they typically sell for. I’m not sure I buy that argument, but you can buy Amazon products at a discount a few times a year. So maybe that should be the “typical” price? Also, what something is “worth” to me may be different than what it is worth to you.

Let’s break down some of the big items on the list. (We’ll be jumping around a bit)

Buying a New Flagship Phone

I love cheap phones. You can do so much with so little. I still remember how amazing it was to put a modem into a Handspring Visor so that I could get “web-clipped” scores of baseball games. Most phones nowadays do all the same things, but like cars, some do it with a little more luxury. I’m so frugal that this never sunk in.

My wife suggested that I spend more because I tend to put a lot of stress on my phones. I have 4 different email accounts to consolidate. I have different profiles (personal vs. business) to keep separate. It’s not just blogging, but also dog sitting and the freelance work I do. I debated between a LG G8 for $500 or a Samsung S10 for $600 almost forever. I finally pulled the trigger on the Samsung S10.

I don’t think a Samsung S10 review is useful here, so I’ll just say that I went from a very above average phone in 2015 to one of the best phones in 2019. It’s a quantum upgrade. I’d probably say the same thing about the LG G8, though.

Some suggested that I amortize the value of the phone over a number of years. That’s how I always think of phones, because they last me for a few years. Also my old Moto X Pure sells for around $100 on Ebay. So that’s like spending $500 instead of $600, right?

There were other purchases related to this one. I bought a case ($4.39!) that is great. I wasted $10 on a screen protector (IQ Screen Protector) when the S10 comes with one preinstalled (no one told me that). Perhaps I should send that back?

Besides the case and the screen protector, I also spent $8 on (3) USB Type C cables. I would have needed to upgrade at some point. The phone moved that along. The $9.67 Anker 10w Qi charger is top-rated from all the experts, so saving $6 on the Prime Day deal seemed like a win. I have a couple Qi chargers from my old Nexus 5. They aren’t 10w and would charge slower than the Anker one. I’ve put one of those Nexus ones on my bedside stand, because there’s no rush while I’m charging overnight.

Kids Learning Tablets

Did you see how I stuck the word “learning” in there? I’m okay with the kids having fun with their tablets, but I’ve steered them towards ABC Mouse, Duolingo, and Chess Kid. So far it has worked out well. For $180, both of them will finally have their own tablet and I’ll have mine. That’s helpful because signing in and out of Duolingo profiles is tough. They could work together, but that has lead to fights. This way they can go at their own pace on things.

Along with the tablets, I bought two cases for around $17. Normally they would have been $38, so I’m happy with that.

Kindle Paperwhite

I haven’t had an e-ink Kindle in a long time. I was curious to see how the technology advanced. With the Amazon Prime Credit card offering 25% cash back, the $85 Prime Day sale price became effectively $63.75. It’s small, but it’s waterproof, which is especially nice since we live near the beach.

I’ve played with the Paperwhite a little bit, but I’m not very impressed. I wonder if I can sell it extremely lightly used for $90+ which is more than the Prime Day price, but cheaper than you can get it now.

Pokemon Go! Let’s Go Eevee

The kids really want a Nintendo Switch, so it will be coming soon. We know they want it just to play Pokemon games. This is a rare 50% discount on a popular game.

Echo Show 5

There was a deal that if you send in an old echo device you get 25% off a new one. The Echo Show retails at $90, so I traded a second generation Echo Dot for $5 and $22.50 in credit. The Echo Show 5 was at a sale price of $50, making it $27.50 after the 25% coupon, and $22.50 after applying the $5 from the trade-in.

The Echo Show is a nice upgrade for the bedroom. It may sound crazy, but it’s good to have more clocks around the house. I was able to move our old alarm clock to the kids’ room. They can use a clock because they are still working on getting ready on time for things.

Bose QuietComfort 25

This $280 retail device was lowered to $99 on a lightning deal. I saw a deal for $10 of credit when ordering $100+ through an app. The $4 phone case up above was perfect for putting me over the top. For simplicity, I applied the $10 to the final price on this.

