Lazy Man and Money

Get Free Fast Food

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We’re in the middle of a Christmas crunch. My wife was deployed for a month and got back on the 18th. The construction crew that we’ve been trying to get here for months booked us for the 20th (that’s today as I’m writing this). They’re finishing our basement, so we were up at 5 AM moving the last stuff. They needed a lot more moved than we had anticipated and it’s our main storage area. It’s also our staging area for wrapping Christmas presents. Throw in decorating for Christmas and we’ve been listening to The Twelve Pains of Christmas on repeat.

With all that going on, there’s at least one thing that I haven’t had to worry about much lately. Every fast food restaurant wants to give me free food. If I planned it well, I could probably feed two people on a couple of dollars a day.

All of this food isn’t free in the sense you just walk up and say, “Give me some food free” and they say, “Here you go.” You have to spend some money and then they give you additional free food. The key to all this free food is downloading the apps. I’ve got the McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Subway, and Taco Bell apps on my phone. I use Taco Bell and Mcdonald’s the most.

Taco Bell Free Food

Taco Bell is my go-to app for two reasons:

1. Taco Bell has the best value menu of all fast food restaurants that I know.
2. I have a lot of money stored in gift cards from when they had a deal of “buy $20 in gift cards, get $5 free.”

For $1, the beef burrito delivers a tasty 430 calories. This month, they’ve been offering a deal each day that involved spending $1 and getting a free menu item. It’s often another taco or something like that. One day, I had to take my son to the doctor and the deal was a Doritos Taco. He’s a big Doritos fan, but not a taco fan. He loved it though. Aside from the obvious health problems of eating fast food, it was a good meal for a dollar.

During this time, we’re also earning points to add up to rewards (more free food) in my account.

McDonald’s Free Food

McDonald’s has been offering free food via its app as well. Some of the deals are underwhelming, but every now and again, they offer a great, I-can’t-believe-this deal. They have recently had a bunch of a “spend $1 and get [X] free.” I’ve gotten a couple of free crispy chicken sandwiches that way. I usually spend $1 on a super large Diet Coke, but they have a value menu that would net you another food item as well. It would be a stretch to call it a meal for two, so adding some healthy foods at home would help fill it out.

McDonald’s reward program seems is trash though. The points are always expiring on me. I would have to go much more often to make the reward program worthwhile.

Subway Free Food

For months Subway was offering a free sub with a promotion code. That was a tremendous deal because $7 would be enough to feed my wife and me for a long time. I would usually eat half my sub and then a few hours eat the other half. I didn’t have a pressing need to eat 1,000 calories in one meal. Now the app has “buy one, get one 50%.” That’s still a decent deal.

They are currently offering a free 6-inch sub with a purchase of a $25 gift card. That’s not a tremendous deal, but it stacks with the above 50% off deal. You could even buy it with a restaurant rewards card and get another few percent off.

Wendy’s Free Food

Back near the start of the pandemic Wendy’s was offering free breakfast Baconator sandwiches just about every week. I had to make a purchase then, but it was easy to find something cheap that my kids or wife would eat. Looking at the app now, they have a free any size fries with purchase, free small chili with purchase, and free Baconator fries with purchase. There are a couple of other deals, but that’s the free food. It’s not great.

Burger King Free Food

Burger King’s app is junk right now. I hadn’t used it in a long time and fired it up just a couple of days ago. The best thing on there is $1 onion rings. Fortunately, they have a tremendous chicken nugget deal – 8 pieces for $1.49, which is great for the kids.

Final Free Fast Food Thoughts

We all know that eating fast food isn’t healthy. Some options are healthier than others, but in the world of free fast food, you can’t be picky about health. It’s important to note that fast food is a sometimes food. That’s fine though, because free fast food is only around sometimes.

Free fast food seems to be around more often in the holiday season as companies compete for your money. However you can usually find some available year-round.

Do you have any fast food hacks, even if they are not free food? Let me know in the comments.

“You’re on the wrong side of the equation.”

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I had this dream a few hours ago. It’s a true story. No, it’s not true the stuff that occurred in the dream itself. But it is true that it happened like this. Yes, I’m even including the parts where I am a bit of a jerk.

