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Archive for November, 2008

Where to shop this Black Friday?

Published November 27th, 2008 in Shopping Promotion. 0 Comments

Last year Black Friday turned sour for me. I am scanning through this year deals picking the best places to shop and here is what I have found so far:

  • Best Buy has published all the deals online. Doorbusters will only be available in stores 5 a.m. on Friday but you can pretty much order anything else.
  • Office Depot offers a preview of what is going to be on sale come tomorrow morning. On-line sale starts 7am and the stores open 6am.
  • Both Staples and OfficeMax are running online sale events but I have not seen anything on what is going to be offered in stores
  • JCPenney mailed out $10 off $50 and $15 off $75 coupons good on Black Friday from 3pm to close.
  • Michaels sent out a few printable coupons. On Friday you get 25% off entire purchase (until noon) or 50% off single regular priced item (after noon). On Saturday the discounts are 20% and 50% respectively.
  • Macy’s Thanksgiving sale features 15% off already reduced prices and is good all day Friday and Saturday (Macy’s cardholders only) plus on Firday till 1pm you get $10 off $25
  • Aeropostale has an amazing sale going on with through December 1st with 50% to 70% off everything on the website (excluding clearance items)
  • Perry Ellis sent out an email with a 30% off store wide coupon good till November 30.

The merchants that don’t have brick & mortar stores are keeping up as well:

  • Amazon offers a slew of deals at their Black Friday Deals page.
  • NewEgg has a dedicated page for Black Friday deals, all available for sale now
  • Shop4tech has just launched the hottest promotion I have ever seen - 18% off sitewide + free digital camera kit with orders $40 or more, now till December 1

Overall discounts are much better this year around. Will see what happens tomorrow. Where do you shop this Black Friday? Please share your tips in the comments!

Home made kefir – healthy choice on a budget

Published November 23rd, 2008 in Money Saving Tips. 6 Comments

Kefir is a is a fermented milk drink very popular in Russia and other Eastern Europe countries. It is not very common in the US and the closest local match is drinkable yogurt but it contains a different type of bacteria and doesn’t exactly taste the same.

While in Ukraine I used to drink kefir regularly since I was a child and obviously when I came to the US I tried to find it in the stores. A popular US kefir producer is Chicago based Lifeway Foods (founded by a Russian immigrant by the way), you can find their diary products in Osco-Jewel and other stores.

A 32 oz. bottle of kefir sells for around $3.50 and not exactly a budget buy and so we often skipped it in our trips to the grocery store depriving ourselves from the great taste of the drink loved by many in the family. That changed recently after we discovered that we can make it at home with a very minimal effort.

Home made kefir is cheap

All we needed is kefir grains which we got from our friends but you can buy them in some health food stores (ask for kefir starter). The benefits and savings are tremendous! 32 oz of milk is 65 cents, compare it to $3.50 that the same size bottle of plain kefir will cost. If your family drinks 2 bottles a week it will result in savings of around $300 a year!

Home made kefir is healthy

The home made kefir is very beneficial to your health since it preserves the live bacteria - something diary products manufactures have mastered not too long ago (lookup the term “probiotic”). You can tailor-make kefir according to your individual taste: want it thin - use 2% or skim milk, want it flavored - add a fresh pureed fruit or maple syrup before you drink it.

Making kefir at home is easy

The overall process is extremely easy and takes at most 10 minutes of your time daily. The cycle is 24 hours but if you ever get tired of drinking kefir every day you can put it in the fridge for a week or two and let it sleep there. The bacteria gets dormant (the life process slows down) and will give you the break you need.

Kefir making instructions

1. Place kefir grains in a clean glass jar

2. Cover with 16-32 fl. oz of milk (depending on the amount of grains)

3. Cover with a cheese cloth and let it brew for 24 hours (or until it reaches desired sourness)

4. When kefir is ready, strain grains from kefir milk

5. Rinse the kefir grains with clean water and reuse for the next cycle

6. Enjoy your healthy drink!

Sources for more info:

Amazon Customers Vote is back!

