frugal underground

It amuses me when companies don’t really think through their promotions. I received an email today from a stock photography company trying to encourage new orders with the following deal:

Spend $100+ in a single order and get a $10 Amazon voucher
Spend $500+ in a single order and get a $25 Amazon voucher
Spend $1000+ in a single order and get a $50 Amazon voucher

One would think that if you get $10 for spending $100, that you’d get at least a hundred for spending a thousand. Presumably they’d be trying to push you from the low end to the high end.

Worse, this promotion is actually targeted at new customers, who are going to be likelier to stay at the low end anyway, without further incentive. Sure, any deal is better than no deal, but most of us who care about bargains are going to opt for the best deal.

Have you seen other silly promotions? Leave a comment and share the amusement.

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Orville Redenbacher is bribing you to sign up for their new newsletter: sign up and get a “rent one, get one free” coupon at Blockbuster. Not that great of a deal, but handy if you’re already in the habit of renting movies at Blockbuster.

Do note, though, that this is very ambiguously labeled “And for a limited time, if you are one of the first to sign up…” If you try it and don’t get your coupon at the end of the process, leave a comment here and I’ll update the post.

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I recently stumbled across Menu Plan Monday and have decided to (attempt to) participate in it on a regular basis. I’m always extolling the virtues of meal planning, but I’d say I actually get around to it only every couple of weeks. It only works if you do it, so this is me, doing it.

Dinners for the week

Monday: Sandwiches

Tuesday: Haystacks (build-your-own taco salad, basically)

Wednesday: Maybe going out to dinner, but if not, spaghetti + broccoli + garlic bread

Thursday: Pizza (and I need to bake cookies for church thing Friday night)

Friday: Baked potatoes + broccoli + garlic bread

Friday night pre-potluck cooking: Suddenly Salad, rolls, brownies, spaghetti, mashed potatoes

Saturday: Quesadillas + popcorn

Sunday: Tuna noodle casserole + (you guessed it!) broccoli

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I just got an email announcing that Brita is now making water filters for refrigerators. It looks like they make them for most brands and models, and to help kick off the sales, they’re offering a $10 rebate on Brita fridge filters purchased at Sears.

I’m not positive this is a good deal (because I don’t know how much they sell for, and how that compares to the filters I usually buy), but if you’re inclined in this direction, by all means, get some money back. (And leave a comment telling us if it’s a great deal!)

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It is an Apple-crazy week in my house. I’ve been thinking about getting a Mac mini for some time now (for my business), and the time came quite clearly when Daniel’s motherboard died last week. It’s old enough that it can’t be cheaply replaced, so we’re going to do a bit of a computer shuffle, with the Mac being the key.

I looked on Apple’s site to see what retail was on the model I wanted, and then went comparison shopping. I checked Apple’s refurbs, Amazon, and other various sites. In the end, I got a great deal on eBay (have I mentioned that I love eBay?): a couple hundred dollars less than retail.

Wednesday, my sister Leanna and I went into KeyBank to sign up for checking accounts and take advantage of their awesome free iPod nano promotion. I already have a great MP3 player, but I think an iPod will make a great Christmas present. Leanna’s boyfriend also signed up last weekend, so we used him as a referral, making him a nice $50 and getting $25 each just for mentioning that.

I also have to say, the employees at this particular KeyBank location were amazing. I’m probably going to write a post in my (yet to be unveiled) business blog about their fantastic customer service. Based on this one visit, I have a much better opinion of Key than I did last week.

Anyway, the deal with the iPod offer is that you sign up for checking and also for either direct deposit (not an option for me, being self-employed) or a credit card. Sixty days later, you’ve got yourself an iPod. The account guy helping us said that this promotion has been stunningly successful; they hit the expected number of new accounts weeks earlier than they had planned, and Key extended the promotion for a week. Bring on the iPods!

And the most recent Mac development: Leanna is currently training to do some work (as an independent contractor) for me. Coding, template building, that kind of thing. Her computer is now a little over five years old (and it wasn’t cutting edge when it was new), so she’s been looking for a laptop to replace it. She ended up deciding on a Mac, too, both because it will make it easier to work with me, and because of all the fabulous things we keep hearing about them from other web developers.

We looked locally (she was hoping to get rewards points on her low-limit credit card by splitting the transaction) but the deals just weren’t there. eBay wasn’t really top-notch, either—one guy was offering a great deal but his feedback had all sorts of comments about really slow shipping (like 2 months slow!), so we opted for Amazon. They’re offering a nice $100 rebate, which took the price down to both her budget, and the price of comparable Windows machines.

We signed up for the Amazon Prime trial, and Leanna opted to pay the $4 to get the computer delivered Next Day Air. It will arrive this afternoon and she’ll spend much of the holiday weekend working on her coding skills.

All in all this week, we’ve saved a grand total of $770 off retail on Apple products. Not bad for a little research!

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