To start, this takes place back when I was around age 25 – a few years after graduating college. In the dream, I had two roommates from college and it was a Three’s Company situation – two women and me *. For the purpose of this article, it’s me living platonically with two of my very good (and real) friends from college. I never lived with them in real life though. These friends overspent on anything catching their eye and racked up big credit card debt. They planned to pay it back when they “made real money.” **

Imagine throwing a touchdown to this guy! He’s signalling that he’s open!
On this day, one of the young women decides that we simply must have the latest Pokemon football video game. I couldn’t fault them that much, because the idea of throwing a touchdown pass to Froakie with his jumping ability was one of the most vivid parts of my dream. (If anyone has contacts with The Pokemon Company make this happen. It will be a hit, trust me.) Unfortunately, the video game requires buying the latest gaming system and the game itself. For them, it also means buying a desk and a couple of chairs. I estimate the total bill was around $800 or $1000.

I am not sure this is a great plan, but they are determined. I decided that even though I want out, I will end up getting sucked into Froakie’s charms and play the game myself. So I offer to be part of the split. However, they decline because it would make ownership of the system weird. It was already weird, but this is a dream so I don’t question it much other than to say that they often seemed to share a brain when it came to spending.

I give them some money anyway with an explanation that I’ll end up playing it so I need to contribute something. Then I wander off. Suddenly my old high school friend is there. Because it’s a dream, he’s living with us now too. It’s funny how things like that change mid-dream. However, he points out that we’ll need to save our games and you need an extra gadget to do that on this system. We come across an Aimbo robot ***, which is one such gadget. It looks like a more modern version of the Nintendo robot that you could get with the NES back in 1985. This version not only can save your games but do a bunch of other things. None of the other things were explained in the dream, but it was clearly the “thing to get.” We weren’t 100% sure about buying it without asking the others. We went off to do that and they agreed it was necessary.

But when we got back, all the Aimbo’s were sold out. So we could “make due” with another thing that just saved games. It would tide us over while waited to find Aimbo back in stock. This substitute was almost as expensive, but the extra Aimbo things were an upgrade the group wanted.

My high-school friend buys the substitute and comes back to make an interesting observation, “The credit card processing fees are crazy! What a scam!”

I don’t know why in this dream he has to pay credit card processing fees. In every place, it’s the merchant, but maybe he’s trying to use a weird debit card or something. I simply take his remark at face value for being true.

This is when I ask everyone to take a seat while I go on a mansplaining ****, lecture. (This is clearly the kind of thing that surely makes me the life of any party.) I ask if anyone knows what I am going to say, half expecting they’ve heard me do this Brainy Smurf routine a hundred times. One new character shows up to go on a five-minute suggestion that was completely wrong. I don’t even remember what it was, but I guess it was only to give me the opportunity to be a bigger jerk and dismiss it outright? I don’t remember.

I said, “The problem is that you’re on the wrong side of the equation. You wouldn’t care about the credit card processing fees if you owned the credit card company and made money from them, right?”

I continued to explain that I invest in all these companies: the credit card processor, the maker of the video game, the store we are in, the furniture place that makes the desk and chairs, the game system, etc. So when anyone buys this stuff, I will get a fraction of the money back. Those fractions add up over time and I become more of an owner than a buyer. But to get there, I had to use my money to buy ownership in these companies instead of their products.”

This is when I woke up. I never got to see the reaction on their face to see if made any sense to them.

* If you are too old to know Three’s Company, I’m giving you some homework. Looks like you stream it on PlutoTV for free. It’s very formulaic with nearly every episode revolving around some misunderstanding because a word or two was heard wrong from the other room and hilariousness ensues.

** We were friends after college for a while and one did make “real money” and I assumed paid it back, but it took a while. I am not sure the financial situation of the other, but I think it followed her for at least a decade in some form. We didn’t have regular conversations about money.

*** I’m sure I took the name from Nintendo Amiibo, which is a real-life Nintendo gadget/figurine thing that I can’t wrap my head around.

**** Can you mansplain another man? I don’t think so, but it seemed the best word to fit.

Top 5 Backyard Buys for Your Summer Splurge

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I may earn a commission if you buy after clicking on the links in this article.

I’m not an outdoors person. In fact, when someone mentions camping, I’m the first to ask to if the trees will have wifi.

This isn’t a great thing. Even worse, it’s starting to rub off on the kids. They’d rather watch television or play video games when they aren’t in school or karate. My wife realized that this needs to change this summer. Rather than try to make grand changes, she’s helped make some small ones.

The first thing she did was buy 7 Adirondack chairs. (I don’t know the logic behind seven, but it is .) Adirondack chairs are common in beach towns like ours. She put them around an old fire pit that we never used. Suddenly we were making s’mores a couple of nights a week. I found myself going out to read for 15-20 minutes a day.

Then for my birthday, she got me this inflatable 6-Person hot tub spa. We have a friend who got one last year and everyone loved it. Before we could set it up, my wife was deployed to get vaccines in people’s arms. She got back about 10 days ago and set it up last week.

inflatable hot tub spa

Now that I’m more comfortable in the backyard, I’m suddenly full of ideas on how to make it a summer paradise. Yes, it’s going to cost some money, but I think I can give you some tips to get the most for your money.

