📬 Did someone forward this to you?Sign up here. Tomorrow: The next big ticket item on the dark web isn’t your Social Security number. It’s your camera roll.
Happy Saturday to you, friend.Here’s something most don’t know. Every time you ask ChatGPT to write an email, plan a recipe or settle an argument with your spouse, a data center somewhere is drinking water. A lot of it. Those servers run insanely hot, and water is how they cool down.
💦 So how much water does one typical AI conversation use? A) 17 drops, B) Half a cup, C) A small water bottle, D) Enough to fill a kiddie pool. Take your best guess. The answer is cooling its heels at the end.
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Haul of the deals
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
⚡ TL;DR
Amazon quietly built its own answer to Temu with over 1 million items under $20.
Many items are under $5 and backed by Amazon’s A-to-z Guarantee, unlike Temu.
Free shipping at $25. Free returns. Delivery in 1-2 weeks. Check out my picks.
📖 Read time: 3 minutes
You’ve heard of Temu. You’ve probably gotten 47 ads for it. And you’ve thought, “That looks sketchy.” Your gut isn’t wrong, but here’s the thing. Amazon built its own version, and most people have no idea it exists.
It’s called Amazon Haul. Go to amazon.com/haul (then bookmark it, so you always have a quick link to it). Most items are under $10. Plenty are under $5. Over a million items. Selection grew nearly 400% in the past year alone.
🤔 Why this isn’t Temu
Here’s what actually matters. Amazon Haul is covered by the A-to-z Guarantee. Damaged? Defective? Not what you ordered? You have a real path to a refund. Drop it off at Whole Foods, Kohl’s, UPS or Staples. Temu can’t say that.
The only trade-off: Delivery takes 1-2 weeks instead of two days. Fine. Stack your cart to $25, and shipping is free. Hit $50 and you get 5% off your whole order. Hit $75 and that jumps to 10%. Fill the cart, let the savings stack. That’s the whole game.
💡 15 great finds under $10
I dug through Amazon Haul so you don’t have to. All prices were accurate at the time of publication. These things sell fast, so some may be gone. If you’re on a desktop and see a QR code, scan it with your phone or open it in the Amazon app.
OK, go get yourself a bargain right now!
🏠 Home & kitchen upgrades
1. Gorilla Grip can opener (10% off, $8.87): One tool, two jobs. Tackles cans without sharp edges, then flips to bottle opener duty.
2. Potholder set (32% off, $6.79, two-piece): Your hands deserve better than a folded dish towel or some burnt offering. These are heat-resistant, easy to hang and machine washable.
3. Scrub sponges (11% off, $8.72, nine-pack): Scotch-Brite doesn’t make wimpy sponges. Made for cast iron, grills and the baked-on stuff you’ve been avoiding.
4. Rug gripper tape (38% off, $4.99, eight-pack): Don’t fall. The fix for every rug that’s been slowly migrating across your floor. Works on floors and carpet.
5. LED night-lights (42% off, $6.97, two-pack): They automatically flip on at dusk, off at dawn. Only 0.3W, so they’re friendly on your electric bill.
✨ Personal care hits
6. Travel makeup mirror (33% off, $9.99): Touch up anywhere, anytime. There are 1x and 3x magnification sides, plus a built-in LED light. No more squinting in bad lighting.
7. Slant tweezer (14% off, $5.99): Revlon’s slant tip is engineered to grab exactly what you’re targeting. Handles brows, splinters, chin and ingrown hairs without missing.
8. Body & hand soap (20% off, $7.99, two-pack): Regular soap dries you out. Dove packed these bars with real moisturizing cream. Skin stays soft, not tight.
9. Memory foam slippers (30% off, $6.99): One reviewer says they “feel like walking on tiny warm clouds.” Available in women’s sizes 7.5 to 10.5. Wear them on the kitchen tile and thank me later.
10. Burt’s Bees lip balm (35% off, $3.92): Dry, cracked lips need more than a swipe. This squeezy tube delivers beeswax and shea butter right where you need it.
📱 Useful tech finds
11. Magnetic cord holders (10% off, $8.99, six-pack): Stick them to your desk, nightstand, TV stand or wherever cords go feral. Forget fishing for your charger in the dark.
12. Tablet & phone stand (20% off, $7.99): This adjustable holder keeps your devices upright for video calls, recipes and streaming. Your neck will notice the difference.
13. Surge protector power strip (28% off, $8.98): You get eight outlets, four USB ports, a flat plug and a 6-foot cord, all in one strip. Mounts on a wall or sits on any flat surface.
14. USB-C adapters (25% off, $7.49, four-pack): Still have USB-A cables everywhere? These convert them to USB-C, so they’re compatible with your new tech. Tiny fix, big convenience.
