Lazy Man and Money

Emergency Deals: Electronic Piano and Gimbal (Wed. Only)

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The internet has a lot of deals every day. There are only a few each year that I feel are worth sharing. This is one of those times and unfortunately you’ll have to act quickly. They are both today only. I’ll be typing quick to maximize the last few remaining hours of this deal.

FYI: I purchased both of these items myself today.

Electric Piano

I have been looking at an electric piano for quite awhile. I used to think they were like the synthesizers in the 80s. It seems like all the current reviews have them comparable to real pianos with professional standing by their quality.

I don’t know how to play a real piano and we don’t have room for a piano. However, I do have a 4 and 5 year old and piano lessons are in the future. However, here’s the deal:

Amazon has the Yamaha P71 88-Key Weighted Action Digital Piano as its Prime member Deal of the Day for $299. (Yes, you have to be Prime.) This is an Amazon exclusive product that is supposedly the same as the Yamaha P45 which seems to sell between $449 and $500.

So that’s a savings of around $150-$200 just to start. Next there’s a section on the Amazon page that says, “Speak with an Amazon Harmony associate to learn more and for discount codes on most brands excluding Bose.” I called them and they gave another 10% off of the regular price (a savings of $41). (Other people in internet forums did this as well, so it should be reliable). In addition, if you pay with an Amazon Prime card (which I think most Prime people should have), you’ll get an additional 10% cash back.

By the time all is said and done, it was $299-41, which is $258 and another $25 off due to cash back. It all comes to around $225, plus tax.

When all is said and done, it is about 50% off. The best price I’ve seen on any of these types of pianos is $300. I think this is a higher quality product at a nicely discounted price.

Gimbal

I didn’t know what a gimbal was until last Black Friday when I saw a lot of people freak out about a deal at Best Buy. It turns out this is a device that keeps cameras steady for making films. It has motors that balance and stabilize the camera. I need this because my hands are terrible in taking video.

This deal is on a gimbal for cell phones. A hat tip goes to the Cheapskate for finding this gimbal for $90:

YI Phone Gimbal 3-Axis Handheld Stabilizer

To get the price, you need to use promo code “YIGIMBAL” at checkout, which will take the price down by $40.

It still seems to me like $90 is a lot of money for what it is, but everywhere I look it seems that prices are usually more than $125.

There’s another kid-based angle with this one. While I’ll probably be using this more than anyone else in the family, there’s nothing that says my kids couldn’t give it a shot and make some movies themselves. Who knows, maybe one of them becomes the next Adam Goldberg.

We have an affiliate relationship with one or more of the companies linked in this article.

Deal: $20/Mo. Cell Service (AT&T/Sprint) from Red Pocket Mobile

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I ended up signing up for this deal. It was a terrible mistake as I ran into one customer service headache after another. I’m working on writing an article explaining my problems (as of 5/7/2018).

Today, I have a deal for you that I myself am very likely to jump on. Also, I don’t make a penny if you jump on it or not. That’s an extremely rare combination in the personal finance blogging world nowadays.

When I started this blog in 2006, I had an awesome Sprint SERO plan which was $30 for voice/text/data. Then the iPhone and other smart phones created a path for mobile companies to up the charges as they built up their networks. It wasn’t uncommon for my wife to have a bill over $100 when all the taxes and fees were added in.

It was crazy.

Fortunately, we are now back to the days of cheap cell service. My wife is on Straight Talk at around $40 a month. I’m on Cricket for $35 a month after an autopay credit. (Getting her to switch has been on the never-ending to-do list). Both use the AT&T network, which we find is the best for us.

Last year, I tried a Mint Sim. I immediately got a bunch of spam text coming in. I failed in that experiment. I never wanted to carry around the cheap cell phone with me, especially when it meant it being the second cell phone. Mint Sim runs on T-Mobile. If readers find that to be their ideal network, it might be worth looking into, especially at a price where $15-20/mo. paid yearly would suit most users.

However, if you are interested in AT&T (the best GSM network in my opinion), I think I’ve found a great deal. While it also works for Sprint, deals on that network are a dime a dozen. If that network works for you, you might be able to score a better deal.

The deal I’m talking about is Red Pocket 360 Day Prepaid Wireless Phone Plan. This is a limited time deal through their Ebay store. For an upfront price of $240 you get a year of Unlimited talk/text/data with 5GB of LTE data (before throttling). That comes out to $20/mo. This is using the same AT&T network that I’m already on with Cricket, so the service should be exactly the same.

