How To Get Deals On A Cheap Towing Car Service

One of the best investments I ever made was my CAA membership back in 2010. I’ve renewed it every year since! It’s saved me in snow storms in my S.U.V. and that time I got a rental and the flat tire almost screwed me out of going to see me niece. Well, today I realized I’ve been overpaying for my CAA membership this whole time and I could have just bend using www.Ottawa247Towing.com. Their flatbed service is cheaper then the chain towing that showed up after 4hours when I called CAA. Needless to say i’m only going to be calling these guy for a cheap car tow every time and I’ll make sir emu husband does the same thing.

The road can be an unfortunately crazy place and it always bothers me being stuck. What if a stranger pulls over? Is it really safe to be getting out of the car at all? I know that most police officers would say, if you’re in an accident (and your car isn’t on fire) you should stay inside of your vehicle as the steel cage that supports the walls of your automobile are their to protect you. The moment you take off you seatbelt you make yourself vulnerable to more damage. I say just wait in your vehicle. Look up a tow truck on your cell phone. I guess the normal fee is like $350 if you go through insurance. So if you’re not paying it doesn’t really matter. But if you are the one that’s going to be paying the bill I would suggest following this method.

Call towing company number one and get a firm low price that you can bank on. keep calling around until you have someone willing to reach a reasonable price. If you think you can go lower, consider looking up another option on Kijiji to see if you can find another local wrecker service that can cut you a nice deal for a fast cash service. Be careful though you want to make sure they are insured so that you aren’t absolutely screwed if the get into an accent while they are towing your vehicle. You’ve just been in an accident, you don’t want to add an additional lawsuit to this whole experience do you? I didn’t think so.

Be careful, If you go too cheap you might end up being on next years towing fails video:

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How To Get a Deal From A Luxury Service

Foie_gras_with_sauternes

Sometimes you really just want the best there is. Whether you are going on a cruise, ordering a bottle of wine at dinner or shopping for your next smartphone. Unfortunately, luxury is only an occasional reality for myself…but that doesn’t mean I can’t make it happen more often than somebody else in my tax bracket. Here’s a few suggestions on getting luxury services at a reasonable price.

Pitch IN!

There’s a spa in town I absolutely love to go to, but it’s crazy expensive. I mean I feel like a new person when I do their whole day retreat but I literally would have to work 3 business days to cover the cost. I swear, when my lotto ticket comes in I’ll be spending my days there. Until then I’ve got to get a little creative. Being the deal seeking missile I am, I did a little research on twitter about the company and found a decision maker for the spa. I managed to strike up a quick convo with he ra mentioned that I loved coming in and wanted to share the experience with some friends. I suggested to her they free up some time for groups and explained how they could make more money simply by offering a group deal. Boom we now go once a month as a group of 5 and its  1/3 of the price per person.

SUBSCRIBE LIKE An ANIMAL!

Do what I do and have a deal seeking email. Check as often as you like but keep it separate from your personal email. Its not AS common for luxury businesses to send out deals via email, but if you catch them in a slower season you may be surprised to see what deals they come up with. Limo companies are always busy in prom and grad season and wedding throughout the summer, but as things slow down you may see some deals coming through your inbox as they try to pick up business from new customers looking to try them out. It’s pretty simple most luxury limo companies will have some sort of form on their homepage to subscribe or get a quote like here for example. Whevener you’re in the market for a limo get a few quotes, send your email around, find the best deal and most of these companies will end up sending you some deals later down the line. The biggest advantage we shoppers now have is options. There’s nothing stopping from getting prices from every company and making an educated decision based on reviews and deals offered. Those that are really interested in treating new customers like gold will be sure to respond with some decent marketing.

The same goes for finding deals on luxury clothing. Spread your email around enough and you’ll find some great deals coming through. If you repeatedly get useless offers simply click unsubscribe and you’re time won’t be wasted again.

Get More For Your Money

If you’re going to fork out the dough, put on your bartering cap and help them feel the ‘need’ to throw in some extras. Sure our group of 8 will pay $100 a head for your dinner cruise but let’s include a few bottles of chardonnay for the group on the house while you’re at it! Some places will just absolutely not care about the money and will be overbooked anyways BUT if you find a luxury service in its down season that $800 worth of dinner money is a big enough bargaining chip that a few bottle of charddonay will likely be coming you way.

