Up to 80% off

Have you shopped at XS Cargo lately? If you have, you probably bought something that was really a good deal because everything they sell there has been discounted up to 80% off retail. One of the things to be careful about is consumer electronics. Remember that all sales are final which means if you brought something home that is electronic and it doesn’t work, you are entitled to return it for an exchange as long as there is another unit in stock. If none exists then you will get a credit. At XS Cargo, they usually don’t stock a lot of inventory so if you are going to buy something electronic, try it out as soon as you get it home and return it within a few days if it doesn’t work. Don’t let it sit around for a couple of weeks. Take it out of the box and plug it in. Try out all the buttons and functions and make sure everything works. Otherwise it is a return.

XS Cargo used to carry a lot more refurbished or recertified items, and now they don’t. A lot of people don’t like buying refurbished items but what the heck? Most of these people don’t know that these items are brand new and fixed up. They just lack the pristine packaging of a untested unit. Wouldn’t you rather have a unit that was checked, tested and certified than a unit that is fresh from the factory? Remember that any untested unit may fail to work.

Refurbished items are not for everyone. For instance, don’t give a refurbished item as a wedding gift. That is not kosher. Instead, give your child a refurbished Apple iPod Touch that works and is going to save you some money. Refurbished Panasonic Lumix cameras are a deal. They are great digital cameras and are very durable.

Where do you find refurbished brand name items such as Apple, HP, Fuji cameras, Sony, SanDisk, etc.? A great place online that sells refurbished and recertified items is eCost. Be sure to check out my sister site for the links and promo codes to save additional money. I hope I have shed some light on refurbished or recertified items and that it’s ok for you to save money buying them.

Eyeing it

They say when a recession hits, people flock to movie theatres. With the release of James Bond and the highly anticipated next installment of Harry Potter, I don’t think there will be a lack of people in line. Both Cineplex and Empire theatres offer gift cards that you can pick up from your local drugstore such as Rexall. But if you want to buy discount movie tickets, you will have to buy them from BCAA or AMA (in Alberta) or if you work for a large corporation (eg. Encana), check with your social club for discount tickets. Tickets can go as low as $8 for an adult admission.

For the gadget lovers, try the iTheatre wireless eyewear for $139.95. Plug it into your iPod or dvd player then put on a pair of  iTheatre eyewear to enjoy a 50″ virtual viewing screen. It almost feels like you are sitting in a theatre with a wraparound screen. It is so cool. You are totally immersed in the picture as though you are right in the movie.

Imagine plugging it into your Wii and playing a game like Mario Kart. I did and I felt like I was on the track with Bowser and Luigi, racing around Sherbet Land in real life. It was bizarre but incredibly fun. With Tiger Woods PGA Tour, I felt I was really playing Pebble Beach. And with Rapala Fishing, I was on the lake, fishing for bass.

If you are interested in getting a pair, I can help you get it for under $120. Check with us for the special coupon code to use.

Christmas on a Budget

Everybody is going to budget-minded this Christmas. And talk about Budget, be sure to use BCD code U114800 to save on your Christmas rental. In Vancouver, you can rent a economy/compact car for only $45 for a 3-day rental from December 16th to 19th. I’ve been shopping and comparing with Thrifty’s using the code: LM78 and it comes close. Remember, the trick is picking up the car from a non-airport location to save on airport taxes. In Vancouver, the tax is well over 17% which cancels out alot of promo code rates.

Alot of people are going to strap down their budget and shop for themselves. If you are looking to stock your house, perhaps your new renovated basement with a home theatre, spa or home office, here’s a free visitor’s pass to DirectBuy. We’ve seen the ads on tv where they say you can save up to 50% off all your home remodelling and fixtures.

And if you have golfers on your Christmas list, check out all the golf shirts and windshirts by Antigua and Oakley at savings up to 75% off at Knetgolf. To take advantage of this special, be sure to use the coupon code: SHIRT.

Less than $170 Camcorders

I see that both Wal-mart and Superstore are selling $100 camcorders. As a camera buff, it is hard to trust any of these units because they are geared for children, not serious travellers like you and me. On our site, I have come up with a list of serious camcorders or video cameras that deserves a second look. There are two brands to consider, DXG and iSonic. Lets start with the DXG569V, a nice high definition camcorder with 32MB internal memory, SD/SDHC slot, 5 megapixels cmos sensor, 3.0 inch TFT display and capable of 16:9 aspect ratio. The price? Around $137. That’s all, you ask? That’s a lot of gadgetry for less than $200. It actually resembles the Sanyo unit but nowhere near the price of it.