At $20/mo. this is even cheaper than my cellphone service was back in 2006. Inflation-schminflation.

It looks like this could save me $180 a year and my wife $240 a year. So it’s a no-brainer, right?

Let’s get to some potential “gotchas”:

  • According to this Red Pocket Page, MMS (picture messaging) will not work on the iPhone. However, if you use iMessage and other apps it will. For an Android user like me, I don’t think this is a problem.
  • It’s a year commitment. If it’s no good, I don’t know if you can get a refund. I imagine there is some grace period.
  • I have never heard of Red Pocket Mobile

There are a lot of user comments on this Slickdeals page. You’ll find that international calling is free and it does support tethering (which is extra on Cricket). A few of the comments came from former Cricket users who said that their coverage was the same when they switched. That’s as you’d imagine as it’s the same network.

To me this is like buying Campbell’s Soup vs. the generic. I was already on one form of the generic, but this generic seems like half price. The only place this analogy falls apart is that I have personal reasons for supporting Campbell’s Soup as they’ve been great to my local community.

What do you think? Is it worth giving Red Pocket Mobile a try?

Off the Beaten Path Black Friday-ish Deals

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Remember when Black Friday was fun and didn’t mean risking life and/or limbs? Maybe not, but somewhere around 15-20 years that was truly the case. I remember shopping with my mother to get an eMachines computer with her. There was still crowd back then, but everyone got most of their deals.

Damn I’m old!

Over the last several years, I’ve instituted the no-hassle Black Friday plan. The idea is to avoid the Best Buys and the Wal-Marts and focus on the easy wins. The closest I come to any of those stores is Staples. That’s because state laws prevent them from opening on Thanksgiving and there’s one close to me. I can usually stay up until midnight and be one of the few people there.

Unfortunately, Staples doesn’t have too many deals that are exciting to me. Others may find a few nice laptop choices, a great Dell monitor or two, and an 8TB hard drive for $150. The hard drive is tempting, but I’m going to try to get by longer with what I have. If I can get by another year, it will probably be $99 next Black Friday.

There are two items that I’m saving for Friday’s article. You’ll have to check back then to find out why.

So here’s what I’m looking at this year:

Note: Some of these links may pay me a small commission if you decide to buy from them. It won’t change your price though.

Amazon’s 10″ Fire for $99

CNET lies and calls this the best tablet deal in history. The truth is that the HP TouchPad for $99 liquidation was the best tablet deal in history. This is still a great deal. I have a 8″ Fire that went largely unused until recently. I pulled it out because I realized Amazon had Scratch Jr. in their Appplication HeadquarterWarehousePlaceOfPurchasing.

How good is it? Here’s CNET’s review.

I will spend another $50 to get the bargain Windows laptop deal below instead. This is based on my situation of being able to take advantage of the military-only deal and already having a Fire Tablet. Most people aren’t in my unique situation and might want to consider this.

Powerful Laptop Deal (Intel 8th Generation)

I’m finding a ton of laptop deals this holiday season. I’m going to highlight a couple as examples. There’s no need to bust any doors for the deals I’m seeing.

My Dell XPS with 4GB of memory is probably going to revolt by not letting me post this article. A little more than two years ago, I bought had some buyers remorse for only getting 4GB of memory. The store didn’t stock the 8GB version and it would have been a lot more money, because they bundled it with a larger hard drive. I didn’t want to wait for days or pay an additional hefty fee for overnight shipping.

I spent $800 on what I considered the best available option during my time of need.

Today, for the same $800, this Lenovo IdeaPad is a stacked 14″ ultraportable laptop. You get the new 8th generation i7-8550U processor (Passmark 8016). As Laptop Mag’s review noted, “If you’re shopping for a laptop and there’s a model with 8th Gen Core available in your price range, you should definitely prioritize it.” I’m not a gamer, but there is a dedicated graphics card too and all the latest ports (including Thunderbolt). The rest of the laptop is solid with 8GB of memory, a full HD screen, and a very fast solid state hard drive (SSD).

Similarly, this 15″ HP ENVY x360 can be configured to be around the same price with a little more memory, at a little more size and weight. I’ve grown accustomed to the lightweight laptops, so the Lenovo above is more interesting to me. My wife, on the other hand, really likes numeric keypads, so this would be a better fit for her (but extreme overkill for what she does).

We all know technology moves quickly, but either one is a tempting upgrade. I’d be upgrading from a 5th generation Core i5-5200U (3497 Passmark), that lousy 4GB memory, and a tiny 128GB SSD. That’s doubling or more in all those key areas. (I’m sure the SSD is much faster.)