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How To Find Deals on Flights

For todays What’s Anita’s Deal I would like to share my insights into finding cheap airfare for all types of domestic and international travel locations. Consider this my travel tip that is a gift that keeps giving if you’re a traveller like me!

BE as flexible as possible. Do yoga everyday and stretch after every workout so you can fit into ridiculously small nooks and crannies of the plane, like the wheel wells or other passengers luggage….just kidding ;)

What I mean is: be flexible for both times and locations. If you can travel an hour to another airport or even two hours. It is often worth it and will save you 100’s of dollars for simple car ride. Depening on the length of your trip this should have little to no impact on the quality of your travel experience, you’ll simply be launching from a different airport and have a slightly longer ride home when you return.

Contact a local limo company. Find the best airport limo service in your destination area. Occasionally you’ll get on the phone with someone that really knows what they are talking about. These drivers talk to passengers every day that are going to and from the airport. You better bet that they know the most about who is getting a deal, which air mile plans are best, when flights get cheap etc. When I travelled to Ottawa, Ontario I contacted The Ottawa Limo Company and got some great info on a local Canadian airline called porter. I was able to connect in las vegas to Ottawa for almost half the price of these other airlines. I simply took a look at the site they recommended and these Ottawa limo drivers knew exactly what was going on with great flight deals.

Search ACTUAL AIRLINE WEBSITES! I know you’ve been bombarded by dozens of hotwire, trivago, sexy hotel bonanza flight travel package deal zoo orangatang banana slinging red wire pink elephant websites. BUT, the reality is, these websites got into the game to make money from affiliate links to the airlines.

Use the aggregate website to find some promising deals and then go directly to the airline site to cut out the middle man and any fees he may be trying to separate from you and your wallet.

BE a night owl! You know how tomorrow seams  so far away? Well actually tomorrow begins at 12:01 tonight in the eyes of all airlines. So take advantage!

RESEARCH!

If your flight is cheaper the next day and you aren’t as flexible on dates, simply book a late night flight have a glass of wine, listen to some music, pass out and wake up at your destination like the pro discount traveler you are. Arriving just on time with cheap tickets to the best shows in town in hand!

Use time to your advantage. Know you have a trip well in advance? Tickets are often 4-5x cheaper if you buy them 3 months in advance. Hell! buy yourself an extra one just in case.

If all else fails, scout the American Airlines lines nation wide for an AAirpass. The membership that allows unlimited worldwide flights. Find a person with this, fall in love with them and never pay for a flight again. Practical right!?

Back to timing…and reality. Ometime tickets will drop. If you are booking 3 months in advance pick an airline that offers a low price drop guarantee. This way you’ll get the lowest price that comes out over the next 3 months. This isn’t available form all airline but has been introduced by Westjet and some Southwest flights.

How do you save money on flights? Let me know, contact me here!

 

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How To Buy Clothes Direct From China

China CLothing shipment boat

This post may bring some controversy. It’s no secret. Nearly all of the top clothing retail chains outsource their manufacturing to china. They employ thousands for way less money and feed the economy phenomenon that is the american consumer. the corporation grow, we perhaps save a few dollars but the it seams most posits are scooped up by big business.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m against child labour and believe in asking no more than an honest days work. This is however not the case for a lot of factories in china. SO please, in all your shopping ventures, follow a due diligence process to ensure you are not creating victims by saving a few bucks.

Some businesses have needed to go as far as creating suicide nets to prevent their workers from ending their lives as they see no value left in endlessly working themselves to exhaustion just to get up and do it again.

This is not the case with all factories in china. The reality is, americans are used to a different lifestyle our minimum wage has steadily increased while China has maintained an one for all all for one mentality of work for your family and country before your own well being.

Soo the bad news: Whether we like it or not, free trade laws have created a dynamic where the cheapest, best labour services have driven everything to china…The good news: 2015 has brought more power to the consumer not only to decide whether to support local independent or corporate

With all that being said, I’ll put away my serious face and put back on my shopping heels to let you know todays: What’s Anita’s Deal!?

