I’ve been making these threads since Prime Day began way back in 2015 so I might as well keep it going.
I bought a cordless drill because I need a cordless drill.
Over the weekend I rented some movies for less than they usually cost to rent (On The Basis of Sex, Vice and Green Book) I usually end up doing that every year.
That’s all she wrote for me this time around. I did convince my friend to buy a Fire Stick for cheap. And I think my mom finally got an InstaPot.
They had a bunch of Marvel movies on sale to rent for $1.99 last week as a “Prime Day Preview” or something but I was too busy to watch. They were no longer on sale this weekend
I got a toilet brush & holder set for $8.81 (exciting, eh?).
For video, I bought Seasons 1 and 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale for $8.99 each and Top of the Lake for $5.99 (looks like I can’t get enough of Elisabeth Moss). These are to own, not rent, so there is no hurry to watch them.
And I bought myself a $25 gift card to take advantage of the $5 bonus.
It was a retirement gift from my dad, and with the budget he gave me, I sprung for the remote wireless meat thermometer too. It actually has a pocket sized receiver that I can carry around while the brisket is smoking and it tells me the interior temperature of the meat – on 5 separate sensing locations along the probe. I thought at first this was hilarious overkill, but I can set a temp alarm, and the receiver beeps when the coldest sensing location reaches 165, or whatever. Now I’m hooked on it, and don’t want to go back to opening the lid to read a little dial stuck into the meat anymore.
I didn’t get the Bluetooth enabled meat thermometer (No really, they make one) because I didn’t want to put another app on my phone.
And yes, it works beautifully, and the brisket is heavenly. Instead of spending all day tending to a charcoal fire and adjusting to keep the temps, I just set everything, put the wood chips in the hopper and come back when the remote alarm tells me it’s done.
Oops. I just realized that Prime day isn’t another play on the numerical date representation (like Star Wars or PI day). I assumed it happened over the weekend but couldn’t make anything out of 7/13 or 7/14. So I finally googled it, to discover it has something to do with Amazon.
So my apologies. I bought my new toy from the big box store, not online.
I bought ANOTHER Echo Dot and ANOTHER smart plug. Heck, the Echo Dots were only $22. I have an Echo in the living room and an Echo Dot beside my bed. The new one will go … um … in the bathroom. So I can ask for my Flash Briefing while partaking of the facilities. :rolleyes:
I have smart plugs on the six lamps I keep on during the day, and this new one will operate a fan in my (home) office. One request to Alexa will turn all of them on or off.
I also bought a heating pad-envelope thing that you stick your feet in to warm them up. I won’t need it for a few months, but in the winter my feet get excruciatingly cold-- to the point of actual pain. This will come in handy, er, footy.
I bought one more thing that I never knew existed. I learned about it from the New York Times product feature Wirecutter: a countertop ice maker. Who knew? My refrigerator has an ice maker, but there’s no plumbing on that side of the kitchen. I’ve always bought bags of ice, which is a bit of a nuisance. This model got virtually all 5-star reviews. (Aside: I use a site called ReviewMeta.com that analyzes the veracity Amazon reviews based on language and other factors. You can add it to your browser.) I can make the ice cubes and then store them in the bin in my freezer where the ice maker would put them if it were functional. No more lugging bags of ice home.
Mrs. FtG tried browsing deals but mostly got server overload error messages. So Amazon screwed up again.
I did a little searching but ran into lots of problems. Clicking on a category would often just take me to a regular page with no Prime Day deals or anything.
I like to see if there’s a cheap little fun thing to buy so I sort things by price low to high. Half the pages didn’t have that feature and some that did moved things around but the prices were still completely unsorted.
The oddest was a page for thumb drives* and what not. A high percentage of the items were skimpy women’s lingerie. I double checked the category on the side. Sometimes I have seen an odd listing. A pet item under computer parts, etc. But to have so many is weird.
I discovered that someone sells a thumb drive with a case in the shape of a thumb. How meta. But then I wondered: If you read about this and wanted to search for it on Amazon, what search term would you use???
Our built-in ice maker died and I was trying to figure out what to do for a replacement when I came across countertop ice makers. We’ve been using ours for a few months now, and I’m loving it. I can completely fill the bin in the freezer in about 3-4 hours rather than overnight. Most days when I get home from work, I fill it up and start it running, so after a couple of hours, I’ve refilled what was used during the day (which is a lot with 4 people who like iced beverages. I’m pretty sure a service call to a repair guy would have cost at least what this costs, if not more.
I don’t usually browse Amazon on Prime Day any more than usual (which is still a few times a day), but this year I did pick up the $25 gift card, which after the bonus and the 6% discount costs $18.50.
Beyond that, just some boring stuff. A few pairs of jeans and some dishwasher soap, but it was all discounted by 25%-50% (which I checked by looking at what I paid for them the last time I ordered).
Ok you guys convinced me to buy the gift card. I also have the Prime Visa like JP has so I get 6% cash back on that, and on my drill, so it’s all a pretty good deal. I’m going to use all of that to buy filters for my humidifier this fall, because that’s the kind of responsible adult I am.
No- no prob at all! Glad to have my purchase validated. (Speaking of hijacks… I’ve just taken up knitting. I made a pair of handwarmers and I’m working on my first hat. Got the idea from The Great Courses course on knitting. They offer more than history, literature, and science classes. I might PM you with some knitting questions.)
Got two packs of Amazon aaa batteries totaling 72 batteries for about 15 bucks. I usually do the twofer for Walgreen aaa’s, but this was a better deal. Also a usb 2 place adapter/voltage meter for my car’s power port. Other than that, there hasn’t been anything I can’t live without.
I had been thinking about upgrading my TV, but kept putting it off. Last week I got an email from Consumer Reports about Prime Day, and it mentioned that Amazon was having an advance sale on the 43" Toshiba Fire TV - $130.oo off! So I did a little research, mostly to verify that using Alexis to control it was not required, and then ordered it. It arrived today, it’s all set up and I even managed to get my U-verse remote programmed to operate it.
But also back to school stuff: clothes for the small fry, school supplies in bulk sizes, and first apartment stuff for the big girl (sheets, plastic kitchen storage, a comforter set.) All very exciting.
