December Software Deals

Need voice recognition software?

Then watch the video:



You can get it for $20 right now - $60, less $20 coupon code, less $20 main-in rebate. Email me and I'll send you the info. Just have to buy before 12/31.

I just ordered that. Hopefully it will help me get my *content* down for HomeschoolDad.com.

AND theoretically I can use it to get the kids dictating short stories. We'll see.

This isn't the only software I just snagged for a song.

A couple weeks ago I bought the full suite of MS Office for only $10.

Can't help y'all with that one, not directly anyway. It's a deal only offered to employees of my wife's company.

But you Big Business wage slaves ought to inquire to find out if they can get a similar deal through their employer.

Macy's - Sanctuary For Perverts?

Hah!

Apparently Macy's, in deference to political correctness, now allows men to use the women's changing room.

I can't wait to try this out tomorrow!

Thanks to LeagueIslander for this one.

(Why do people instinctively think of me when they come across such *news*???)

Only Morons Shop At Retail Stores!

Approaching the Kwanza/Festival of Trees' season....

Amazon boxes are piling up on our doorstep.

But even before the holiday season we were still getting at least a shipment or two per week.

Amazon Prime has got to be one of the best things on this overheated planet.

For $79 per year you get free 2-day shipping on most items.

I mean if you need something trivial like *nailclippers* you can get them door-delivered with a couple of clicks. No more waiting to get a free-shipping $25+ order together; and no more waiting 2 weeks for them to show up.

And I want thank everybody who's been ordering products through my Amazon Affiliate links.

You can buy ANYTHING through ANY of my Amazon links and they will deposit the 4-5% commission in my son's account. In other words you can click on a link to a book....then from there search Amazon for any type of product and my son will get referral credit.

I do have the Amazon Store page linked above and I've also added an Amazon Search widget on my sidebar.

Thanks again. And get Amazon Prime, will ya?

It the best thing I've bought since my first DVR 10+ years ago. Prime is a life-changing event. Seriously.

The Groupon Pyramid Scam

Now I already Marginalized Groupon - See 30% Off Nothing - but that was from the standpoint of a customer.

I had no idea what the precise business model was.

You can read about the highly complicated and somewhat shady business model here - Why Groupon Is Poised To Collapse.

When the history of *financial innovation* is written....99% of it will be cross-posted in the *high crimes* files. Seriously - name the last financial innovation that wasn't a pure scam designed to enrich the architects and enslave or hoodwink the masses. The credit card? The 30-year mortgage? Securitized student loans? C'mon!

Extreme Couponing?

Now my first wife and I might possibly be the only people who hadn't heard of so-called *extreme couponing* - that is until we caught a few minutes of it on the hotel's color TV last week:

There are plenty more videos on YouTube, of course.

I myself as a stock option trader don't understand the *stockpiles*.

If you buy something you don't need for free (we'd say *bought for even*)....flip it to someone else for crying out loud - even at a below-market price. These cheapskates should be selling all that extra salad dressing and Powerade to their neighbors for 25-50 cents a bottle.

A few years ago, while reading Will Durant's Story of Civilization, I first learned that there were other forms of greed besides ambition for wealth. The precise example involved monks or something who'd camped out atop trees for weeks, naked, with nothing to subsist on. Durant characterized this as *spiritual greed* - and you may recognize a strain of it today amongst the radical earth-humping set. See - The Year Without Toilet Paper.

Watching these extreme couponers cursing at the register when they don't get the final price all the way down to a penny I couldn't help but think I was witnessing *miserly greed* or something.

Now I don't think it's worth my time and energy to spend 20 hours a week trying to buy $600 worth of useless, unhealthy groceries that I may be able flip for a $200 profit.

BUT it may be worth my homeschooled kids' time...

It, if successful, could be a great entrepreneurial exercise for them. For example I saw one woman buy 100 Butterfingers for free. She had a 50 cent-off coupon, *double coupons*, and they were retailing for $1. I'd have my kids sell those for 25 cents a piece outside of of the government schools here and they'd be sold out in no more than an hour.

You have to think though....

Once these strategies have hit color cable TV they are probably on their way out. I mean how long before stores and food manufacturers start putting quantity restrictions and whatnot on these coupons?

30% Off Nothing!

I just quit Groupon - the email coupon subscription service.

I had seen the commercials and heard raving praise and thus felt obligated to sign up. I kind of have to force myself to check out the *trends* so I don't miss the bounty of TNBT.

But this one stunk. It offers deals on over-priced garbage that I'd never even think about splurging on in the first place.

And in general that's what I've always thought of old-fashioned clipped coupons too.

I have my brands; I stick with them; and I load up when they're on sale.

Penalizing Greedy Low-Ballers

I don't quite understand it, yet.

It looks like each time a bargain-hunting cheapskate bids....he's assessed 60 cents!

