Lazy Man and Money

Cyber Monday Deals I’m Buying

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Happy Cyber Monday. I have to make this article quick because some things may sell out while I am typing it up.

  • Gap Gift Card 20% off

    Gap has several brands, such as Old Navy and Banana Republic. I’m getting this for my wife to use Athleta. She has a birthday in a few days and specifically asked for an Athleta card. Perfect! I linked you to the $100 card for $80, but you can change it to a $50 card if you want.

  • IHOP Card 20% off

    The kids love IHOP, so I’ll wrap this up for Christmas. Buy the $50 card for only $40.

    On both cards, I used a reward credit to pay to save another 2%. Best Buy also has an Instacart gift card deal, but I don’t use the service.

  • Applebee’s – Spend $50, get $20 in bonus cards

    I’m not a huge fan of bonus cards that expire, but we’re at Applebee’s fairly often. Their half-priced appetizers (between 2 and 5 near me) and $3 Pabst Blue Ribbon drinks make for a nicely priced late lunch or early dinner.

  • Kiwi Crate for $5

    Kiwi Crate is a company that sends kids kits to make stuff once a month. They have different kits in areas of engineering, arts, and geography. I struggled to decide between the art or engineering kit for my kid, but I settled on engineering. Use the code “holiday” to get your first kit for $5 (shipping is free). After that, it’s the regular price of $24, so you may want to cancel. I have read that when you cancel, they’ll give you more offers to lure you back.

    Click through with this link, and you may get an additional $10 off. I’m not sure if or how it would combine with the holiday discount code.

    • Final Thoughts

    Don’t forget to look for local deals. A local restaurant company near me is offering 50% more in gift card purchases. So we spend $100 and get $150 in gift cards. The same place often has a “buy one, get one free” coupon in our local “Entertainment”-style book so that we can combine the two.

    That’s a lot of restaurants, but we’ll use them over the next few months.

Happy Stream-Christmas!

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I hope everyone is getting ready for a good Thanksgiving. My kids have the week off of school, but my wife is still working. It has a feel of COVID-19 home schooling. If I don’t give them something productive to do, they’ll just play Pokemon Scarlet all day. I’ve been trying to find win-win things such as playing the Lakeshore Allowance Game, which I’ll review on Kid Wealth.

(Some of those links above go to Amazon, and I may earn a commission if you buy after clicking them.)

‘Tis the season for Black Friday deals. There are plenty of them out there. They seem to focus on the same things, such as earbuds, streaming devices, etc. My wife has been complaining about her old, cheap laptop, so I bought her this loaded one at Staples for $540. Unless you are into doing extreme, competitive gaming, it’s got everything. Well, it doesn’t have a touch screen, which could be a deal breaker for some. However, it’s got a top processor (Intel i7), top memory (16GB), a good size fast hard drive, and a good screen. It should check off the boxes for most general users and be future-proof for several years. Most importantly for my wife – it has a number pad.

That computer deal is a bonus. My main focus today is all the deals on streaming services. In the past few days, I signed up for three streaming services, Peacock, Paramount+ Premium, and Hulu. I already had Hulu, but the old deal always expires on Black Friday and it’s time to sign up again with a new email address.

Peacock’s Deal

Peacock’s ad-supported service is $0.99/month for 12-months using the promo code “SAVEBIG.” I’ve never had Peacock before, but I think I can find $12 worth of content to watch over the next year.

Hulu’s Deal

Hulu’s ad-supported service is $1.99/month for 12 months (no promo code, just use that link). Hulu has offered a deal for $0.99 or $1.99 for years, and I also re-up. It has a ton of shows that the kids watch.

Paramount+ Deal (Premium, no ads version!)

Paramount+ got into the action with a deal too. There is a deal with CBS Sportsline that gives you Paramount+ Premium with no commercials for a year for only $10. You’re really signing up for Sportsline, and the Paramount+ is included. The wording on the page says it’s a free 30-day trial, but people did it last year, and it seems to be a full year. Check out the Slickdeal’s discussion. Paramount+ specifically mentions the Sportsline bundle here. It seems that as long as you are subscribed to Sportsline, you get Paramount+ Premium. You’ll need to set a reminder to cancel, or you will get billed for a year at the regular price. Also, you can’t cancel or stop auto-renew immediately, or you’ll lose the Paramount+. People report that when they try to cancel, they get an offer for another free six months.

