Good Value Sets

Greetings. Before I get into the great value sets out there, please let me add a reminder. If you only read this blog you might be disappointed in my output. Please make sure to like and follow me on facebook, where I regularly post updates to amazing sales.  This post is a brief rundown of sets that might not be on sale, but provide you great value.

Starter Sets

These are little sets that introduce or "start" on a theme. They include 4 minifigures (sometimes three) a vehicle and another small build-able item. For example, the space starter set includes an astronaut, two technicians, and a female scientist.  The technician is driving a space vehicle, and the scientist is behind a console. You get all of these items for only ten dollars! Just for the minifigures that comes to 2.50 per figure, plus you get several vehicles or items to build. Many of them are on sale so they become an even better value! You can find swamp police, demolition, and under water starter sets that give you a good number of figures and things to build for a very small price. On top of that, many of your kids will lose pieces or get confused trying to build larger sets anyway. Save your pocket book the trouble and go with the starter set instead.

Army Builders

These are sets that are good for collectors that want to build an army. They include 4 minifigures, a catalpault, and some sort of flags or display. I bought the Legends of Chima items awhile ago. Of course, if you get several of these sets you would have an army ready to go. But even on their own, at between 6 and 12 dollars, you can get a nice little army. There are Star Wars Battle Packs that have the same items and become a very nice addition to your collection for very little cost. If you are a parent with multiple children these are a good chance to give each child their own figure.

Lego Creator

These are a line of Legos that let you build cute creatures, buildings, or machines.  They usually have a good price to piece ratio. Ten cents per piece is a pretty good standard and many of the licensed sets are way over this standard, while the creators are usually under it. On top of that, you can build three different items with same pieces, and get instructions for each.  My favorites are the very cute animal series.  I bought a dragon set that has 220 pieces. At the ten cent per price point we would expect it to be about 22 dollars. But I bought it for 15, and its on sale for 12!!! (Free shipping and a dollar credit if you choose the no rush option with prime.)  Thats almost an astounding 5 cents per piece, and you can also build a scorpion or snake. They have a cute dog and duck set, as well as bird and iguana set that are sets your kids will really like.

Time Your Purchase

The final item is to time your purchase.  If you want to spend money you should make it count. Use a credit card to get you points.  On Amazon use your prime shipping to give yourself a credit on other purchases. At Toys R Us, take advantage of their buy one get one sales. At the Lego Store make sure you are a VIP member. That lets you get a 5 dollar coupon for every 100 dollars you spend. On top of that, they have double points periods, which earns you 5 dollars for every 50 you spend, and they regularly have add on freebies. I spent 35 dollars last month, for example, and got a free Ninjago figure that I wouldn't have gotten if I bought it at another time.   And at Walmart you should be using your Savings Catcher to get and spend free money!

Part of being a ninja isn't simply the amount of money you spend or don't spend. But its also creating value with the money you do spend.  You can make wise purchases to get the most enjoyment with the money you do spend, and make that dollar stretch as far as you can take it. Good luck Ninjas!

Home Made Advent Calendar

Greetings ninjas!  I just got done making an advent calendar for my daughter.  It might sound a bit daunting to make one, but it was not as hard or expensive as I thought. Here are a few ideas to remember:

Lots of Minifigures:
It might seem tough to come with 24 separate gifts, but minifigures are a good place to start.  The Double Decker couch is a great value for that.  You get 5 of them, all main characters from the movie, and you get the couch and a small car. Its even on sale right now too!  You might also try the Batman and Angry Kitty set. This is also on sale. You get three minifigures, including a Batman and Uni Kitty variant, plus a micro manager for less than ten dollars. If you break them up into one small present per day, that's respectively 7 or 4 days worth of presents.

Some people don't like fake me outs, but your kids won't notice and they are a good way to expand your options for a small amount of money. For example, you can find a set of 24 DC and Marvel comic Lego (like) figures for 16 dollars. You might also try the build your own minifigure station at the Lego Store.  This lets you build three minifigures for 9.99. The advantage of this is that you can build something rather specialized.

