Tag Archives: discounts

My Christmas Eve and Christmas (or A Late Night Target Run)

Posted on December 29, 2015 | Comments Off on My Christmas Eve and Christmas (or A Late Night Target Run)

My Christmas plans were pretty low-key this year. I was going to have some friends over to watch movies and we were going to order Chinese food. Nothing too special, but I was looking forward to a fun and relaxing day at home with some fun company.

On Christmas Eve, I enjoyed a workout in the morning and then really didn’t have much as far as plans go for the rest of the day. I went to the grocery store (where it was insanely crowded!) and then spent the afternoon reading and watching some stuff on Hulu and Netflix.

Then just after dinnertime when I was watching a show on tv, my tv died. I’m not sure what happened. All I know is one second it worked and the next the screen was black. I could turn the tv on and off, but the screen stayed black. I couldn’t get the menu to come up or the input to change (so it wasn’t a reception issue). I looked up what I could online and nothing looked good to me. It seems like one of the graphics cards inside of my tv might have broken but I wasn’t going to spend money trying to find out.

So at 10pm on Christmas Eve, I headed to Target prepared to deal with all the last minute Christmas shoppers. I picked Target because they were pretty much the only ones open that late and they had a tv that would work for me in stock (and I needed a working tv for the movie day the next day).

To my surprise, Target was emptier than I’ve ever seen it. I’d guess that maybe there were under 10 shoppers in the entire store. So it was pretty easy for me to get to the electronics section and get a new tv.

Target

Not only was the store empty, but the tv was about 30% off! I wasn’t expecting that at all based on the prices online so that was a nice surprise. I used the money that I had leftover from paying my 2014 taxes to buy the tv (it wasn’t an expense I planned for or really had in my budget). That money was originally going to go toward another acting class, but maybe after I pay my 2015 taxes I’ll have leftover money to do that.

I spend the rest of my Christmas Eve night getting the new tv set up and the old tv out of the living room. It’s a much bigger tv than I’m used to, but I think it looks nice.

New TV

On Christmas, I started my day by baking some cookies to bring to all of my neighbors. They are super easy meringue cookies and they are very fast to get together (they just take a long time to bake).

Christmas Cookies

Then it was time for the traditional movie and Chinese food day. It was perfect and lazy and exactly what I wanted to do.

The last thing I had to do after Christmas that related to my last minute tv purchase was to get rid of the old tv. Obviously since it was broken I couldn’t sell it or donate it. So I had to go to the e-waste disposal site in LAX to get rid of it. It isn’t super close to me, but the drive has a pretty awesome view so I can’t complain.

Ocean View

While I would have rather not had to get a new tv suddenly, it really did work out well for me. I’m sure that any other day I would have been at Target anytime soon it would have been very crowded. And I doubt that the discount I got on the tv would have lasted much longer (I think it might have been a deal leading up to Christmas). So if my tv had to break randomly, it was a pretty ideal circumstance for me and now I have a nice big tv for all my future movie days/nights at my house.

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Default ThumbnailA Very Low-Key Christmas (or Not Spending My Day Off Doing My Usual Stuff) Default ThumbnailA Solitary Christmas (or Just Enjoying Being Alone) Default ThumbnailA Christmas Lunch (or The Levin-Levin-Levine Summit) Default ThumbnailMerry Christmas! (or I’m Good With Whatever Happens Today) Default ThumbnailMerry Christmas (or I’ll Be Enjoying My Movies And Chinese Food) Default ThumbnailNighthawk Breakfast Bar (or A Late Night Breakfast/Dinner)

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Shopping

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Testing Some Water (or Continuing My No Soda Streak)

Posted on November 4, 2014 | Comments Off on Testing Some Water (or Continuing My No Soda Streak)

FTC Disclosure: I was given a free sample of the Waiakea water in exchange for my review. All opinions are of my own and were not influenced by the free product.

