Author: Chris Arnini

Chris Arninihttps://wealthhackingwednesday.comIT Geek and Travel Hacker
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Staples Gift Card Promotion

Staples Gift Card Promotion at Constant Contact

Constant Contact appears to be having a 40% off Staples gift cards. I noticed this promotion while logged into constant contact, a online toolkit many companies use for  email marketing. The deal is $30 for a $50 staples gift card. Since I go to staples all the time for their easy rebates and other deals you can stack multiple discounts.

Purchased 6 GC for $180 worth $300 at Staples for a $120 money maker.

Their confirmation email did say it would take two weeks for the GC to arrive. I am hoping this deal is as good as it seems.

See below for the terms and conditions.

Staples Gift Card Promotion

Staples Gift Card Promotion

Stop and Shop Kimberly Clark Paper Product Matchup

Scott and Kleenex Deal at Stop and Shop

Scott and Kleenex Deal at Stop and Shop

Stop and Shop has a good deal on paper products this week, stackable with a Catalina and if you haven’t used it the Kimberly Clark Mail in Rebate. Some people who have called customer service report the MIR is based on the pre-sale price while others say it is based on the after sale price. To play it safe, buy $35 of products after sale pricing.

Scott’s Toilet Paper is on sale for 5.99 and Several varieties of Kleenex are on sale for B2G1

Deal idea.

  • (4) Scott Bathroom Tissue 12 packs, several varieties are on sale for 5.99
  • (12) Kleenex Ultra Soft*  or Lotion Tissues*are on sale for B2G1
  • 39.88 pre-coupon sale price subtotal (23.96 + 15.92)
  • use (4) Kleenex .75 coupons (will double)
  • use (4) Scott’s .55 coupons (will double)
  • 29.48 post coupons
  • -$5 on your next order Kimberly Clark Catalina and -$10 mail in rebate from Kimberly Clark

You pay $14.48 for (4) 12 pack of Toilet paper and 12 big boxes of Kleenex tissues.

*These are the bigger single boxes, not the small 70 counts. Ultra was 210 count.

Kleenex Tissues Coupons

Scott 12 ct. Coupons

Mail in Rebate

Stop and Shop Freezer Deal

I am already missing the Stop and Shop freezer deal which ended on 3/19/2015. In case you missed it, if you spent $25 off of certain products you got an instant $15 off. Needless to say we went many times, and even ended up sending a parent who drives by stop and shop daily.

Stop and Shop March 2015 Freezer Deal

Stop and Shop March 2015 Freezer Deal

One of several trips that we made when we where near a stop and shop, all had pre-discount totals of $40+.

Transaction #1, 8 Kidfresh frozen meals, 2 boxes of blue bunny ice cream treats.
paid -$1.57

Transaction #2, 7 Talenti Gelato
paid $7.93I am hoping stop and shop runs this promotion again.

AmEx Points Awarded!

I signed up for an AmEx promo with their Gold card at the beginning of the year. They where running a bonus point offer, 50K points if you spend $1000 in the first 3 months. Well I knew spending the $1000 was not going to be an issue.

I was happy to see that they awarded me the bonus points the other day, what a nice thing to see.

Point wise, if you use them for travel it works out well, in my case I am going to use them for some Gift Cards. Works out to $500 in Gift Cards. Wish I could do this promo more then once 🙂

points pic

Talenti Gelato

Sea Salt Caramel

Sea Salt Caramel

Great deal on Talenti Gelato at stop and shop, heck you don’t need any coupons either if you don’t want to. Its amazing stuff, we buy it whenever it is on sale it is usually expensive.

Stop and shop has a spend $25 on certain frozen items and you get $15 instantly off your order.

Talenti Gelato is 3.99

Buy 7 of the Gelatos

$27.93 Subtotal
$12.93 after $15 instant savings
$8.93 after $4 from coupons link
$8.93 for 7 container of Gelato that normally cost close to $5 each.

Kimberly Clark Matchup

Coupon Haul, under $34

Coupon Haul, under $34

Less then $34 total couponing trip on Friday, March 13th  though I was missing my great helper Renee, she is in training #‎LECsavings‬

One of the best matchups was a Kimberly/Clark products deal that was running that could be used for a double dip.The products where on sale at Price Chopper, and the shelf price is typically what works on the MIR and Catalina’s.

