I love early deals, but this is ridiculous
When they started offering all kinds of Black Friday deals online as well as in-store, I was thrilled. And when they started making those deals available the day before, so that you could sit down after everyone had gone home and the dishes were done and do a little shopping even before the “big day,” I liked that, too.
But Kohls has just gone nuts. It’s only Tuesday and their Black Friday deals are already online. I mean, that’s good? I guess? But it’s weird. I have even made the pies yet.
So here’s what’s already happening, and will continue through Black Friday:
* Deals and Door Busters are already live
* You’ll get $15 Kohls Cash for every $50 you spend
* Free shipping for everyone at $50+
* Coupon code SAVEBIG15 takes an additional 15% off your order
I can’t promise you there won’t be a bigger percent-off coupon on Friday, of course, but if there’s something you really want/need and you’re worried about a deal selling out, you might want to start your shopping now.
Last year during this sale I got a really good Shark vacuum for a song. If you’re in the market for an even better one than the model I snagged last year, their best deal is on this Shark Rotator Pro, which is marked down to $200, and you’ll get another $30 off with the coupon and earn $45 in Kohls Cash, effectively making it $125. (For reference, the cheapest I’m seeing on this model at Amazon is around $220, but at least it’s averaging 4.3/5 stars with over 500 reviews.)
But hey, maybe you don’t need a vacuum. That’s fine—everything else is on sale, too!
Crazy deal on the Sphero BB-8
I was never one for big-ticket toys for my kids, but that’s because I’m a curmudgeon, and also because when my kids were little, we didn’t have nearly as much cool stuff as you can find now.
The last few years, the Sphero robots have become hot commodities for kids because they can learn to program them to do cool things, but the only thing cooler than Sphero is when Sphero does Star Wars. Today a certified refurbished Sphero Star Wars BB-8 Droid with Force Band is available over on Electronics.Woot for just $85 plus $5 shipped. I’ll confess that my first thought was “Well, that’s probably only $10 off the regular price,” but I was wrong. Very wrong. The same model is currently $180 new from the cheapest Amazon seller (or $117 used from the Warehouse Deals), so this is a great deal and will probably sell out.
(A quick note on refurbishing: I am all for certified refurbs, as they come with the same warranty as brand new, and often at a huge discount, like this. Up to you whether you think your kid might be upset by it, of course.)
Find your Fossil
Love all things Fossil? They’ve got a ton of items on sale and in their outlet—including their second generation smartwatches—and right now everything not only ships for free, you also get free engraving/embossing and free returns if you need ’em. That’s pretty sweet.
Have your eye on a new item that won’t go on sale for a year? That’s okay, I’ve got you: use coupon code FOSSIL30 for an additional 30% off. I haven’t been able to find anything full-price it doesn’t work on (doesn’t mean there aren’t exclusions, just that I haven’t found them!), so if you want the latest/greatest model of smartwatch, now’s your chance.
Did you know they sell an array of cute leather-look stickers specifically for decorating your purse? There’s a ton of those in the sale section, and they’d be perfect stocking stuffers for your favorite tween or teen.
You know I love a good Vornado
Okay, this one may not be a good holiday gift (or maybe it is; you do you), but right now Amazon has the Vornado 630 Mid-Size Whole Room Air Circulator Fan on sale right now for $40 (its lowest price ever).
If you’re unfamiliar with Vornado, they used to call them the “ceiling fan on the floor,” because it doesn’t just blow air, it really does circulate it. Fun fact: When these fans first came out (or at least when they first started showing up in stores in the US, anyway), I was 17 and working in a department store. We used to plug a Vornado in right in front of the display of boxes, tip it straight up, and then set a beach ball above it to show how the vortex of air could hold it steady above the fan. It really does cool an entire room (and the beach ball thing is a neat party trip).
I know you’re probably freezing right now (I mean, I am), but if you need a good fan when it gets warm again, this would be an excellent choice.
Oneida’s busting out the goodies already
Need a few things for the kitchen? If you don’t want to wait until Friday, you don’t have to—right now Oneida is already offering up their Black Friday Preview, with nearly a hundred deeply-discounted deals. Even better, they’ve got a code on the site that’ll give you an additional 30% off those deals.
But better still, I’ve got a code that’ll give you 30% off and free shipping on any size order! (You’re welcome.) Just use SLICKFREE and enjoy the savings, along with free shipping no matter how much you buy.
Will I finally buy that big glass pumpkin jar and fill it with candy corn? Uh, look, I’m just saying it’s a good deal, is all. I swear.
