Deals Archives - Lazy Man and Money

Fathers, Get the Best Electric Razor Deal that I Missed

June 21, 2020 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

I only write about deal 3 or 4 times a year. I only want to share the best of the best deals and this certainly qualifies.

A few months ago, my electric razor died. It was a Norelco three circle blade one that did its job for 5 years. Overall, it was a great value for $50.

I did some research and it seems like all the reviews pointed to electric razors that were around $200. That seemed like a lot for a frugal person like me. There was another razor in the $50 range that got some decent editorial reviews, but all the Amazon reviews seemed to say it was trash. I felt like I might be throwing $50 away.

In end, I got some sage advice on Twitter than said, “If you are going to be using it for a number of years, the expensive one is the better value.” It’s true. Sometimes it is worth paying more for the top quality.

Plus to paraphrase Danny Glover’s character in Lethal Weapon, “I’m too old for this suboptimal product.” Hmmm, maybe it was something other than “suboptimal product.”

I delayed the purchase for awhile and it started to cause me stress. With COVID-19 bringing me down and a birthday, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the $200 electric razor.

Today in my inbox, I got an email alert that it’s now available for $149. I would have waited, but it doesn’t seem like it ever goes on sale. It simply doesn’t have to, because the reviews are too good. It turns out that it actually went on sale a couple of weeks ago, in preparation for Father’s Day I’m sure.

Here’s the product:

For those who have ad blockers turned on their browsers, it’s a Braun Series 7 with Cleaning and Charging Station. I paid $200, you can buy it now for $149. That’s like Apple giving a 25% discount on its best iPads… it’s unheard of.

I’ve been very happy with my Braun Series 7. I used to only use an electric before stepping in the shower and following up with a real razor. Now if I don’t shave for a couple of days, I can just use this and move on. With one touch of a button, the razor is cleaned in its charging station and ready to go.

If this is the kind of thing you are interested in, I’d buy it right away, because it may go away now that Father’s Day is here.

What do you think, maybe give yourself a Father’s Day present today?

Note: The links on this page may earn me a commission on Amazon if you choose to buy this. However, I honestly love the Braun Series 7 (and you can see from the reviews that everyone else does too) and this is an exceptional deal.

Did You Rob Aldi After Christmas Too?

December 27, 2018 by Lazy Man 1 Comment

I hope everyone who celebrated holidays recently had their best ever. We got back from our annual vacation on the 23rd and proceeded to have 3 Christmas celebrations in a 24 hour span. I had to set my alarm to wake up at 3:30AM so that I could wrap presents.

In the end it was worth it. The kids said it was the best Christmas ever. (However, being 5 and 6, the sample size of what they remember may be limited.)

Of course their favorite gift where these Throw ‘N’ Pop Charmander and Throw ‘N’ Pop Squirtle toys that I picked up for around $8 each on ThinkGeek’s Cyber Monday sale. It’s a strong reminder that a great toy doesn’t need to be expensive.

With it being the end of the year, I thought I’d go with a lighter article and save some of the more thought-provoking ones for the fresh new year.

Yesterday, I found that ’tis the season to find tremendous deals at Aldi. Actually, you can find great deals there year round. However, it seems like their after Christmas deals are better than usual. I’ll let you be the judge.

I went to Aldi to get eggs and some sliced cheese. Here’s what I came back with:

That’s what $41 bought me.

Some of the stuff like Christmas wrapping paper, gift bags, gift tags, and Santa sacks are a deal everywhere after Christmas. My dog doesn’t mind a second stocking of dog chews. He’ll snub quite a few things, but not treats just because they aren’t shaped for the current holiday season.

The bag with the trees is a sheet set. It’s normally $17, but was $7. Maybe they are clearing out the winter stuff early. It’s probably not the best sheet set, but we’ll find $7 of use out of them.

The luggage was the priciest item on the list… $11, marked down from $25. It seems like it might be cheaply made, but the American Airlines one that I’ve had for more than 10 years has lost some wheels and is a pain.

The 2 Tier Wire Basket will save us some counter space over the couple of bowls we have now. Usually that’s $8, but it was on sale for $3.

Finally, I found a couple of good food deals. That alfredo sauce is bacon flavored. I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with it, but I’m sure it’s great. It’s a specialty item that I think typically goes for $3, but for $0.79 I’ll give it a shot. I’ve rarely seen any good deals on fish at Aldi, but I couldn’t pass up the fresh tilapia. Normally around $4.50 each (3/4 of a pound), each package was $3 off, making them about $1.50 each. The only downside is that we have so many Christmas leftovers that I had to freeze them.

If you have an Aldi’s near you, I suggest you give it a look. It seems like they are trying to clear out old inventory, so they can bring in some new stuff.