If you think you prefer the more traditional camcorder look and feel, you might go for the lesser model, the DXG566V which practically has the same features as of the newer DXG569V. The price is the same too. Going down the scale, the DXG565V is a nice camcorder but it does not record in high definition. For that, you save about $30. If you don’t have a HDTV or don’t plan to upgrade then this camcorder is for you. That’s hardly a good reason to not buy a HDTV because the prices of LCD TV’s are coming down fast. Anyone can afford one now.

In the iSonic line, you have the HD787 which records in high definition like the high ended DXG model. The difference here is about $30 but you get 64 MB internal memory which is double that of the DXG569V and the digital stills are interpolated to 12 megapixels. On top of that, you get image stabilization but a smaller (by half inch) LCD screen. 

With the price of electronics these days, there is no reason why you should lug around a ten pound Handycam and a digital camera. Now you can have both, a digital camera and video camera in one unit. If you don’t mind the weight, consider places around the world that doesn’t allow photographing. The Sistine Chapel in Rome or the Doge’s Palace in Venice do not allow photographs or videos. But a few travellers with very small cameras do take home a snapshot of their favorite ceiling.

HD Camcorder for $129.99

My parents love it when I bring my video on trips. They are known as the couch travellers in my family. They prefer to stay home and watch videos taken on our cruises and vacation travel. On my last cruise, I took my Sony Handicam with me and video taped over 3 mini-dv’s. Then when I arrived home, I dumped the video onto my Mac using iMovie and edited it. I burned it onto DVD and sent out my vacation video to my friends and to my parents. They loved it.

One thing I would improve on would be to get a new HD camcorder such as the DXG-566V that has a 5.0 megapixel CMOS sensor in it with a 2X digital zoom, a 3.0″ LCD screen and records directly to a 8GB SDHC card. The problem with my Sony Handicam is that it uses mini-dv tapes. I brought 3 with me on our 7-day cruise but on my Mediterranean cruise last year, I brought up to 10 tapes with me. You never know how much video you plan to shoot. With 8GB, I think it would be more than enough. And if not, a second SDHC card would not take up much luggage space.

The nice thing about the DXG-566V camcorder is the price. At only $129.99, you get a camcorder that is capable of recording moving pictures. You cannot buy a decent digital camera for the same price. But the nicest thing about this camcorder is the ability to record HD images when you play it back on your HDTV, the video looks as good as when you taped it.

 

Triple Duty Coupon

I see a lot of you are interested in an iHome docking station for your iPod. If you live in Canada and a Winner’s store near you then I advise you to go there and check out what they have. I’ve seen the iHome iH8S model selling for as little as $59.95 there. They have other docking stations too but in very little stock, so if you don’t hurry, there won’t be any left.

If you don’t live in Canada, no problem. Go to OneCall and pick one up from them. I even have a coupon code for you to pick up a free $15 iTunes card when you purchase a docking station or speaker system. Enter the code SUMMERSALE. It looks like this coupon will is double duty because if you purchase a select HDTV, Blu-Ray player or receiver, this coupon will entitle you to a 1-year extended warranty. Don’t need either of these items then use the coupon to get 20% off camera and camcorder things. This coupon is good until a minute before midnight on June 16th.

I hope you’ve picked up your Father’s Day gift and card because Father’s Day is coming up fast. By the way, it’s Sunday. I picked up one of those crank lanterns with 12 LED’s for him to use when they have those blackouts on the west coast. I also picked up a nice golf pullover from Golf Town for him. And talking about Golf Town, someone told me that there are promo codes that you can enter for deeper discounts. If any of you know of any, please add it in a comment to my blog.

Zippity Do Da.

My friend James just invited us to a community garage sale next Saturday. This is his way of downsizing, as he prepares to clean house and reduce his belongings so that he can move from a 2500 square foot house to a 900 square foot condo in less than two years.

If you’ve been to our site lately, you might have seen the square red banner on the top right side of the home page. Zip.ca is like NetFlix to the US. For $10.95 per month, you can rent as many dvd’s as you can watch in a month. With over 72,000 titles to choose from, I don’t think you’ll need to keep your own video library. The cool thing about this service is that you will never get charged late fees because there are no due dates. When you’re done, you simply drop the dvd into a prepaid mailing envelope and send it back. 

Unlike my friend James, I have a rather large video library. We started with a couple of movies that we deemed ‘classic’. Then as the price of dvd’s dropped, we started picking up our favorites. Now we pick up at least 2-3 dvd’s every time we go to Costco. I don’t think we’ll be able to downsize our belongings any time soon.

If you want to save some space and money going to the movies then check out Zip.ca. Try them out for free for two weeks and if you like them, just stay on the program.  

I’m a Lottery Winner!

