Thanksgiving For 9 Years Of Blogging

Never Miss Another Deal - Follow DansDeals on Facebook

Exactly 9 years ago on my 20th birthday, while on bochur shlichus (volunteer mentoring/teaching) for the year in Brazil, I started ctownbochur.blogspot.com.  That would evolve into ctownbochur.com, ctowndeals.com, and finally DansDeals.com in 2007 when the previous owner of the domain name let it expire and I snapped it up for $8.

There’s always something about birthdays and deals for me.  Sure my birthday always falls around Black Friday, though Black Friday used to be very different than it is now as I wrote about here.  Now you would have to be nuts to wait outside in the cold as it can all be found online for less though the deals this week are always great.

In 2010 my wife planned an elaborate surprise birthday party for a Saturday night but had to ruin the surprise to get me to leave my computer.  I wasn’t just being obstinate, there just happened to be free tickets to Vegas with free Limo transfers, free nights at the Bellagio, and free Cirque tickets going on that night. Even got lamb chops and rib-eye comped on that trip. So I went to the party and at the party I wound up booking all-expenses paid trips for myself as well as all of my friends…quite the party favor.  In 2011 smack in middle of my son’s first birthday party there was the 4 mile island glitch with first class tickets to Hong Kong for just 4 miles that multiple DDF readers nabbed by flying that very week.  And of course this past Saturday evening was the crazy United fun. Can’t even imagine what would have been if the  Vegas and United deals didn’t start on shabbos 😉

I’ve been writing about deals that I come across as well as my own life experiences along the way just about every day since 11/26/04.  I’ve come a long way during the 9 years, I got smicha in 2006, almost got killed in an angry Brazilian riot in 2007, completed my MBA and got married in 2008, and had a beautiful boy and girl since then as well. Over the past year I’ve gone from being a shy guy in person to speaking in front of thousands of people over 5 DansDeals seminars.

In the meantime, I’ve flown on several hundred free flights thanks to learning how to generate millions of free frequent flyer miles and hotel points (and hopefully you have too!).  And those first class suites and 5 star hotels are a whole lot more fun when you’re flying with someone special.  It’s been awesome to explore the incredible world that G-d has given us and create memories that will last a lifetime.

Anyway, just wanted to thank every one of my readers for coming along for the ride 😀