This mini massage gun has an amazing hot/cold attachment, and it's a bargain at $75 (REVIEW)

PLUS: A new (free) tool in the fight against health insurance denials, and my review of Amazon's first-ever color Kindle

DISCLAIMER: Some of the links included herein are affiliate links (usually those in bold blue 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.

Deep breath.

This is the one and only time I’m going to acknowledge the dumpster fire that is our current political climate, and it’s solely to say this: Living your life in fear and hatred is a choice; let’s all choose something else. I nominate kindness, understanding, tolerance, and respect, to name a few alternatives.

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QUICK HITS

🩺 In a previous issue of Deal Secrets I told you about Goodbill, a service that helps negotiate nightmare hospital bills. Now there’s another tool in the fight against health insurance companies: the aptly named Fight Health Insurance. Developed by computer scientist Holden Karau, it uses AI to help generate an appeal when you’re denied coverage. Learn more: ‘Make your health insurance company cry’: One woman’s fight to turn the tables on insurers

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📺 Bundler — the too-good-to-be-true streaming service aggregator I wrote about back in May — appears to be dead, which comes as zero surprise. Despite the owner/operator’s boisterous claims of being “completely legit and legal,” it almost certainly was neither. I’m kind of amazed it managed to stay afloat for almost an entire year. That said, hat-tip to rogue enterprises trying to take the sting out of ever-increasing streaming prices, which are now Certified Ridiculous (TM).

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⏲️ Need a practical (and adorable) gift for under $15? This gravity cube timer is just $13 right now. You simply flip it so the desired time — 5, 10, 30, or 60 minutes — is facing up, and the countdown starts. A digital display lets you monitor it. (There’s also a manual mode for setting any time you want.) It has three alert modes for when the time runs out: low, high, and vibrate.

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🖥️ This is pretty niche but still amazing: For a limited time, and while supplies last, Best Buy is offering two LG 27-inch 100Hz IPS desktop monitors for just $220; basically buy one, get one free. This pair, arranged side by side on your desk, would make for one seriously productive workspace. The monitors have a 4.7-star average rating from over 360 buyers.

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📺 Also at Best Buy, one of the best big-TV deals in recent memory: The Hisense QD6 Series 75-inch 4K Google TV (2024) for $450. To my thinking, Hisense has emerged as the top budget-TV brand, and this model offers considerable bang for the buck. By the way, you can also get this from Costco for the same price and net a 3-year warranty instead of the usual one year. (Update: A reader correctly pointed out that the Costco version of the TV is slightly different in that it uses the Amazon Fire TV interface, not Google. My apologies for failing to note that!)

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📔 I know there’s a lot of curiosity surrounding Amazon’s first-ever color Kindle, which is now available. I’ll save you some time: Color is nice, but not worth $279. And, really, what good is color for reading? Not much. (And for that price I expect page-turn buttons, Amazon, ahem.) Here’s my Yahoo review of the Kindle Colorsoft if you want to learn more.

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REVIEW: Bob and Brad Q2 Pro mini massage gun with hot/cold head

I’ve written about massage guns in the past, noting that even the cheapie ones do a pretty good job. However, let me make the case for something that’s fairly new to the product category: the hot/cold head.

This attachment has a metal plate on the business end; it gets warm or cool with the press of a button, and trust me when I say it’s icing on the percussive-massage cake. Just last night I used one on my pickleball tournament-ravaged legs, and, oh, sweet relief.

Which one? This one: The Bob and Brad Q2 Pro Mini with Heat and Cold Head, currently $74.99 when you clip the on-page $15-off coupon. I’ve seen full-size massagers with this feature; this is the first mini I’ve tried. And I like it.

It weighs just under a pound, so you can use it for a good stretch of time without fatiguing your arm. It’s compact and comfortable to hold, and it’s a snap to use: long-press the power button to turn it on (or off), short-press to toggle between the five available speeds.

The massager provides a 7mm amplitude, which is on the lower side but, to my thinking, not a problem. If you want a deeper massage, you simply apply a little more pressure. In fact, some folks tend to overdo it with these things, so a less aggressive amplitude is arguably a good thing.

The hot/cold head has its own rechargeable internal battery; each mode has low/high settings (50/59 degrees for cold, 104/113 degrees for hot). I will say the two mode buttons aren’t labeled very well; they’re hard to see even under normal lighting.

But the attachment works remarkably well. The plate gets hot or cold very quickly, literally within seconds of turning it on. For muscles and fascia that would benefit from heat or ice, it’s pretty amazing. Heck, you don’t even have to turn on the massager; you could just use the attachment.

The Q2 Pro also comes with four regular attachments (ball, bullet, fork, etc.), a USB-C charging cord (but no AC adapter), and a zippered carrying case (something you don’t usually get with the cheaper models, and which I find essential).

Bob and Brad is actually a well-known and venerated physical-therapy brand. There might be slightly less expensive alternatives out there, but I’m happy to support a U.S.-based company that has an excellent reputation.

Me, I’m at the point in life where I need a massage gun at my bedside full-time. The Q2 Pro Mini has earned its place there.

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New phone… or new battery? (Guess which is cheaper)

Credit: iFixit

This is something of a repeat “secret,” but it bears repeating — and it’s new for the many newcomers to these parts. 😜

I like my iPhone 13 just fine. It’s bought and paid for and does everything I need it to. But it’s three years old, and battery life is tanking; I can no longer pass my waking hours without needing to recharge. So do I spend $900 on an iPhone 16? I do not; my local Apple Store will replace my battery for $89. (YMMV; it varies depending on phone model. Get an estimate here!)

Granted, iOS reports that my maximum battery capacity is down to 85%, and some would argue that it doesn’t need replacing until it drops to 80%. But even that would suggest only a 20% reduction in runtime. I feel like right now I’m lucky to get 7-8 hours on a charge. Not enough.

By the way, this isn’t just an Apple solution; Samsung Galaxy owners should be able to get a replacement at Batteries Plus. Local phone-repair shops can likely handle that and other brands as well.

The key takeaway here: You don’t need to buy a new phone just because your battery life is bad.

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PLAYLIST

📺 I’m pretty sure I mentioned Slow Horses (Apple TV+) once before, but now that Mrs. Cheapskate and I have finished season two, I’m calling it: Best spy show in years. It’s the TV equivalent of an unputdownable novel, with great characters, edge-of-your-seat action, and some surprisingly funny moments. (Gary Oldman is a gem.) Rick’s Rating: A

🎧 If you’re old enough to remember seeing Airplane! in theaters (a large room where people gathered to watch movies, but that’s not important right now), you owe it yourself to check out the audiobook version of Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane (free from Hoopla, with library card). It’s an oral history of one of the funniest movies ever, with the voices of not just the creators, but also several of the actors and plenty of celebrities. I’m enjoying the hell out of this thing. Rick’s Rating: A

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