How To Buy Clothes Direct From China

Several years ago a brilliant founder developed a website called Alibaba. A site where wholesalers can connect directly with merchants all over the world. For example, A Nashville restaurant owner could even order lobsters from Prince Edward Island. More commonly a clothing store in North America can source a branded or private labelled clothing item to purchase and resell at 500% markup in their store.

For years, the risk was huge. Contact a seller in china. Send over a minimum like $1500 and hope they return a quality product in a timely matter. The only secure way to go about this was to fly to china and meet with the seller at the factory to ensure conditions were up to standards and the product would be of high quality.

(Insert movie intro guy voice) Enter… the website the changed international e-commerce forever!

Aliexpress.com

Reach China sellers directly and order SINGLE ITEMS for as low as .25 a piece.

Know that swimsuit that you’ve been eyeing at the mall, the one with the 89.99 price tag. The hottest swimsuit of the season. Head over to Aliexpress. you’ll be looking at more like $8.99.

In fact, half of the “online boutiques” you find being promoted on sites like instagram and twitter are drop shipping directly from this site and making a quick 5-15$ per item.

Cut out the middle man.

Buy directly from wholesalers on aliexpress. The only drawback. TIME. It can and often does take 4-6 weeks for items to arrive from China.

It is, however, totally worth the wait.

Now tell me…when’s the last time a shopping blog sent you straight to manufacturer?

Check back soon as am putting together a post on how to get wholesale pricing from any company you want, even in North America.

 

 

 

 

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The Bigger than Cyber Monday Amazon Sale.

Amazon Prime Day!?

I recently watched a documentary that explored the history of the now enormous shopping website Amazon. It started as a simple idea. Let’s sell some books online. Quickly it grew into the largest book selling site and exploded the used book market. Today Amazon has reshaped the e-ccomerce landscape and products are search 4x more on amazon than on google!

This week marks amazon’s 20th anniversary and there is some talks to some unprecedented DEALS. Their official release claims they will have better deals than the infamous shopper holiday: CYBER MONDAY!

Needless to say I am pumped to see how deep these deals will go. IF I remember correctly, the deals will be released Monday July 15th at Midnight. Apparently this new shopping day will be known as prime day!

Go ahead set a reminder on your phone right now. Who knows what great deals will be available and how fast they will sell out.

One thing to keep in mind. You MUST be a prime member. Good news is that you can simply register a 30-day free trial and get a taste of how awesome shopping on amazon is.

What to expect? You may not know this but amazon purchases and resells 1000’s of their top selling items. Giving them a lot of room to adjust prices down to MSRP. With daily deal sites taking a big chunk of consumer spending from amazon. We might see some flash deals that will pop up throughout the day.

At the very least we know that amazon pays out their online publish promoters around 6% giving quite a bit of room to drop prices site wide if they choose to do something ground breaking like that.

Rumour have it that there will be sales in every category on amazon. If you’ve shopped the site before, you know just how massive the options will be.

Why I do 90% of my shopping on Amazon already.

Amazon was founded on the principle of proving the best possible experience for every customers. A difficult task when a HUGE umber of amazon sellers are independent sellers that have never step foot or been personally screened by an amazon facility.

They do however, accomplish this task and provide the most seamless online shopping experience available. Everything has a refund policy, prices are driven down by extreme competition in almost every category. Reviews keep sellers honest and other rubbers educated on which products are best.

It may seam childish to think that we all deserve the best and will not except anything less. But this is literally my experience every time I shop on amazon. The best toothbrush, the best dog bed the best hair brush….always reviewed, always categorized based on my budget, always delivered within stated timeline.

It’s probably too good actually, slowly causing us all to feel entitled but with the introduction of same day and even 30-minute delivery, I aint going nowhere!

SO if you take one thing from my over the top love letter to amazon, it’s that they have set the standard for online shopping and you should definitely give them a try.

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Outdoor festivals

How to get cheap tickets to anything!

The summer of 2015 is upon us and the almost every city has something amazing for you to checkout.

