Great Deals = Great Fun!

Have you heard about the great deal sites that are popping up?  We’re fortunate enough to have some right here in Cincinnati! I love getting my daily e-mail notifications about new deals around town.  These are great sites that put a great deal of effort into providing us some wonderful offers.

Below you’ll see the list of sites offering deals for our area.  Be sure to check them all out and start saving and having fun at the same time! The nice thing about all of these sites is that none of them require you to pay to belong – anyone can get in on the savings!

You can find some amazing deals and  have some great fun by checking out the following  sites:

eReach.com and the Big Deal are providing deals on area businesses at 40-80% off the regular price. The deals come into your email each day and with a few clicks – the deal is yours! There are a minimum number of deals that need to be sold each day – so if you like a deal – share it with your friends to make sure it happens!

Heather  Willard with the Big Deal told me “We really want to reach the same folks that know us from Reach Magazine. We provide family-friendly deals that are a great savings – which is definitely appreciated in today’s economy!”

There’s three ways to find out about the daily deal – sign up for their daily e-mail;  “like” them on Facebook (Dayton folks have a separate Facebook to go to);   or follow them on twitter in Cincinnati or Dayton.

I purchased a deal from here in the Spring for Monster Mini Golf in West Chester. Buying the deal was simple. All I had to do was print out my voucher and hand it to the friendly staff at Monster Mini-Golf.  It was great! My kids as well as my husband and I had a great time inside on a super hot day this month.

The Big Deal also offers a unique fundraising opportunity.  The basic idea is that if  you get people signed up for the Big Deal email using a unique referral code – the first purchase they make for a Big Deal gets your group $5. Sounds like a great idea!

Half Price Cincy is part of the cincysavers.com site (which has weekly ads for local stores and  printable coupons). They boast to reaching nearly 70,000 unique visitors per month according to Omniture analytics.  Their team of bloggers includes Becky Grizovic from Nickels-n-Dimes as well as Heather Tenney, Cincinnati’s savings expert better known as Little Miss Know it All.

Melissa Huelman says, “We offer an online local coupon section filled with hundreds of free printable coupons. Site users can click and print their way to big savings on everything from local restaurants to services, automotive and home and garden needs, entertainment and attraction spots, and even health and beauty savings.

HalfPriceCincy offers ways to save at least half at more than 100 local businesses. At 9 am every Friday, they release a new selection of half-price deals for area restaurants, salons, attractions and businesses. At 9 am every Tuesday, they start Super Tuesday, where for 24 hours, our typically half-price deals are clearance priced at least 70 percent off.”

Because you print your deals once you buy them there are no shipping, handling or processing fees.

You can hear about their hot deals weekly on Q102, B105, The New Rewind 94.9; and, every Tuesday, they’re on Local 12’s Good Morning Cincinnati.

Melissa also shared with me that “the deals change each week, but we have nearly 200 half-price deals available every day. We also have contests each week just for signing up to receive our eblast, filled with info on new deals and ways to save.  Between that and our Facebook page, we give away as much as $4,000 in prizes each week.”

I just found out about this site a few weeks ago and when I visited it, I was really impressed with all of the various offers that are out there.  I saw some of our favorite places, so I’m sure I’ll be making my first purchase soon!

Groupon Cincinnati is part of a national deal site with deals specific for Cincinnati.  I had the pleasure to speak with Matt Faloon with Groupon.  He told me that Groupon wants to give you “ways to explore your city” to “find new ideas or to do things you might have known about but might not have otherwise done without a discounted deal”.  Isn’t that great?

I purchased a Groupon deal last month for the Florence Freedom.  It was the first time I’d purchased from them and I was a little concerned about the details of the deal and how it would work.  So, I hopped onto the discussions section and asked my questions.  I got quick and helpful answers almost immediately from someone who worked at Florence Freedom and was monitoring the sale on Groupon.  When I mentioned this to Matt, he was not surprised, he  stressed that they’re focus on customer service is what sets Groupon apart – there is normally a Groupon representative as well as someone from the daily deal on the site monitoring the discussions section ready to answer any questions or concerns while a deal is available.

I felt comfortable with the quick response I got and made my purchase.  Needless to say, we got a phenomenal deal and had an absolute blast at our first, but certainly not our last, visit to see the Florence Freedom. And Matt was right, my husband and I had talked for two Summers about going to see them, but never got around to it due to one thing or the other. Having a great deal right in front of our eyes gave us the added incentive to grab the deal and explore something new.

In order to get a deal, you say you want the deal and then you wait to see if enough deals sell. If they do, you get the deal.   Be sure to sign up to receive the daily deal e-mails.  If you know you have a trip to another city coming up, you might want to consider monitoring that cities Groupon deals for a month or two before you go to see if anything tempts you.  I recently went to Chicago for the weekend and I wish I’d thought of doing this before we went.  Oh well, a great excuse to have to go back!

Restaurant.com is a national company that gives you local deals on, you guessed it, restaurants.  Restaurant Gift Certificates are always on sale for a great price and sometimes you can get amazing discounts  (during a special offer you might see them as inexpensive as $2 for a $25 certificate!).  Make sure you read the fine print when purchasing certificates – most will only let you use one certificate per visit. All in all, my experience with restaurant.com has been positive.  I’ve purchased certificates for myself and I’ve given them as gifts.  They’re easy to use and the amount you can save can quickly add up to big savings for restaurants you frequent.

Would you Rather is another local deal site.  Caitlin Wilkinson with WoulduRather let me know that they’re currently working on updating the site, but I didn’t want to leave them out.

The basic idea is that you get two choices of deals  – in my experience I noticed one deal was more on an individual scale while the other deal was on a larger scale.  For example, I purchased a photo session from Red Door Photography in Bellevue, KY.  The day I purchased this, the other deal was for photos for a wedding.

Purchasing and using my deal was a cinch! I purchased my deal, scheduled my session with Red Door and then went in and handed over my certificate.  I was super pleased! I used my deal to get photos taken of my two children. In the past, I’ve always gone to a big store in a mall. This was a new experience for me and my children and it couldn’t have been better. Shad at Red Door made all of us feel comfortable and the photos are truly the best we’ve ever had taken of our kids. His thoughtful photos and adorable photo book he gave me as a thank you gift  means  I can’t wait to go back next Summer!

So get out there and try some new things or go to places you already love more often with deals offered by the above sites.  Do you know of any other sites offering great deals and discounts in the Cincinnati area?  If you do, please add them to our comments section.  I know I’d love to hear from you!

If you’d like to read more of my posts, visit me on my personal blog.