Of course, you can't forget to check yard sales! I found the 5 minifigures below for a very good price. I paid 10 dollars for all of those figures, when just one Pharaoh is worth that price on Ebay!

  

Storage: 

Most families have a giant pile of Legos in storage.  The first option is to build something with that useless pile, and present that as a gift. Or you can take a bunch of pieces you think are good for building and make them a present.  You might also do a combination of both and in the picture you can see I made a snow flake stand for Anna.  I then took it apart slightly and then bagged it.  This option doesn't cost you any money, just a bit of time!

If you're not that creative don't worry, I'm not either, you might try to find instructions and sets online.  I found a very good reindeer and I could tell my daughter its Sven. The free montly Lego magazine has some instructions. This months' included a Christmas tree and basic reindeer.

Themed Candy:  

You'll also notice the picture includes some rock candy that looks like ice. I thought it was a great treat to go with all of her Legos.  I found a bag of rock candy online for about 5 dollars. This was a great low cost purchase and it ended up being 3 days worth of presents.  Of course, if you aren't that creative you can get some molds at a very good price. Then you can make jello, chocolate, and crayons in the shape of Lego men or bricks. 

Accessorize: 

If you read this blog regularly, you already know I love to pimp out my Legos. Along with your boxes of old Legos pieces you probably have a bunch of boring, faded minifigures from the 80s. You can buy some cool accessories that turn them into a Viking, Roman, gladiator (pictured above), space marine, or desperado.  Brick Forge is having a great sale on blind bags right now. You can get 10 minifigure parts in a bag that normally costs 3 dollars.  With the buy one get one free you get 20 parts for 3 dollars. (Plus a few dollars for shipping.) Its kind of blind luck on what you get, but you should get a good variety of pieces to spice up several of your Lego men. For comparison, buying the swords, armor, and helmet for that gladiator costs about 5 dollars on its own. So its a great deal.    

I also found a nice head of Anubis on Ebay. It was only 2 dollars, combined with some weapons and shipping I only spent about 8 dollars to get a very unique Lego. I used one of the torsos and feet from the evil foot soldiers in Guardians of the Galaxy and now its going to be one of the awesome parts of her collection. It goes really good with the Pharaoh I already have, and the Egyptian Queen I got as well. (My daughter is really liking Egyptian themed items right now. I blame Scooby Doo.) 

Here you'll see the final product, where I have a Pharaoh, Cleopatra, and Anubis ready for wrapping: 

Deals!!! 

As always, pay attention to deals.  I regularly highlight them on this blog.  One of the best I found was the old Mixel series that went on sale for one dollar!!!! This was an insane deal and I literally grabbed as much as I could carry.  For the calendar I mostly used Series 4 flying blue creatures. Keeping with the Frozen theme as much as possible I sold it to my daughter as Elsa's flying monkeys.  (She loves Wicked too so I thought she would understand it.) 

Use your Christmas Purchases: 

This method is somewhat different from finding good deals. This lets you buy your purchases like normal. Then you can divide up the pieces from the purchase.  Most 40 dollar sets have about 400 pieces and 5 minifigures. You can give them the minifigures once per day, and divide the pieces into small chunks.  Your child then builds whatever they can using the pieces they have and try to guess what the final product is.  Then on the last day you give them the instructions and they can see how well they guessed and then build the product as intended.  

So there you have it.  The normal advent calendars cost between 30 and 40 dollars (or even more if you wait until the end of November.) With some time, effort, and careful planning you can easily produce a calendar and all 24 gifts for far less than that. It will mean even more since you made the gifts very thoughtfully.  Of course, it will also be way more special. I showed my daughter that last picture and she was practically giddy.  As always, like me on facebook to receive the latest updates. Good luck ninjas!! 