Everybody is looking to win a lottery. I just scratched one of those instant win tickets and won myself $1 but it cost me a $1 to buy it, so I’m even. There are two lotteries that come in the mail every year, the Home Lottery and the Cash Plus Lottery. The Home Lottery is more than ever, as they claim. They are giving away more than $5.7 million this year and every year, the tickets sell out. The reason I think it sells so well is because everybody wants to win a prize and the money goes to a good cause. Some of the prizes include a new home, a new car, a new boat, a new HDTV, vacation packages, electronics and cash prizes. All the proceeds go to updating and improving a hospital. The cost of each ticket is $100 but you can buy a three pack for $250. Four years ago, my wife won a Sony portable dvd player which is still sitting in its shrink-wrapped package and ready to go into a museum.

Lately, I’ve seen a few lotteries on the internet. Of all the ones that are out there, one in particular has caught my eyes. You might have seen someone’s foot on a banner on a web page. With this lottery, there is a link on their website that explains the game fairness. They say that picking 6 numbers out of 49, the chances of winning is somewhere around one in 14 million. If you bought a ticket from their lottery, you will have a chance from 1,000 to 4,000 because that’s all the tickets they will sell for a given draw. That is almost like a school raffle where you have a chance to win a fruit basket or something. 

The prizes aren’t too shabby neither. They have iPods, a trip to Italy, a Ferrari, a vacation to Africa and more. I think they even have two tickets to Moscow.

I remembered a story when I was kid. We were rummaging through my mom’s jewelry box when we came upon an old lottery ticket. She said she picked it up at the drugstore and forgot she had it. My brother decided to check the newspaper that evening and found out that she was holding on to a winning ticket. We went down to the lottery office the next day and collected our winnings. Did you know most lottery tickets expire after one year? In other words, you have exactly one year from the draw date that you can collect your winnings.

Oprah had a show in the last few weeks, telling us that most lottery winners don’t know what to do with their winnings. The problem is, is that they don’t know how to say no. They end up paying everybody until they don’t have any for themselves. Perhaps it’s good to win a material prize like a house, car or boat. That way, you can enjoy it and have it remind you that you were a winner every time you see it.

Recessions apply to Freebies?

Are you listening to what the economists are saying, here in the US? They’re saying there will be a slowdown. Consumers are going to start cutting back if they haven’t done so already. 

 

I didn’t know that applies to things that come free. I mean, I research the market every day to find good quality freebies to include on our site so that when you visit there, you don’t leave empty handed. That’s one purpose of our site. Another is to save you money, whether it is car rentals, cruises, air tickets, hotels, iPod accessories, jewelry or whatever your heart desires. I do that through revealing coupon codes to you. What is a coupon? Well, in case you don’t know, it’s a special code that you enter into a discount code field on the merchant’s site that gives you an additional saving. If you didn’t have a coupon to use, you would not save the additional money. For example, in our free stuff section, there is a whole list of freebies such as a free car charger for your iPhone or iPod, free screen protector for your Treo or free vga to s-video cable to connect your PC to a tv, that are all free with a coupon. I list down every coupon on the next page and an easy way for you to pick the free item of choice. Once you click the ‘Buy’ button, you’ll be transferred to the merchant’s cart page. You can continue to shop until you’re ready to check out. Once you do, you enter the coupon pertaining to the free item that you want and press ‘Update’. The cart will automatically deduct the amount for the item making it free.

 

Using coupons is easy. On the car rental page on our site, I have listed a number of coupon codes or promotional codes. If you use these coupon codes, you will save money when renting a car. If you don’t then that’s too bad. 

 

One more thing, why hasn’t anybody written me about the free money they’ve won from recognizing that sound? Is it that difficult? Doesn’t it sound like a soda machine to you when you drop in a quarter? The last $2000 given away was to a lady who recognized the sound as taking ice from the ice maker in the fridge. To play this silly competition, just go to one of our blogs on our site and click on the banner that’s blinking at you. There’s no cost to guessing and if people are willing to give away freebies, including money then go for it.

HDTV Cables: $12 vs $250

 

I love watching consumer watchdog shows that reveal the truth and hidden secrets about items in the marketplace. Last night on CBC’s Marketplace, they were knocking electronic retailers such as Best Buy and Future Shop, in ripping off HDTV buyers. They said because HDTV prices are coming down, competition among electronic retailers are heating up. Big profits are not in HDTV any more so they have to use tactics in “packing the deal” to make up for lost profits.

The key to not getting ripped off is by doing your homework before entering the store. Know exactly what you’re looking for, how much you’re willing to pay and stay on course. Don’t waver when a salesperson tries to sell you more than you need.

Things to watch out for:

 

•  Extended Warranties
•  Home Installation
•  Service Calls
•  Expensive Cables
•  Unnecessary Accessories

The show continues to compare a $12 cable obtained online to Monster cables costing upward of $250. They conducted tests and couldn’t see a difference. Buyers were paying anywhere between $100 to $500 on top of their HDTV purchases. Buyer beware.

 

To get your HDTV cables for $12, check out HDTV Hot Deals on uPay2much.