I’m going to try to resist and wait for the next cycle. However, if you are in the market for a new laptop, I’d jump on these now. I think prices will only go up after the holiday season before they float back down throughout 2018.

MoviePass

I haven’t written about MoviePass yet, but it’s gotten a lot of buzz elsewhere.

MoviePass is an all-you-can watch cinema plan. When it was getting its buzz a couple of months ago, it was $10/mo. for unlimited movies per month (well limited to one per day). So if you wanted to live at the movie theater you could get your cost down to under a dollar.

Their deal now is $90 for an annual pass. That’s ~$7 a month, plus a small processing fee. So if you can see yourself going once a month (or more knowing that it’s essentially free), then this is a good deal.

I’m considering it, but I’m not sure if I have the time to take in a bunch of movies.

Old Navy For Jeans

(This is the most boring item, trust me.)

Old Navy is starting their Black Friday on Colorless Wednesday.

Their jeans are 50% off. I need to replenish my jeans. Sure, the jeans at Old Navy seem to only last a couple of years, but for around $20 I can live with that.

Kohl’s Technology Deals

Kohl’s has some great technology deals. Yes, it is the typical door buster routine, but are people really busting down Kohl’s doors? I’m surprised the place is still in business. Besides the great prices on many top items, you also get $15 in Kohl’s Cash for every $50 you spend. It should be called Kohl’s Kash, because it isn’t real money and can only be spent during a limited time in the future. As CNET’s Cheapskate points out: “[The Fitbit Blaze will] be priced at $150, which isn’t extraordinary — it was $140 on Prime Day — but it comes with $45 in Kohl’s Cash.”

So, presuming that you can find a use for $45 at Kohl’s (which I always can), it is like a $105 Fitbit Blaze.

The Kohl’s Cash is for all items in the store not just a few door busters. So as long as you find some things you like, it’s almost like getting an additional 30% off. (Not really, but kinda, right?)

RiteAid – Yes RiteAid

RiteAid has buy one get one free for “As Seen on TV” items. We’re looking at Snuggie Tails for the kids as well as the Magic Tracks. They also have a buy one, get two cereal deal. That may be interesting if they don’t jack up the prices to $5 a box (which they probably will).

These are the kinds of deals I like. I don’t expect a lot of people to be waiting forming a line to pick up these deals.

In other news, I’m thinking of including the “As Seen on TV” logo on Lazy Man and Money. I’ve looked at my website on my TV connected to a computer through an HDMI cable. If everyone else does misleading marketing I can too, right?

Military Bargain Laptop Deal

The Navy base near me is posting a special $148 Asus 14″ Intel Apollo 32GB Notebook. That’s so vague that it could be worth anywhere between $100 or $350 depending on the missing information. It also says it is a savings of $72. I did a little sleuthing and I think it is an Asus R417NA-RS01-BL which just rolls off the tongue. Some of that missing information would be Intel Celeron N3350, 32GB storage, 4GB memory. NewEgg sells it for $242 and the reviews are good (and helpful)!

I have two main uses for this Asus:

1. The main use will be for my kids to play with ABC Mouse, PBS Kids, and Scratch Jr. This is much better than giving them Daddy’s computer.

2. In a pinch, it could be Daddy’s computer. Two and a half years ago, I was able to work on $100 computer that was less powerful than this. It was an emergency situation and it wasn’t great, but it did the job.

It’s worth noting that the 4GB of memory in this computer is the same as what I have in my Dell XPS right now. Yes, I’m very bitter.

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to wish everyone out there a Happy Thanksgiving. I won’t bore you by being another blogger giving thanks for family, friends, and health, even though it’s all true.

Instead, I’d like to give a special thanks. I’d like to thank the lawyers who have helped me serve you. Over the last 11 years, there have been more than 11 million of you. When a company, in my opinion, isn’t operating in a way that serves you the consumer, I have called them out on it. I’ve never seen a company care unless Google’s algorithm decides my criticism is important for you to read. When that happens the lawsuits come because these companies are just protecting their reputation.

So I’d like to give thanks to Blish and Cavangh for representing me on writing my RainSoft Review on my family’s opinion of our personal experience. The case is still on-going, so I won’t comment on it.

Similarly, I’d like to give thanks to Mateo Fowler who stood up for me and my opinion of Le-Vel Thrive. We won as the courts ruled (by my understanding) that it was too frivolous to even be considered. The court even sanctioned Le-Vel for their actions.

