My Top 10 Favorite Great Deals Jul 12 '04 (Updated Aug 13 '04)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line ...the title says it all. Welcome to my top ten list of great deals. Great deals are everywhere if you look around. Below you’ll find my own personal favorites. There are a couple things you should keep in mind while you’re thinking about finding a good deal for yourself. To properly enjoy a “deal” the following are required… 1) You need to have the desire to save money. …Otherwise, what’s the point? 2) You have to be willing to take what you get. If Number 1 is properly in place, Number 2 should not be a problem. With those two prerequisites in mind let’s get started on the list… 10) Gevalia Coffee Membership - This deal used to be better, but at the moment if you go to their web-site they’ll send you a pound of coffee and a nice stainless steel coffee maker for $14.95. Then, you cancel your membership and you have a new coffee maker and some really good coffee for about $15.00. You can only do it once, and you can’t forget to cancel (unless you don’t mind paying for fancy coffee), but it’s still a pretty good deal. 9) Free Magazine Subscriptions - It’s near the bottom of my list because it’s sometimes a hassle remembering to cancel the subscriptions and then the credit cards start getting charged. Then, you’ve lost your good deal. As with several of these good deals, it’s a good idea to have a calendar in order to keep track of the appropriate times to pay bills and cancel memberships. It’s also at the bottom of the list, because I usually never read the magazines and they just sit around wasting space. Oh, how do you get the free subscriptions you’re asking? Well, there’s several ways to do it, but the easiest way is just buying something on the internet. Several web-sites offer the free subscriptions, buy.com is the one that I usually use. You make your purchase and then you’re offered to sign up for 3 magazine subscriptions at no cost for 3 – 6 months depending on the deal. Occasionally, when you call to cancel they offer to continue your subscription for 1 – 2 dollars for the rest of the year, which I will sometimes do. 9) Discount Theaters - Usually, every town has one of these theaters. You can see movies at the theater for anywhere from $1.00 to $3.00 depending on where you live. This is a great deal when you think about how much money you’re saving by waiting a month and a half to see your movie. If you figure that the average adult ticket cost about $8.50 (I’m making up my own statistics here) and the average discount movie theater charges $2.00 (…still making up statistics), that’s a savings of over 75% off. Who doesn’t take advantage of a 75% off sale? If I’m doing my math right, that’s like a $50,000 BMW going for $12,500. Of course, the catch is you have to wait a couple months to buy the car, and you have to buy it at a crappy run-down establishment. But, you’re still getting the same thing, just a little bit later than everybody else. 7) Bootleg Concerts - This is one of the sweetest great deals there is, especially for music lovers. A bootlegged concert means free music, and, most of the time it means perfectly legal free music. Most bands these days see the value in their fans taping their shows and trading the concerts. You can go right to their web-site, find the show you want, and request a copy from another fan for free. Or, you can go to http://etree.org and download your concert. Free music that’s legal!!! Great deals don’t get much better than this. Things to watch out for… Ask for the quality of the show before you request a show, some shows are pretty bad. Also, make sure the show doesn’t have gaps between the songs, this is annoying and it’s hard to trade those shows in the future. Any band that allows trading will have a FAQ page where it will give you more detailed info on how the whole process works. (Try the Counting Crows web-page if you want a good FAQ). Now, for the bands that don’t offer trading at their web-site… Head over to tapetrader.com to find those shows. Or, you can type in the name of the band and the word “bootleg” into google, with a little research you can find yourself a show or two. 6) The Library - An obvious great deal, but often overlooked. Most people think of the library as a great place to get books. This is true, but my card is used much more frequently in the movie section than in the book section. This great deal can vary in quality depending on where you live. Here in Overland Park (south of Kansas City) it’s truly a great deal, because there’s a huge selection of movies. If they don’t have the one you want you can usually order it. The downside to this one is that sometimes they don’t have your movie. Also, you usually can’t get the new releases; and, the DVD selection is often limited. But, if you’re just looking for a movie (CD, or book – print or audio) to pass the time, the library is a great place to stop. 5) Free Months of Internet - Here’s the proof that I have the credentials to write this article. As of July 2004 my wife and I have been married for 1 year and 8 months. In those 20 months, we’ve had dial-up internet access the whole time and only paid TWO internet bills. That’s correct…TWO!!! I forget how many providers we’ve gone with in those 20 months, but there haven’t been as many as you might think. Most companies offer you extra months when you call to cancel. AOL is the best at this, and MSN takes a close second. Every time I try to call and cancel they offer extra free months. This is one that you definitely need to mark on the calendar though. The two months I had to pay the bill were because I forgot to cancel in time. This great deal takes work, but, if you are disciplined, you’ll end up having a little extra cash in your pocket to spend on other good deals. 