The reviews of this weren’t very good, but I thought it was one of Bose’s marquee products. I know that everyone is on the new Bluetooth version, but there weren’t discounts on that one.

Amazon Smart Plug

Normally $25, this was $5 if you ordered it through Alexa. I already have one smart plug and I don’t know what I’d do with another. They seem to sell for $20 on Ebay, I figure this is like a free $15.

Fire TV Stick + Echo Dot 3rd Gen

This was an extremely popular deal that didn’t last long. It’s pretty amazing to get both for $12. The Fire TV stick with voice remote will go on Ebay, where it should get $30 or more. So Amazon is likely going to pay me $18 to take a 3rd generation Echo Dot. That made it easier to the trade for the Echo Show 5 above.

Selling Other Stuff

I should be able to sell my cell phone and an old tablet (replaced by the Fire 10 HD) for a little less than $200. By selling the smart plug and the Fire TV stick, it should all add up to at least $225. Does that count as bringing my cost down to around $800?

Lessons Learned from Amazon Prime Day

1. A lot of things that I found were from watching deal sites. If you are in a tight money situation, it’s best to avoid these sites. I’m okay with spending money as along as it makes sense to do so (brings me good value).

2. Most of the items I bought qualified as bringing good value. The others were simply mistakes (the screen protector that I didn’t know I didn’t need) or items that can actually generate a profit through resale. There’s some questionable value with the Amazon Show. I have to figure out what cool things I can do with the screen (any tips? Leave them in the comments).

3. It can be helpful to batch tech purchases to the nearest “Super Sale” date. That can be Black Friday/Cyber Monday, but I think Prime Day counts now. Even if you are not an Amazon Prime member, a lot of other stores joined in the party.

4. I probably wouldn’t have nearly as much if I hadn’t been doing so well with the dog sitting this month. In some ways, it feels like Amazon might as well be in the dog sitting business and I’m just a useless middleman. There’s certainly a feeling of lifestyle inflation going on.

Alternative Income Update: June 2019 ($8,527.97)

July 19, 2019 by Lazy Man 1 Comment

I am very late this month in posting the alternative income numbers for June. Usually it takes about a week to get the tenants checks cleared and mortgages paid, but the write up took right up into the weekend before the ~~Black Friday~~ Amazon Prime Day “holiday.”

June was a tremendous financial month for us. That will be the obvious takeaway when you read this alternative update and net worth data at the end.

However, before we get to the boring numbers, I thought I’d give a little breakdown of June. With the kids finishing up kindergarten and pre-kindergarten we had two weeks to fill before the start of summer camp.

We took one week to go our favorite staycation destination, Block Island. It has not only the smallest city in the smallest state, but you have to take a ferry or plane to get there. Unfortunately, it rained most of the time we were there. There isn’t much to do there when it rains. It was still great to get away from the monotony of the homefront.

The second week, I took the kid on a number of adventures. Sometimes it was local errands before their swim class. Other times, we drove the five minutes to the beach. When I was going through the pictures of the month, they were almost all kids from various fairs, bouncey houses, and their first sailing trip. Amazingly, we were still able to sit many dogs.

I’ll mix in some pictures from the month throughout this financial update, because some people find numbers boring. (But not you or you wouldn’t be here!)

If you are a new reader, you’re going to want to refer to my Alternative Income FAQ as you’ll have a lot of questions.

Lazy Man’s Alternative Income – June 2019

I break our alternative income into 3 main sources that are largely represented in the passive income pyramid. I ignore the bottom section of career/job. I combine dog sitting and blogging into one section of “slightly active” income. I leave real estate and investment income as their own separate main souces of passive income.

1. Blogging + Dog Sitting Income

The last month I reported, May, had a 33% drop-off in dog sitting income. I think that was just random bad luck. June jumped backed up to being our second best month of the year. It was second best by a small, small fraction. The summer months are popular when you live in a tourist area.

[The local Navy base was offering free sailing expeditions for military members, so we took advantage. I’ve forgotten a lot about sailing from the summer about 15 years ago. My wife remembered a lot more from her college days. The kids on their first sailing trip got to sail the boat and they loved it.]