Elaboration:

One of QuiBids' best features is their "Buy it Now". The QuiBids "Buy it Now" allows users to apply the money they spent bidding on a product towards the "Buy it Now" price if they don't win. For example, let's say a user bids 50 times on a $50 Best Buy gift card, but doesn't win the auction. That user spent $30 on bids placed (50 bids x $0.60/bid). To exercise the “Buy It Now” option, the user would subtract the $30 spent on bids for the item from its $50 value price, paying the $20 difference. That way, even though they didn't win, all bids placed on the QuiBids auction count as credit towards buying the product.

If you're looking for a deal, QuiBids and other penny auction websites, might be the best way to snag an amazing bargain these days.

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like an ingenious business model/idea - ingenious in the sense of sneakily ripping greedy cheap Morons off.

Essentially, each product needs a 60 cent-paying bid to uptick. And I'm guessing that QuiBids restricts auctions to only move up in small (penny? nickel?) increments.

OH MAN!!! You've just got to watch this - click here.

And I'm going to feel really bad if this post just turned any of my long-time readers onto a new vice!!! (I'm especially worried about Mrs. PrivateCaller.)

No Comment!

Other than...

Well, I just can't imagine who needs to buy a flat-screen, LCD, LED, or plasma color TV today.

I thought EVERYONE already had one or more(!) - except the C-Nut household.

Yeah, this image tees up a few more comments....which I'll defer to those with lower coefficients of charity.

Amazon Wishlist

Do any of y'all have any experience with Amazon's Wishlists?

Anyone have a list? Ever been bought anything off it? Anyone ever buy someone else something off their list?

It's not for me, you cynical Morons. It'd be for my son who, most surprisingly, LOVES to get packages in the mail - and is in perpetual need of new educational resources.

Specifically I want to know how anonymous the process is. Does the sender get a glimpse at your home address? Or, can the recipient even find out who hooked them up?

Hah! It appears that old pal Perry Eidelbus still has *LEGO Batman* on his Amazon wishlist!

Wholesale Robbery?

Several months ago I got to conversing with a real nutjob cashier at the supermarket. She told me that BJs and Cost-Co WERE NOT cheaper for every product. I recall she said something about toilet paper and paper towels being cheaper there, at Stop & Shop.

Not a real veteran shopper of these wholesalers, I kind of just presumed that they were indeed cheaper, on a per unit basis and across the board, than local retail stores.

I realized today that the lady was right. After buying a huge load of pecorino romano cheese (we go through it in no time flat) for $10 per lb. at BJ's, I checked the price tag on the one sitting in my fridge. Sure enough, I only paid $9.49 per lb. at Stop & Shop.

Having had my presumption debunked by both at nutjob and a jam-job....I'm going to look at the price differentials more closely going forward.

What Would You Do, To Save A Buck Or Two?

My wife told me that she was going to buy a ******** for one of our relatives for Christmas.

Since, at that particular moment I wasn't ignoring her....I mentioned that particular product would be on sale at Staples on Black Friday, marked down from $220 to $120 - or so I accidentally read in the Boston Globe.

I called the store out near my parents' house, where we'll be for Thanksgiving.

CaptiousNut - When do you open next Friday?

StoreClerk - We open at 6am.

CaptiousNut - Are you going to have that ********?

StoreClerk - Where'd you hear that? Just kidding, yep we'll have it. Make sure you get here at 4:30am if you want a chance at one. Last year there were 50 people in line already at that time.

CaptiousNut - How many will you have? Will you have more than 50?

StoreClerk - Nope.

CaptiousNut - Okay. Thanks.

Personally, I usually do my Christmas shopping around December 23rd....so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the Black Friday nonsense. I don't watch the news either so I guess I had no real idea these stores with their specials were such a mob scene.

IMO, these retailers are stupid. They probably lose money on these giveaways because no one Moronic enough to camp out for $100 savings is going to buy anything else. As a wise old bar owner in Philly once told me, "Cheap deals only attract cheap people."

I'll most likely be up at 4am next Friday anyway. But the idea of freezing, in the dark, and standing in a line remains off-putting.

However, I am curious whether the dour economy will make these early Black Friday lines longer or shorter. I could see it going either way.

Google....Coupon Clipper?

Most of us, are probably ordering more and more stuff online each year.

After all, what's $10 in shipping if it saves us a trip and the hassle of dealing with unpredictable store inventory, waiting in line, etc.

Some *mom* last night was telling me how she essentially has an intimate relationship with the UPS guy on account of how much stuff she orders online.

I concurred with her and was trying to justify the shipping costs when she enlightened me:

ShopaholicMom - I hardly ever pay shipping....just Google 'gap free shipping coupon' or something...I get some 'code' and enter it when paying.

Hmmmmm....I had no idea.

But based on the above screenshot, she's hardly the only one wise to this tactic.

Though it almost goes without saying....that broads don't really SAVE any money with coupons, sales, or free shipping.