  • Spend $25 get $5 Catalina for your next order
  • $5 back on $25 or $10 back on $35 Mail in rebate from Kimberly/Clark

1 Scotts Natural Toilet Paper 6.99 (10.50 without card) (1) .55c off of 1 which will double

1 Scotts 1000 Toilet Paper 6.99 (10.50 without card) used (1) .55c off of 1 which will double

13 Kleenox boxes 120/160 counts 1.33 ($2 without card) used (4) .75c off of 3 which will double

  • 31.97 subtotal
  • 23.77 after 8.20 in coupons*
  • 21.77 after PC Store Ecoupon for Scotts
  • 11.77 after $10 MIR
  • 6.77 after $5 Catalina for your next order

$6.77 for 2 jumbo packs of TP and 13 big boxes of tissues.

*Printable coupons, I rarely ever use newspaper insert coupons

Loving My Pellet Stove, Harman XXV Part 3

Harman XXV Enamel

Harman XXV Enamel

We are now season five of heating our place with our Harman XXV pellet stove, all started in the October 2009-2010 heating wise.

Still super very happy with our choice to heat our house with our Harman pellet stove.  Can’t imagine how much our place would cost to heat with oil, especially given how warm we keep our house.

Damn our house is hot, each year the  temperature we keep our house at seems to creep up. Keeping our place at 70 seemed amazing the first year, now our house is rarely below 76. It’s not very green of us I know, but the cost seems so minimal.

Cost wise, we are still using between 750-1000 dollars worth of pellets a year to keep our house in Vermont at 76.

A pellet stove is a lot of work (false), I still hear this one, and think people confuse wood stoves (especially old ones) with pellet stove. Since they both burn wood, many people seem to think you need to always be cleaning them, filling them, they are a pain to start etc all things so far from the truth. With a good stove and pellets, there is little in the way of maintenance besides carrying a bag of pellets to our into the hopper. Who couldn’t use a little exercise of carrying a bag of pellets a day?

Discussion with friend on heating with Oil, oh my!!! I am sure sometimes my jaw must have hit the ground.

  • 5000 a year to heat your house to 68?
  • Well I am on a payment plan it is 260 a month. SO you pay 3100+ a year to keep your house barely 60?
  • 3500 a year and my house is so cold.

I was agast, with the cost but at 3.80 a gallon for oil, doesn’t take long to spend that amount.

I know each house is different but at what point do you stop and think, that you need to make some changes in how you heat your house. Add insulation, install a pellet stove or wood stove, etc. Can’t see spending thousands of dollars a year on Oil heat that seems to only go up each year.

Buy a good pellet stove, if you plan on running the stove 24/7 during the heating season. Everyone I know that has a Harman, which is a lot of us, seem very happy with their stove, and most run it 24/7 like I do for months at a time.

I am sorry to say but you cannot compare a cheapo stove you fire up once in a while and say it works just as well. I find it similar to comparing how old a car is without mentioning how many miles you put on it. A big difference with a 10 year old car that gave you no problems that was driven 250,000 miles and one that is always breaking down that you drove 30,000 miles. Pellet stoves are very similar, if you plan on running your stove all the time buy a good stove.

Buy good pellets, I had the experience at the tail end of the heating season the past few years of using cheap pellets. Oh my what junk most of them are, and yes they do burn sort of. The ash content was not even listed, a bad sign, or a BTU count, or could be found tested by any pellet site via google. I opened some bags to find so much dust and smashed pellets it was not even worth burning them for fear of jamming my stove. The old, you get what you pay for.

Buy a Safe stove, I know on our stove there is multiple safety devices and sensors. The one I run into all the time is the hopper air lock. There is not just some simple contact switch where you put the pellets but an air lock. As soon as the air lock seal is broken, by opening the door to put pellets in, the air fan and augur feeding the pellets stops. It is a great feature, the stove won’t continue to feed pellets and keep them burning hot with the hopper open. There is a small risk of the gases coming up the hopper chute, so a great safety device in case it is kept open. On more then one occasion the stove went “out” because I did not fully shut the hopper door, sometimes when it looked like it was shut too. I was glad of that feature, no matter how small the risk of gases entering the house, I was glad the stove went out.