Blogging income for June was a record for the year… but just by a tiny bit. Some months advertisers love me. I can’t depend on that, so that’s one reason why it’s great to be diversified across all these income streams.

In May, these combined for a total of $3,428.60. In June, it was:

Total Blogging + Dog Sitting Income: $4,922.97

That’s just a few dollars shy of the highest amount this year. This is really good for having spent nearly a week on vacation and having the kids at home with no school/camp options.

Here’s a historic chart with the red line being a 3-month average:

2. Rental Property Income

Zillow said our rental properties were worth a few thousand more than last month. As with every month, we paid off a couple thousand of mortgage debt. The combination leads to about $5,000 in equity. It is boring, but in a great, slow, and steady way.

We now have 56.53% of the equity in our properties with a combined rent of $3,325 after insurance, property taxes, condo fees, and estimated maintenance. I like to use that number, because it represents our net gain.

[Annual picture of our labyrinth walk at Block Island. The laybrinth is a circular path you follow that eventually brings you into the center. It’s hard to get a 5 and 6 year old to meditate on life, but fortunately no one else was there so we didn’t bother anyone.]

If you multiply $3,325 by 56.53% you get $1,880 in estimated monthly alternative income. When I started tracking this (beginning of 2017), we only owned 36.4% of the properties and they had lower rents. The math worked out to $1,174 back then. So in 29 months, we’ve seen the number grow $706/mo. That’s like giving ourselves an annual $8,472 raise until the end of time from where we were nearly 2.5+ years ago.

As the years march on, the ratio will grow to 100% of the $3,325 monthly inflation-resistant rent. That’s what gets us to that annual $40,000 income I mentioned in the FAQ mentioned at the beginning of the article.

In the previous report, the rental property income was $1,860. This number always moves slowly as it only changes if one of two things happen: 1) The properties go up in value. 2) We charge more for rent. Later this year, we should be able to raise the rents a bit.

Total Rental Property Income: $1,880

3. Dividend Income

For the first time in four months, June was a break-out month for our portfolios. It’s also the first time over that span that the Tariff Man didn’t send the stock markets into shock. Those were just tiny blips on the radar and haven’t hurt the long-term trend yet.

For this section, I generally assume we’ll be able to make a 2.5% dividend yield on our holdings. That could be from a high-dividend ETF or from simply holding strong companies that have a long history of dividend growth. For that we’ll look at making passive income with dividend kings. I’ll get Sure Dividend’s newsletter (this link has a special coupon code if you are interested) to try to get closer to a 4% average dividend yield.

[At the center of the labyrinth was this rock memorializing Scott James Peacock. I don’t know him, except for what was in an unfortunate Google search. However, I can tell you that he was born on my 14th birthday and died on my 11th wedding anniversary.]

With this month’s growth we have a result of:

Total Dividend Income: $1,725

Last month, it was $1,651, so it really was dramatic growth. If we made $1725 every month it would be around $20,000 a year. If our mortgage was paid off, we could probably live off that alone.

Very Close to Passive Income

Our “very close to passive income” is a combination of rental property income and dividend income. If there were some royalty income from books, movies, or music, we’d include that here (but we don’t have that).

The stock market goes up and down fast which makes the dividends calculation fluctuate a bit. The rental property income keeps going up because the mortgages are always getting paid down every month. Unless there’s a housing market crash, this should continue to happen.

[My wife and I like to do a few lunches at the local Castle Hill restaurant. This is the view. If you saw the last season of How I Met Your Mother, the outside pictures of the wedding venue were of Castle Hill.]

Having both types of income working together for us is going great. The diversification gives me great confidence that we’ll be better prepared than most people in the case of an unfortunate event. We’ll still likely get rent checks if the stock market crashes. We’ll still get dividend checks if a tenant is late paying for awhile.

