I know I make a lot of posts about finding deals online. What can I say? I’m a bargain girl. But lately, the subject of glasses has come up a lot. The necessary evil. Glasses are one of those things you have to have in order to see but they cost a lot. Most people will simply purchase the most affordable/nicest looking pair from their doctor’s office and then be stuck with them for years — until their next appointment and they get a new prescription or until they break. This sucks.

First of all, glasses are a fashion accessory besides being a necessity. You should be able to have multiple pairs to wear in different situations/with different outfits.

Don't get stuck with a pair of these for the next four years because you paid $180 for them and thought they looked ironically cool at the time you tried them on.

Second, you should always have a back up pair in case of the inevitable: You sit on them, you step on them, you drop them, you lose them behind the mattress in a night of passion, whatever.

A few months back, I had a major prescription overhaul. I apparently went from astigmatism but basically able to see without glasses to oh my God why are you driving you’re totally blind you’re going to kill us all. Anyway, after the doc gave me the little paper saying I have broken eyeballs, I skipped out of there, waving goodbye to the sad glasses sales lady.

From the warm glow of my monitor, I then purchased these bad boys:
How much? $100? No. $60? No. $35? No. $20? No, no, no. Wait for it…$8 (plus a little shipping). I get compliments and am asked a lot about where I got them (and the pair I had before) and people seem surprised I got them online. A lot of people have heard of the good deals on glasses online but I think they feel it’s too good to be true and stick with the old school methods. But I am here today to tell you that I have used two different online sites and have been completely satisfied and completely not scammed.

The site I bought this most recent pair from is http://www.zennioptical.com/. Their glasses range in price from $8 to about $30 and that includes the prescription. There are extra charges for bifocals, adding tint, transitions and other special things but who needs that stuff.

I know the site looks a bit sketch, I mean what’s up with this guy?

Sup, guys? Don't mind me I'm just a throwback to Geocities.

continue reading "You buy your glasses at the eye doctor? That’s so 1999."

Many people who know me know I love legit ways of winning things and making money on the Internet — the trouble is finding the legitimate sites. For the most part, you can’t go wrong on sweepstakes and contests sponsored by corporations. For instance, I won the Razer Carcharias headset from Mountain Dew when they were running their Game Fuel competition with Blizzard Entertainment. By watching videos and clicking around the site you made points each day. Those points were essentially like raffle tickets that you could use on their hourly drawings for lots of gamer and Mt. Dew loot — e.g. entering 200 points put your name in the drawing 200 times.

On Twitter, I have won free domain names from NameCheap (yes, this very site is a result of that) and a World of Warcraft prize pack from Blizzard, although it took its sweet time showing up.

MyLikes, formerly Likaholix which I posted about before, has been pretty sweet to me. I’ve won a lot of money (that’s right, cash) through their contests, which simply require that you make a list of likes for specific categories in the contest like “favorite beaches” or “best beer.” The webmasters choose the best lists, usually the most diverse and with the most detailed comments, and send money by Paypal or Amazon gift cards to the winner. 
continue reading "Winning online … this is not a scam … I think."

The holiday season is always a crunch on people’s wallets. You go from Halloween candy and costumes to Thanksgiving feast to Christmas gifts, food and decoration to New Year’s fireworks and alcohol. This year is especially tight with economic and financial woes.

I often visit the coupons section of my favorite forum, keeping an eye out for a great deal, and there are plenty of Web sites that are willing to help.

Bantler.com
Many of you have heard of the deal-a-day savings on Web sites like woot.com, which offers a different product each day at a severely discounted price. It now includes sub-sites such as shirt.woot.com that has a different shirt every day for just $10.

I found Bantler.com, which very conveniently compiles these deal-a-day sites onto one page. Bookmarking that page, I check it daily for great savings on sites like the various Woot! pages, Amazon, Yugster, and SteepandCheap. Deals include clothing, electronics, jewelry, wine and cheeses, DVDs, mystery boxes, outdoors equipment and much more. On Bantler, you can sort by category or site, and you can add them to your Facebook for updates.
continue reading "Great deals can be found online"