It’s been almost 2 years since I’ve had soda in my life. There have been a few times I’ve had a sip (for example when some Sprite was in a punch that I drank at a baby shower), but my last intentional soda was in January 2013.

Considering how much Diet Coke I drank every day, I can’t believe that I was finally able to kick an unhealthy habit like this. I’ve also pretty much cut back on the flavored sparkling water I loved so much. I sometimes will get one at the store, but I probably average one bottle a month (if that).

So I’m pretty much only drinking water these days (with the exception of the occasional cocktail or glass of wine). So when Waiakea Volcanic water offered to send me some samples of their bottled water, I said yes!

I’m not usually a bottled water drinker. I have a water filter at home and I think that it is much cheaper to drink filtered from home water (and I don’t have to carry heavy water bottles home). But for a splurge or when I’m out and about and getting thirsty, I get some nice bottled water.

I have a few brands of bottled water that I love (and yes, they do taste different to me), but Waiakea was a new brand to me and I was very curious what it would taste like.

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And I have to tell you that it was very yummy bottled water! It was really crisp and fresh tasting and didn’t have any of that gross plastic taste that so many bottled waters have.

I wish that the bottles came in a sports top option (I like having those for when I’m drinking bottled water in my car), but that is not a big deal. I now know that when I’m getting bottled water when I’m thirsty that this is a brand I will be on the lookout for.

And as a bonus, Waiakea gave me a promo code to share with you all! If you would like to try their water for yourself, they have an online store so you can have it shipped right to your door (and not have to carry heavy bottles around a grocery store). You can go to this website and place your order. Then use the promo code BOMBSHELL20 for 20% off any orders that you place!

I know that reviewing water might not sound so exciting, but for someone like me who is a water drinking fanatic, knowing that there are more great options for bottled water makes me so happy!

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Default ThumbnailCutting Out My Favorite Drink (or Goodbye Diet Coke, Diet 7-Up, Fancy Water) Default ThumbnailSoda Free (or Maybe I Can Keep This Last Bit of This Vice) Default ThumbnailBulu Box (or Testing Out A Subscription Box) Default ThumbnailHaving Water At A Wine Bar (or Getting A Temporary Job) Default ThumbnailContinuing The Birthday Celebrations (or A Birthday Twin Adventure) Default ThumbnailAlmost Halfway Through The Cleanse (or Bring On The Tonics And Detox Drinks!)

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Saving

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Birthday Beauty Discounts (or Making My Birthday Last The Entire Month)

Posted on August 8, 2014 | 2 comments

I’ve talked about birthday deals in the past and there are some that I enjoy every single year. And I’m learning to start asking stores that I frequent if they have any birthday deals.

And this year, even though my birthday isn’t until tomorrow, I’ve already enjoyed 2 birthday deals related to beauty!

The only birthday beauty deal I knew about in the past was at Sephora where you get something for free on your birthday (I haven’t gotten my postcard yet so I don’t know what I can get for free this year). I do take advantage of the Sephora deal, but I try not to spend too much on other things while I’m there (and I know that’s the reason for the freebie!).

Something that is a total freebie is at Benefit’s Brow Bars. I go to the one near Santa Monica to get my eyebrows done. It’s more expensive than the cheapie nail salon that I used to go to, but I think they do a way better job at waxing and shaping my brows and you even get a free makeup touch-up when they are done!

Around your birthday (I’m not sure if it has to be your birthday week or month), you get a free brow wax! And since I go there anyway, of course I scheduled a wax over the weekend to take advantage of that!

The brow wax is usually $20 (the cheapie nail salon was $10), so when I get my free wax, I am able to leave a big tip since I’m saving so much! This time, I left a $15 tip (I usually do $5).

Not only did a get a free brow wax, my eyebrows are going to look amazing for my birthday party (which is tonight!).