Very Close to Passive Income: $3,604

Last month it was $3,511, so it’s up $93. Another month, another record high. It has grown from a combined $2,354 in January 2017. Since then, this has gone from an estimated annual income of $28,252 from these two sources to $43,254. It’s worth noting that, once again, these are fudged numbers that aren’t “real” yet. However, I’m looking forward to 9 years from now when the mortgages on the investment properties are paid off. Add in stock market growth (of a conservative 4%) and this number could reach $85K/year or more… and that’s not selling off any stock.

Final Alternative Income

When you add up “dogs and blogs” to the “very close to passive income” you get:

June’s Alternative Income: $8,527.97

That’s just about a hundred dollars shy from our record back in May 2017. Sometimes dog sitting doesn’t go great and sometimes blogging doesn’t go great, but growing rental and investment income can cover a lot of the imperfections there. Annualized, the nearly $8528 in monthly income would be $102,335 for a whole year. I have been trying to get this number over $100,000. When everything goes right, like this month, I can get there. However, for the year it looks like we’re closer to landing the $80-85K range.

[With the kids off of school and my flexible work schedule, we got some good beach time in. This is Newport Rhode Island’s famous Easton’s Beach (better known as first beach).]

That largely hypothetical annual income for writing on a blog, taking care of dogs, and investments feels like a dream. In the long term, $80K+ would be a lot more income than we’d need. Here’s what our expenses for the next 45 years looks like.

None of the numbers here include my wife’s bread-winning pharmacist income, her vested military pension (more passive income), or some of the freelance work I’ve been doing over the last year.

As always, I’m still hoping to write a book someday. I’m probably going to tip my toe into self-publishing within the next year. I would love to talk to a real a publisher, but I don’t want to take on the “job” of writing. If you know someone who I could talk to contact me.

Net Worth Update

My net worth updates aren’t very exciting as I don’t share the exact numbers. That’s why it’s just a footnote here.

[Build-A-Bear’s Pay Your Age was a good deal for a 5 and 6 year old. I got lucky to avoid all the add-ons. Just one bear shirt was prices more than both bears. Unfortunately, Pokemon weren’t part of the promotion.]

I truly believe that net worth is one of the most important numbers in personal finance so it is worth sharing in some way. Showing relative growth can be useful, I think? (Let me know in the comments.)

I use Personal Capital to track my net worth and it makes everything easy. It’s free and you should give it a try. For full disclosure, I might make a few dollars if you do. For more full disclosure, I haven’t made a dollar from that suggestion this year so I’m just suggesting it because I’m getting rich off it.

With the stock market and the real estate markets going up, our net worth overall went up 2.54%. For the year it’s up 24.72%. A little more than half of that growth was from a large percentage of that was based on a website sale that I had at the beginning of the year. The rest has been simply investment gains.

I always have to remember that percentages can be weird due to the law of large numbers. Imagine someone with a net worth of $100 finds a $100 bill on the ground. Instantly it doubles his/her net worth. As our net worth grows larger, the percentage of growth will come down too. You’d rather have 10% growth of a million dollars ($100,000 gain) than 20% growth of a $100K ($20,000 gain), right?

[We found a Dumb and Dumber truck on Block Island. I guess it travels the country and is a real business.]

There’s a big wild card in calculating our net worth. Now that my wife’s pension is vested, it’s reasonable to ask Should I Include a Pension in Our Net Worth?. I decided that it does make sense to do it. It’s not easy, but I came up with some ways to figure out what a pension is worth. In the end, it seems my wife’s may be worth $2.3 million. However, like all the money mentioned in this article, it isn’t immediately spendable cash.

However, because that would ridiculously dominate our net worth, I think I’ll include it as two separate numbers in our spreadsheet. Since I don’t share the numbers anyway, except for these hints, it shouldn’t matter much.

How was your June? Let me know in the comments.

The Best Prime Day Android Phone Deals

July 16, 2019 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I wrote about a number of Prime Day deals, many of them are still running today (7/16). However, today I’d like to focus on just the Android deals as I researched exactly what upgrade was right for me.

One of the biggest problems was that there were so many deals and so many choices. With everything 30-40% off, these are the cheapest these phones have been – perhaps by $200 or more in some cases.