Finally Joshua Koltun did an amazing job helping with the LifeVantage case. I wish that I wasn’t limited by the personal expense that further litigation would have entailed.

We’re finally winning the war against MLM as more and more law firms are realizing that the courts have ruled that these are pyramid schemes time and time again. There are some MLMs that have been sued several times this year.

Double Deal Monday!

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Regular readers know that I rarely post twice in the same day. The only thing that happens less often is me posting about a deal. There are a lot of deals out there and so many deal sites do a much better rounding them up than I ever could.

However, today I’m going for a daily double as I’m going to do both those rare things. Fittingly, I have two deals to share.

The first deal is one you might have already seen. Amazon has put their Echo on sale for $130. However if you add two of them to your cart and use promo code “ECHO2PACK”, they should come up at $160. That’s only for today (7/24/2017), so if you are reading this on some other day… sorry… but move on to the second deal that is available all week.

The $160 price for 2 is $80 a piece (that kind of math is why they pay me the big bucks). I got mine when they first came out taking advantage of the special promo to nab one at $99. For the first time since then, it seems Amazon is making them available cheaper (albeit only if you buy in a little bulk). If you have a big home that can make two of them then great. If not, you can probably put the one you don’t need on Ebay and get around $80 back. If you can’t get $80 back, then the real deal is just to wait and pick up a new one on Ebay for $75. Oh and if you use my Echo link, I may make a few dollars from Amazon at no cost to you.

The second deal is from Aldi. If you don’t have that chain of grocery stores near you, you have my sympathies. Also, you might still want to read on, I predict there might be a flood of these on Ebay.

Aldi has a Crofton Expandable Salad Storage Box and a Crofton Expandable Bento Box each for $3.99. What are these things? Crofton is an Aldi-owned brand. In this case it looks like Crofton bought a bunch of product from Cool Gear and stuck a new label on it… oh and GREATLY lowered the price.

For example, the *cough* Crofton Salad Storage Box looks exactly like this Cool Gear one. Same color and everything. You could pay $13.02 for that product which everyone seems to love, but I’d rather pay $3.99 for something with a different label.

The *cough* Crofton Bento Box looks exactly like this Cool Gear one. There aren’t as many reviews on this one, but if you are at Aldi, you get to hold it in your hand and try it out. I did and may have bought one or two (or maybe not if my wife is reading this). Again, I’d rather pay $3.99 than $15.

What I like best about these is that the middle is a freezer tray. They claim it will keep your food cold for 4 hours, which should be long enough to get to work or for a kid’s lunch. They are both dishwasher safe (top shelf only) and microwave safe (just in case you are the type to microwave your salad).

I’m trying to be more conscious of how much single use plastic I use. I’m hoping that the Bento Box will help me send the kids to school with a lot less wrapping to throw out. We’ll see if it works out.

Three Deal Friday

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I wasn’t going to write an article today, but I simply can’t resist. I don’t like to feed consumerism, but if you were in the market for any of these things you can save some good money today.

I believe the deals are just for today, so don’t wait too long.

  1. Get Echo Dot for $30It seems like Amazon is trying to get these in every house to prevent Google Home from gaining a foothold. They’ve been aggressively cutting the prices of Alexa hardware. I have to wonder if they can get lower.

    You’ll have to follow the instructions from CNET, which gives you a couple of hoops to jump through, but they are easy. I reviewed the first generation Echo Dot and found it interesting at $80. At $30, it’s a no-brainer.

  2. A $50 Microsoft Full Windows Tablet or A $60 oneThese are 8″ Full HD (1920×1080) screens with an expansion slot. I splurged on the $60 one for the slightly better chip and slightly faster SSD. They run full Windows 10 and also have a Micro HDMI out, which means that you could use this to stream Netflix to a big television or monitor… which is what I plan to do.

    Don’t expect to run a lot of apps or to set any kind of speed records. The reason it’s so cheap is that the licensing agreement for Windows is free on such terrible hardware. Normally they’ll set you back $130 or $150, so saving $80 or $90 is significant.

  3. Bissell Big Green Deep Cleaning Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner Machine for $285With nearly 3000 reviews of averaging 4.7 stars, people love this machine. Typically it runs $400 and it rarely goes on any kind of significant sale according to to Camel Camel Camel.

    We have a steam cleaner already, but I don’t think it’s as good this one. We use it a lot with our dog sitting business. I’m really trying to restrain myself from upgrading.

What do you think? Any of these deals look good to you?

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