No, they just order proportionately MORE clothing, useless trinkets, and whatnot.

Retail Fantasies

Everyone walks or drives down their local streets and muses, "You know, I would really like to open a [insert retail enterprise] here...."

Whether it's a restaurant, bakery, dry cleaner, or discotheque,....we all fantasize essentially about the same thing. Then, when someone comes along, antes up, and opens a new *hit* there we get pissed - "That was my idea!".

My fantasy was always a bar. Heck, as much time as I spent in them, they were all I thought about for the better part of a decade. Draft beer is all *margin*, no?

A residual friend of my wife's has a *queer* obsession with opening a coin-op laundromat in Brooklyn. THAT'S what he dreams about while toiling away at a currency desk on Wall Street - runaway utility bills, quarters, and missing socks!

My wife, being 100% dago, everywhere we move she invariably exclaims, "This area really needs a high-end Italian deli!" I joke that her roots are really Brooklyn. Therefore she should rightfully think more along the lines of funnel cakes and egg creams!

Mrs. C-Nut's model would be Di Bruno Bros. deli in Philadelphia. Y'all should check it out if ever in Center City.



The fact is, retailing is one tough business - especially on the food and drink side. While those successful stores stare us in the face, and take our money for years on end, what we don't see, or can't see, are the voluminous emulators who have failed. We can't see them, well, often because they are gone. I think the phenomena of our collective fantasies can be partly described as *survivorship bias* or something.

Here we are approaching one of the chief subtleties of economics - the unseen. So much of what happens in the real world markets simply cannot be understood without a firm appreciation of non-obvious side effects.

And if you don't have a firm grasp of microeconomics....

....then good luck opening your organic veggie juice stand or whatever!

The Dollar Ain't Worthless, Yet

I'm 34.83 years old and I just did go into my first *dollar store*. I checked out a brand new Dollar Tree in Weymouth, MA this afternoon.

I must say that there is definitely some good cheap stuff in there, I think. I purchased some Rubbermaid plastic containers for 50 cents a piece. I can't even imagine they're that cheap at Wal-Mart. Now I can tell my wife to throw them in the garbage after she eats her lunch at work - though she certainly won't. [I find these things, along with *Gladware*, a real pain in the butt to wash - oil and grease adhere to them, they get water stuck in the lids and don't dry off,....]

And there seemed to be other useful junk in there as well though I couldn't really focus. I had my two urchins with me and my son was wandering the store with his dollar bill. The store is a good teaching ground for my son since we're currently doing Kumon's Dollars and Sense book. Also, I'm trying to teach him the transitory property of money. In other words, if he spends his $1 on the water pistol at Dollar Tree then he won't be able to rent that DVD (Redbox) at the supermarket.

There were a bunch a books at Dollar Tree that had price tags on them for $17 or so. It was only on my way out, after asking the cashier, that I discovered those books still only cost $1. There were a ton of anti-Bush and anti-Iraq books to put it mildly. Standing out among them was this one:



You know why these *pamphlets* are getting liquidated for $1 each?

Because they were over-supplied and under-demanded to begin with. A full audit of book publishers *losses* would no doubt expose a mountain of *bias* in terms of what books got seeded and which ones made money.

This would be the ignominious risk of writing a book - i.e. seeing it at a *dollar store*, or, like Frank Rich's book, seeing it offered used for a mere 1 cent on Amazon!



As you can see from the above chart, *dollar stores* are, along with pawnshops, repossession firms, credit counselors, etc., one of the beneficiaries of the Greater Depression - for the time being anyway.

I do wonder about the business aspect of these retailers. Is their inventory all of the liquidation variety? Or do manufacturers, like Rubbermaid, develop products specifically for them?

M.I.A.

Mrs. C-Nut has gone missing.

She left for the Miromar Premium Outlet Mall here in Naples over 3.5 hours ago.

Should I call 911 or Visa?

Christmas Bargains

Some Moron paid $1,200 apiece for a couple of these chairs two years ago.

I bought both of them last week from the Moron for $500 apiece!

They go nicely with my liquidation shelves.

You gotta love Craigslist...especially in a Depression.

Since my back had just went out and since my four year-old son fell asleep in the car....I had to ask the seller, an early 40s *Mom* to help me carry and load my new chairs. A thousand bucks cash ought to get me a helping hand, no?

I made some small talk. The woman had just moved within this very wealthy town (Weston, MA) and no longer had room for the chairs. From that, and the unshoveled driveway, I deduced that she was manless. She most likely just got divorced and downsized locally to keep her girls' social lives education unimpaired.

Carrying the chairs she proved quite healthy. So I asked if she *worked out*....

She smiled and turned beet red.

Haha! I was just spreading around the holiday cheer....that's what I do.

Though, regrettably, I should have turned on the charm before I unsuccessfully bid her $900.