37% Off Guardians of the Galaxy

Greetings ninjas! I just discussed how you can get good deals if you are willing to wait a little bit.  The Guardian of the Galaxy sets are over a year old but they're being retired and now they're on sale.


 

You have some options here. The biggest set is 26% off. You get the Milano space ship, plus Star Lord, Drax, Gomora, and Ronan.  That is 4 main characters plus an extra evil foot soldier, and you get two space ships.

The next set is Nowhere escape. I already paid full price for this one (I was still earning my ninja stars back then) but now its 10 dollars or 26% off!. The real draw for this one of course is the Rocket Raccoon and Groot figures.  Unless you got the small polybag, the Rocket Raccoon figure is very hard to get! You also get Nebula (or the evil blue chick as I call her) and a foot soldier. It might not seem like it, but that little flying ship is actually pretty cool. It has nice colors and sticker prints.  I thought it was a bit overprice at 39.99, but 29 is a good value.

I'll likely buy the last set. Its normally 19.99 but its 37% off and selling for 12.59 right now!  This is about the same cost as many army builder sets. Here you would get Star Lord and both a good guy and bad guy foot soldier.  Three minifigures and two small space ships is a pretty good value for this set.

This is a great chance to get your kids some cool discounted sets for Christmas!  Mine loves Chris Pratt, so now I'll be able to get her another one of his Lego figures. (Emmett from the Lego Movie and his Jurassic World character are the other two!!) As usual, with Amazon you get some other perks as well. With Amazon prime you get free shipping. And this is way before Christmas so you can safely choose no rush shipping and get a dollar credit on ebooks and music.

Good luck ninjas! As always, like me on facebook to stay updated with the most current news.  For example, today there are two free Lego events!!

How to save 40% at the Lego Store

Greetings ninjas! Christmas is coming up very soon and I thought I should talk strategy. It might seem odd to discuss Christmas in October, but there are several important deals right now, that might it vital to discuss this early.  What follows if a short guide in how to maximize your money during the Christmas season.

Double Points: 

I mentioned earlier how you can start to rack up coupons during double points months.  The Lego store offers a VIP card that gives you a 5 dollar coupon for every 100 dollars you spend.  During double points months, you get a 5 dollar coupon for every 50 dollars you spend. That might not sound like a high amount, but Legos can add up quickly. One of my favorites is the Temple of Arijitzu. It costs 200 dollars. If I bought that during the double points months that give me 20 dollars of coupons!! Double points ends this month on the 14^th!

Add ons:

On top of that, if you are going to spend that kind of money, you should shop during the special holiday promotions.  Last year I got a great Elf Workshop when I bought 99 dollars or more of products.  This year they have an adorable red train.  Again, if you have multiple kids, or even one kid that wants a mid priced set, you can easily reach 100 dollars.  If you are spending that money anyway you can time it so you also get a great Christmas themed item.  This item is only available from the 13^th of October to the 13^th of November.  So you’ll want to shop on the 13^th or 14^th of October so you get double points and the holiday train!!  

Investment Items:

Maybe you don’t have any big ticket items on your list. You can still buy advent calendars in October and resell them around Thanksgiving. (Don't tell the Lego store employees you plan on doing that. They don't like it.) Most people don’t realize until its too late that advent calendars sell out by late October so there is a good market for these. The Star Wars version is particularly popular.  Last year me and my daughter got a great Darth Vader with red trim and a red cape, as well as an R2D2 dressed like a Christmas tree. These are great for your kids, but they also make great investment items.  Last year right around Thanksgiving (right before the advent month starts) they were selling for about 10-20 dollars higher than their sticker price. (Last year's LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 75056 is selling for almost double its original price).  So you can purchase a calendar in October, get the free holiday train set , and double vip points for the purchase, and then turn around a month later and recoup all of your money and even make a little profit.  To a lesser extant you can do this with the minifigures as well. These are highly specialized figures that come in blind bags and cost 4 dollars each. If you need to reach 100 dollars to get the promo you can buy a few of these and open them to see what they are, and then resell them. If you're ambitious might also like to keep them for a home made advent calendar.  On top of that, they are Halloween themed. So if you decide to keep them you get some cool monster themed Legos you can pull out every year.