4) Credit Cards With Rewards - This one should go without saying. If you’re spending money, why not get something back for the money you’re spending? The easy way to do this is to use a credit card with rewards. CAUTION: If you have trouble buying things that you don’t need when you have a credit card, stay away from this Great Deal. Buying impulsively will defeat the whole purpose of Great Deal Number 4. If, however, you do have the discipline to have a credit card I recommend having several. For example, with gas prices the way they are I recommend everyone getting the Shell Mastercard. It’s the best gas rewards card that there is (that I know of). Ը% off at the moment. That’s not a huge chunk every month, but the alternative is getting nothing back, which is not smart. Another thing to think about is that there are web-sites out there where you can sign up for credit cards and get paid as well. Signing up for some credit cards will pay up to $20.00. CAUTION #2: These aren’t the kind of credit cards you use to buy things you are going to make payments on. These are the kind of cards you pay off every month. Don’t turn a good deal into a crappy one, by buying your new entertainment system on your rewards card. 3) Entertainment.com - For less than $4.00 a month you get “buy one get one free” to hundreds of restaurants. You also get grocery discounts, and car rental discounts. It’s a wonderful service. It works like this. You pay your 4 bucks. Then, you type in your zip code and it give you the restaurants in your area with a variety of ways of searching for them. Then, you print your coupon off, go out to eat, and a $30 date (drinking water of course) costs you $15. Hard to beat, isn’t it? Downsides? Well, I’ve had frustrations with the web-page. For example, one time I could find the buy-one-get-one coupon for IHOP when I was not logged in, but couldn’t find it when I was logged in. The other downside is that its restaurants are limited and the good ones only offer their coupon once a year. But, remember, you have to take what you can get when it comes to good deals. This is one not to look over. 2) Denny’s Grand Slam - Remember, …it’s my favorite great deals. I realize Denny’s isn’t the classiest joint out there, and, personally, if it wasn’t for the Grand Slam meal I wouldn’t head there very often at all. But, ...Two pancakes, two eggs, two pieces of bacon, and two sausages for $2.99. You can’t beat that!!! Sure, the atmosphere can be a little grungy, but personally, I kind of like it that way. The only catch to the deal is that it’s not in effect anymore from 10:00 PM – 7:00 AM, which is disappointing since one of my favorite times to get breakfast food is late at night on a Friday. But, once again, you have to take the great deals as they come, and for some reason Denny’s decided that this one wasn’t coming anymore from 10 to 7 in the morning. 1) BMG - This is my favorite Great Deal of all time. I’ve been in BMG more times than I can remember. Over half (maybe ¾) of my CD collection comes from BMG (and Columbia House). It’s a deal far too many people are scared away from, but it’s one that I can’t recommend higher. 12 CDs for the price of 1 (and exorbitant shipping fees). It’s been a while since I’ve done my math on this, but the last time I figured it after you’ve bought your 1 CD and paid shipping on all 12 it comes out to a total of around $45. What would 12 CDs cost at the store? Let’s figure $12.00 per CD, which I think we’d all agree is a little low. For 12 CDs it would cost you $144 before tax, after tax it would be well over $150. If you bought through BMG you would have saved over $100. Downsides: The infamous return-card. This is annoying, but a little know fact is that after you’ve bought your required CD you can call and ask to be taken off the list. Another way around it is to reply through the internet. And, worst-case-scenario, you forget and they send you the CD…just write “Return to Sender” on the box and send it back. Your credit card will be refunded in less than 2 weeks. Another downside is the lack of selection. This has MUCH greatly improved in the last few years, but they still don’t get the majority of the new CDs until they’re far from being new anymore. And, they don’t have very many of the more obscure bands (although, this is slowly changing as well). But, still, if you can’t find 12 CDs in their catalog that you want, your taste is way to picky!!! Send me an Email and I’ll be glad to help you find some good music. Other Little Know Facts: You can quit and rejoin as many times as you want as long as you wait 3 months (I think it’s 3—it may be 6) between canceling and rejoining. Also, you can join twice at the same time, which makes the quitting and rejoining issue sort-of weird. I did this for my wedding. I wanted to get all my groomsmen Springsteen’s Greatest Hits to remember me by (I’m a little fanatical when it comes to the Boss.). I called up BMG and said: “I don’t really want to quit and rejoin, can I just do another 12-for-1 deal without signing up again?” She said “No, but you can sign up under another account.” So, I signed up under jazz BMG, ordered 6 Springsteen CDs and quit a couple months later. (It was definitely tough keeping the return-cards straight during those months, though.) There you have it, my ten favorite great deals. I do have two honorable mentions for you before I finish…. Honorable Mention #1 - Discount DVDs at Walmart. They’re a lot of really bad movies in there, but if you look hard enough you can find some really good DVDs for under $10, sometimes under $5. Honorable Mention #2 - The $2.00 Desert Menu at Houlihan's. The deserts are kind-of small, but after a big meal it’s just right. They’re also just right if you want to get out of the house and do something, but you don’t really know what to do. March over to Houlihan's, get a desert and a coffee and you have something to do for cheap. Plus, the deserts are quite tasty. Well, my list has come to an end. Hopefully, it will help you save a little money. Feel free to send any of the extra dough that’s in your pocket because of me to…uh,…ME through PayPal. Thanks and have a great time saving money.

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