Top 5 Backyard Buys for Your Summer Splurge

I’ve been wanting to set up an outdoor movie night for some time. We’ve got a good yard for it. The kids are getting old enough for sleepovers. (They may be too young to be eligible for vaccine this summer, but we could still something outside.) The idea of watching a movie from a hot tub seems perfect.

  • Inflatable 6-Person Hot Tub Spa – $750

    This is the exact brand my wife got. Our friends had a Coleman SaluSpa that seems equally as good. I don’t know if the brand matters much, but this matched our deck best. Usually, you’ll pay $850 or $900, so the current price of $750 is a good deal.

    There aren’t a lot of reviews on this particular listing, but the same product has 800+ Amazon reviews on this listing. I can’t say much here that you won’t read there.

    Pros: Low cost and ease of installation. A standard spa can cost thousands of dollars and may require professional plumbing and electricity.
    Cons: It can’t be used under 40 degrees. We can mostly use it between April and October in Rhode Island.

  • Epson Home Cinema 2150 Projector 1080p (Refurbished) – $499

    I bought this earlier this week and I’m waiting for it to arrive. For this reason, I can’t give you a review. However, the Wirecutter gave the Epson 2250 runner up for best projector under $1000. The Epson 2250 is a newer update to the 2150, but they seem to be very similar. I think the biggest change is the addition of Android TV to the 2250. As CNET says: “[The Epson 2250] improves upon just about everything we liked with last year’s Home Cinema 2150, though not in any way that’s significant enough to justify upgrading if you’ve already got one of those.”

    I don’t think spending $1000 for a new Epson 2250 was in our budget. However, a certified refurbished Epson 2150 for half price is just my kind of deal. It comes with a 2-year warranty, which gives me peace of mind. If you have Honey, you can get 3% rewards. It pairs well with a cashback credit card, which may negate some of the cost of the state tax.

    Finally, we won’t be using this only in the summer. We’re in a (very slow) process of finishing our basement. This projector (and the screen mentioned below) could pair down there in the winter months. This way the money wouldn’t be for a projector that is only used a few times a year.

  • Roku Ultra – $70

    The Roku Ultra is the top-of-the-line Roku product. It’s usually $100, but I think they are discounting it for Father’s Day or because they are releasing new hardware soon. I’ll be pairing this with the projector, but for now, it replaces the 2014 Amazon Fire Stick in our bedroom. If car engines are judged by horsepower, that Fire Stick should be judged by abacus power. It takes a week to navigate the interface. The Roku Ultra is the opposite with the fastest processor and the most memory.

    Maybe the Roku Ultra was overkill, but I hated the 2014 Fire Stick that much. So far, I am really enjoying the voice navigation. I also like that my wife can sleep and I can watch TV and listen through the headphone jack in the remote. The kids are excited that they can quickly and easily get to any of our streaming services right away.

  • 100″ Projector Screen – $55

    Projector screens and stands can run $100, so I jumped on this for around half price. The reviews look great. I don’t know if projector screens differ that much in terms of features, so something that does the job reasonably well at a good price is again the winning combination for me.

  • Inflatable Lounger/Hammock – $35

    My wife got the family 4 of these for my birthday too. (My birthday is often an excuse to family purchases. I don’t mind since I can never think of anything for myself.) We see these on the beach all the time. I think we’ll probably use it mostly there, but

    In an attempt to give you the best review possible, I went to inflate this in my yard today. I spent about five minutes running like a loon with it open (you inflate it by grabbing air and closing it off like a Ziplock bag.) I had to be careful because I hadn’t cleaned the yard of dog poop. I got it about half inflated and decided that it definitely could live up to the hype of the thousands of reviews.

    How does this fit into the backyard paradise? If we get wrinkly in the hot tub while watching the movie, we can just move to an inflatable lounger. If we have guests, that’s another option for them. There’s an option to save more money if you buying more than one (as we were).

Final Thoughts on the Backyard Oasis

At the end of the day we spent $800 (hot tub), $500 (projector), $70 (Roku), $55 (projector screen), $140 (inflatable lounger). That brings us a little over $1500 in total. Without shopping around a bit, it could have been $2500.

I think we might still need to do some shopping to complete the set-up. I’m not an audiophile, but hearing the movie over the bubbles is going to require some kind of external speaker. We have a couple of options around the house already, so that could save us some money.

We already had standard things like a grill and a BBQ, but this gives us a few more activities to plan around.