Since I don’t know you, I can’t really say which is the right phone for you. However, there’s a phone at almost any budget, so if you are a Prime member with an old Android phone it’s probably the best time to upgrade.

The best phones have gone up in price, but the cheaper phones above have gotten more and more capable at low prices. The bargain hunter in me wants to go with a cheap phone, because I’m a no-frills kind of guy. That’s one of the things that helps me b so frugal. However, since so many use their phones so often it makes sense to spend more for a better experience.

Without further ado…

The Best Prime Day Android Phone Deals

Starter Android Phone – Moto G6 ($110 – save $130)

If I were buying a first phone for my kids or maybe a senior citizen. My wife does so well with the previous generation of this phone (that she paid over $220 for) that she doesn’t feel the need to upgrade. So certainly this phone is useful for the Average Jane as well.

I compared my current phone’s processor, a 2015 Moto X Pure and found it to be about the same as the Moto G6. My phone also has almost the same 3GB of RAM as this G6. Of course, I’m looking to upgrade my phone, but certainly $110 phone can do a lot.

Best Overall Deal – Moto G7 ($200 – save $90)

The Moto G7 is probably the phone I should get. It is a faster processor and has 4GB of RAM. It’s essentially what you’d expect from a phone that’s a generation newer. It would be a noticeable upgrade for me. The camera won’t win any Instagram awards, but I think smartphone cameras have been amazing for years. Of course, I remember digital cameras that took floppy disks.

Best High-End Deal – LG V35 ThinQ ($400 – save $500)

This was going to be the Samsung S9 at $350, but it appears to be sold out. It may come back in stock, so give that link a check. Update: It’s back in stock! Last year’s $800-ish flagship phone at a $350 is often a good deal. You can still get a S9+ for around $450, but I feel that’s a different price point than what I wanted for this.

Instead, we’ll go with the LG V35 for $400. It has last year’s fastest processor (SnapDragon 845) and plenty of RAM (6 GB+). CNET’s review calls it a “worthy Galaxy S9 Plus competitor doesn’t quite get there”. That’s appropriate, because the price is slotted right between the expired S9 and the still available S9+.

Best Gaming Phone – Razer Phone 2

It has the best processor that was available last year and 8GB of RAM, but the display is what sets this apart. With a 120Hz refresh rate, it’s supposed to be the best for fast-pace gaming. I only catch Pokemon and match gems, so this phone isn’t for me.

Best Flagship Prime Day Android Phone – Samsung S10 ($600) or LG G8 ($500)

I’m against spending $1000 a phone/mobile computer. (I want to stress the mobile computer part, because few people judge devices based on their ability to make phone calls.) Fortunately, this is a relatively recent phenomenon. You got my attention if it’s possible to a phone that’s nearly a thousand dollar value for $500-$600. That’s what Prime Day has.

I put two phones as winners because they are almost the same phones. Both have the best processor available, abundant memory (6GB or more), superb cameras, and extras like wireless charging and water proofing. The LG has some military-grade shock protection and Qualcomm’s QC 3.0. The Samsung S10 has a third camera, 8GM of RAM, and can charge other devices wirelessly.

In a lot of ways you could flip a coin between the two. However, review after review favored the Samsung S10. The LG G8 just wasn’t reviewed as much and most of the reviews said it was a great phone, but the gimmicky extras didn’t add much. Also most of the phones were looking at it as a $850 phone instead of a $500 phone. I tossed and turned for quite a long time on which phone I should go for.

This video comparison of the two phones helped:

Finally, I felt that the Samsung S10 would retain its resale or trade-in value better. In a few years, I should be able to still sell it for something and use that money to upgrade to the S13 (or whatever it is called then.) While writing this up and seeing that the S9 was sold out, I jumped on the S10 before it sold out too.

Prime Day: What I’m Buying

July 15, 2019 by Lazy Man 4 Comments

Since I’m likely to be updating this article throughout the day, if you are reading this in your email, you might want to click on the live web version with the updates. The deals in this article apply to Amazon Prime members.

