The Next Groupon

Hello out there! I know its been quite some time for me, but to recap what has been going on for me the past 6 months, I'll fill you in:

• I took and passed my doctoral comprehensive exams in September - yay!
• I successfully proposed my dissertation topic and began doing analysis - yay!
• I applied for a predoctoral psychology internship (October/November), which are highly competitive, and have been interviewing at various sites in the region for the past month. 

Now that my interviews are over, things are settling down and life can slowly get back to normal, at least for a little while. But as you can see, if you ever get a Ph.D., its no small task, and they love to cram in all of your big tasks in the last year. Anyways, onward and upward to the blog!

Well, Groupon has definitely caught on fire the past couple of months, which I wrote about last year, and now similar sites have popped up. Livingsocial.com is one that I stumbled upon today after a friend posted in his status on Facebook. Today's deal: $10 for a $20 Amazon.com giftcard! Great deal for me, since I frequent Amazon for their prices and my current free Prime membership provides free 2 day shipping. LivingSocial also provides an incentive by providing you with a link after you purchase the deal - if you get 3 friends to also purchase the deal, yours is free! Checking other types of sites like these are helpful incase your area might not be covered by Groupon or other sites yet. From what I can tell LivingSocial seems to have a longer list of cities available for deals.

In addition, I and fellow readers of this blog have noticed that local programs have begun to do things in their smaller cities. In my city, for example, the "giveback" program runs via local participating businesses which contribute a certain percentage of your purchase to a selected charity - for me, its the local humane society - and also gives you $10 back to use after you have accumulated a certain amount of purchases with the card. And recently they have added a monthly enewsletter where a "groupon-like" deal is presented. A couple of months ago I got a 30 minute massage from a local therapist for $15 on our giveback deal, a treat I rarely get to have for myself!

Be sure to check out your local area to see if any type of programs like this exist - they are a win-win situation!

Expect to see more posts in the upcoming weeks - I'm hoping to get back on track as one of my New Year's Resolutions!