ONE PROBLEM: Tickets are through the roof.

Todays Deal is more of a strategic meeting amongst us borderline broke summer fun loving ladies. I love going to music festival, plays, concerts, football and baseball games but I can’t justify spending $300 to see a few DJ’s press play in a big field. I love the experience but bills exist and this gal has to remain frugal.

So HOW do I see all the festivals and shows that come around every year without going broke. I use a trick my University boyfriend taught me. He called it the “Ticket Pain Relief” method.

It’s pretty simple, in psychology, studies prove that relieving pain is much more desired and acted upon then approaching desire. People will do almost anything to avoid pain, but will only occasionally approach pleasure. I’m sure you’ve come across this in your lifetime in many different examples. It’s the reason why problem solvers are alway in high demand.

Bonnaroo

So what does this have to do with getting cheap tickets to a music festival?

Imagine you bought two tickets to a festival like Bonnaroo. You would be looking at around $600 up to $2500 is you went for VIP tickets. Now you get a call from your friend and something has come up, a wedding a funeral…something.

The pain begins to strike.

Damn, ok that’s understandable you can’t, “I’ll try to find someone else.”

The ticket holder realizes that the day approaches and perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea. Perhaps they don’t have anyone else to go with. Perhaps they to were invited to the wedding and there is only one pain greater than missing Bonnaroo itself, the pain of throwing away both money and perfectly good tickets.

This is where you come in.

I know what you’re thinking…”Great, I read this whole post and you are just going to tell me to go buy a ticket from a scalper.”

Nuh-huh madame, there is in FACT an art to purchasing second hand tickets.

The strategy:

Go to all the classified sites and figure out the words you’ll need to be searching. Artist names, dates, potential misspellings. And make this one key realization. The further away form the event the ticket holder is, the less likely anyone will contact them and the more likely they will give you their ticket for next to nothing.

For example, Bonnaroo is located in Manchester, Tennessee. Most people will think ok let’s search major cities near Tennessee on craigslist for tickets. Here you will find people saying “they just want their money back” or “save the fees”

These people have been contacted a few dozen times and will in fact get close to their asking price.

What you need to do. Look for tickets to your event all over North America. Search for Bonnaroo tickets for sales on craigslist in Seattle. I guarantee anyone who has a ticket listed their has been contacted no more than ten times.

Start planting seeds, find 20-30 out of town ticket sellers a throw low balls like it’s going out of style. I’m talking $60 for a $300 face value ticket. Go crazy, these tickets will go to waste without you stepping in and RELIEVING THE PAIN of being stuck with a perfectly good ticket and no money to show for it.

Send out these 30 emails for maybe two or three days and wait as long as you can stand it before the event. The longer you wait the better deal you’ll get. Eventually someone will respond, realizing that you are the only person that will ever contact them about their tickets.

SUCCESS. You’ve recieved a response and they are cool with sending you to a $300 3 day festival for $40-$60 SWEET! now what?

The ole switcharoo. Secure your deal, have the seller excited to receive money, then and ONLY THEN, do you reveal you are in fact 400 miles away and will need to receive the tix in the mail. Send your seller exact instructions:

Choose First Class International Shipping With Tracking.

Send By (insert day)

The Money Exchange. I have used this strategy for dozens of events and always get a great deal on concerts and plays every summer. The big advantage I have. I am willing to take a slight risk as the reward saves me so much money that losing even 50% of the time would still be a win.

BUT let me be clear, I have NEVER, i mean NEVER, lost any money doing this for one key reason. I have a verified paypal account with buyer protection.

You send the funds via paypal, paypal keeps the fund until tracking shows that your item has been delivered a voila cheap tickets from anywhere in the world potentially overnight.

If this is too big of a risk for you there is another option.

Simply explain to the seller that you will happily pay the funds via e-transfer, however you need to make sure they are real and will only buy the ticket want they have arrived and you have entered the concert.

If they have expensive tickets and you’re the only one that contacted them. You’ll undoubtedly find someone who is willing to take all the risk and send you tickets. Simply go to the concert, pop open your phone, send the funds and enjoy.

 

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