The Bargain Queen has moved!

Visit us at www.thebargainqueen.com

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Looking for The Bargain Queen?

The official Bargain Queen web site is now at thebargainqueen.com.

New to The Bargain Queen? We're the busy shopper's best friend: we find the best bargains online, so you can get a great deal delivered right to your door. Come take a look! ;)

Looking for The Bargain Queen?

The official Bargain Queen web site is now at thebargainqueen.com.

New to The Bargain Queen? We're the busy shopper's best friend: we find the best bargains online, so you can get a great deal delivered right to your door. Come take a look! ;)

Labels: , , , , ,

Looking for The Bargain Queen?

The official Bargain Queen web site is now at thebargainqueen.com.

New to The Bargain Queen? We're the busy shopper's best friend: we find the best bargains online, so you can get a great deal delivered right to your door. Come take a look! ;)

Labels: , , , , ,

Monday, August 07, 2006

The new site is up!

The Bargain Queen has moved and improved! The new URL is www.thebargainqueen.com, so please take a look (and update your bookmarks and/or blogroll links).

If you're reading this on an RSS feed, the new feed address is http://thebargainqueen.com/feed/

If you're reading this in the newsletter, no need to do anything - newsletters will continue as usual.

See you at the new site!

PS: If you have any problems viewing the site, please email me so I can fix it.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

The grovel

OK, I'm begging and grovelling a little today. Please don't give up on me!

It's been a few days since I posted because I'm having technical difficulties. Long story short, I'm switching to Wordpress and that means coding a whole new template. Ugh. I would love to be blogging rather than wrestling with the tech, and as soon as I get this sorted, I will.

I'll be back soon... and I hope you'll come back and see me then.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Giveaways!

The Bargain Queen is posting a little less than usual this week because:
  1. She's working on some technical stuff (new domain name, new hosting and a switch to Wordpress) to make this blog even better.
  2. She's setting up a second blog because she's addicted to fashion coverage and wants to blog about it, and...
  3. Her offline life is hectic. She's had to organise the mother of all fire inspections tomorrow, which meant consulting owners, tenants, the local Council, two fire engineers and too many other people to mention. Dull but necessary.
If she finds any great bargains online she'll post them immediately, but otherwise you'll have to console yourself with a great giveaway, courtesy of the lovely Julie Fredrickson from Almost Girl and Coutorture:

Contest closed.




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Thursday, July 20, 2006

What sells cheaply on eBay

Want to pick up a great bargain on eBay? Sean Blanda from College V2 says these things sell for far less on eBay than they do retail:
  1. Jewellery
  2. Computer printers and monitors
  3. Handmade items
  4. Antiques
  5. Records
You can read all about it here.

Just be aware that some of these categories offer riskier buys than others. When you buy jewellery or antiques from a reputable dealer, you get their guarantee that the item is what it's purported to be; on eBay there are no guarantees. Likewise, when you buy computer gear in a store, you pay someone to tell you if it'll work with your existing equipment. If you know a lot about jewellery, antiques or computers you can probably get some great bargains; if not then buying retail's a better idea.

As for handmade items and records, there's much less to beware of (and you're usually only risking $2-15) so take a look for some great bargains.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Real Prada handbags for under $50!

If you'd like a Prada handbag for under $50, Amazon.com have this Prada Women's Rectangle Nylon Handbag for US$49.89:



...or this Prada Women's Small Rectangle Nylon Handbag, also for US$49.89...


These are likely to sell quickly, so if you're interested, grab them while you can!


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Renovation adds 'delayed glamour' to life

The Bargain Queen posted a few months ago about her impending renovation, but hasn't talked about it since. It takes a LOT to make her shut up, so let's find out what's going on.

As everyone knows, renovating is very little fun until it's finished. There's not a lot of glamour along the way. Since I'm all about living the most glamorous life my budget allows, living in the mess isn't delivering a great deal of satisfaction. I don't even want to have friends over because our apartment's such a mess, so there's no way I want to post pictures of it online! I knew this would be the case before I started (I lived through two of my mother's renovations) but it's the best option we've got at the moment so we decided to do it.

I've also had moments of sheer desperation about the mess here. I'm normally a neatfreak but we have no storage yet so I can't keep the place tidy. This makes me crazy because losing things brings out the worst in me. First I get angry, then I'm upset, then I have idle paranoid thoughts about neighbours stealing my stinky jeans from the laundry. Yes, I know that's insane. (I guess that's why the therapist I asked about it told me I didn't need her help - apparently having one or two neuroses is normal.) I've lost more things in the two months since we moved than I did in two years in my old place, so I wanted to stay quiet about going slowly insane and find happy things to post about instead.

I realised today that I'm looking at this the wrong way. Living in an untidy, unappealingly decorated place for a while is the price you pay for renovating... along with many thousands of dollars. The upside is that the place will look amazing when it's finished. So this isn't really slovenly living, it's a temporary state on the way to something better. I've decided to call it 'delayed glamour' so I think about it more positively.

Stay tuned to see more of our dump renovation in progress.


Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Jumping off the quack train

The Bargain Queen wrote about the alternative healthcare options she's tried and wanted to share some new information. This is probably most relevant to people with chronic, incurable health issues, although everyone uses healthcare services some of the time.

A couple of months ago, The Bargain Queen stopped using all the alternative therapies she was taking. This wasn't by design; it was simply the result of moving house, being disorganised and having too many other things to deal with. The result? She feels better than she has for months. While her pain levels are the same and her skin has lost that hyper-nourished glow, she also has an enormous amount more energy. She's gone from resting for 18 hours a day, to a manageable 10 to 12 hours.

Now all of this could be coincidence, or it could be due to the peaceful environment in her new house. But she's also very aware that whatever benefits all those herbs and supplements were giving, she's not missing them now they're gone - which makes her wonder a little about what she was paying for.

With each new 'miracle' treatment she's told about, The Bargain Queen gets a clearer sense that what they actually offer is hope. It would be wonderful if there was a cure for her illness. She'd love to be pain free, full of energy and able to go back to work. Every time someone says they can make that possible, she wants to believe them because she'd desperately like it to be true.

But there are two downsides to trying these purported miracle cures:
  1. The inevitable disappointment when yet another 'cure' doesn't work is psychologically harder than accepting the illness and making the most of the good things that are left.

  2. When you pay hundreds of dollars for a 'cure' and you end up feeling worse, it's easy to feel like an idiot afterwards.

    (Although compared to The Bargain Queen's last operation, which cost thousands, was terrifying, life threatening, very painful, took a long time to recover from and only gave a few months' good health, maybe it's not so stupid! ;)
This has made The Bargain Queen think very carefully about using any further alternative therapies. Her condition won't kill her, so her options are a lot broader than 'fight or die'. She's still happy in spite of the illness, because while the it's taken a lot (job, social life, super-athletic body) she's still got a wonderful husband, great friends and enjoyable hobbies. She's also fortunate enough that she and Mr Bargain Queen can survive financially, albeit on a tight budget, when she's not working - which makes her a lot better off than most people.

So for now, The Bargain Queen's giving up on herbs and supplements. That's not to say they're useless; maybe they do work for other people. But considering the improvement in her condition when she stopped taking them, The Bargain Queen's unconvinced that they were giving her value.

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