Revolution Telecom, that is on Vodafone network who claimed to be Australia’s cheapest prepaid SIM, is on marketing spree. It’s affiliated site, Join Revolution, is giving away AUD$30 free credit when you sign up. That’s 30 bucks for doing nothing to use their 9.9cents/30 second + 20cents flag fall mobile phone network.

Not bad if you want to make some free calls.

Even better when you can get forty dollars from Revolution, by going to that promotional URL. However, it is $20 free when you sign up, and $20 free when you first recharge. If you don’t plan to recharge at all, then maybe the $30 deal is better. The promotion code I get for $40 free is WDYT40.

However, do read about my little rant on Revolution’s hidden charges (15cents/day network fee + 50cents/recharge), if you plan to stay on Revolution long term. It might not really be the mobile network provider for you, if you are like me who spend only $20 every 6 months on mobile calls.

Edit: Just noted that the deal is only valid for MNP customers, i.e. porting your existing number to Revolution. I was going to order an “evaluation pack”, but gave up after spotting the requirement.

Edit: If you do not wish to port your number over to Revolution, then you can still get their starter pack with $20 free credit — and no question asked. And that is what I have planned to do.

While browsing SMH, I spotted National Australia Bank‘s new credit card – Visa Mini Card. It boasts 43% smaller than a regular credit card, comes in 5 different shining metal colours, and have a list of accessories that lets you hang your mini Visa card around your neck or together with your mobile. NAB is definitely trying to sell their new credit card as something more than a piece of plastic – it is a gadget!!

What a brilliant idea! NOT!! Why someone wants to hang credit card around one’s neck is beyond me. Moreover, it actually comes in two cards – the smaller card for magnetic strip reader, and a normal size card for ATM and other non-swipe devices. That means, whenever you go out and shop, you not only have to embarrass yourself by hang that shining plastic on your neck, you have to carry yet another card in your wallet just in case you need to access the ATM.

Smart!

Yet I still went and applied one for myself. Why?

• No annual fee for the first year. AUD$19 for subsequent years.
• 1% cash back for up to AUD$120 a year. That means you only need to spend $1,900 to weave the annual fee, and anything above that is purely reward.
• You don’t even need to claim the reward yourself – it gets rebated to you automatically.

And you get cash back reward, not useless shopping vouchers or overpriced gadgets. That is actually a pretty good credit card reward program in Australia. One reason I am still hanging onto my ANZ Reward Card is its reward program, and now I am thinking of ditching that…

Update: An interesting article on Visa Mini at Footpath Zeitgeist.

Not as good as $123 bonus from joining INGDirect a while ago, but Esanda Online Saver is giving you $20 bonus for signing up their online saving account product. The promotion has actually been running for a while, but now it has been extended to 31st of July 2005.

It has the usual online saver – high interest, no fee, easy to access, etc. 5.55% might not be as good as DragonDirect’s 5.60% special offer. But it is your call – $20 or 0.05% p.a. more. I have not used Esanda nor DragonDirect so I have no comment about the ease of use of their online system.

Elsie wrote:

I don’t know if this counts, but there’s a free PDF version of “Women, Creation and The Fall” by Mary A. Kassian online.

I think Christians reading this blog will not mind having a free ebook added to their list of resources. Published in 1990, it retails for AUD$17.81 at Koorong. No, I have not read this book yet :)

This is for those living in Perth, WA. Katrina wrote in:

Free mens haircuts at JT’s Hairstylists at Carosel in Cannington Perth WA. Done by thier apprentices on a Thurdays or Fridays.

I do notice that they have multiple locations in Perth, and probably only the one in Cannington has this free haircut special. Give them a call on (08) 9356-8844 to check out this deal.

Update 2005-10-29: DealsDirect is selling Roboactor Intelligent Robot for $79.95 + $9 shipping. Not exactly Robosapian, though they do look and function alike. Great saving too.

Marty (from possibly Target) commented last week about Target’s big toy sale, where they will be stocking up Robosapian (a small humanoid robot with remote control) at reduced prices. Last night I received Target’s toy sale catalogue, and spotted their reduced price – AUD$139.99 with a bonus keyring ($10 off, by the way).

That again confirms Vivian’s big sales theory – despite it says that the price has been reduced, you just cannot be sure that it is the best price you can get. Even Big W is selling Robosapian for AUD$134 at their regular everyday price.

Better still, Robosapian is also featured on Big W’s monster toy sale catalogue – for AUD$116 that is cheapest so far. Shop around (and don’t believe in the big SALE tag), and you can save $20+ dollars.

Or maybe Big W is not the cheapest. Any other taker?

Got this from GoDaddy‘s promotional email:

We can’t put your name in lights, but until July 31, we can help you put your actual name on the ‘Net. You save over 40% — just $5.95!*

…Be sure to use offer code gdg071930 when you order!

* Plus ICANN fee of 25 cents per domain name year.

That makes the .Name domain USD$6.20 a year, which is a bit cheaper than the standard $10.20/year – cheaper than most other TLD. That is only if you are interested in .Name though, which has quite restricted usage, i.e. usually you will expect to prefix your name before .Name.