Final Thoughts on Streaming Services

When it comes to Peacock and Hulu, some may not like ads. It can be hard to swallow when you are spending money too. However, I don’t mind $3/month and I’ve dealt with commercials my whole life. The Paramount+ may be the best deal of all.

The most important thing is finding stuff you like on the service. I know there’s plenty on Hulu that we’ll watch. I’m less sure about Peacock and Paramount+. For a few dollars, I’ll take the risk.

Deal! Best Business Laptop for $700-$750

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Saturday, I woke up and my laptop wouldn’t charge. It would plug in and work, but with a 0% battery, the power was not dependable and it shut off several times. It’s a big shame, because, even though it’s 4 years old, it’s still a very capable computer (aside from this new battery issue).

I used to be a fan of buying cheaper computers in the $300-$400 range, but if you can afford $800, you may be able to get 5 years out of the investment. The computers today are faster than four years ago, but overall they don’t change much.

Fearing that I’d be without a computer for a while, I went on a search for a replacement. I’ve always been somewhat lucky to find a decent computer deal when I need it. Once again, luck was on my side. I want to share the deal with you, but I want you to know that I won’t make a dime if you buy it. I also bought it myself. I only write 2 or 3 “Deal!” articles a year, so consider this the highest endorsement I can make.

Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Deal

When I’m looking for a deal, I usually go to Slickdeals. The search functionality works great. I simply typed in “laptop 16GB” as I only wanted a laptop with 16GB of memory. (This may be more than more people need, but I like buying high-end.) A lot of gaming computers showed up which you can usually see with the mention of a graphics card and a price over $1000. I don’t do any gaming, so I just skip over those.

That’s when I came across this Lenovo Thinkbook 14. I’ve usually gone with “thin and light” 13-inch laptops in the past, and this is a little bigger, but not bad at 3 pounds. It also has an SD card reader which is very handy, though I’ve gotten used to using them less and less.

It checks off all the boxes for most power users. It has a top-of-the-line AMD Ryzen 5700u chip, 16GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD drive (and an extra bay for an additional drive). The screen is FHD (1080p) and some may prefer 4K. I’m used to 1080p and the battery lasts longer with it, so I’m happy with that. The chip is powerful. I looked at the benchmarks and one common measure had it as three times faster than my Intel i7 from four years ago. It’s not surprising as technology keeps on marching.

The laptop retails for $1309, but they automatically apply a coupon code to make it $850. It’s not bad to get $450 off, but we can do so much better. As the Slickdeals post says, coupon code “THINKBFRIDAYNOW” will get it to $720. That’s a great deal if that was all. If you go to the cashback site, Rakuten and shop through that, you’ll get 10% in cashback. Lenovo will also give you around 7 or 8% in Lenovo reward dollars. (I may use this to buy an active pen for dabbling in art – mostly for my son.) Combine those last two and it’s about $100 in value.

I was able to use ID.me as military for an additional discount (another 8% off I think). If you are a teacher or first responder, you can do it too. It’s worth checking to see you can use that benefit as there is a significant list.

I ended up paying $720 after tax (the military discount essentially canceled out the tax), but have that $100 in value coming in the future. In a way, it ended up costing me about $620. That’s a lot better than the $800 that I paid for my last top-of-the-line computer.

The downside is that it looks like it will take 2-3 weeks to arrive (7-9 business days to ship and a few days in shipping).

Happy Deal Day!

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[Note: Many people call this Amazon Prime Day, but other retailers are having deals as well. Just because Amazon sets the day doesn’t mean they get to have all the attention. I’ll be updating this article throughout the day. I find it is better to publish quickly, so you don’t miss the deals before they sell out.]

Amazon Prime Day 2021

Last week, I was on vacation. I thought I’d be able to continue writing, but “Surprise!” the tiny bed-and-breakfast place on Block Island didn’t have wifi working as it had in previous years. It’s great to be back behind a keyboard with a working internet connection.

It’s also great timing for it, because it’s the annual Amazon Prime Day deal madness. As usual other retailers have stepped up to compete, so definitely give Target and Walmart a look and maybe Best Buy as well. Deals are happening fast and furious, so I’ll get right to them.

