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The Best Amazon Prime Day Deals I Found

October 14, 2020 by Lazy Man 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.

Filed Under: Deals Tagged With: Amazon Prime Day

Lessons Learned From Spending $1000+ on Prime Day

July 23, 2019 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

Amazon Prime Day

I always plan any big purchases months and months in advance. I simply shut down when it comes to spending money spontaneously. That’s one of my secrets to my frugality. Spending money can often cause me incredible mental stress. (Yep, I’m not mornal.)

Before Amazon Prime Day, I had resigned myself to take advantage of one deal. I think the Amazon Fire HD 10 is a great deal and I feel that my kids need to have their own space and apps. Remember when everyone loved the $99 HP Touchpad fire sale years and years ago. This is a 10″ full HD tablet for about the same price. By buying two at the same time, it was $90 each.

My planned spending of $180 turned into $1000+. What happened?

Amazon’s ability to sell is amazing… like nothing I’ve ever seen. At the same time, I feel like I worked the system well.

What do you think? Here’s a table of what I bought along with the prices I paid and my best assessment of what the item should cost.

Product NameRetail PriceTypical PricePrice Paid
USB Micro Cable (5)$7.99$7.99$6.39
USB Type C Cables (3)$8.99$8.99$7.99
IQ Screen Protector (S10)$9.95$9.95$9.95
MKOAWA Clear Cover S10$5.49$5.49$4.39
Samsung S10$900.00$800.00$599.00
Aukey 6-Port USB Charger QC 3.0$33.00$33.00$18.69
Finish Dishwasher Detergent$14.36$14.36$10.75
Kindle Paperwhite 6”$130.00$130.00$63.75
Two Fire 10 HD Tablets$300.00$300.00$180.00
Fire 10 HD Case (ESR Brand)$18.99$18.99$8.55
Fire 10 HD Case (ESR Brand)$18.99$18.99$8.55
Anker 10w Qi Wireless Charger$15.99$15.99$9.67
Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee$60.00$50.00$30.00
Bose QuietComfort 25$280.00$178.00$89.00
Echo Show 5$90.00$90.00$22.50
Amazon Smart Plug$25.00$25.00$5.00
Fire TV Stick + Echo Dot 3rd Gen$65.00$65.00$12.00
$25 + $5 Amazon Gift Card$30.00$30.00$25.00
Citi Payment Promo $25 off of $75$0.00$0.00-$25.00
Sub-Total$2,013.75$1,801.75$1,086.18
Total (after Prime Card 6% savings)$2,013.75$1,801.75$1,021.0149.30%

The quickest takeaway is that I bought around $2000 “worth” of products for a little over $1000… a savings of nearly 50%. “Worth” needs to be quotes because one could argue that the products aren’t worth what they typically sell for. I’m not sure I buy that argument, but you can buy Amazon products at a discount a few times a year. So maybe that should be the “typical” price? Also, what something is “worth” to me may be different than what it is worth to you.

Let’s break down some of the big items on the list. (We’ll be jumping around a bit)

Buying a New Flagship Phone

I love cheap phones. You can do so much with so little. I still remember how amazing it was to put a modem into a Handspring Visor so that I could get “web-clipped” scores of baseball games. Most phones nowadays do all the same things, but like cars, some do it with a little more luxury. I’m so frugal that this never sunk in.

My wife suggested that I spend more because I tend to put a lot of stress on my phones. I have 4 different email accounts to consolidate. I have different profiles (personal vs. business) to keep separate. It’s not just blogging, but also dog sitting and the freelance work I do. I debated between a LG G8 for $500 or a Samsung S10 for $600 almost forever. I finally pulled the trigger on the Samsung S10.

I don’t think a Samsung S10 review is useful here, so I’ll just say that I went from a very above average phone in 2015 to one of the best phones in 2019. It’s a quantum upgrade. I’d probably say the same thing about the LG G8, though.

Some suggested that I amortize the value of the phone over a number of years. That’s how I always think of phones, because they last me for a few years. Also my old Moto X Pure sells for around $100 on Ebay. So that’s like spending $500 instead of $600, right?

There were other purchases related to this one. I bought a case ($4.39!) that is great. I wasted $10 on a screen protector (IQ Screen Protector) when the S10 comes with one preinstalled (no one told me that). Perhaps I should send that back?

Besides the case and the screen protector, I also spent $8 on (3) USB Type C cables. I would have needed to upgrade at some point. The phone moved that along. The $9.67 Anker 10w Qi charger is top-rated from all the experts, so saving $6 on the Prime Day deal seemed like a win. I have a couple Qi chargers from my old Nexus 5. They aren’t 10w and would charge slower than the Anker one. I’ve put one of those Nexus ones on my bedside stand, because there’s no rush while I’m charging overnight.

Kids Learning Tablets

Did you see how I stuck the word “learning” in there? I’m okay with the kids having fun with their tablets, but I’ve steered them towards ABC Mouse, Duolingo, and Chess Kid. So far it has worked out well. For $180, both of them will finally have their own tablet and I’ll have mine. That’s helpful because signing in and out of Duolingo profiles is tough. They could work together, but that has lead to fights. This way they can go at their own pace on things.

Along with the tablets, I bought two cases for around $17. Normally they would have been $38, so I’m happy with that.

Kindle Paperwhite

I haven’t had an e-ink Kindle in a long time. I was curious to see how the technology advanced. With the Amazon Prime Credit card offering 25% cash back, the $85 Prime Day sale price became effectively $63.75. It’s small, but it’s waterproof, which is especially nice since we live near the beach.