Purchase for the long view, have a friend who mentioned this week she was going to buy a pellet stove and was wise about it. She was not interested in how much she would save right now but how much the next 5/7 years. The added flexibility of having multiple heat sources. She heats with wood, cheapest option in most cases, but having a pellet stove means she can have a continual source of heat. Her Oil furnace won’t kick on when she is gone all day, or forgets to load wood. Flexibility was key in her looking at pellet stoves with a secondary emphasis on low maintenance.

Maintenance wise, the augur on our stove was replaced 2 years ago. The augur was making a lot of noise and being still under warranty, we felt it wise for them to replace it. The technician that was sent to our house agreed hole heartily.

Future projects for my pellet stove

I am going to be looking at installing a battery backup and/or maybe even a solar source for my pellet stove power. I have been measuring my stoves electric draw, which fluctuates between 60-100 watts, not a huge amount but enough of a draw in any case given I run it 24/7. As a hobby, I tinker with solar projects,  and have built my own panels with the help of my daughter and have a small solar system with battery bank in our backyard. Not enough of a battery bank to power our stove reliably 24/7 though.The panel ends up putting out between 60-90 watts, but with a good but lower cost inverter, not enough headway without some expensive batteries.

Top on the list is what happens if the power goes out? Having enough power to run the stove for maybe 1/3 the day would be a great. With our existing solar setup we have the ability to recharge the batteries during the non-running time. Maybe in the end we will have enough to run the stove off of just solar?

 

Yes, I know you can buy backup settups but what fun is that and?

 

 

 

Loving My Pellet Stove, Harman XXV Part 2

October 2013, see my most recent post about my Harman XXV pellet stove.

 

This is my continuation of initial posting  of my Loving my Harman XXV pellet stove , so I guess this may be considered part 2.

Harman XXV Stove

Harman XXV Stove

It has now been almost 2 full heating seasons with using my Harman XXV pellet stove as my primary heating source. As March is underway the stove is still going but I find myself having to turn it down since they days are getting warmer. It seems a good time to write about my Harman XXV pellet with some additional review information.

Cost: some people are wondering what the XXV cost and I can say it varies. I have seen them online for a lot less then what I paid in other parts of the country. I can say this, you are buying a solid cast iron stove not some sheet metal no-name brand that looks like it will break after the first year so here is what it cost.

  • The Harman XXV was approximately $3100.00 at the local dealer which included a free ton of pellets.
  • I opted for the optional black metal stove pipe that attaches vertically to the top of the stove, which makes it look like a wood stove and is not necessary at all.
  • Total with installation and delivery, the stove and optional “wood stove” pipe was around 4200 of which I got a tax rebate for 1200 back for a total of $3000.00

Has the XXV paid for itself: The way we look at it, YES YES YES. We are insulated from the oil  price spike of heating oil that has happened in Feb 11 and is still rising (hope it goes down) and as an irony pellet prices have dropped so it is cheaper to run. Having to not worry about shocking oil delivery bills has been great.

  • We will have paid $1000.00 for the entire heating season to heat approximately 1900sqft of space to a temp on average of the mid 70’s. We live in Vermont so the outside winter temperature is very cold dropping to below zero F for entire weeks.  We could have saved more money by keeping the temp down, but we like a warmer house especially with a little one.

Maintenance wise: I had the augur replaced, which was under warranty, due to it making a sort of grinding noise. It took the tech only a few minutes to pull the old one and place a new one in, the hardest part was moving it. I bought the optional pipe kit that makes it look like a woodstove and it was in the way. The warranty is very long on the stove so I thought I would go ahead and have them replace it just in case.

Cleaning Tip: Make sure to take the cover off the back and clean out where the pellets come down. It is spelled out in the owners manual how to flip this little cover up after removing this plate which just has a thumbscrew. It is actually really easy once you remove the back cover. I think cleaning it out should be made more important in the manual. I removed a lot of sawdust that had fallen down there, which is normal from pellet dust, and I can imagine it causing issues if it was never cleaned.

Tip 2: Get yourself one of those small wire brushes meant to clean a gas grill, they are about 8″ long and have metal bristles that are semi-soft. These are great for cleaning the grooved inside of the stove where the ash accumulates  out, and since ash insulates, it can keep your heat output from falling. The tool that comes with the stove for scraping is ok but the brush gets a lot more of the crud off.

http://arnini.com/fblog/2010/06/02/loving-my-pellet-stove-harman-xxv/

Loving My Pellet Stove, Harman XXV

October 2013, see my most recent post about my Harman XXV pellet stove.