There are going to be approximately 1.34 billion articles written about Amazon Prime Day (today). One reason is that there really are some great deals. Another reason is that Amazon pays a referral fee, so writing about it can make a writer a few dollars if you decide to buy. (It doesn’t get more full disclosure than that, does it?)

I’m usually not one for the hype, but I’ve had my eye on some things for awhile. If I’m going to buy something anyway, I might as well take advantage of a sale, right?

What I’m Buying on Amazon Prime Day

A Gift Certificate to Myself

Amazon is offering a free $5 in promotional credit when you buy a $25 gift certificate. This deal probably won’t last long since it is essentially a free $5.

Let’s Go Eevee for the Nintendo Switch

I don’t have a Switch, but the kids love Pokemon and a Switch is likely in the mix for Christmas. They’ll need a game and Let’s Go Eevee is $30 – a 50% savings.

Upgrading an Echo Dot (2nd generation) to the new Echo Show 5 for under $25

The Echo Show 5 is Amazon’s latest attempt to perfect the Alexa alarm clock. It has a 5″ screen for video and better audio than a normal Echo Dot. Normally it is $90, but for Prime Day it’s on sale for $50. However, when you trade in another Echo device (such as the 2nd generation Echo Dot that I have lying around), you get 25% off a future Echo device. Amazon does that off the top, so it’s a $22.50 promotional credit. You also get $5 for the Echo Dot itself, but the real value is that promotional credit.

You have to take a little leap of faith in trading in the device for the promotional credit, but a number of people on Slickdeals, including myself, are making it work without a problem.

The math looks like:
$90 – original price
-$40 – Prime Day discount
-$22.50 – the 25% promo for the trade-in
-$5 – Credit for the 2nd generation Echo Dot
Total = $22.50

Sold Out ~~A FireTV and Echo Dot for $12~~

Normally this bundle would cost you $75 or so, but it’s just $12 (probably a pricing mistake) with a discount that appears at checkout. Click here to buy. It will sell out quickly, so just buy if at all interested.

~~I think one could easily resell them on Ebay in a few weeks to make $30 or so.~~

Amazon Fire HD 10

I’ve long said, You Should Consider Buying an Amazon Fire HD 10, because when it’s $100 (the lowest it usually ever gets), it is the best computing bargain around. Even at full price it is a very good value. It’s almost impossible to find a 10″ full high-definition tablet for under $200. Of course one of the reasons why it is so cheap is so that Amazon can sell you stuff.

On Prime Day, the Fire HD 10 will be back to it’s lowest price of $100 (buy it now at that price. However, you can also buy 2 for $180 or $90 each (just add them to the cart). That’s the deal that I’m looking at. With two kids, our tablet is getting a lot of use. The kids tend to want to play at the same time (monkey see, monkey do). That means someone is stuck with our 5-year old Nexus 7. That was a good enough tablet for the time, but it’s noticeably slow nowadays. It seem like people on Ebay on are still willing to pay $75 for it, so to get half our money back (and nearly the price of a bigger, newer Kindle Fire) after all this time is a big win.

Some could (correctly) argue that the Fire HD 10 is nearly 2 years old and that it runs an even older version of Android. I’m sure that Amazon will update it a couple of months after I buy these. It seems like technology is always like that.

While I’m worried about the kids getting glued to the tablet too much, I feel it is somewhat inevitable. At least so far, they’ve been using our existing tablet for learning apps like ScratchJr, DuoLingo, and ABC Mouse. You’d think that maybe one tablet would be best so that they’d each have one. However, I’ve been customizing ours with the Google Play Store and I’m looking forward to having my own set of apps like Gmail and WordPress.

I’ll be shopping with my Amazon Prime card for another 6% back.

A New Cell Phone

My Moto X Pure is old 2015 technology and getting really slow. So slow that even my wife says that I shouldn’t “cheap out” and get something really good. I think the most I should spend on a cell phone is around $300.