Keep your eyes on the Gold Box
Obviously the Amazon Gold Box is going to be on fire this week, but I had to chuckle when I clicked over there this morning—one of today’s “Deal of the Day” items is this Anova bluetooth Sous Vide and I need to tell you something about it.
First of all, do you need an immersion circulator? No. You don’t. I mean, I don’t think anyone needs sous vide cooking in their lives. It’s clearly a specialized cooking implement and the fact that it’s now $95 instead of $150 means absolutely nothing if you don’t already love cooking and want one. So I’m not suggesting this to anyone whose reaction to this post was a hearty, “What the heck is a sous vide??”
But second of all, my husband bought one of these for me last year because 1) I really like to cook and 2) I watch entirely too many Food Network shows, and I’m a convert. Steaks melt like butter when you sous vide them before finishing them on the grill. Fish is fully infused with your seasonings and perfectly cooked. And vegetables taste like they were professionally prepared even though, hey, I just threw them in a Ziploc with some herbs.
So no, no one needs a sous vide. (And yes, I laughed my behind off about it having bluetooth, but you control it with a phone app and then the phone lets you know when it’s done cooking!) On the other hand, I’ve been known to whisper sweet nothings to my Anova when no one is looking, so I’m just… letting you know about that.
One day steals, to warm you up for next week!
I’ll confess that 6pm.com dropped down several notches on my “favorite bargain places” when they stopped offering free shipping on every order. I mean, yes, the prices are still amazing, and free shipping on 2+ items or $50+ is still pretty good, but I just… stopped checking over there as often.
Well! I’m glad I checked today, because they’ve got a one-day-only section of items eligible for an additional 50% off. Clearing out for Black Friday? Just checking to see who’s around? I don’t know, and I don’t care. With the additional savings, items start at just a few bucks, which means I can always add a pair of eligible socks to my order if I only find one thing I need.
Then again, with prices like these, I don’t think finding at least two things is going to be a problem….
You can make this one worth it
Okay, so this is one of those “good news/bad news” sorts of coupons. Today (Friday, November 17th) (hold me how is it already nearly Thanksgiving??) only, there’s an eligible 30% off your $30+ purchase coupon available at Office Depot. They tend to mostly offer $10 off $50+ and such, so this is a great discount from them.
The bad news is that you can’t use it on coffee (tricky; that was my first thought) or paper (my second) or ink/toner (third) or furniture (this is where I started to get really annoyed…) as well as a handful of other exclusions. So that’s… not great.
But the good news is that you can use it on… lots of other stuff! Like snacks, or clearance school supplies if you’re the stock-up sort. You may have to be a little creative, but there are definitely deals to be had where you can save the extra money. (If you like those fancy Modern Oats oatmeal cups, they’re already on sale, for example, and you can beat Amazon’s price with the coupon.)
Remember that you get free shipping on your $25+ order, and that’s before the coupon.
Save even more on the trends
Love all things trendy over at Tillys for the tweens and teens on your list? Bop on over there right now, because they’ve just discounted nearly everything in the Clearance section by an additional 50% (prices are as marked). Then use coupon code SLICKFS for free shipping, too, so you can buy a little or a lot and not worry about paying for shipping.
I’ve gotten some excellent deals there on things like trendy shoes for my kids (hello, clearance Vans and Toms!), as well as little accessories for stockings or whatever. I suspect they’re trying to clear some things out before the big Black Friday push, and with a free shipping coupon, I’m happy to help them out!
The less-messy way to stuff a stocking with cake
Stocking stuffers are their whole own thing in my family, and aren’t limited to the traditional orange in the toe and a few chocolates. (For example: My daughter gets packets of veggie broth concentrate every year, and has since she went vegetarian almost a decade ago. Why? I don’t know. She just does.) In our house, the weirder the better.
Cake seems like it wouldn’t work well in a stocking, but what if it was this completely dorm-friendly (or little-kid-after-school-friendly) box of Duncan Hines mug-size cookies-and-cream cake mixes? Reviews are mixed, but personally I’m not expecting an envelope of microwave cake mix to be either health food or a gourmet affair, so I’m okay with that. At just $1.25 for the 4-pack, they’re a perfect Add-On to round out a Prime order, or—better still—to get you up to your 5 Subscribe & Save orders for the month so you get 15% off of all of ’em. (You know you can do them as separate orders, right? I have two kids, so I did two separate S&S orders and now I’m up to 5, which means I’m getting them for $1.06/box.)
Take the envelopes out of the box and voila: Cake in your stocking! I bet it goes great with veggie broth.
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