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Apps. Technology. Suburbia.

Reflections, not Resolutions this New Year

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions a long time ago.

As the year ends, I could look back at all my failures and resolve to do better this upcoming year. Or, I can look back and focus on all the things I did right.

This is as good a time as any to thank you. Whether this is your first time visiting my site or you come here often, you motivated me this year. Your positive comments kept me going. Chronicling parts of my life online made me accountable. And, brainstorming blog post ideas kept me inspired.

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Amazon Prime Day Deals for Fitness, Electronics & Kids Products

Amazon’s Prime Day starts tonight (July 10th) at 6pm EST and continues for the next 30 hours. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may be familiar with some of the products below. In fact, I wasn’t planning on writing this post until I realized how many of my favorite things made it to Prime Day.

I’ve done the research so you don’t have to in order to curate this list. As an Amazon Affiliate, I receive a small fee if you make a purchase through one of my links.

Amazon does not release prices until the deal becomes public. Traditionally, Amazon significantly reduces the prices on their own brands (Echo, Kindles, Fire Sticks). Always do a quick online comparison before purchasing to make sure you are truly getting a deal. But speed is important as Prime Day Deals have limited inventory. (I kicked myself last year after missing out on the Instant Pot. I later purchased it for full price and I still think it’s worth every penny. If you see it listed, grab it).

Hint: When you see a product you want on Amazon, click on “Watch Deal” so you don’t miss out.

Amazon Prime Day Deals [Read more…]

How to Get the Lowest Prices on Amazon Electronics: Echo, Kindles & More

What if I told you that you can shop on Amazon and find the latest and most popular electronic devices at a huge discount?

Buy Certified Refurbished Amazon Electronics

What is a refurbished product?

There are many reasons why a product may be refurbished. Yes, sometimes there was a defect that the manufacturer fixed, but many times it’s refurbished because of superficial issues. For example, a consumer returned an item due to a damaged shipping box, a minor scratch or dent on the product’s casing or exterior, or opened the box and simply changed his or her mind.

What happens to these returned items?

The items get shipped back to the manufacturer who will then test these products, repair any defects, verify that these products are “as new” and re-sell them as refurbished.

Amazon takes this one step further by selling their own products as “certified refurbished” items, meaning that they come with the same limited warranty and return policy as a brand new device. This includes their popular Kindle and Alexa devices. Think about this: you are getting the same product, with the same warranty, and the same return policy. Why not buy Certified Refurbished?

Amazon also sells Certified Refurbished products by other manufacturers. To see a full list of brands, click here. Amazon backs these items with their own limited 90-day warranty.

(Note, although you can also save money from Amazon’s Warehouse Deals, you may not receive the same warranties as “Certified Refurbished” products; also these Warehouse Deal items may not necessarily be “as new” but rather a bit more used. However, you can definitely find great deals there, just make sure to read the fine print.)

My Top Picks:

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I Got Rid of Cable and the Kids Survived

Update: For the last few months, I’ve been loving and over-using PS Vue’s  basic “access plan” which has the benefits of cable without cable. In the months leading up to the election, I found myself watching more and more live TV, mainly election coverage, and DVR’ing the debates and commentary shows. I caught up on every season of TV Land’s “Younger” (highly recommend) and discovered my new favorite network TV show, “This is Us.”  However, although I used the Kindle Fire stick on all of my televisions, my main TV, the one in the family room, started to annoy me with its lag-time and audio-sync problems. Amazon suggested that the stick may be incompatible with my Sony Aquos TV so I switched the stick out for the Roku Premiere and voila, problems solved. The Fire Stick continues to work fine on my three other televisions.

*A further update: On November 11, 2016, PS Vue dropped all Viacom channels including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and TV Land (waaahhh, no more “Younger”). I’ve thought about switching to Sling but I really would miss the ability to DVR shows. To be continued . . . 

A little background . . .

Six liberating months ago, I made the decision to cut the cord. I waited for my kids to notice. They happily continued watching their favorite shows mainly on Netflix, occasionally on Amazon Prime and YouTube, and sometimes through apps on Apple TV, the latter of which allows access to limited preselected full episodes on channels like Disney and PBS Kids. Life was good without cable. I watched the local news using my free digital antenna provided by my internet company, viewed “featured stories” on CNN through the Apple TV app, and added an HBO Now subscription to my lineup.

Admittedly, my husband missed live television more than I did. A couple of months ago, I first learned about PS Vue. Playstation [Read more…]

We Got Rid of Cable and my Kids Survived: Part 1

Cord-cutter: that’s who I am. Two months and proud. My kids haven’t complained yet.

You may think that my sizable cable bill motivated this decision, however, the real reason was that I simply could not justify paying one more month for my home phone. With the exception of telemarketers who dialed me incessantly (despite my placement on the no-call list), my home phone sat silently accumulating dust until I finally unplugged it. FIOS informed me that if I chose to keep internet and cable TV but dropped my home line, my bill would actually increase. (I had the Triple Play package).

Frustrated, I shopped around online and discovered CableVision’s Cord-Cutter package. For $50 per month including taxes, I could receive high-speed internet, a router, and digital antenna. My FIOS bill cost me close to $200 per month. Do the math. At the end of the year, I would have an extra $1600 in my pocket.

Sure, cable makes channel-surfing convenient, but I can honestly say I do not miss it. I still manage to watch all my favorite [Read more…]