$99 3D printer | Free lost-and-found tags | Sneaky hotel hack
Plus: Earth Breeze one year later: Do I still like these eco-friendly laundry sheets?
New here? Welcome! As I mentioned last week, Substack is the new home for Deal Secrets. Unfortunately, not all past issues imported properly from Revue, meaning if you’re perusing the archives, you might see some empty ones. I’m working on it!
This week’s quick hits:
🛒 The best/worst deal news of the week: Amazon is rumored to be queuing up an October Prime Day event. (Between us: It’s not just a rumor.) Yes, there will be some good deals, but, seriously, one Prime Day per year is plenty. I’m dreading the weeks’ worth of noise leading up to this.
🎧 Spotify just added audiobooks to its roster of listening materials, but they’re not part of your subscription: You have to buy them a-la-carte — and you can’t even do that within the app. Blech. For audiobooks, I’m still partial to Libro.fm, which I wrote about a few weeks back. It’s comparable to Audible in nearly every way, but your purchases support local brick-and-mortar bookstores. Tried it; loved it.
📘 Speaking of which, here’s an audiobook recommendation for boomers and my fellow Gen X-ers: The memoir "Directed by James Burrows,” which details the TV legend’s experiences creating and/or directing shows like Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, and Friends. It’s a little slow to start but gets really good once his career gets cooking.
🖨️ Ready to try 3D printing? If you’re lucky enough to live near a Micro Center store, you can get a Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D printer for just $99 (via a $100-off coupon that’ll be sent to you via text message). This is a top-rated model with a removable flexible print bed, and it’s available in-store only, while supplies last. Run, don’t walk!
DISCLAIMER: Some of the links included herein are affiliate links (usually those in bold type), meaning if you make a purchase via one of them, I may get a small commission. I promise you, now and forever, that I won’t choose deals based on whether there’s an affiliate option available.
Find lost keys, phones, and more with QR recovery tags — starting at $0!
Spotted yesterday on my local NextDoor feed:
To paraphrase Blanche DuBois (she’s a character in a famous play, kids, look it up), you should always rely on the kindness of strangers — at least when it comes to returning lost items. I think most people would try to locate the owner of a found keychain, wallet, iPad, or the like. The problem is, there’s usually no easy way to do that. (See above: That keychain offered no clues as to the owner’s identity.)
Enter QR tags, which can help good Samaritans reunite you with your lost items. Tile, makers of popular electronic trackers, just unveiled Lost and Found Labels: stickers with unique QR codes and a message reading “Scan if found.” The idea: Someone finds your backpack, bike helmet, Kindle, or whatever, scans the code with their phone, and immediately gets connected to you. [Cue “Reunited” by Peaches & Herb. It’s a song, kids, look it up.]
At $15 for a 3-pack of stickers (with five stickers per pack), Tile’s option is easy and affordable. However, there’s another one you might want to consider: PingTag works much like Tile’s product, but has a starting price of $0.
It works like this: Sign up for a free PingTag Lite account and create your custom QR code. You can then print or download the code to use wherever and however you like. (Because it’s a “naked” image, though, I recommend importing it into Word or something similar so you can add “Scan me if found!” text. You can also resize, duplicate, and print a bunch of tags on peel-and-stick paper if you’re so inclined. Sky’s the limit, and totally free so far.)
Even better, order a 20-pack of PingTag vinyl stickers for just $7.99 shipped. You get a dozen square stickers and eight round ones. There’s no app required or anything like that; you just set up your contact info via the PingTag dashboard and you’re done.
There are other QR-equipped PingTag products as well: car windshield stickers (in case someone needs to reach you about, say, a parking problem), luggage tags, custom pet IDs, keychains and so on.
The free PingTag Lite subscription is effective, but fairly limited: Anyone who scans your code gets a stock “I’m lost” message (which can’t be changed) and your phone number and e-mail address. PingTag Premium adds custom found-page messages (including the option to show a photo), support for multiple contacts, geolocation of the person who scanned your tag, anonymous communication with the finder, and more.
But, ouch, it costs $100. That’s a one-time charge, after which you have PingTag Premium for life. My suggestion: Start with PingTag Lite for free and see if you feel like you need any of those added features. And if you don’t feel like printing your own, $8 is an awfully small price to pay for 20 stickers that could help lost items find their way home.
Save (potentially a lot of) money on your next hotel stay
Back in July I shared a hotel hack that was, I’ll admit, a little complicated. Points, reward programs, transfers, etc. It was worth the effort, but next time I’m going to start with a different method.
Travel Arrow is a Chrome browser extension that reveals the hidden hotel deals on sites like Hotwire and Priceline.
In case you’re unfamiliar with said deals, they work like this: The sites dangle really attractive rates but don’t provide the name and location of the hotel until you book. Thus, you might be shown a “3.5-star hotel in Chicago’s River North area,” but do you really want to pull the trigger without knowing the exact details?
With Travel Arrow installed, a little pop-up reveals those details once you get to the “choose your room” step of the booking process, and gives you a link to compare prices so you’re sure the Hotwire/Priceline deal is really a deal.
I did a quick test on a Chicago overnight, and sure enough, Travel Arrow revealed that my $163 Priceline deal was for an Embassy Suites room that would have been $259 if booked elsewhere. Your mileage may vary, of course, but this is definitely worth a try before your next hotel stay.
Clean your clothes, save the planet
Earth Breeze is better than your current laundry detergent in nearly every way. It’s literally a sheet. No liquid, no powder, no pod… just a paper-like rectangle that’s roughly the size of a note card.
A 30-sheet pack (good for up to 60 loads, and we do indeed tear ours in half for most) comes in a flat, compostable cardboard sleeve that weighs almost nothing and requires a fraction of the storage space. (In your face, heavy, bulky, environmentally horrific plastic jugs!) Price: $20 shipped, but that drops to just $12 if you subscribe (and why wouldn’t you?) — so ultimately you’re paying as little as 20 cents per load.
We’ve been using Earth Breeze for well over a year (in a top-load washer, just FYI). Love it. Love, love, love it. Seriously, I’m a customer for life. This is the proverbial better mousetrap.
Thanks for reading Deal Secrets! Questions? Comments? Hit me up on Twitter or Facebook, or shoot me an e-mail. I’ll do my best to respond to all inquiries! Want to show your support? Buy me a coffee!
Travel Arrow does not appear as a Chrome extension for me. Windows 10, Chrome Version 105.0.5195.127.
Even simpler than QR stickers? Use the freebie address labels that you get in pleas for charitable donations. Or for larger items, the airline address stickers they want you to put on your luggage.