Lazy Man and Money

The Best Amazon Prime Day Deals I Found

by Leave a Comment

Amazon Prime Day

Updated for Day 2

You’ve seen every news outlet under the sun write about Amazon Prime Day today. There are some truly great deals. Also Amazon pays a nice commission to organizations referring sales. This website is no different, except that I make a lot less money (maybe enough for a couple of pizzas) as I do a lot less volume.

I’ve been sharing Amazon deals for 14 years now, a lot longer than most of those organizations and I’m not going to stop now.

If you don’t like Amazon deals, I slipped in a laptop from Best Buy. I couldn’t resist. It was too good of a deal not to include.

Keep in mind that these deals are for Amazon Prime members. I know that many readers aren’t Prime members. However, with more than 150 million worldwide subscribers, I know that a lot of you are.

I had hoped to get this out earlier in the day, but fate didn’t agree with that plan. Because of that, some of these may be sold out, or no longer the deal that they were earlier. Fortunately, Amazon Prime Day is now Amazon Prime Days – I have only seen one deal of the dozens I’ve looked at today disappear (and I didn’t include it here).

Best Amazon Prime Day Deals

Electronics and Tech

The very best deal in my opinion is the Amazon Fire 10 HD. A couple of years back, I paid $100 each for two older versions of these tablets. It saved our sanity during distance learning.


BEST BUY – Lenovo – IdeaPad 3 15″ Laptop ($300) – This is the one Best Buy item on the list. It is nearly impossible to find the follow for under $300: Intel i-level chip with 8GB of memory, 256 SSD, and a great 1920×1080 high definition screen. Alas, here it is. This should be all the computer almost anyone would need.

Drone – Mavic Air 2 Fly More Combo (~$800-ish) – For those with an Amazon Prime Credit Card (I’m guessing most Prime members reading this), there’s a 25% cash back offer on this top-of-the-line drone with extras and protection plan. We just got our first drone a week ago… a $20 model for my 8 year-old. We aren’t ready for this. We can wait a couple of years and probably get this as old technology at half-price or less.

Drone – DJI Mavic Mini Combo ($400) – Save $100 on this smaller drone with fewer bells and whistles than the Mavic Air above. We may be ready for this next Christmas.

General

$10 Free Gift Card (with $40 Gift Card Purchase) – I consider Amazon gift cards to be as good as cash. I bought a $40 gift card and sent it to myself. To get the bonus $10 use code GC20PRIME at checkout and you should get a message about a $10 credit coming to you in a couple of days.

Household

Finish Dishwashing Tablets (94 count) – ~$10.00 – There’s a 25% deal for Prime Day and I scored another 15% for Subscribe and Save since I have 5 other items.

Men

Braun Electric Razor for Men, Series 7 7880CC ($139) – I paid $187 for this back in March and it was well worth it. Be smarter than I was and get it for nearly $50 less.

Kids Toys (Educational/Stem)

Snap Ships (Most $7) – You can think of these as “advanced spaceship Legos.” My kids played with these for days this summer. My 6-year-old even combined two sets to make a new super spaceship. These are all around $6-7 a set – a decent value for a few days of fun. The exception is Gladius which is an exception, which has four times the piece of a typical set. Some of these have already sold out, so act quickly.

We personally own two of the Lances, but I bought all of these for Christmas/Birthday gifts: Lance, Locust, Sawfly, Scythe, Gladius

Osmo Genius Kit and Family Night ($97) – I wrote about a review of just the Genius Kit here. This is a little more money, but you get the Family Night bundle too. There are a lot of activities here, so don’t get scared off by the $100 price.

Engino Discovering STEM Simple Machines Mechanisms That Multiply Force ($43) – The reviews for this are very good, but not as stellar as some products I would recommend. However, it lists for $95 and sells for $65 typically. At $43, I think reviewers may give it an extra star for value. I was sold by the video that showed the extensive manual. I’ve mentioned it before, buy 6-year old seems to be a future engineer. I bought this and stored it away for Christmas next year (it will be better suited then and we have enough this year).

National Geographic Construction Model Kit ($21) – This is another model kit, but it’s 3 medieval-type machines that really shoot. As you can see, my focus is on building with a fun pay off at the end.

CIRO Solar Robot Kit 2 Pack ($23) – There was a single pack available for $18, but I opted for the 2-pack because we have two kids… and because we could always give one away as a birthday gift. The reviews are good and it seems to support age 8+ as well as more complex builds for 10+. The big attraction here is the solar power to make the creations move. It’s not like they’ll learn anything different than if they put a battery in it, but motorized models are cool.

Final Thoughts

So far I’ve been able to steer away from the big items that cost hundreds of dollars. Instead I have picked up a bunch of smaller items, things that we’d get for Christmas or birthdays anyway.

In the process I’ve added a lot of digital credits by choosing slower shipping. I don’t need to rush since it will still be very, very early for Christmas.

Sold-out Graveyard

Here are some of the deals that have expired. Maybe my mini-review is still helpful or you can use the price to look again in 6 weeks for Black Friday.

Snap Circuits Bric Structures – $20.09 – This is best described as a combination of Legos and electronics. I paid $25 on a deal last April. My six year old loves it. The age on the box is 8-15, so we played it together at first. After 20 minutes with an adult, I think it can be okay for younger kids.

Deal: Amazon Fire HD 10 and Show Mode Dock ($70)

by Leave a Comment

This is a very quick post today, because I think it is going to sell out. I don’t mention deals very often here, but 3-4 times a year, I make an exception.

I’ve long been a fan of the Amazon Fire HD 10. I was able to get a pair for a little less than $100 (one would have been $100) and they’ve been perfect for my kids. I don’t know how I would have survived the hell of distance learning without them. I certainly didn’t have a plan to buy laptops for a 6 and 7 year old – even iPads would have set me back nearly $1000.

I have one for myself and it’s great for anything that I would do with my phone, but with a bigger screen.

Today’s deal is for an Amazon Fire HD 10 and Show Mode Dock for $70. (You may have to be a Prime member to get the deal.) There are a couple of things to note. First, it’s the previous generation, which is the version I bought a couple of years ago. The latest ones are a little faster, but not much else is different. Secondly, it’s refurbished. In my experience, Amazon’s refurbished products are very good. Finally, the Show Mode Dock generally runs around $50 or $60 by itself.

I’ve wanted a Show Mode Dock for a long time, but I could never justify paying half the cost of the device to add wireless charging at an angle as a photo frame. My 2011 HP/Palm Touchpad could do that and the dock was very cheap. Amazon has lowered the price to $38, but that’s still too much for a $100 tablet in my opinion.

I have to be honest, I’m jealous that some reader out there is going to be able to get the tablet and the dock for $70. I can’t justify buying another Amazon Fire HD 10 so this deal doesn’t make sense for me.

I’d move quick on this one. It probably won’t be around for long.

(As with all products I mention on Amazon, I may earn a small commission if you take advantage of this by clicking on a link in this blog post.)

Fathers, Get the Best Electric Razor Deal that I Missed

by 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?

by 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:

Aldi Christmas Robbery

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:

Aldi Christmas Robbery Receipt

My Black Friday/Cyber Monday Haul (2018)

by 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.