Another beauty birthday discount is at Queen Bee Salon and Spa. Sorry for my readers who aren’t in LA, but this is a salon that has one location in Culver City and another in Brentwood (I go to the Culver City one). I go here for bikini waxes and have been going for a little over a year now. Bikini waxes are never fun and they aren’t painless, but Queen Bee makes them more bearable. Plus, the waxer I go to, Jenn V., is super awesome and friendly. So we are normally chatting and gossiping while she works and it helps to distract me from the pain (taking a painkiller about an hour before I go helps too).

When I went in for my bikini wax last month I realized that my next wax would be around my birthday. So I asked if they had any birthday deals even though I had never heard of one there before. It turns out, they just created a birthday discount! If you get a service done either 4 days before or 4 days after your birthday you get 10% off!

So I scheduled my wax to be yesterday and I got a nice little discount on something that I would have done anyway!

I am going to DryBar today to get my hair done before my party, but when I looked at their deals, only people with memberships to DryBar get free blowouts on their birthdays. I definitely don’t get enough blowouts to make a membership worth it (nor do I have the money for something like that).

I’d love to find some more beauty birthday deals while it’s my birthday month! Those are so much better for my weight loss goals than all the food freebies (although I will be going to at least one of my free meals this month).

If anyone knows of a pedicure birthday deal, you would become one of my favorite people ever!

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Default ThumbnailContinuing The Birthday Fun (or Pie and Makeup) Default ThumbnailGoing Back To Normal (or An Early End To My Birthday Adventures) Default ThumbnailYet Another Birthday Outing (or Enjoying Benihana!) Default ThumbnailBeing An Eyebrow Wax Model (or An Adventure At Queen Bee) Default ThumbnailA Birthday Month Challenge (or Education And Celebration) Default ThumbnailAlmost Free Birthday Dinner (or Spending My Birthday With My Birthday Twin)

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Posted in Beauty, Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Saving

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Lots Of Good (or Maybe Karma Is In My Favor)

Posted on March 14, 2014 | 2 comments

Wednesday was already going to be an awesome day because of my stand-in job at WB. I knew waking up that day that is would be a good day (and would give me something positive to write about). But I had no idea how good my day was going to get.

After my lunch break, I was back on the set getting ready to do some stand-in work when my phone rang. It wasn’t a number a recognized, but since the number was a LA number, I guessed it was a call I should answer.

Turns out, it was the boss at the job I was waiting to hear back from. They wanted to hire me and have me start right after I get back from my NYC trip! I was so excited to get that news! It isn’t going to be full time to start, but it can lead to that. Plus, after being trained, it will be work from home! It’s exactly what I wanted!

I had a mini-celebration by myself on the set, but my focus had to stay on the job I was hired to do that day, so I didn’t really celebrate until I got back into my car after being done.

If that wasn’t good enough, I got a very interesting phone call while driving home. It was from my last job. The COO of the theater company called and asked me to come back to work with them! It won’t be the telesales job I had since they got rid of that department, but in the box office.

The work from home job is pretty much only during business hours and the box office job would be evenings and weekends, so I can do both (although I will make sure that I have at least 1 day off a week)!

I went from no jobs to 3 jobs (although 1 of those was only for that day) in 24 hours! How crazy is that?!?

It is also going to allow me to stop working the film recruiting job. I’m still not getting good results and I can’t survive on the minimum wage that they pay. But at least I have 2 new jobs to do to pay the bills!

And finally, some somewhat frivolous good news. There is a purse that I have been wanting to get for a while, but it’s not in my budget. I told myself that if I got the new job, I could use my final unemployment check to buy it (since I won’t have to use it for bills). Well, I was planning on buying the purse in NY (I figured it would be an amazing souvenir).

But I randomly went to Nordstroms Rack yesterday and the purse was there! And it was 50% off! I figured it was meant to be and I bought my dream purse! Now I’ll be super stylish when I start my new job!

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I’m so glad that the universe has decided to send a lot of good things my way. It is a reminder that as long as you can tough it out, eventually it will get better and things will turn out right.