Adding it up:

In short, you can easily get the holiday promotion and rack up coupons without spending that much money.  The Star Wars Advent Calendar is 40 dollars, your families Christmas presents are another 40 dollars, and you get 5 minifigures for 20 dollars which gets you up to 100 dollars, plus tax that would be about 107 dollars.

But if you sell back the advent calendar for a small profit (about 50 dollars would be a safe assumption) and two of the minifigures you don’t want (at cost) you’ll get around 58 dollars back. You will also get 10 dollars in coupons for purchasing during a double points period.  And you’ll get a train set worth 15 dollars. If you don’t sell the train set that means you got 67 dollars (115 for the total worth of your products, minus the 48 dollars at cost of the products you sold back) of Lego products for only spending about 39 dollars!!!! (107 dollars spent minus the 58 you sold them for and 10 dollars of coupons)  That is close to 40% off!!!!! 

Plus, you’ll be getting money into your account right around the start of December which is always nice for buying some more presents or those lousy fundraisers your kids have. I don’t know if you’re like me, but getting extra money into account feels like new money, even if you’re just getting back what you just spent.  So it’s a nice psychological boost when you need it. 

You’ll have to do a little bit of work.  Though making a trip to the store, selling on ebay, and dropping off a package aren’t terribly difficult actions.  And if you’re reading this blog you likely have the motivation to save money and see the effort as very worth it.  You can get some Christmas presents, a nice Christmas Lego you can use year after year, some Halloween Legos you can use year after year, you get some coupons for more Legos, and you can help somebody out who is panicking about an advent calendar at the start of December. And you can do all of this for 40% off at a total cost of 39 dollars and some time spent!  Ninja level achieved!  As always, make sure to follow me on facebook for the most current updates.  For example, there is a free giveaway at Toys R Us this Saturday.

32 Dollars of Legos for 10: Ninja Mission Accomplished!

Greetings ninjas! Earlier this month I managed to score quite a few Legos for only 10 dollars!! Here is what I got:

Here is how I did it and some ideas to consider as you shop. 

1. Free goodies:  

You'll see in the top left is a Storm Trooper Lego. This was a limited edition door gift on force Friday.  Toys R Us and many other places have these deals on a regular basis. Force Friday started Thursday night at midnight, but most of these are on Saturday mornings. They are small, and they might take some time, but they are a great way to spend time with your kids. After awhile the free stuff starts to add up. I've got a Lego door to Jurassic World, Sponge Bob in a top hat, a Frankenstein Halloween figure, and now an exclusive Star Wars piece for free!! 

2. Sales: 

The next item is a scene from the Lego movie.  It normally costs 13 dollars, but it was on sale for 6.45.  That is 50% off!! The drawback is that the movie was over 18 months ago. So if your child really really wanted a particular item from the movie this method wouldn't work. But if you can handle waiting, and don't mind getting whatever is unwanted and still in stock by then, it works out well. Me and my daughter loved the movie, but we didn't really need or want this set. So getting three mini figures (two of them main characters), and a nice little building was a good deal for us.  

3. Divide and Sell: 

We bought two very nice sets earlier in the year. The Double Decker Couch and the Angry Kitty set had all of the main characters and some nice small sets like Emmett's car for very good prices. As a result of this, we already had an Emmett and I decided to sell that figure on Ebay. With all of these good deals the market isn't too high for that figure, but I did sell him for 2.49.  If you subtract that from the original (sale) price, I only paid 4 dollars for this item!!! If you are buying for your kids this can be hard to do. I simply explain to my daughter that we probably don't need two of the same thing, and when we make money on ebay, that becomes even more money for buying Legos! You might also want to carefully consider the resell value of the product.  If you might want any set as an investment product, then its vital that you have the entire set. 

