Product Reviews - Pocketful of Joules

My Peloton: 3 Year Check-In

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may remember that I jumped on the Peloton bandwagon during the pandemic. I posted lots of updates throughout the first year, and then a 15-month update and 2 year update. Well, if you can believe it… it’s time for a 3 year check in!

Yup, it was 3 years ago that I downloaded the Peloton app (with a non-Peloton bike) and then 6 months later I upgraded to the official Peloton bike.

To answer the most obvious question – YES, I am still using my Peloton bike and the Peloton app. However, to be as honest as possible, I haven’t hopped on the bike as much as I had the previous year.

In fact, I did over 300 cycling classes in the first 2 years I owned the bike and in year three I only added about 40 more. However, I HAVE been keeping up with my goal of doing something every single day.

Over the spring, summer and early fall, Travis and I did a ton of the walking sessions. Jack and I regularly snuggle up together for a meditation in the evenings. And I’ve still done a variety of cycling, strength training, stretching and yoga sessions too.

Is there room for improvement? Certainly! However, my bike isn’t going anywhere and when my body feels up to it, I can always jump back on.

Things I’m still loving for my workouts:

My Shimano Indoor Cycling shoes – you can read my blog post review of them here: Upgrading my Peloton Bike Shoes to Shimano
The Pivot – This is super handy for when I do stretching and yoga, since I can just PIVOT the screen from my bike and use the open space in my office. You can read the blog post where I talked about it here: My Office/Exercise Room Hybrid .
My full set of neoprene dumbbells (these are great). I have dumbbells in 2lbs, 3lbs, 5lbs, 8lbs and 10lbs and they have all gotten used.

As a goal for 2024, I’m going to try to beat the amount of cycling sessions I did this year!

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means that clicking on a link may help me earn a small commission at no cost to you.

Like what you see? Share me with your friends!

Do We Need an Inflatable Hot Tub?

When we were traveling for Thanksgiving, we passed a store selling hot tubs. Which lead to me googling hot tubs to see how much they cost. Which than led me to Amazon, where I found inflatable hot tubs. Which led to me reading (aloud) a bunch of reviews where people freaking love their inflatable hot tub. Which led to my husband and I deciding that for Christmas this year we should probably buy an inflatable hot tub.

Yeah, it snowballed pretty quickly.

When we travel, we do enjoy renting places with hot tubs. And an inflatable hot tub seems like a pretty low stakes way to try it out to determine if it would get enough use at our house to justify the purchase.

See, still talking myself into it.

This is the one we are considering: Coleman SaluSpa Inflatable Hot Tub. It supposedly fits four, which means it should be fine for the three of us. Even if one of us is a giant. You basically blow it up, plug it in, fill it with water and BOOM you have a hot tub. There IS maintenance that needs to be done, where you put in chemicals regularly to keep from icky things growing in there. It also comes with a lid.

The reviews are pretty great – on Amazon over 9,800 people have reviewed it and it has 4.4 stars. Which is pretty surprising to me. I didn’t realize there were so many inflatable hot tubs out in the world!

Part of our backyard is fenced in and there is a door to access the area in our sunroom. So, I’m thinking I can keep some towels/robes in the sunroom (maybe a shelf or some hooks?) so that we have them ready to go for hot tubbing time. It’s also right by our laundry room, which is nice for wet swimsuits.

We have a hose out that side of the house, so filling it up should be easy-peasy. We don’t have an outside plug there, but we DO have one on that side of the sunroom — so we can cut a little slit in the screen/plastic window and feed the plug through.

There are a couple potential issues though. (1) The ground isn’t completely flat. So, we may need to put the inflatable hot tub a little further away from the house (and use an extension cord). (2) There are conflicting reports on whether you can just plop the inflatable hot tub on the ground (grass/pine needles/dirt). I’m not really concerned about killing grass, but I’m not sure if we need to dig out a circle to make it more level? I found this hot tub mat that is supposed to help level it, and provide cushion and heat installation to the bottom, so that may be the way to go?

Also, I’m imagining throwing some holiday lights up around the nearby trees. Or fence. Or side of the house. I don’t know – my imaginary hot tub sanctuary has twinkle lights. They also have lots of random light up hot tub accessories, which could be cool.

So yeah, we are letting that idea marinate a bit. If you have an inflatable hot tub or if you know someone with one, I’d love to hear about your experiences with it!

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means that clicking on a link may help me earn a small commission at no cost to you.

Like what you see? Share me with your friends!

On my Black Friday Shopping Watch List

While I’ve never been one of those wake-up-early-and-camp-outside-a-store people for Black Friday, I am quite the internet deal finder. So, each year I make myself a little ‘watch list’ for items that I want to purchase utilizing those Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

Instead of having a list of appliances and electronics, I tend to use Black Friday sales to replenish items that are running low, or to see if a coveted item falls within my price range. Here is my list for this year:

Sunday Riley: I’ve been running low on my favorite face moisturizer, so I’ve been stalking the Sunday Riley site to see if the C.E.O. Hydration Cream will go on sale. (UPDATE: I just saw that it went on super sale on Amazon… marked down from $65 to $39!).
Athleta: I tried on the Coaster Luxe Jogger in the store and really loved them, but would prefer to spend less than $79 on a pair of joggers. I’m planning to check the Athleta website over the holiday weekend to see if any good deals pop up on these.
L.L. Bean: I shared the $149 Signature Cotton Fisherman sweater in a post (here’s the post) a few weeks ago and I’m crossing my fingers that L.L.Bean adds a discount of more than 10% (which is lame).
The Perfect Jeans: Another past blog post share was when I replaced my husband’s jeans with The Perfect Jeans. He could use one more pair, so I’m planning to check the website for any holiday deals! Here’s the post with a $20 promo code if you’re looking for jeans for your man or kiddo.
Nespresso pods: I love my Nespresso machine (blog post here), so I always keep an eye out for pod sales. My current favorites are a Nespresso chiaro pod mixed with a Starbucks espresso pod (I add them both to some frothed milk and a squirt of vanilla cold foam. YUM!) So, I’ll be doing a quick check over the long weekend to see if any deals pop up and restock if they do.
Jack’s List: I’m also planning to have Jack write up his Christmas list tonight and put it on an Amazon Wish List, so that way I can keep an eye on whether any prices dip low over the weekend. Typically there are some STEM toys and video games I can snag from either Amazon, Target or GameStop when the sales start.

Are you planning to do any online Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday or Cyber Monday shopping?

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon and ShopStyle affiliate links. This means that clicking on a link may help me earn a small commission at no cost to you.

Like what you see? Share me with your friends!