Category Archives: Hot Deals

Hot Deals

Hot Deal: Groupon

JJ: Surely by now you have heard the hype around Groupon?

Readers: Yes, of course, but we would still like to hear your insights on the subject.

Groupon offers crazy deals and discounts that relate to your city and your interests. I mean stupid good priced offers. Here are some of the many offers that I have personally received:

  • 3 hours of house cleaning for $65 total. No initial cleaning fee, No hidden charges.
  • 6 movie tickets for the price of 3.
  • 24 prime steaks for $130 ($5.50 each).
  • Numerous $50 Gap/Target cards for only $25

    • All of these have been very straight forward offers, no hoops to jump through, no rebates to send away for, just instant savings.

    How it works:
    Groupon offers an exceptional new deal each day to it’s members. You have a limited time (1 – 4 hours) to respond and purchase the offer. You then usually have 60 – 90 days to actually complete the service.
    Believe me, there are a large number of awesome deals that you will find on Groupon, and you will wonder why you resisted signing up sooner. There are a few “issues” to be aware of (keep reading), but this shouldn’t discourage you from joining Groupon. As long as you understand the “issues” you will be in great shape.


    Okay, here’s the catch. Groupon contacts local vendors and promises them a large amount of customers if they offer their LOWEST OFFER. This sounds great, and most times it can be. However, Groupon doesn’t always disclose to the vendor that they are allowed to cap the number of offers accepted. After all Groupon is collecting half of the offer price, so they want the largest number of people purchasing the offers. This can often be a downfall for a small business. Take the above example of 3 hours of house cleaning for $65 – Groupon takes half ($32.50) and the cleaning business gets the other half ($32.50). And thanks to Groupon‘s mass customer base they sell 500 customers on this offer. At first this sounds great. “Wow, we sold 500 cleanings and made $16,250 in 1 day” However, as the business starts to fulfill these offers problems become apparent. 500 cleanings at 3 hours each, that’s 1500 hours of cleaning! Assuming they were able to schedule all these clients back to back and clean 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, it would take them 167 DAYS to fulfill everyone’s offer. That $16,250 is not going to support a cleaning business for 1/2 year of work.
    The same thing often happens with photographers, who often take advantage of Groupon‘s services. It brings them in a lot or clients really fast, but they might end up selling 250, 1-hour photo sessions. There is no way they can get to each client in a timely manner, especially with each client’s schedule.

    Still I recommend signing up for Groupon‘s service. You will find multiple deals that make it worth your effort.


    Freebies, Hot Deals

    Smart Deal – Antivirus Software

    HOLD ON, YOU DON’T PAY FOR YOUR ANTIVIRUS??

    Of course, free Antivirus software is better than nothing. In today’s open source internet world we don’t like to pay for products. I get it. I like to get stuff for free too, but, let’s look at the reality. The bad guys are out there, and they are good at what they do. Often, they are organized syndicates, paid off by even bigger organized “syndicates” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more). And with every computer on the internet potentially linked to every other computer the odds are against the average computer user. Free antivirus software versions are really just teaser programs to get us to upgrade to the paid version of software. Very often the free versions are slower to receive critical updates and do not come with support. This is for good reason, it takes money to fight crime. Virus and Malware programs are popping up everyday! The antivirus companies have to pay to keep the quality programmers they hire, and keep the software up to quality standards.


    A few years ago, I started thinking about how important my computer is to me. I store a lot of files on my computer, over 9,000 photos, almost 17,000 music files, and countless other documents and programs. Also, I use my computer every day and when my internet goes down, or I lose an integral piece of hardware, I am lost, frustrated, and can think of nothing else until I can get it fixed. Not to mention that my computer wasn’t cheap. I spent a lot of hard earned dollars on my system.

    If your computer is as important to you, as mine is to me:

    WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING IT TO FREE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE?

    DON’T BE FOOLISH, PAY THE $50 AND PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT!

    OUR COMPUTERS ARE WORTH HUNDREDS, OFTEN THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. Yet we become “frugal” when it comes to protecting them. Is $50 or $80 really too much to protect your investment?
    I recommend either of the following Internet Security programs. They both consistently receive “Advanced +” ratings [1] [2]

    Kaspersky Internet Security
    3 PC License = $80
    email scanning
    Hourly signature updates
    small performance impact for max PC performance

    Avast Internt Security
    3 PC License = $50
    email scanning
    small performance impact for max PC performance
    avast!

    Hot Deals

    Hot Deal: 1TB External Hard Drive

    1 TB External Hard Drive (USB or eSATA) – $65 after rebate – Deal Ends 10/04/2010
    Newegg.com – Cavalry Passio 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA Black External Hard Drive CAXH3701T0.

    I’ll tell you why this is a good deal, and possibly why its a GREAT deal. I personally purchased the above listed external hard drive about 3 months ago and it works great, fast and quiet.  If you need storage, but do not like opening up your PC and installing hardware this is a good deal. I challenge you to find a 1TB external hard drive for only $65. Plus you will have an eSATA cable already attached to a back-end PC bracket which you can keep for later or resell (it is packaged separately). However, if you are comfortable with installing new hardware onto your PC’s motherboard, then this is a GREAT deal. One of the main reason I purchased this drive was because it included the above mentioned eSATA cable already attached to a back-end PC bracket, which allows you to reuse that eSATA connection for other eSATA ready devices.  I received the external HD in quick typical Newegg fashion, opened up my PC connected the eSATA port, and powered on the PC and the hard drive.  It behaved flawlessly, even after a major power outage due to storms.  Newegg is also exceptional with customer services and speedy deliveries!

    Rebate Requirements: $25 dollar Mail-in-Rebate (MIR). Requires UPC, Receipt, and fill out online form online in order to get the required rebate code. Mail it in and wait 6-8 weeks.