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Your daily Amazon reminder

So I know we’re all eagerly glued to the Amazon Lightning Deals this week, so I thought I’d give you a couple of quick tips about ‘em.

First of all, many of the deals are visible in advance of their “live” times (not the price, but the item itself), and even the “mystery” items can often be decoded based upon the descriptions, ahead of time. I know that scrolling through a hundred pages of deals first thing in the morning isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re wanting a particular item, it may be worth it to check ahead to see if something you want is coming up. And if you see an item you want, decide well before deal-time what you’re willing to pay for it. As with everything else, some of the deals are better than others.

When you want a deal: Make sure you’re signed in to your Amazon account and sitting at your computer, ready to click, as soon as it goes live. I have a friend who was trying to snag a deal on a Touch yesterday and both of us clicked for it the minute it went live and neither of us got it. Some deals (particularly the good ones) are available in extremely limited quantities and sell out in a flash. That’s the bad news. The good news is that when you miss out—don’t panic! Many of these deals are showing up more than once. The deal you miss today may be back on Friday. Be patient. Stalk your prey like a lioness, my pretties. Persistance pays off.

Remember, once you add a Lightning Deal to your cart, you only have 15 minutes to check out before you lose the deal price. If you’re on the fence about an item for some reason, you are better off clicking to add it to your cart immediately and then taking those 15 minutes to decide after you’ve secured your shot at it. And if you decide not to buy it? Take it out of your cart—there are people on the waiting list, most likely, and it’s the courteous thing to do.

Happy Lightning-ing!

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It’s time to Prime for the holidays!

Oh my pretties, the most wonderful thing has just happened!

Those of you who are Amazon veterans know that there are usually free Prime trials to be had here and there, and maybe over the years you’ve used various email addresses to make sure you had a free trial for your holiday shopping—after all, once those Lightning Deals start flying fast and furious, you’re going to want that free shipping. But they’ve tightened up and maybe you’ve already had a free trial on all your addresses, so now what?

Happy holidays—right now you can sign up for a free one-month Prime Trial and when you go through that link, you’ll have the option to choose an $8/month monthly plan. That means you can sign up today, and for just $8 next month, you can enjoy Prime all through this peak shopping season. Then if January rolls around and you don’t want it anymore, that’s cool, go ahead and cancel.

I think this will be $8 well-spent. [Edited to add: I tested this before I posted it, but folks are reporting it's not being offered to ever account. I'm not sure what determines if you get this offer or not, but I'm looking into it.]

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Heads up, Discover-ers!

It’s the greatest Discover Card bonus offer ever, so far as I’m concerned—sign up for this quarter’s extra perk, 5% Cashback on up to $1500 worth of… online shopping! (And department store purchases. If anyone does that, anymore.)

It’s like they get me, man. An extra $75 back while I do the remainder of my holiday shopping? Yes, please.

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Grab your $5 to Amazon

I can’t imagine what sorts of insider tips you’re going to get about toilet paper and paper towels when you do this (remember to sign up with an infrequently-used email address!), but if you go sign up with Scott Products Shared Values via that link, you can get a code for a $5 Amazon MP3 credit. Easy peasy.

Once you sign up and get your code, go enter it here and shop away. Free tunes!

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Not frugal, just plain smart

Here’s a quickie for you that has nothing to do with saving money, but everything to do with protecting your privacy: Check out this post on Cool Mom Tech to find out how to remove your personal information from an aggregate site called Spokeo.

I was able to find myself on there multiple times, and it only took me about five minutes to get everything removed. Scary stuff. (Yes, I know personal information in this digital age is everywhere. That doesn’t mean I have to be okay with a site showing my name, address, and a satellite picture of my house, though!)

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If you’re a fellow guacamole freak…

… and you have a local Trader Joe’s, check out their Reduced Guilt Chunky Guacamole the next time you’re there.

Why am I telling you this? It is certainly not because I just finished off the tub I bought two days ago. Nope. Nuh-uh. It’s, uh, because I love you. And I love avocados. And if I had polished off that tub in such short order, it would be because it was pretty delicious and not as bad for you as regular guac. Just sayin’.

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Extra savings on clothing at Amazon

If you like to shop Amazon for their periodic deals on various clothing items, you’ll want to hop on this one—right now if you sign up to receive Amazon Clothing Store emails, they’ll send you a unique coupon code good for up to 20% off a purchase of up to $1000!

I know a lot of folks don’t like to do deals like this because they don’t want their inboxes cluttered up. To you, I say: Junk email address. Get one. I have one email address I use for these sorts of things, and it keeps my main email free and clear.

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Swap your beverages instead of dieting

I don’t know, it sounds kind of gimmicky to me… but the Eat This, Not That! folks have another book out, and this one’s called Drink This, Not That!. Supposedly following their directives for lower-calorie beverages can save you up to 30 pounds a year. (I think that should come with a disclaimer that those results only work for people who were previously hooked up to a constant IV drip of frappacinos.)

Anyway, right now you can pick up said book at Amazon for just $1.73, and for less than the cost of a cup of coffee at my favorite drive-through, maybe it’s worth checking out. (Prime and Super Saver Shipping eligible, of course.)

Then again, save for my two cups of coffee each day, I mostly drink water, so what do I know?

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Another way it pays to Discover

Do you love your Discover Card the way I love mine? Do you love Amazon? Do you love it when a plan comes together? (Oh, wait. That might be something else….) Ahem. Where was I? Oh! Right!

If you have a Discover Card, you’re going to love Amazon for the next two weeks—all sorts of eligible items come with free one-day shipping when you pay with your Discover Card and apply coupon code DSCVRFSP. No muss, no fuss. Way easier than fighting the crowds at the stores, and you’ll have it in your hands almost as quickly.

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My new favorite gluten-free “spaghetti”

I may be the last person on the planet to discover this, but I’m going to tell you anyway because I’m so excited. Heh.

My garden runneth over. Specifically, my zucchini is going crazy. I’m shredding and baking and freezing, but my Zucchini Stamina was waning. And then I saw all of these recipes suggesting you cut zucchini into spaghetti-like strands, but they all required a mandoline. I do not own a mandoline, on account of I am 1) cheap and 2) clumsy, and I prefer to keep my money and my fingers.

However, I own a pretty nice “kitchen gadgets” set, and within it I found a julienne slicer (similar to this one). Zip zip zip, perfect zucchini “noodles.” Naturally gluten-free and low-carb, and all you have to do is heat them up a little before topping with your favorite sauce (I’ve been making this easy roasted tomato sauce with our tomato bounty).

In short: Yay! More uses for zucchini, and I love having another pasta alternative. Now… anyone know if I can cut it up this way and freeze it for later “noodle” use, or will it be mushy…?

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