Elsie wrote,

Get a free shampoo, cut and wash at Blondes, Brunettes & Redheads, a trendy hairdressing salon in Surry Hills. The address is 132a Foveaux Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010, and the phone number is (02) 9331 7211. Ring the number and speak to Lucretia or ring and ask about hair-modelling/free haircut.

Thanks for the freebie info! And I know some guys, who will come back from MYC on Friday, will definitely need a haircut.

Chenny wrote:

From 17th July – 30 September 2005, St. George Bank is offering 5.60% pa for its DirectSaver account (DragonDirect). Highest interest for an at-call account atm (INGDirect gives 5.40% pa). But it’s only for new customers.

DragonDirect works just like INGDirect, only accessible through phone banking/Internet banking connected to your everyday account.

Chenny forgot to add the footnote saying “btw, I do work for STG”, but thanks for the Insider information! The website still quotes to 5.50% for $250,000 above (5.25% otherwise), but I guess we need to wait until 17th to confirm that.

Edit: Here is the official promotional page with all the details.

Regarding the recent big toy sales happening around big retail department store, we found that their sale price is actually not as cheap as we thought. On Tuesday Vivian went to Kmart at East Garden Pagewood, looking for a small soccer ball for our lovely Anna, and that particular item was actually on sale! So without hesitation Vivian grabbed the stuffed soccer ball that Anna really liked, thinking that she has got a bargain. Later on, she went upstairs to Big W, saw same soccer ball, without any sale tag, but marked at exactly the same price.

It was not the first time that happened. Department stores with big sales on specific items, advertising with $xxx off the retail price – but how much you have actually saved is questionable. What you really get though, is that urge to take out your credit card and buy, thinking otherwise you would miss a bargain. Shop around, because you might have not got the cheapest deal.

Vivian’s conclusion is, wait for those store-wide or department-wide fix-percentage-off sales. Sometimes they have those 30% off all toys sale – at least you know they are not just trying to get rid of some specific items.

Since my last post on .au domain comparison, which was merely less than 2 weeks ago, NameScout, the only foreign registrar approved by auDA, has updated the their price so that they are now the cheapest across the board. So, that’s the difference without paying the GST :)

Thanks to Neil A for providing the information!

A follow up to my previous entry on mono laser printers, I found a shop selling cheap Lexmark E230 Laser Printer in Australia. A good looking, bulky (yeah, looks like a REAL laser printer), 17ppm monochrome laser printer with 250 input tray that talks PCL6 is selling at DealsDirect.com.au for $169 + $9 shipping. Quite a good price for a proper laser printer with a proper tray! The running cost for Lexmark is a bit high though – toner rated at 2,500 pages would cost a bit more than $100.

Maybe low-end laser is also moving towards cheap-printer, expensive-consumable model?

So, where to find the best bargain on the latest foo, bar and baz that you always dream to have? Want to save that extra $2 getting that new motherboard? Sick of spending whole night checking out each individual e-commerce site and compare their prices? I have discovered price comparison websites a few years ago, and that has helped me greatly hunting down the cheap deals on the Internet.

Price Comparison Websites

How do they work? Usually those site would design some screen scraper, which goes out to retailer sites and record down what those sites are selling, and how much they are selling for. So when you make a search on a price comparison site, it would be able to find out which shop has the cheapest deal. Since they normally have hundreds of retail shop pricing in their database, it makes finding the bargain a trivial exercise.

These are the ones in Australia:

• RazorPrices – the original price comparison site. (Note: it auto-redirects me to their new site, which has nothing to do price comparison but on computer component tradings. Might need to investigate on that)
• staticICE – easy to use interface and very speedy search. This is what I normally use today.
• Shopbot.com.au – not just computer parts, but also electronics. However, search result is not ordered by price, which makes it a bit useless.
• au.PriceSpy.biz – instead of search, it lists all the components and their lowest price and associated shops. Good for common components (like RAM or CPU), but difficult to use if you want to find a specific product.
• OzPriceGuide – again it does not let you search, but give you specific categories that you can browse.

There was once when Vivian wasn’t happy that I threw away one of the shopping dockets, you know, the one that has coupons printed at the back of the supermarket docket, because of one particular deal that she wanted. I said, “no worries“, and fired up the web browser and pointed to the Hotdockets.com.au. I asked Vivian which supermarket had she obtained the docket, locate it in Hotdockets, click “Go!“, and there you are! Money-saving coupons that comes out from your printer!

There are always discounted pizza, discounted fast food, and other things that you will never buy without a coupon. Now you don’t even need to spend money in the supermarket, or scavenge shopping centre rubbish bins to get it!

Tim wrote in (yes, again):

Cheap digital photo development:
Past winner – Harvey Norman at 33c each
Found Big W today – 20c each!

20c is the in-store price, i.e. you need to bring in your own media, and use the self-service to do the printing. Alternatively, you can also use Big W’s on-line service to upload photos, at a higher cost of 31 cents. And you still need to pick it up from the shops.

Thanks Tim!