In case you are curious, here’s my receipt:

My Black Friday/Cyber Monday Haul (2018)

November 26, 2018 by Lazy Man 2 Comments

In personal finance circles, it’s popular to tell people to avoid the Black Friday crowds… that it just isn’t worth it. I try not to tell other people what to do, but for years I’d tell them that I’m staying away. I wouldn’t go to Wal-Mart or Best Buy, but if there was a small Staples or an Office Depot out of the way, I’d give those a shot. Usually, I did well on those second-tier deals.

If you want to deal with the crowds and it works for you, then so be it. I hope you aren’t part of the small handful of people who get some kind of injury.

It seems like I’m reading that more and more are just shopping online from home. I even read one story that the stores were empty. While I was out shopping at one place, a shopper there told me that the standout deal for an amazing laptop at Staples was still in stock – more than 5 hours after it opened. Maybe the pendulum is swinging towards online, leaving a better opportunity in the stores.

I wasn’t very excited about this year’s Black Friday. It seems like most of the deals were about gaming, televisions, smart speakers, or tablets. I don’t do any gaming anymore and I have more than enough of all the other items. In fact, we don’t need too much of anything, because we tend to keep things and use them for a long time. The cookware that I’ve had from 2005 still cooks, but it is starting to show its age.

While I’m not sure you’ll find the deals I choose particularly interesting, I noticed an interesting pattern when I reviewed them.

Cuisinart TOA-60 Air Fryer Toaster Oven, Silver
Our old convection toaster oven was about 10 years old and it really showed it age. The problem is that it still works. Instead of the Amazon $200 price, the local Navy base had it for $100 (and no sales tax). It also would match the silver kitchen appliances we have in the house we bought 7 years ago. Finally the reviews of the air frying feature were really good. It’s certainly a splurge, but hopefully one we’ll be happy with.
I wonder if we can get anything from our old one at a yard sale. Would you buy an old, not-so-clean, convection toaster oven for maybe $5?
Oversized Wall Clock
We’ve been looking for a traditional clock for our nautical-theme living room for awhile. It’s ideal for starting to teach our kids how to tell time. Normally, it would be $40, but I saw it for $15 on Slickdeals.
JBL Headphones
I never seem to have anything better than the free headphones they give you on an airplane and one ear never works. I only use them a couple of times of year when I travel (and usually just read a book instead). At $8, this appears to a deal on their $40 headphones. I’m familiar with the JBL brand and it should be reasonable quality, but I don’t know if they are really $40 quality. For my use, it solves a (minor) problem at a reasonable price.
Osmo Genius Kit for Fire Tablet
This is a cool augmented reality learning kit for kids. I had been interested in it for awhile, but it was only for the iPad for a long time. I couldn’t see spending $350 or so on a special tablet, just so I could spend another $99 on this. However, it works with our Amazon Fire HD 10. There was a brief window where the price was $35, if you applied a 50% coupon code on the product that was already 30% off ($70 on sale).
I think the deal was available for 10 minutes and I happened to refresh the browser on Slickdeals at the right time to get it. I hope they don’t cancel it due to a pricing mistake.
We certainly need this, but with two boys age 4 and 6, I think they’ll get a lot of use (and learning) out of this.
Kids Headphones
We need something with a decibel limiting feature and a sharing port so they can watch the same movie on that Amazon Fire. These were $6 each with a couple code that I happened to catch at the right time on Slickdeals. (I was pretty lucky, but I’m sure I missed a lot of stuff because I wasn’t refreshing Slickdeals all the time.)
I was prepared to pay $15 each, but this saved us nearly $20.
Think Geek’s Cyber Monday Promotion (Promocode: DOTCOM)
This is a late update to the list. I saw that Think Geek was running a 50% off everything on the site. I did a quick switch for anything Pokemon and found some great stuff for the kids. Almost everything was around $5-8, which is a bargain for almost anything related to the franchise. Pokemon’s take over of our lives is nearly complete.

My wife bought a few other things at the Navy base and some other places, but she didn’t tell me much about them. (Hopefully not to spoil Santa’s surprise.) We also picked up some less-than-exciting things like gift cards while we were already at the place or a can opener that we needed, but wasn’t on sale. The above were just the notable “deals.”

The pattern was that most of these things were just dumb luck. The toaster oven is the only item that I saw ahead of time and thought, “This would be a good home upgrade, we should give it a shot.” The rest were impulse items. They were impulse items with a good purpose, but still lifestyle inflation splurges that aren’t really necessary.

At home, I’m famous for not buying a lot of stuff throughout the year. This is the time of year where I catch-up.

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

July 11, 2018 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

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

May 7, 2018 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

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?