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Default ThumbnailDouble Time (or 2 Days Of Split Shifts) Default Thumbnail2 Jobs 1 Day (or What My New Normal Might Look Like) Default ThumbnailEarly Days (or 2 Weeks Of Long Shifts) Default ThumbnailBack To Real Life (or One Week Of Normalcy) Default ThumbnailUnemployed Again (or Trying To Not Make It Feel Like Summer Break) Default ThumbnailFeeling Like Normal In More Ways Than One (or Getting Better)

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Enjoying My Union Perks (or How To Take Advantage Of Things That Are Offered To You)

Posted on June 28, 2013 | 2 comments

I’ve been a member of SAG-AFTRA for over a year now. I originally joined AFTRA prior to the merger vote, and now I’m a member of the merged unions.

And besides having better work opportunities, better pay, and protection on set (something I could have used in the past), there are lots of other things that are out there for union actors.

First of all, there are free casting director workshops through the SAG Foundation. A big controversial thing in the acting world are casting director workshops that you pay for. I don’t want to start a debate on here, but my belief is that you should not pay to audition for a casting director. You wouldn’t pay to have a job interview in a day job, so why would you do it for an acting job? If you don’t understand what paid casting director workshops are and want to know more about them, I suggest watching this video.

The SAG Foundation also offers free screenings and Q&As throughout the year. In fact, the podcast that I work for did a live 100th episode at the SAG Foundation interviewing the leadership of SAG-AFTRA.

Another great thing through the union that actors can take advantage of is the SAG-AFTRA Film Society. You have to pay for the membership and you can only apply in the spring for the upcoming year. But there are free screenings for Film Society members about twice a month (I’ve already gone to “The Great Gatsby” and “Star Trek Into Darkness” and will be going to “Man of Steel” tomorrow). Plus, you get this awesome membership card!

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Another membership within the union that you can join is the SAG-AFTRA Conservatory. I’ll admit that I haven’t taken advantage of being a member of the conservatory this past year. I need to get better about that. However they do have a big weekend event coming up next month and I’m planning on signing up for at least 4 classes.

Also, as many people who belong to other unions know, there are discounts available to union members. This page lists just some of what you can take advantage of as a member of SAG-AFTRA. I personally use the IMDBPro discount. And a lot of my friends use the ATT discount (my cell service is Verizon and there isn’t a SAG-AFTRA discount for them).

If you are a union actor, hopefully I’ve given you some new ideas of how to take advantage of your membership. And if you aren’t a union actor, maybe I’ve made you think about joining. Either way, I have to say that for me, becoming a union actor was one of the best things that I’ve done for my career. And whether or not you are a union actor, if you have any questions, you should give SAG-AFTRA a call. They are so wonderfully helpful and really want to make sure that all actors are taken care of.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Saving

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Customer Service After The Fact (or An Update to My Experience At Performance Bike)

Posted on February 20, 2013 | 2 comments

I had previously written how poorly my friend and I were treated at Performance Bike. I was so shocked by the behavior of that employee, and I was not afraid to share it.

After writing that post, I tweeted at Performance Bike again. They asked me to email them explaining what happened, and I just sent them the link to that blog post.

Well, they clearly weren’t happy that I put that out there. The next morning, I had an email from the retail marketing coordinator asking if someone could call me to talk to me about what happened. I was fine with that so I emailed back my phone number.

Within about an hour, the district manager called me. His name is Chris, and he was extremely nice and wanted to hear the entire story of what happened. So I spared no details.

Chris explained to me that he has worked for Performance Bike for years and was shocked to hear what happened to me and my friend. He asked for a description of the employee helping us and the date and time we were there.

And finally, he offered me a gift card that would pretty much cover the cost of cycling shoes for me! I was super grateful, but I wanted to make sure my friend could get shoes too. So he split the gift card (and added a little extra) so we would each have over half of the cost of our shoes covered by the gift card!

