Summer Ice Drinks For Less

The Waring Snow Cone Maker retails for $69.95 (this picture is from Crate and barrel)

Have you thought about getting an expensive Margaritaville or thought of dulling the blades of your blender to make your summer drinks this summer? Put down the credit card for a second and see a cheaper way to do your drinks this Summer. Pick up the credit card only after looking into the Waring Snow Cone Maker.

So you could just use a blender to crush ice for your frozen drinks. You might already have a blender handy. I have an issue with my blender. I got it for my wedding shower and it came with all these gadgets but it couldn't stop leaking when I did soup.  When I crushed ice on the ice setting I got crushed ice that was pitiful! The couple of ice cubes were tossed up the air by the blades but no crushing of ice! The ice was doing more of a crowd surfing that being crushed! The blender unevenly chopped ice even when I did small batches. I hate my blender and then after all that you have to clean it and have to worry about the blades cutting your fingers. It is not worth it!

I had at one point thought of getting a maragritaville so that I could get a nice summer slushy drink. But I did not have the $399.99 for a glorified blender. $399.99 was how much the Margaritaville cost when it first came out. People were going out spending that kind of money. There was even a South Park Episode regarding loans and the Margaritaville machine. Now the Fiji is about $349.99 which is down from the suggested retail of $500.00! But cannot be worth the price!  

Bahamas Frozen Concoction Maker picture from Margaritaville Cargo website

Margaritaville now has a one pitcher blender that is called the Bahamas frozen concoction maker which is cheaper than the original Margaritaville and retails for $199.99 which is still way too expensive! I do not drink margaritas so I am not very familiar with the preparation for the drink. I think that the $399.99 original machine blends the ice with the drink. People have been doing that with normal blenders for years but dulling their blender's blades. 

The cheapest way to get a nice frozen drink is with the Waring Snow Cone maker. I know what you are thinking how can a $69.95 machine compete with the old Margaritaville that cost $399.99. I have never actually used a Margaritaville because I did not have the $399.99 to try out the machine. But if you want crushed iced for drinks and if you like snow cones this is a great device for you. With the savings of if you get the top machine of $330 or if you get the new cheaper Bahamas model you still save $130 you still save a lot! For the savings I think you can take the uniformed ice and mix in the ingredients yourself.

What I like about the Waring Snow Cone Maker is that it helps me cut down on juice calories that I consume. I love juices like lemonade and it helps me cut down on how many juice calories I consume. I fill up the glass with ice then I pour over the lemonade. I can use a spoon to eat it like Italian ice which helps it last even longer. Plus I no longer have to spend a lot of money to get Italian ices when I can just buy some lemonade or a syrup and it is much cheaper in the long run. I can decide how many calories I consume and I can get more run for my calories when I use ice as the base. The ice fills me up more and is a lot more refreshing. During the heat wave I used it a lot! 

I purchased mine from Sur La Table which ships items for free if you spend $59.00 and I purchased it through Ebates which I got 6.5%  of the purchase back. I also purchased a couple of the snow cone syrups through Crate and Barrel through ebates and got back 3.5%. I purchased them for about $2.50 which is much less expensive than a box of Italian ices which will not last you as long as a 12.7 oz bottle of syrup. When I first purchase the Snow Cone Maker I got a $9.95 bottle from Sur la Table that was from Sonoma Syrups Co which is a splurge but it is very tasty. At that time the snow cone syrups were the same price at Crate and Barrel so I just purchased the name brand that I recognized. 

But if that is not enough check out below what you can do with your savings when you do not purchase any of the models of the Margaritaville! 

What to do with the savings by not purchasing the Margaritaville

1.      If you do not get the Bahamas cheaper version you can hire a bartender @ $20 a hour for 6.5 hours and have the bartender mix the drinks. If you do not get the original price of the Margaritaville which was $399.99 you can hire a bartender to mix the drinks @ $20 an hour for 16.5 hours and have them hand deliver the drinks with those cute little umbrellas in them.
2.       Instead of getting the Bahamas model you could go to the Elemis Spa at Mohegan Sun  if you add in $20 you could get a facial based on your skin type for 60 minutes. Instead of getting the top of the line Margaritaville you could go to Elemis Spa at Mohegan Sun and get the Renew package. It is a 2 hours and 15 minutes Spa treatment which is a 75 minute Aroma Spa Seaweed Massage and then they resurface your skin with the Tri-enzyme Resurfacing facial. 
3.      You could probably throw a party a couple of times and hire the Merry Maids to clean up the party aftermaths. Prices of course are by house type and mess. But for $130 or $330 that is a good amount of cleaning. In fact you could just have them clean up for normal everyday mess and you could catch up with some good friends instead! 
4.       Add $59 pretax or at  $189 you could go on a 3 day cruise going to Bahamas from Florida. If you did not get the Top of the line Margaritaville you could be upgraded to the balcony room and still have $31 to spend on tourist stuff! You would not have to pretend to be someplace tropical you could be some place tropical! 
5.       You could go to the Key West Margaritaville instead you could get a "Booze in a Blender" which is a 22 oz Margarita with a take home blending cup for $15.25, get a cheeseburger in paradise for $11.25, have key lime pie for $6.99= including 7% tax (not sure what the tax is in Florida but... And still only be out $35.83 and probably could fly down for the day via southwest from CT to FL for $99 one way instead of buying the Margaritaville! Of coures I would also recommend tipping the waiter or waitress generously! 
6.       You could save it in an Capital one 360 savings account and get an interest of 0.75% as of this post. Here is the rates for their other products. 
7.       With the savings one could buy the Warning snow cone instead of the Bahamas Margaritaville almost twice or if you were going with the original cost of the Margaritaville you could get after the savings almost 5 of them for your friends/family! That is crazy when you think of it. 
8.       In these times hard times for so many you could donate your money to The Red Cross, Donors Choose.org, Autism speaks, and do somethings to help those in need. 

My personal Waring Snow Cone Maker