Deals, deals, deals

My husband is an obsessor. He must have a current obsession to keep him occupied and constantly searching for something. His most common (and current) obsession revolves around getting deals. If anything is ever free - we must have it. Even if we have no use for it. Even if we would have no use for it in seven lifetimes, we still must have it - because it's free.

Take, for example, a few years ago when Ryan decided he should enter every online contest he could find just to get free stuff. Along came an autographed football from someone we'd never heard of. Then some seriously lame hat from an insurance company or something of that nature. The clencher for me was when we got the DVD Shiloh: a movie about a boy and his dog. I put my foot down. No more online contests.

Fast forward a few years and enter slickdeals.net.

Ryan found this website a few months ago, and my how his world has changed. He wakes up eager to go check the computer for the latest find. I hardly get a "Hello, lovely wife," when he gets home as he brushes by me to rush to the computer. The first thing out of his mouth every time he sees me is, "Do you think we should get a...??" His passions have been seriously awakened: he is full of elation as he finds fabulous bargains we can't live without; he feels more strain and stress as he agonizes for hours over whether or not we should get something else; he mourns we we find we were too late and missed the best deal of the century. It's really something else.

BUT. He now has fallen victim to what I call shopping mall syndrome. He has eternally made fun of me and all other women in the world for how we go shopping and buy so much stuff just because it was such a "great deal." He didn't see it happening until I pointed it out - he doesn't really need this stuff, it's just such a great deal that he can't pass it up. It's a hard thing to judge, really. Because this website really does have legitimately good deals. Like one day I came in and he asked if we needed some Calphalon pans that were on a really great deal. So Calphalon really is great, and they were good prices, but I hadn't recently been thinking, hmm, I wish I had more cookware. So what to do?

Well, I think our resolve is that we're pretty ok with getting the free stuff. We try to limit anything that we weren't already wanting or looking for. But if you need another website to regularly check out, you should try it. They've got deals on anything and everything. Toys, clothes, kitchenware, and definitely techy stuff - our most common purchase. Here's a few examples of the great deals Ryan has gotten over the last few months:

-Cordless phone with three handsets and answering machine - $20

-2gb SD card - $4 (memory card for our camera)

-1 gb SD card - free

-Web Camera for our computer - free

-Microphone/speaker for the computer - free

-Victoria's Secret set of scarf/mittens and hat along with 5 lip glosses for my birthday- free

-31-piece screwdriver set - free

- FM radio tuner (not sure if that's what you call it, but basically anything with a headphone jack, like a i-pod, you can plug into your car and it will play through the radio) - free

-Found the deal on our Garmin GPS on there

-Leap Frog ABCs video - $3

-Coupons for Juicy Juice - I'm not sure what it was but you ended up getting a whole bunch of Juicy Juice for free.

Not a bad list.


Then there were deals we missed that we wanted to get:

-Canon SD 1000 digital camera, 1 gb SD card, and case, with free printer after rebate for $132

-Thomas the Tank Aquadoodle set for $16

-Xbox 360 elite with 5 games for $300 (What? He put this on here. I can assure you I was not considering this.)

- Some great deals on clothes.

- A box of 500 condoms. Ok, seriously - I had great plans for this. Had some friends getting married - how funny would that be to open up amidst boxes of toasters and dish towels??? Or, how great would that be for our white elephant gift at the anual friends Christmas party?? I'm still bummed we didn't get it in time.

Anyhow, if you're a deal searcher like us, it's definitely worth checking out. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the potential consequences.