Groupon Owns Me

By Laurie

I am not a coupon clipper. I cannot remember to take a daily vitamin or where I left my keys, so the organization of small pieces of paper are beyond my scope, even if it saves me money on groceries.

I always say I need a minder.

This coupon ignorance makes it all the more entertaining that I am addicted to my daily e-mail from Groupon, a Web site that offers local bargains on goods and services in nearly 100 cities in the United States and Canada. I've been getting Groupon updates for the past few months, and it is one thing I look forward to in my inbox each morning among all of the other not-so-fun spam and demands that I do work.

Every morning there is a special offer from Groupon, and if enough people buy it, the deal is on. I've rarely seen a deal that doesn't go, but I'm in D.C., so I'm going by a large city's numbers here. Because I'm in a large area, I get the deals from the Maryland county I live in, D.C. itself, and Northern Virginia.

What bargains exist? Well, today in my area it's a half-price meal at a rotisserie chicken place that my family likes, but I'm not really feeling. There is also a side deal of a discount admission to a regional crab and beer festival, and since I'm very much on a budget for the forseeable future, that isn't happening, unfortunately. Many salons offer discounts on spa, hair and nail services, and there are a bunch of discounts on theater and concert tickets, tourist attractions, and restaurants.

What have I bought lately? Well, signing into the "My Groupon" section, I see that I have some tropical ice cream coupons to cash in, and a bunch of half-price water ices from a popular place in my neighborhood (on which I had better get cracking, because summer time is awasting.) I ordered a half-price auto detailing service, which I desperately need and tends to be really expensive.

My favorite things, however, are the fitness options. I got a month's trial for $49 at a local L.A. Boxing location, and liked it so much I signed up for a year at a Groupon-member deal.

That's a picture of me at the L.A. Boxing gym, where I'm taking photos of my progress. (Or at least I was before I started my summer travels and stopped going for a month. August, I'm looking at you, and the potential of new scabs from elbow strikes.)

I also have five drop-in yoga classes to cash in at a local studio that I likely wouldn't have tried if that hadn't been only $40. I'm a fitness commitmentphobe who likes to try new activities to keep myself interested and active. Yoga classes are pretty expensive, so the Groupon offer is a great way for me to see if hot yoga will kill me or turn my life around in amazing ways before I have the funds to do it for full price.

Thanks, Groupon, for helping me spend my limited funds in fun and relatively economical ways.

Now if I could only work on the grocery store.

 

Comments

[K]

I did purchase the chicken out groupon this morning.. haha. I haven't eaten there in ages but I thought it sounded like a fun picnic idea. I also have purchased laser hair removal from the DC area groupon and am just awaiting my consultation. I agree that groupon is a cool program/service!

[Jackie]

Love groupon!

[Eran Davidov]

Did you notice that you don't use all those vouchers? Some of them collect dust at groupon central since you never get around to using them. A friend and I started http://www.lifesta.com as a marketplace to sell those vouchers, and to pick up deals you've missed the first time around.