I’m not a big spender, and I’m very thrifty in what I buy. I compare prices and read reviews on almost everything I purchase at places like www.pronto.com, www.pricewatch.com, Amazon and even ebay. So, when I say that I’ve bought these things at great deals and am very happy with them, I’m just tellin’ it like it is.
In the last year, I’ve bought some big and small purchases that I’m very happy with. One is the 16.8 volt handheld cordless Shark vacuum. This little sucker is better than my upright vacuum. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve cleaned with it. And looking at the prices online, I think I got a heckuva good deal on it. Not to mention it’s a pretty shade of purple. I purchased it for under $50.00 at Walmart.
I needed a speakerphone for business meetings. After reading hundreds of reviews, I finally picked the Uniden Dect 6.0, which was a reasonable price range, and seemed to be the highest rated of the lower-priced cordless speakerphones. So far it’s worked great. I purchased it at Amazon for an extremely good price. I have an exceptionally soft voice, but this speakerphone picks it up better than most phones I’ve had. I purchased a MagicJack to go with it, because a one-time fee of $40.00 for a land-line (when I need internet anyway for work) followed by $20.00 a year is a much better deal than the ridiculous monthly payments of a landline.
I’m not as happy with the MagicJack as I am with the phone. It’s got an ugly screen, and I can’t redial without using the computer interface. It’s also bulky, and it takes up the space of two USB spots. Still, for the price, it’s a lot better deal, and for now, something I’m willing to put up with. MagicJack’s seem to be available everywhere, and they all seem to be the same price. I picked mine up at Best Buy.
My best purchase by far this past year has been the CatGenie from www.catgenie.com. I have three cats (I’m a sucker for a sob story), and changing the litter box was a huge pain, not to mention gross and smelly. For the last ten years or so, I had previously bought an electronic Littermaid’s, which worked great until my cute little kitten turned into a twenty-something pound tom cat and started breaking them. The CatGenie was an expensive short-term investment, over $300, but so far it has been worth every penny. Plus the savings on litter should make this behemoth pay for itself in no time. (Seriously, why does it cost so much for tiny rocks?)
Finally, my second best purchase cost about $5.00 from the local dollar store. It’s a hand held fan blade cleaner that looks like a squished toilet brush with a long pole – and it can also be used to clean cobwebs off of ceilings. It may not sound like much, but those fan blades and ceiling cobwebs have been driving me nuts and have been, until now, just out of reach. I never knew there was such a handy tool like this. Thank you dollar stores everywhere!
Altogether, most of these purchases were not large, and made life a bit easier for me. If you’re looking for great quality for good prices, I just don’t think you can do better than these items.