March 2011 : also see my continuation, 2nd post about my Harman XXV pellet stove

 

September 9, 2010 : Updated info at bottom

June 2, 2010 : Updated info at bottom

I have been bitten by the pellet stove bug for sure. As evidence for this I ordered my Harman XXV cast iron pellet stove, from Bernardston Farmers Supply, 2 months before we moved into our new house. My friend Bruno, who is all knowing when it comes to pellet stoves, showed me his stove and this had me hunting  for my own.

We settled on the Harman XXV stove since it fit all our needs. We where looking at something to heat our entire house, which is approximately 1900sq ft. The stove would be installed on an existing pad in the finished basement which once held a wood stove. Cast Iron was preferred since visually it looked like an old fashion. The hopper had to be big enough to run all day without refueling.

Eventually our choice of pellet stoves narrowed between the Quadra-Fire MT Vernon and the Harman XXV (pictured to right). After getting quotes from several places we went with the Harman XXV. With installation and a free ton of pellets from Harman the price difference between the 2 stoves was well over $1000, so the Harman was the logical choice.

I can honestly say that purchasing a pellet stove is #1 on our list of best purchases for our home.

Pros

  • Approximately 3 months in and we have used ZERO oil to heat our house.
  • Our house is toasty warm, always between 68-75 depending on the room.
  • Low maintenance, a quick vacuum of the ash and a wipe of the glass.
  • Very efficient in burning pellets
  • Using locally made pellets, New England Pellets made 15 miles from our house
  • Not using oil shipped half way around the world
  • Does not get burning hot like a wood stove, much safer for my child.
  • Not having to deal with fluctuating Oil prices

Cons

  • Fan noise can be heard when the stove is on high (we don’t even notice it anymore).
  • Keeping the hopper full with pellets
  • Emptying out ash tray
  • Uses Electricity

As for if the stove would save us money, it all depends on how you look at it?
I filled my 1/4 full  oil tank and it was the same cost as 2 tons of pellets delivered (our hot water uses oil for NOW). These two tons of pellets have kept my house nice and toasty during the worst of winter for going on 2+ months. I very much doubt I could say the same if using oil.

Did we save money?
I am sure if we kept the house at the temperature we would have if we where heating with oil we would save money. One of the main reasons we got our pellet stove is to not have a freezing house especially with a little one. Having a house in the low 70’s in the dead of winter was great.

June 2, 2010 update.

With the heating season officially over I am sure glad we had our stove. It really came in handy on some of those days in April when Vermont decided to drip back into the 30’s for the day. It was nice to just fill the hopper, and have a toasty house in a short amount of time.

One thing we did notice, when the outside temp towards the end of the season was 40 or so, the Harman XXV kept the house very warm and went through very little in the way of fuel. The maintenance during this time of slow burning through fuel was very minimal which was great given our busy schedule.

Fuel wise, we went through 3 tons of pellets plus maybe 20-30 bags which we bought a few at a time during the end of the heating season. In retrospect, we probably should have had another ton delivered, but buying it by the bag isn’t too bad. Still have plenty of oil in the tank, and hopefully it will be that way this time in 2011.

September 9, 2010 update, more area to heat this winter.

As the heating season quickly approaches we are expanding what we heat with our pellet stove this year. Plans are in the works to run some ducts out to an attached sunroom. Our hope is to install an inline duct fan and draw the heat from near the pellet stove and make the sunroom more usable during the colder months. This may have an additional benefit of circulating some heat in our house more, though our layout is very good for natural air moment.

Judging from last year, I am confident the Harman XXV is up to the task!

On the Oil front, it’s close to being official, we are approaching a year without using oil to heat our house.

On the pellet front,  had a delivery of New England Brand pellets which are made close by in NH, can’t get much more local then that.

2010 is here

Might as well start the new year off with a post. Might be months before we remember we still have a blog.

We are enjoying out new house, and renee is getting huge. Life seems to be going quickly which I guess is a good sign. Looking at what concerts we can go to in the new year. Festivals will be high on the list so we can bring renee.