I’ve played with the Paperwhite a little bit, but I’m not very impressed. I wonder if I can sell it extremely lightly used for $90+ which is more than the Prime Day price, but cheaper than you can get it now.

Pokemon Go! Let’s Go Eevee

The kids really want a Nintendo Switch, so it will be coming soon. We know they want it just to play Pokemon games. This is a rare 50% discount on a popular game.

Echo Show 5

There was a deal that if you send in an old echo device you get 25% off a new one. The Echo Show retails at $90, so I traded a second generation Echo Dot for $5 and $22.50 in credit. The Echo Show 5 was at a sale price of $50, making it $27.50 after the 25% coupon, and $22.50 after applying the $5 from the trade-in.

The Echo Show is a nice upgrade for the bedroom. It may sound crazy, but it’s good to have more clocks around the house. I was able to move our old alarm clock to the kids’ room. They can use a clock because they are still working on getting ready on time for things.

Bose QuietComfort 25

This $280 retail device was lowered to $99 on a lightning deal. I saw a deal for $10 of credit when ordering $100+ through an app. The $4 phone case up above was perfect for putting me over the top. For simplicity, I applied the $10 to the final price on this.

The reviews of this weren’t very good, but I thought it was one of Bose’s marquee products. I know that everyone is on the new Bluetooth version, but there weren’t discounts on that one.

Amazon Smart Plug

Normally $25, this was $5 if you ordered it through Alexa. I already have one smart plug and I don’t know what I’d do with another. They seem to sell for $20 on Ebay, I figure this is like a free $15.

Fire TV Stick + Echo Dot 3rd Gen

This was an extremely popular deal that didn’t last long. It’s pretty amazing to get both for $12. The Fire TV stick with voice remote will go on Ebay, where it should get $30 or more. So Amazon is likely going to pay me $18 to take a 3rd generation Echo Dot. That made it easier to the trade for the Echo Show 5 above.

Selling Other Stuff

I should be able to sell my cell phone and an old tablet (replaced by the Fire 10 HD) for a little less than $200. By selling the smart plug and the Fire TV stick, it should all add up to at least $225. Does that count as bringing my cost down to around $800?

Lessons Learned from Amazon Prime Day

1. A lot of things that I found were from watching deal sites. If you are in a tight money situation, it’s best to avoid these sites. I’m okay with spending money as along as it makes sense to do so (brings me good value).

2. Most of the items I bought qualified as bringing good value. The others were simply mistakes (the screen protector that I didn’t know I didn’t need) or items that can actually generate a profit through resale. There’s some questionable value with the Amazon Show. I have to figure out what cool things I can do with the screen (any tips? Leave them in the comments).

3. It can be helpful to batch tech purchases to the nearest “Super Sale” date. That can be Black Friday/Cyber Monday, but I think Prime Day counts now. Even if you are not an Amazon Prime member, a lot of other stores joined in the party.

4. I probably wouldn’t have nearly as much if I hadn’t been doing so well with the dog sitting this month. In some ways, it feels like Amazon might as well be in the dog sitting business and I’m just a useless middleman. There’s certainly a feeling of lifestyle inflation going on.

Filed Under: Spending Tagged With: Amazon Prime Day

Amazon Prime Day is Here!

July 12, 2016 by Lazy Man 2 Comments

You knew I just had to write about Amazon Prime Day. This is probably one of the best days to save money. Unfortunately, it’s also one the most dangerous days to spend money. When I’m looking at some of these deals, I have to remind myself that saving money means not spending it at all.

If you aren’t an Amazon Prime member you can use this link for a FREE trial. Just grab all the deals and cancel.

That said, I did my fair share of buying this morning. Most of it was Subscribe and Save which I’ve written about before. Before I get to that though, here’s the best Prime deal:

Get $10 when you buy $50 in Gift Cards. I’m always buying stuff from Amazon, so I just sent myself a gift card. Amazon should have just saved the time and gave me a Hamilton.

Subscribe and Save Deals

Charmin Ultra Strong Toilet Paper, Mega Roll, 24 Count – Between the 25% off Prime Day deal, the $2 coupon, and 15% off for Subscribe and Save, it was around $15. I think I recently paid around $22 for a similar amount of Cottonelle. I think we’ll be done with toilet paper for awhile.

80 Hefty Ultra Strong Tall Kitchen Drawstring Trash Bags – These came to around $7.50 after all the discounts. Fortunately, we needed kitchen trash bags anyway.

124 diapers for $20 and change I don’t usually buy Pampers and opt for the cheapest Wal-Mart brand, but this is a very good price.

74 dishwasher tablets for under $6 – It seems that these Finish tablets go some sale every year or so… and I always stock up. One time, it was buy one, get one free of 200 tablets, which lasted us years.

Things I Already Own and Love

This is time to buy an InstantPot as it is only $70. As my wife wrote, Instant Pot is a thing she loves. You’ll usually pay more than $100, so $70 is a screaming good deal.

Amazon Echo for $130. I love this so much I started a blog about the Echo.

Amazon’s Usual Suspects

I’m not going to link to them, but all the Amazon devices seem to be on sale. This is the time to buy a Kindle, Fire, or FireTV. I am toying with the idea of getting the kids tablet for $70 (or $80 with more memory). I have a Fire tablet already, but I like the idea of curated content for the kids.

Tempting, but I’m Not Buying

I’ve wanted a Segway for probably a dozen years. This deal looks to be the closest I’ll ever come to one. I’m just not willing to spend $700 today, even if it is highly discounted.

Are you doing any buying today? Let me know what you are getting in the comments.

Filed Under: Spending Tagged With: Amazon Prime Day

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