Tag Archives: bargains

Canned stuff musings

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Another glorious day here in paradise. My local Albertson’s is having a sale on canned goods and I picked up a couple of flats of canned tomatoes and corn. Funny thing is, I had just gone to CostCo earlier in the week and bought some canned tomatoes…and they were more expensive than this sale. So the moral of the story is – you can’t always assume the warehouse store will be cheaper. Now, arguably, they’re not the same product….CostCo’s offering was ‘organic diced tomatoes’ and we all know ‘oganic’ means virtually nothing except a higher price. (And the only reason I picked them up was because CostCo didnt have any other kind of canned diced tomatoes.)

Speaking of CostCo, after a hiatus of a few months they appear to have the canned  Kirkland Roast Beef back in stock. Normally, I turn my nose up at canned meats….they all look and smell like cat food once the can opener punctures the can…but the Kirkland roast beef, once you toss it in a pan for a few minutes, turns out to be darn good. So, why wouldn’t I grab a few of them to put on the shelf?

When it comes to storing all this canned stuff, I usually go with steel wire shelving (also available at CostCo).

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I tlooks good, handles the weight, and is configurable to allow me to have it follow walls and corners. Yeah, it runs about $100 for a six-shelf unit, but pick up a bag of S-hooks and you increase the versatility and get better value out of your existing sets of shelves.

I like these little can organizers from Shelf Reliance. They’re plastic and link/stack together so you can just run ’em along the length of shelving. If you’re truly hardcore, or have a huge enough family that #10 cans a re a mainstay, they also make a similar product for #10 cans. Thats when you konw you’ve arrived.

Of course, any goober with some plywood, a saw, and a screwgun can fab up a similar product on his won but I’m kinda lazy and rather enjoy the consumer experience…so I just buy this sort of stuff.

The sale at Albertsons is for another few days so I’ll see if I can scrape up another few bucks to get some more flats. I’m very painfully aware that food I buy now may someday be all thats standing between me and being hungry.

Local flashlight sale

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Years and years ago, the flashlight to have was a MagLite with the ‘Krypton’ bulb. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s these things were practically lightsabers. But…they still used incandescent bulbs (which are somewhat fragile) and sucked down batteries pretty quickly (the tradeoff for lighting intensity). But despite those two issues, MagLites were pretty much the standard flashlight for most folks. Streamlight always controlled a good chunk of the cop market for flashlights, but MagLite wound up becoming quite the major player in that field. One of the great attractions of the MagLite was that they were pretty robust…you could drop them, bang ’em around, and, of course, use them for ‘persuasive concussive techniques’ if the situation called for it. And, even after pulping someones face with them, they still (usually) worked.

When the LED revolution in flashlights finally came, MagLite introduced an LED version of the classic D-batt flashlight. This completely solved the bulb fragility issue (as well as having a longer life) and made a big positive change in battery life as well. As a result, I’ve been slowly phasing out my non-LED MagLites to the LED version. Problem is, the LED versions cost a little more than the non-LED. It is my opinion, though, that the added initial cost is very, very much worth the expense for the tradeoff of battery life and bulb resilience.

So, I was in my local sporting goods store today and they had the LED MagLites marked down by 33% from their normal price. That dropped ’em to about $18. A quick check on my phone shows that Amazon sells them for about $25 and that was the price to beat. So, I managed to get a flashlight upgrade today at a bargain price. Now if only the rest of my day were so bright and promising….

Quiet weekend stuff

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It’s always interesting to watch the pricing on bargains suddenly go wonky. Last week I posted about the LifeStraws being $15.99 and quite a few people (myself included) jumped in there and picked up a few. Or, in some cases, more than a few.

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Why would I mention a bargain on a cool piece of gear and NOT get a bunch for myself?

Sadly, I just checked the link and they’re back up to twenty bucks each. Bummer. Gotta strike while the iron is hot.

Same story on the OD hooded space blankets. They were $10.01 for a brief time and now they’re back up to $20. Hopefully, everyone who wanted one managed to get in there and snag a couple at the $10 price.

And speaking of things to put away for that rainy day, I decided that $2.15 was as good as its gonna get, and with us being slightly ahead on the gas budget this month, so I went ahead and have the extra fuel cans filled. Those are the lovely ‘Euro/NATO-style’ cans that I got from Lexington Container a couple years back. Don’t be tempted to buy the ones you see in Sportsmans Guide and a few other places…those are the cheapo Chinese cans and they are worthless. Yes, these cans are going to be expensive at around $50 ea (plus shipping) but when it’s 2am, pouring rain, and you’re on the side of the road hoping to outrun whatever it is that’s got you running, you’ll think that fifty bucks is a bargain to have five-gallons of fuel perfectly preserved and ready to go.

20150328_184015And, of course, each one of those cans represents x amount of hours of electricity courtesy of the generator. And electricity means hot water, hot food, lighting, communications, furnace blowers, etc….in short, those cans hold civilization. (Which  sorta explains those Mad Max movies)

So, a somewhat productive last couple of days…picked up some extra water filters, filled some gas cans, did some grocery shopping. The weather has gotten nicer here so I expect I’ll be doing some spring cleaning and organizing shortly.

Those OD space blankets are back at $10.01

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You guys remember this post?