4. Reward Points: 

At the bottom you see 4 mystery bags. These are specialized minifigures that are released in groups of 16. They are fun little purchases, especially if you are good at feeling items within the bag to know what you are getting.  The current series is monster themed and we managed to find 4 that we liked. These are normally 3.99 each. But I decided to cash our my reward points at the Lego store and I payed only 6 dollars! 

You get one reward point for every purchase and after 100 dollars you get a 5 dollar coupon.  That sounds like many purchases to get there, but keep in mind that's essentially 5% off every purchase. Sometimes the Lego store has double point months, where it only takes 50 dollars to get there. (Those months usually have special exclusive products that are free when you get over 100 dollars. I'll talk about how to maximize those deals in a future Christmas strategy post.)  In double point periods it means every purchase is 10% off.  On top of that, the Lego club offers special coupons.  With any purchases in that month it automatically rewards you 100 points or 5 dollars of your next purchase.  That might sound like a gimmick to buy more products.  But when you are buying products that range from 1 dollar to 2.50, you can rack up those points rather quickly.

When all is said and done I bought 25 dollars worth of Lego products, and got an exclusive brick currently selling for 7 dollars on Ebay for 10 dollars!!! So don't blow all your money on full price Legos and end up like Chewie here.  Good luck ninjas!  I don't always create a post on this blog for every deal. So as always, please follow me on facebook to stay update on the most current deals!

Free stuff on Force Friday

This week is "Force Friday." This is a big unveiling of lots of new Star Wars toys products.  Over at Bricks and Bloks, Kurt has the run down of the lego sets you'll see.  Toys R Us has an unidentified Star Wars Poster starting at midnight. (This is a good sign that it has something to do with the new movie.) There is no word on any qualifying purchases that you make, but it seems like a door prize if you care to shop at Midnight on Friday.  

The Lego Store is having their own deal. They are offering a free C 3PO polybag. This is a special Episode VII version where he has a red arm. (I'll assume the movie will explain that.)  There is no word on the qualifying purchase, but I imagine it will be for spending 50 or 75 dollars. That sounds like a big amount, but there are lots good sets coming out, and the cheapest so far is 30 dollars.  So if you were planning on getting some new Star Wars Legos, you will likely hit that number pretty quickly, and this is a good chance to get an extra Lego or poster as well!!  Good luck ninjas, and as always, like me on facebook for more updates!

20% Off Exo Suit!

Greetings ninjas! I've had my eye on a cool set for a long time, and now its 20% off!!!  The Lego Exo suit is from the ideas line.  These are ideas developed and supported by Lego fans, some of which are then officially made my Lego. For example, they also have Walle, Ghostbusters, and Bing Bang Theory Legos.

They all look really good, but being designed for adults, and having to deal with license issues, most of them are more expensive than normal Legos. But at 20% off the set has far better value. It has been very popular and recently discontinued, so the stock will quickly disappear. Its the only set to offer green space figures, who recall the classic space line. The minifigures are also modeled after the two creators of the idea, and one of them is a women! (I'm always trying to get more female figures for my daughter that aren't princesses.)

It has a cool main figure (though its somewhat fragile and more for display than playing.) It looks a little bit like the cool suit that Ripley wore fighting the Queen in Aliens. There are several cool accessories like a neat little turtle and several barrels. The set also comes with very detailed instructions that include a history of its design and some scenarios for playing.

Demand  has been very high for this set, so I'm surprised its still in stock and even more surprised its on sale. I've also heard it will likely increase in value a great deal once the existing stock is depleted. While the market is being flooded with below cost items right now, it will increase in value and might make a decent investment Lego you can sell in the future.  Good luck ninjas! As always, make sure to follow me on facebook to get all the most current updates!!