Archive for February 24, 2010
The Power of Collective Buying
Last fall a friend introduced me to the concept of collective buying through a website called Groupon. Every day Groupon lists one fabulous deal and waits for a specific number of people to sign up. If enough people sign up for the deal then everyone who signed up within the allotted time frame will get the listed discount.
Groupon is currently available in 50+ cities and all of the discounts I’ve seen in the Washington, DC area are for local, mom-and-pop type shops, restaurants and spas. Through Groupon you’ll find discounts for smaller, sometimes unknown places, in and around the city.
Since I signed up at Groupon I’ve seen a whole hodgepodge of deals including, Swedish massages, cooking classes, salon services, dental packages, museum admissions, fitness classes and baked goods. Most deals offer upward of 40% savings. A typical deal would be $15 for $30 worth of food at a local DC restaurant or $100 for $200 worth of services at a nearby spa.
While Groupon is still my favorite collective buying website, (I’ve purchased two deals from there since October), I also like BuyWithMe and Living Social. I recently purchased $145 worth of professional cleaning services at BuyWithMe for only $59! I’ve considered paying cleaners to come into our home for months, so this worked out perfectly for me.
If you’ve never signed up for Groupon before please use this referral link. If you sign up and make a purchase I’ll receive $10 worth of credit towards a future Groupon purchase.
If you’ve never signed up for Living Social before please use this referral link. You’ll get $5 towards your first purchase and I’ll earn $5 worth of credit towards a future purchase of my own.
Financial Realities for Olympians
Have you ever wondered how Olympians can afford to devote so much of their lives to the pursuit of perfection? Have you ever wondered how they pay for all of those coaches and equipment and how they hold down a full time job when so much of their day must revolve around training?
Well, today Smart Cookies addressed the financial realities of a small subset of Olympians. It’s an extremely short article, but a very interesting read.