It looks like there are going to be some deals on Pixels and Nokias, but from what I’ve seen it’s nothing too amazing. Since I’m writing this before the deals go live, I’m speculating on news leaks, but I think the sources are trustworthy. I’m not sure if I want to pull the trigger on a Pixel 3, when the Pixel 4 will be released in a couple of months – making the Pixel 3 likely much cheaper.

If I find a cell phone that’s worth pulling the trigger on, I’ll update this article.

Update:

Now that the smart phone deals are out, I’m more impressed than I thought I’d be. There are some excellent Samsung, Motorola, and this very tempting top of the line LG G8. I didn’t think I wanted a LG phone and $500 is more than I wanted to spend, but in the world of $1000 flagships, a $500 one seems like a good deal. I am heavily leaning towards this phone due to the latest SnapDragon 855 chipset and 6GB of RAM. It should future-proof me for a few years.

The Samsung S9 and S10 are both on sale. The S9 is $349 while the the S10 is $599. One could make the argument that I should spend another $100 to get the S10, but the LG G8 seems to be close to the same quality from all the reviews I’ve read.

A Moto G7 for $199 is extremely tempting too. The G7 would be an upgrade in every way, at $100 under my budget.

It looks like there’s a very good phone for almost any budget… $200 (Moto G7, $350 (Samsung S9), $500 (LG G8), $600 (Samsung S10).

What would you choose?

Something Else?

I’ll be going through my wishlist (which mostly includes STEM games for my kids) to see if there are any big bargains. If I find anything that’s particularly good, I’ll update this article. If you are reading this in the morning, you might want to give it a refresh in the evening.

One thing that I’m considering is waterproof Paperwhite for $85. It’s perfect for the lazy river at the Aruba Marriott and lowest price it has ever been. I just get the feeling that my wife would get more use out of it than I would. I’m a slow reader and don’t have a couple of months to read a book. I’ll probably jump on this as well since there is a 25% cash back when using an Amazon’s Prime Credit Card. For around $60, it seems worth the plunge.

Finimize is your Essential 3 Minute Daily Finance Read

July 11, 2019 by Lazy Man 1 Comment

Today I want to tell you about one of the three free newsletters that I read every day without fail. The other two aren’t money-related, so perhaps I’ll cover them another time. I’ve been a subscriber for more than 2 years. During that time’s it’s become incredibly popular with more than 400,000 subscribers.

You know those clickbait titles that make all sorts of crazy claims? This isn’t one of them. Finimize really is best described as “your essential 3 minute daily finance read.” (Those are my words, but I fully expect them to ~~steal~~ borrow them for their future marketing purposes.)

Did I mention that it’s free? I did? Good. It’s easy to miss that very important word with all the other information I’m putting out there.

When you sign up for Finizmize you’ll likely get an email like this one (though it’s possible the welcome has changed in 2 years):

What do you get when you subscribe?

Every morning, I get a financial email that focuses on just two of the main things that happened in the markets. Sometimes it’s a stock. Sometimes it’s a snapshot of an economic report. It always has a section “Why Should I Care?” that explains in plain language what’s really going on.
This morning one of the focuses was on the odds of a recession. It cited this chart from the NY Federal Reserve. You’ll want to scroll down on that for the really amazing part. The Fed has pretty much nailed all the major recessions… and we’re at the point where it’s looking like the next one is upon us.

I know people have been saying that for years, but it’s “next level” to see an authoritative source present a 60-year historical chart showing that a recession is coming.

How could you use this information? Maybe you could take a more conservative investment approach? Personally, I’m going to be shifting some money into bonds. Another possibility is to sell some stock and hold some cash. I’m not going to suggest what you should do, but give you some ideas of what you could do.

The other thing that I love about Finimize is that it is only a 3-minute time investment. We’re all busy, and even financial nerds like me have to think twice about spending 20 minutes on an in-depth financial read.

I’ll highlight a few more things from Finimize in the upcoming weeks and months, but for now I’ll take their cue and keep it sort and sweet. Sign up with this link or the button below:

Join Finizmize!

Lessons Learned From Spending $1000+ on Prime Day