Tag Archives: cheap

Check What Amazon Is Selling You

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[I previously posted this information on my Facebook Page – it was quite popular so adding it to my blog during holiday shopping season seems relevant.]

I keep some items in my Amazon account’s “saved for later” queue when I don’t need them immediately but know I will want later. This was the case for the best-priced listing of 24-count box of Duracell Procell AA batteries.

battery

When I next decided I needed more batteries I logged into my Amazon account, went to the “saved for later” area, and in the batteries listing clicked “move to cart.” Fortunately before I clicked “buy” I looked at the item in the cart and realized it was NOT the box from a non-Amazon vendor for $11.44+free shipping, but instead was an Amazon Prime vendor for $1 more!

I do have Amazon Prime, but the Prime-eligible items are not always the best deal even with its free 2-day shipping. And as far as I know there is no editable setting which instructs Amazon to alter non-Prime choices to Prime. In fact, when looking at an item’s description they will sometimes tell me there is a non-Prime seller with a better price or quicker delivery.

I deleted the item from my cart and tried the move a couple more times – the same thing happened: the item as it appeared in “saved for later” was not what was in my cart once I clicked “move to cart.”

The solution I found was to leave the unwanted, more expensive choice in my cart – THEN I was able to go to the less expensive item’s listing, add it to my cart, and after that delete the unwanted one from the cart and purchase the wanted version.

So always double-check that the item in your cart is from the seller with the price that you chose!

Semi-Boston-centric Money-Saving Tips

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Tip #1: More Ice Cream For Less $

I get ice cream several times a month at local chain JP Licks. This week I accidentally discovered how to get a lot more ice cream for less: order a Chipwich, which is a serving of ice cream between two chocolate chip (or other type) cookies.

While exact quantity probably depends on the server, I discovered:

– The single Chipwich is prepared when you order, so you may request any ice cream flavor (not just vanilla).

– The amount of ice cream is at least equal to their “small scoop” which in a cup or cone costs $3.99, and is much more than their “kiddie scoop” costing $3.09

– A Chipwich = a “small scoop” + 2 three-inch-diameter cookies, all for $3.29!

Bonus JP Licks tip: Join their Cow Card loyalty program and get points for every purchase (either by swiping the keytag or using the iPhone or Android app code). 50 points gets you a $5 credit for free food!

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Raw Vegetable and Fruit Juicing At Home – Part 1

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“Juicing” (raw vegetables and fruit, not athletes on steroids!) has been a health tactic-verging-into-diet-fad for some years, and lately has gotten a lot of press. Many supermarkets now carry commercial brands of juices and smoothies, plus juice bars and shops sell everything from just-pressed juice to entire regimens of delivered juices and fasting support.

Personally I’m not big on “fasting” or “cleansing” to extremes – but I’m not great about eating enough vegetables. I also wasn’t interested in paying up to $10 for 16 ounces of juice!

About 7 years ago I bought a cheap juicer, but it was such a pain to use and clean that I put it on a shelf and eventually gave it away. Recently a Facebook friend posted about using her old but reliable Omega juicer, which got me interested in researching what machines were available and easier to use regularly. I was willing to spend more to get a better performing juicer after calculating the the cost savings if I were to have two 16-oz servings of juice per day:

2/day = 14/week – at a local juice business’ prices the cost is $133-140 per week.

vs

A $250 juicer plus $30/week in organic vegetables/fruit from Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s brings me out ahead of store-bought in just 3 weeks!

Yes, I could buy much cheaper juice products at the local grocery, but when you read the labels of those you will find they lean heavily on fruit juices and can have total sugar content the same as or higher than a can of Coke!

In this post I’ll describe the various types of juicers – a future post will cover how I’m using mine.

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Friday Faves – 24 May 2013

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Grab Bag O’ Books

It’s sad when a bookstore has to close, but Once Sold Tales in Kent WA has an additional problem: a warehouse full of 500,000 used books on which they can no longer afford to pay rent! Rather than just sending all of that linear media to be pulped they are having a Grab Bag sale:

Now through May 30th you can order a grab bag of paperback books (8 for $10, 16 for $18, which includes shipping) or children’s books (“small” for $12 or “large” for $20, number of books will vary since kid’s books come in many sizes). You can give some guidance as to the books’ genre, but they can make no guarantees. See their Facebook post for all details – note that this offer is available for direct Paypal payment only, not though their main website.

Etsy Stores of Note

My West Coast musician friend Sharon Knight has been building additional ways to have income when she is not on the road touring with her band. Her latest effort is an Etsy store – please check it out.

While attending a recent Steampunk fair I ran across an awesome local leather worker: Emporium Custom Leathers. In addition to selling at the New York Ren Faire, she also has an Etsy store here. I can attest to the high quality of her work, and intend to indulge in some garment soon :-)