Published November 21st, 2008 in Shopping Promotion. 0 Comments

Amazon Customer Vote is back! In case you missed it last year here are the highlights. Amazon will offer 3 deal for a vote in 6 rounds. The deal that gets the most votes in each round will be offered for sale at discount in a limited quantity. The other 2 deals will also be for sale but the discount will not be as good.

After you vote, check your email box the day before the round that has your deal. If you are lucky you will be notified and will have a chance to buy the discounted product. The rules emphasize that the sale is a race and that there will be more buyers than products available, so show up early if you don’t want to miss your deals.

Unlike the last year, you can buy any of the three deals and not just the one you voted for. I am not sure if the chances to be selected depend on your vote, and the rules don’t say anything.

Here is the deals offered for a vote and the percentage of votes they collected at the time I cast my own votes (in the parenthesis):

Round 1 - November 28

PS3 Blu-ray Sci-Fi Bundle for $199.00 (21%)
PS3 Blu-ray Action Bundle for $229.00 (28%)
PS3 Blu-ray Family Bundle for $199.00 (53%)

Round 2 - November 29

Eyeclops night vision for $39.00 (56%)
U-Dance for $35.00 (19%)
Razor PowerWing Caster Scooter for $49.00 (26%)

Round 3 - December 1

Samsung 46-Inch 1080p HDTV for $699.00 (63%)
Samsung TL34HD 14.7MP Camera for $139.00 (9%)
Sony Blu-ray Disc Player for $99.00 (29%)

Round 4 - December 2

Nokia N95-3 (Unlocked) for $199.00 (11%)
ASUS Eee PC 900 8.9-Inch Netebook for $129.00 (76%)
Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes for $49.00 (14%)

Round 5 - December 3

Navigon 8100T for $299.00 (27%)
TomTom GO 730T for $245.00 (68%)
GolfLogix GPS by Garmin for $149.00 (7%)

Round 6 - December 4

The Sopranos - The Complete Series for $130.00 (15%)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Collector’s Edition for $50.00 (7%)
KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer for $69.00 (79%)

One deal I am especially excited about is the the ASUS Eee laptop. This particular model usually sells for 3 times the price! The deal I wouldn’t be worried about not getting is the TV. I am sure the prices will keep falling after Christmas and already now you can find very good deals on large LCD HDTV’s like this 42” Panasonic for $599.

Are you planning to participate? Which deal do you think is the hottest?

Cheap international calling with JustVOIP

Published November 13th, 2008 in Money Saving Tools. 5 Comments

It is hard to find a bargain in the communication industry. The growth of internet and VOIP is bringing tons of options at our hands. Yet, today I found that at the rate of 13 cents per minute I am overpaying twice when I call my parents in Ukraine with WDT (my current provider). So much for being a pro- bargain hunter! ;-)

If I were to stumble upon JustVOIP in my web browsing I would move on. The website design looks cheap and important pieces (like About page) are missing. I did not however. It was my friend who recommended the service to me today claiming he has been using it for some time and is happy with the quality. So I jumped right in.

To begin with, rates to Europe are really low. Many countries are on the free list (below) meaning it doesn’t cost anything to call if you use the computer for your part of the call. Rates to other countries are very competitive too. (Ukraine was €0.05 + call initiation charge of €0.05). Here are the free countries:

Argentina Hungary Portugal
Australia Ireland Puerto Rico (+mobile)
Austria Italy Romania
Belgium Japan Russian Federation
Brazil Latvia Singapore
Bulgaria Luxembourg Slovak Republic
Canada Malaysia Slovenia
Chile Mexico [guadalajara] South Korea
Colombia Mexico [mexico City] Spain
Cyprus Mexico [monterrey] Sweden
Czech Republic Monaco Switzerland
Denmark Netherlands Taiwan
Estonia New Zealand Thailand
France Norway United Kingdom
Germany Panama United States (+mobile)
Greece Peru Venezuela
Hong Kong (+mobile) Poland

You need to install software to create an account. The program runs on Windows and is similar to Skype. You can use it for calling but you don’t have to. If you prefer the old-fashioned way of calling like I do then you can do it by initiating a phone-to-phone call from the web-page. Login to your account, enter where you are calling from and where you want to call to and JustVOIP will call both numbers and connect the call together.