My Target Purchases

By 5:30AM (I just happened to wake up early), I placed my first three orders on Target. I shop at Target about once a year, because there are none local to me and I don’t see too many good deals. Buying this early means there’s something special. That is:

  • KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer – $299 – (Normally: $419) – My wife mentioned the other day that she would like one and to look for a deal. I knew people love these, but I didn’t know about pricing. It seems that Amazon’s are always $499, never a discount to be had. The model they have there is slightly better with a bigger bowl (6qt) and a motor (600 watts vs. 525 watts), but for $200 off, this is a rare, rare find for the KitchenAid Professional series.

    My kids are getting into cooking, so it will be a gift for the whole family… except for maybe my stomach if they make 9 dozen cookies (the max capacity of this thing).

  • Magic Tree House Boxed Set: Books 1-4 – $4 – (Normally: $15) – We might already have these books as my mother has given us some in this series. However, for $4, I’ll buy first and look later. We can always add this to a birthday gift or donate. There’s a chance that this sparks the kids’ interest in reading the series over summer.
  • LEGO Creator Sunset Track Racer – $11.47 – (Normally $16-$20) – This is a basic Lego car, perfect for my 7-year-old. It’s ~200 pieces and can be built three different ways (one is a boat!) so that’s good for the price. I was a little on the fence, but this is the time I buy and squirrel away gifts for Christmas and birthdays.

Note: Unlike many websites that earn a commission if you buy anything, I don’t earn anything from the Target links above. It’s so rare that I recommend anything from there that I haven’t looked to set up a publisher account. When you get to the Amazon recommendations below, I may earn a commission on those.

Amazon Prime Day Recommendations

I should note that these are for Prime members, because, that’s the name of the day. That’s a lot of people out there. If you aren’t a Prime member, you may want to skip this section.

As usual, this is the best time to buy any of Amazon’s own devices. I’m a fan of the Fire HD 10″ tablet (Review), which is a steal at it’s $80 price. If you own a previous Amazon device there’s a trade-in program that might be worth looking into.

  • Purchase $40 Amazon Gift Card & Receive $10 Credit – I sent a gift card to myself, so this is a free $10 credit to use in a couple of days.

  • Fire HD Plus 10″ – $110 – (Normally $180) – I wrote about the regular version above, but this version packs an extra GB of memory and wireless charging. I’m not sure if it’s worth the extra $30 over the regular version, but the wireless charging and a stand might make it a good digital photo frame.
  • Showtime/Starz/Paramount+ for $0.99 – (Normally around $10) – You only get 2 months of this $0.99 promotion price, but it’s enough to binge a series or two. During the start of the pandemic my wife and I streamed The Affair on Showtime and it was good.

I know there are a lot more Amazon deals to be had, but after years of buying them, maybe I just don’t need as much “stuff” anymore. I haven’t listed any WalMart deals yet, because I’ve found that website hard to navigate and figure what is truly a good deal.

Get a Year of Paramount Plus for $30 (50% off) – Last Chance!

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Paramount PlusI don’t usually share too many deals, probably less than five a year. It’s rare that I feel that a deal is worth sharing and it won’t be sold out before you get a chance to read it. (I apologize to my mail subscribers, but this may be delivered too late. I’m working on making the subscriptions work faster.)

If you saw the Super Bowl, you may have noticed that there’s yet another new streaming service, Paramount Plus. It’s a rebrand of the CBS All Access with some new content. I hadn’t been very interested because I don’t watch a lot of CBS, but I noticed there’s some Nickelodeon content for the kids. They are excited about a new SpongeBob movie on the service.

The last thing I need is another streaming service bill to add to Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime (which we use mostly for the free shipping). We’re looking to get rid of some streaming services to possibly add HBO Max in the future. However, we got Disney+ on a 3-year deal ($140 for three years – $3.88/mo) and Hulu on a 1-year deal ($2/mo.).

The latest deal for Paramount Plus is in line with those deals. If you sign up for CBS All Access (today is the last day) and use the promo code PARAMOUNTPLUS, you’ll get a year of Paramount Plus (it will switch over tomorrow) for $30. That’s ad-supported, but still a price of $2.50 a month. I figure that the SpongeBob movie in the theaters would generally cost the family at least $30, so it’s almost like getting everything else free.

I signed up myself for it last night and the process was very easy. Now, I can finally watch the last season of The Big Bang Theory that I missed… except that I can’t. It turns out that the CBS show was not on CBS All Access (perhaps CBS Some Access would have been better). The good news is that when we move on from Netflix and get HBO Max, it’ll be waiting there for me to binge.