As soon as I got off the phone with Chris, I called my friend and made sure she didn’t get her shoes already. She was so surprised that Performance Bike was doing something so nice for us!

And last week, I got 2 of these in the mail.

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Just as I was about to buy my shoes online (and have them shipped to the store for free), my dad emailed me. He got an email from Performance Bike with a promo code for $20 off of $100. So between the promo code and my gift card, I paid about 1/3 of what I was expecting to pay for both my shoes and cleats!

Unfortunately, the shoes are backordered for about a month, so I’ll have to continue to rent shoes at SoulCycle for a while. But I’m super excited to have my own cycling shoes very soon!

Thank you again to Performance Bike and Chris for going above and beyond to make sure that they didn’t lose me, my friend, or my dad as customers. It was not expected at all, but much appreciated!

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Posted in Fitness, Saving, Shopping

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Shopping Adventure Results (or Why Do Things Have to Be Backordered?!?)

Posted on August 20, 2012 | 5 comments

On Saturday after I was done with work, I made the drive down to Anaheim to go to Kiyonna. Since everything was 20% off, I was planning on buying a bunch of things.

When I get to the store, I’m ushered upstairs where the boutique is (it’s almost like a personal shopper experience there). I tried on a ton of stuff, and while things fit, they didn’t necessarily fit right. Beside being plus sized, I’m short. For some reason, that’s an unheard of combination in fashion. If you are big, you are also tall. But not me.

So a bunch of dresses looked ridiculous on me. But at least I was able to try stuff on. And since Saturday was the only day that things were 20% off, a lot of stuff was backordered.

I walked away with one dress.

 

Not exactly sure what I will wear it to, but it was under $100 and it can be altered pretty easily if I lose weight, so I got it. When I showed it to a friend last night, she agreed that it would be perfect to wear to The Magic Castle if we get another invite soon.

I also put in pre-orders for some backordered items.

I got this dress for my friend’s wedding in October.

 

I love how this dress is styled in this picture. I’m hoping to find some cute and comfortable colored heels for the wedding (my friend has told me that there will be a lot of dancing and to come prepared).

I also pre-ordered this top. It was backordered in black, and it will also be coming in teal soon, so I ordered both colors.

 

I figured that that is a pretty great top for a lot of events. I might even wear it for Thanksgiving.

Even though most of the items I wanted were not in store, I still got everything 20% off, so the financial damage wasn’t too bad.

Now I’m just antsy waiting for my backordered items to arrive!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Shopping

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This Weekend’s Shopping Adventure (or Still Trying to Find Some More Cute Dresses)

Posted on August 17, 2012 | 2 comments

I’ve previously posted about how tough it can be to shop when you don’t fit into a “standard” size. I’ve got a few more events coming up in the future where I need some nice clothes, and I don’t have anything that would be weather/event appropriate. The event I’m most excited about is in October when my friends Marie and Chris are getting married! I’m traveling to Houston for that, and I want a fun dress to wear to their fun wedding.

On Saturday, Kiyonna is having their Sweet 16 Shopping Event. Everything is 20% off if you go shop at their boutique above their distribution center in Anaheim. Of course, I RSVPed for that event and I’ll be doing a bunch of shopping tomorrow. I’ve bought clothes full price at the store before and I’m excited to save some money this time!

I’m grateful that I’ve found a few stores where I can feel relatively confident that even if I won’t find what I’m looking for, I’ll find clothes that I can try on and that fit. That’s pretty important.

I hate the feeling of going in a dressing room with my arms full of clothes that I can’t wait to try on only to find out that not a single thing fits. Normally after that happens, I don’t even want to continue shopping, I just leave the store feeling defeated.

But I know on Saturday that I’ll be able to find clothes that fit. And I’ve been looking online and have found several dresses and tops that I’m super excited to try on. I’ll have to report back on Monday to let you know what I got (and what the damage is to my credit card).

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