Now it’s your turn. What do you have in your backyard?

Save Money on Valentine’s Day

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Save Money on Valentine's Day
Save money on Valentine’s Day with these tips.

The Super Bowl is this weekend and that means… time to plan for Valentine’s Day. Sorry if I’m being a Debbie Downer to all the football fans out there. I’m a big football fan and, as a New Englander, a huge Tom Brady fan. Still, it’s a good idea to connect the two events, because there’s little more than a week before Valentine’s Day. With coronavirus, shipping times can be undependable.

One reason to act now is that prices are as low as they are going to get. Trying to get flowers at the last minute? Good luck with that. Also, the earlier you act, the more options you’ll have to pick something that will save you money.*

I’m fortunate in that my wife doesn’t seem to care too much about spending money on Valentine’s Day. It could be nearly 15 years of marriage and a focus in raising kids and getting her retired early. Still, she does like nice things. Due to COVID, we’ve saved a lot of money by not traveling and eating out (as much), so this is a good time for us personally to spend a little more than we normally would.

With that in mind, here are a bunch of tips to save money on Valentine’s Day.

Save Money on Valentine’s Day

  • Write a Love Note – This was suggested in the past by a couple of people. I did that several years ago. I was reading a book on writing that mentioned the 10 most beautiful adjectives in the English language. I found a way to work them all in. I think it came out a little forced, but still worked. It’s the thought that counts, right?
  • Create a Treasure Hunt – You can create a treasure hunt around the neighborhood. This can work well in COVID as long as it doesn’t depend on people.
  • Celebrate a Different Day – You can always agree to celebrate Valentine’s Day on the 15th. It makes sense because the date itself doesn’t seem to represent anything special. Back when we could out, we would often go out the weekend before. We can get into the premium places without paying a special markup. It’s also a lot less crowded. For Valentine’s Day itself, we do something small like takeout.
  • Give a Coupon Book – Make a book of coupons of favors that you’ll do. This could range from chores to massages. (Bonus Tip) You might want to start with doing a few chores right away. Studies show that women like men who do housework.

    Did we really need to commission a study to know this? Personally, I’ve known this for some time. The smell of bleach equals “cleaning” to my wife… and “cleaning” equals sexy. You may think I’m crazy, but when I invent bleach-scented cologne and make millions, I’ll be the one laughing to the bank.

  • Go For a Picnic – It’s too cold for us in Rhode Island to go on a picnic, but in warmer climates, it may be possible. Sandwiches, good scenery, and a bottle of wine (which may or may not be legal in your area) all add up to a good time.
  • Fixed Price Activities – Museums and other admission-based venues are typically the same price any time of year.
  • Tour the Romantic Places of the Past – Relive a first date, first kiss, or other milestone.
  • Exchange Small Practical Gifts – My wife and I usually keep our Amazon wishlists current. We usually exchange one or two things that extremely unromantic, but practical. One year my wife had dish soap that was a scent she really enjoyed. Another year, I had new dish towels on my list. Nothing says romance like clean dishes?
  • Have an unValentine’s Day – There are a lot single folk out there. Put on a bad, unromantic movie and eat fast food.

Valentine’s Day Savings at Home

This year, more than any other, it’s best to celebrate Valentine’s Day at home. This can be difficult because you have to make it special. In general, your home is boring, ordinary, and doesn’t scream “This is a special event!” This approach has big risk and big rewards… you are already that much closer to the bedroom…

  • Breakfast in Bed – …or in this case, in the bedroom. Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday this year. It’s the perfect opportunity to get up a little early and make breakfast in bed for your significant other.
  • Cook a Special Dinner – Cooking a special dinner at home is an easy win. At this point in the pandemic, we’re all 5-star Michelin chefs, right? I suggest a great steak or shrimp scampi. I’ve recently started to spend more on a great steak than I have in the past. I can usually find a good deal at my local grocery store for around $6 a pound. Steak and wine are a lot cheaper at home.

    As for the scampi, you can find heart-shaped pasta online or at most grocery stores. For the past few years, my wife has been working from home on Valentine’s Day, so I’ve used this to make lunch break a special Valentine’s Day treat.

  • Cue up a Movie – This is a refreshed article from a several years ago. Back then you’d have to plan to rent a DVD in advance. Now, with Netflix and Chill, you can cut a couple of corners. The downside is that, without putting the effort into planning it in advance, movie night doesn’t seem very special.
  • Cue up the Music and Cut a Rug – I’m not big into dancing, but maybe you are? Maybe you can learn some ballroom moves on YouTube. Finding the right music nowadays is easy… every music should have a romantic playlist you call up on demand.
  • Massage Oils – Looking for something after dinner? Just don’t get scammed into buying super expensive DoTerra essential oils.