In addition JustVOIP offers a US based call-in number that can act as a gateway for international calling but it didn’t work well when I tried it. I heard the prompt but dialing the number didn’t connect me to the party I intended to call.

After you create an account you can buy credits €10 a piece and enjoy the savings. Don’t buy credits if free service is all you plan to use. Ether way if you give it a try - please leave a comment and let everyone know how it has worked out for you.

Relevant reading:

Popular price comparison sites – October 2008

Published November 11th, 2008 in Popular Sites Series. 3 Comments

This is October 2008 revision of the Popular Price Comparison web sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.

The change in rating shows the difference compared to September results. The list has a total of 34 web sites which is the same number as last month. There are 18 more sites in my database that don’t meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement.

Just as I predicted last month, jellyfish.com dropped off the list, but I added one more website this month - dealio.com is now taking position #20, so the total number of sites in the list hasn't changed

The best performer this month is shopwiki.com (26.23%) who passed bottomdollar, the last month leader, by a small margin. Another notable event is that shopzilla.com has passed pricegrabber.com who has been on a steady decline for some time. The worst performer this month is again dealtime.com (-41.28%). Please enjoy the complete list below.

#Web SiteAlexa RankPage RankOnline Since
1shopping.yahoo.com 1 (*) 8 18-Jan-1995
2froogle.google.com 2 (*) 7 11-Sep-2001
3shopping.msn.com 6 (*) 7 10-Nov-1994
4shopping.aol.com 25 (*) (-19.05%)7 22-Jun-1995
5shopper.cnet.com (info) 157 (*) (-9.03%)7 05-Jul-1996
6shopping.com 518 (0.19%)6 03-Jul-1997
7nextag.com 532 (0.75%)6 15-Oct-1998
8bizrate.com 591 (2.96%)7 24-Apr-1996
9shoplocal.com 1007 (-10.66%)7 24-Sep-1998
10 (2)pronto.com 1228 (3.76%)8 01-Jan-2006
11shopzilla.com 1282 (-1.5%)6 04-Jul-2002
12 (2)pricegrabber.com (info) 1290 (-9.04%)8 10-Mar-1999
13 (2)smarter.com 1779 (4.66%)5 28-Apr-1998
14 (1)dealtime.com 1855 (-41.28%)6 07-Oct-1998
15 (1)epinions.com 1886 (-13.41%)7 12-Feb-1999
16thefind.com (info) 2686 (18.21%)6 19-Oct-2006
17become.com 3443 (4.12%)6 20-Jan-2004
18 (1)like.com 4174 (6.68%)6 22-Feb-1995
19 (1)pricerunner.com 4223 (-17.21%)6 19-May-1999
20dealio.com 4714 (n/a) 5 (n/a) 08-Sep-2004
21 (2)shopwiki.com 6090 (26.23%)5 15-Dec-2004
22 (1)retrevo.com 7394 (-1.25%)6 10-May-2006
23 (1)mysimon.com 8677 (-9.91%)7 15-Apr-1998
24 (4)calibex.com 9226 (-27.27%)4 02-Oct-2000
25 (1)ebates.com 10032 (11.71%)5 29-Dec-1998
26 (1)pricewatch.com 15254 (-4.96%)6 26-Sep-1995
27 (2)bottomdollar.com 19108 (24.22%)0 04-Jul-1997
28dealighted.com (info) 23991 (4.84%)6 09-Oct-2006
29 (3)sortprice.com 26317 (-7.07%)4 15-Jan-2004
30 (3)bestwebbuys.com 26391 (-5.05%)6 06-Jan-1998
31 (1)pricescan.com 44471 (-2.93%)6 03-Sep-1997
32 (1)hawkee.com 52197 (**) (-1.45%)5 02-Jan-1997
33 (1)mpire.com 53275 (4.94%)5 01-Jun-2006
34 (1)streetprices.com 84852 (5.59%)5 16-Oct-1997

(*) Note: traffic stats for these sites is an aggregate of all traffic to the top domain (e.g. Yahoo.com or Google.com) and thus cannot be used to judge how popular this particular price comparison service is.

(**) Note: the web site is a portal with price comparison engine being one of the offered web services. Alexa rank cannot be used to judge how popular this price comparison engine is.

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