Quite a few people managed to snag some of the OD space blankets at the $10.01 price before weird pricing algorithms started jerking the price up. Well, it appears theyre back at the older $10.01 price…for now. So if you missed out last time, here’s another chance. The price in the link below says, at the moment, $18 but click on the link and follow it to Amazon and the OD version is $10.01…for now. From the original post:

The hooded, pocketed, olive-drab, “blanket” has been rather heavily discounted at Amazon. Knocked down from $18 to $10. Get ’em while they’re cheap. Excellent for use as intended, but also good for expedient waterproof overhead cover, dry spot to sit your ass, etc, etc. Far superior than those stupid, flimsy mylar foil sheets. Heres the link:

50% off One Month Pack from Augason Farms

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Augason Farms is having a 50% off sale on their “One Month Pack”. (No idea how long the sale is running.) I bought a couple of these a while back and it is an excellent way to get introduced to their product. Foods are in #2 cans, which are far more practical than #10 cans, and when you factor in the price ($128.50 / 48 cans) you wind up getting a great assortment of stuff to try for, on average, $2.68. Nice fire-n-forget package for tucking away in cabins, RV’s, bunkers, caches, and relative’s houses. They also make great gifts if you’re the kinda guy who is willing to spend that kinda money on other folks.

My experience has been that when they have these sales it may take a week or two for product to ship, but to me it’s worth any delay to save a hundred bucks.

Since my food prep needs are small, two people, I find the #2 can (Augason Farms calls it their ‘Everyday Size’) to be a more practical size than a #10 can. A #10 can is a lot of food and if you don’t consume it fast enough you wind up wasting it. The #2 cans are just about the right size for one or two people.

I wound up buying a few other #2 cans of product to ’round out’ the ‘One Month Pack’ more to my liking. In conjunction with some canned/freezedried meats you can put together a pretty nice menu.

Anyway, they sent me a notice in email about the sale and I’m passing it along.

And then it just lowballed from there….

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Years ago,I accidentally bought a HiPower. How, you may ask, does one ‘accidentally’ buy a gun? Simple.

Me: Just outta curiosity, whaddya want for the HiPower?
Gun Show Vendor: Make me an offer!
Me: Oh, man, I don’t have any money. Im cheap. I don’t wanna offend you with a lowball offer.
GSV: Hey, you won’t offend me. Make me an offer.

Now, at this point, I just want to get out of this conversation gracefully. So, I figure I’ll throw out a stupid offer, he’ll make a comment about me being insane, I’ll laugh along with him and make a self-deprecating remark about me being a cheapskate, and that’ll be it.

Me: Three hundred bucks?
GSV: Sold!
Me: …..

And then I had to do a hell of a shuffle to come up with $300.

Soooooooo….cut to today……

Me: Whats in the ammo can?
Vendor: Thousand rounds of .223 tracer ammo. You want it.
Me: Whaddya want for it?
Vendor: Make me an offer.
Me: Oh no. I ever tell you about the HiPower I accidentally bought?
Vendor: Come on, make me an offer.

<dejavu>Now, at this point, I just want to get out of this conversation gracefully. So, I figure I’ll throw out a stupid offer, he’ll make a comment about me being insane, I’ll laugh along with him and make a self-deprecating remark about me being a cheapskate, and that’ll be it.</dejavu>

Me: Two hundred bucks?
Vendor: Sold!
Me: Dammit!

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Well, I guess twenty cents for tracer ammo isn’t bad when regular ball is going for twice that.

I gotta learn that when I try to lowball someone I gotta put some more low on that ball.

Hooded OD Space Blankets reduced to $10.01

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Two posts I want to remind you about: Heavily Armed nature Hike and more importantly, this followup.

The hooded, pocketed, olive-drab, “blanket” has been rather heavily discounted at Amazon. Knocked down from $18 to $10. Get ’em while they’re cheap. Excellent for use as intended, but also good for expedient waterproof overhead cover, dry spot to sit your ass, etc, etc. Far superior than those stupid, flimsy mylar foil sheets. Heres the link:

The fact that all the other colors are still around $19 and the Olive is reduced to $10 makes me think they’re closing ’em out and discontinuing ’em. Feel free to send me a couple off my wish list. (Although, really, even if you don’t wanna throw one my way you should still get a few for yourself…useful, cheap, and well-made….a trifecta you don’t hit very often.)

ETA: Hmmm. Someone musta cleaned ’em out because they arent showing up anymore at that price or in single-serving quantity. Further examination shows the blue ones are available at an equally good price. (Grabber Outdoors Original Space Brand All Weather Blanket: Blue)

Friday of Color

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Well, the Friday of Color sales I wanted to take advantage of turned out to be a bust. Of the few things I wanted, most had sold out virtually instantly. I suppose this is a good thing since it keeps me from spending money.

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Or, at least, it was until I noted that silver dipped down to around $15.50 today. Time to call the Pimp. Speaking of the ‘Pimp, he came by the other day with a silver round for me that he said came from someone who reads the website. So, to that benefactor, I thank you sincerely. When the zombie hordes are finally decapitated into the dustbin of history I shall praise your memory as I barter the silver for lapdances from grateful-yet-still-hot survivors at the local stripclub-turned-impromptu-fortress.

Just because I didn’t get the things I was looking for this Friday doesn’t mean there arent bargains and great values out there. Go! Shop! Acquire! Since ‘Black Friday’ has all but become a holiday I figured it was time to add another synthetic holiday to the pantheon of reasons-to-buy-stuff. Thus, tomorrows post is all about Paratus, the holiday of survivalists.

ETA: Dammit. Almost made it out of Sportsmans Warehouse without getting Friday Of Color’ed. But..but…its M855 on stripper clips! $169.99! Its the ballistic equivalent of Doritos – you can’t just eat a few.

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