Most Valentine’s Day my wife and I have a great dinner at our local military base. For $75 (including a bottle of wine), you get a meal that would be $200 elsewhere. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to continue that tradition this year.

* Don’t give me guff about how Valentine’s Day isn’t about saving money :). While that may be true, the title of “Save Money on Valentine’s Day” should have warned you what this article was about. There’s nothing wrong with maximizing the value your dollar.

What Does Your (Reasonable) Dream Home Look Like?

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A few months ago, one of my neighbors started some new construction on his house. My wife and I was curious about what pandemic feature they were adding. Was it an indoor pool? Was it a chess room? (I’ve always joked about having a chess room.)

Dream HomeMy wife knows the husband better than I do as they shared some military work talk. She found him one day and asked what about the expansion. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a pool or a chess room. His wife was diagnosed with something (Parkinson’s, I think) that makes stairs difficult. The expansion allows living on one floor a lot easier. It took a while to recover from that gut punch, she definitely seems too young for her body to start to go.

It naturally made me think that this house we are in may not be our “forever house” like I had imagined. I can definitely see the advantage of one-floor living as I get older.

That opened up Pandora’s Box. If this house isn’t the one we are in forever, what would that “forever house” look like?

Designing My Dream House

If you are a regular reader, you have probably read me mention that I need some hobbies, things I like to do, and/or a bucket list. I have a long list of things that I don’t like to do such as travel. Teleportation technology can’t come fast enough for me. My challenge is finding things that I do like.

One of the things that gets me excited though is looking at houses on Zillow. I think it’s because I’m naturally a “grass is greener on the other side” person.

It seems that once or twice a month, Zillow reminds me of this house I saved a couple of years ago. I don’t know why it sends me these emails as it isn’t for sale. I also don’t have a spare $7M lying around to make a bid on it.

It does make me smile though.

I started thinking about what I would want in a house. It doesn’t need to be that big, so maybe I could get by with a cheaper place. It also doesn’t need to be here in Newport, Rhode Island. In fact, someplace warmer would be better.

Rather than work backward from a $7 million dollar house, I thought it might make sense to move forward from our current house (we paid $400K for back in 2011). Here’s a short wishlist of things that I’d add to what we have:

  • I want a bigger closet – it’s very tiny now. My wife has a walk-in closet.
  • I want a mudroom area as a place where the kids can change their shoes, hang their coats, store their backpacks, etc.
  • I would like an indoor swimming pool (necessary in Rhode Island) or live in a place where outdoor swimming is easy (Florida for example).
  • I want a big spa tub. I’m secure enough in my manhood to admit that I like baths. Hopefully, I won’t be upset by the costs of heating it.
  • I want my own space – call it a man-cave if you want. It has to be big enough for a deluxe massage chair. The house should also have a she-shed for my wife.

What are some of the things that you would want in your dream home? Maybe there’s a master list out there somewhere to inspire us?

While I’m still figuring out what that ideal place may look like I’ve got the perfect transition house:

HGTV’s Dream Home

No, this isn’t a surprise advertisement for HGTV’s Dream Home. I wouldn’t take money, because then I’d probably be ineligible to win it. Yes, this year’s HGTV’s Dream Home is a couple of miles away from where I live now. It would mean driving the kids an extra 10 minutes to school each day, but I think I could manage it. Yes, it is also missing some things on the list above.

As beautiful as the HGTV house is, it might not solve my dream home goal. It turns out that almost no one keeps their HGTV Dream Home. Everyone has had to uproot their lives to move there. Fortunately, we don’t have to do that. HGTV should jump save everyone else’s time and just give us the house, right?

Moving to the house is only a small part of the problem. The much bigger problem is paying taxes on the windfall. The winner has to come up with $700,000 in cash to give to the IRS.

While the house comes with some prize money, it’s not nearly enough to pay the taxes. If we sold our house now, we could probably pay off all the taxes. It would be a stretch and we’d be “house rich, cash poor”, but not any poorer than we are today. It would be hard to dissuade my wife from taking the house.

Personally, I’d like to take the cash prize. It would mean instant retirement for my wife and the opportunity to move to a house that is more middle of the road than their dream house… just like my dream house that I described before.

Final Thoughts

Have you thought about your dream home? Joe from Retire by 40 has a Hawaiian paradise as his goal. I like the idea, but we’d have to settle for buying an ownership share in that. I’d have to win the lottery to afford to do it. That’s particularly difficult for me to do since I don’t play the lottery.