15. Duracell AA batteries (17% off, $7.61, six-count): While you’re at it, stock up on long-lasting alkaline batteries. Because finding out your smoke detector is dead at 2 a.m. is nobody’s idea of a good time.
🗣️ TEXT/POST THIS STAT: Amazon has a hidden store with over 1 million items, most under $10, backed by the same A-to-z Guarantee as regular Amazon. It’s called Amazon Haul. Most people have never heard of it. Shop here.
📩 Send this to someone who keeps complaining about Temu packages that show up three months late looking nothing like the picture. Use the links below!
On my show this weekend: Turns out that innocent peace sign photo you post online could expose enough detail for someone to recreate your fingerprints. Yes, really. That’s one of the jaw-dropping stories this week.
AI is making IVF cheaper and more effective.
A magician explains how thieves steal Apple Watches mid-handshake.
Waymo drives off with a man’s luggage.
AI systems are beginning to replicate themselves.
Kids fooled age-verification AI by using fakes.
WSJ writer Danielle Crittenden shares a moving story about the devices still connected to her late daughter.
Hit play below before everyone else is talking about it. 👇
⚠️ Patch your stuff: If you are running Windows, today isn’t the day to skip an update. Microsoft’s May Patch Tuesday fixed 120 security flaws across Windows, Office, Word and Excel. Seventeen are rated Critical. Go to Start > Settings > Windows Update, hit Check for updates, and restart when prompted. Don’t wait on this one.
📵 Let it be live: Paul McCartney has had enough of our collective desire to document concerts. The 83-year-old Beatle wants phones down at all his shows. He told fans the screens make him feel like “a performing monkey,” which is a rough thing to hear from the man who survived Beatlemania. The research backs him up, filming a show dulls the experience. Your camera roll gets fed, your memory gets crumbs.
Flash in the gram: Instagram invented unedited photos the same way I invent dinner by reheating pizza. Its new app Instants is what happens when Snapchat and BeReal have a baby. No editing. Just real, unpolished moments. Then photos disappear. Rolling out in Italy first. To turn it off, go to your profile, tap the three lines, then Settings > Content Preferences and toggle Instants off.
📘 Don’t let the AI revolution leave you behind. Your competitors are already using it to work faster and smarter. If you feel overwhelmed by the buzzwords, you need NetSuite’s free “Demystifying AI” guide. It explains exactly how to use this tech to boost your bottom line. Download the free guide today.*
Stock moves:Bill Ackman told the world he loaded up on Microsoft stock after the price dropped. Shocking, right? Buy low. The billionaire said Wall Street underestimated it. Meanwhile, June 12th is the targeted NASDAQ listing for SpaceX, under the ticker SPCX. It's targeting a raise of about $75 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation. That blows past Alibaba, Meta, and Visa combined. And Elon Musk? The man who already runs Tesla, xAI, and the internet's loudest comment section is about to get a whole lot richer. Genius.
👓 Face war begins: Google launched its Gemini display edition AI glasses, built with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Its rival? Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses, which already crossed 7 million pairs sold. Google’s pitch is productivity. Meta’s pitch is fashion. Both are genuinely impressive but concerning. I’m not sure if I want either Meta or Google on my face all day.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
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🎤 PODCAST: THE KIM KOMANDO SHOW
She uses AI to build her own Facebook Marketplace
Johanna Abzug got fed up with Facebook Marketplace and decided to build her own. No coding degree. No tech background. Just AI tools and a problem she wanted to solve. She’s proof that you don’t need to know how to code anymore to build something real.
🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Accidentally closed a browser tab? Press Ctrl + Shift + T on Windows or Cmd + Shift + T on Mac to bring it right back. Works in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Keep pressing it to restore multiple tabs in order. You’re welcome. (Seriously, burn this one into your brain.)
📺 YouTube has a secret mood light: Dark mode is fine. Ambient mode is the glow-up. Click your profile icon > Appearance > Dark theme. Then open any video, tap the Settings gear and flip on Ambient mode. It pulls the dominant colors right off the screen and softly haloes the whole player. Already there. Just off by default.
Gmail is hiding rows of emails from you: All that extra spacing? Wasted screen real estate. On PC, click the Settings gear (top right), look for Density and pick Compact. You’ll see nearly twice as many messages without scrolling.
📚 Your Mac is a secret dictionary: Hover over any word in Safari, Notes or Pages and press Control + Command + D. Instant definition, synonyms, everything. In Safari, the same shortcut on a hovered link pops up a page preview before you even click. Built right in. Free.
📞 Stop overpaying for a plan you keep meaning to review: Consumer Cellular runs on the same towers as the big carriers, real 5G coverage, for a fraction of the price. No contracts, no runaround. Use my exclusive link to get 1 line for $35, plus your 2nd month FREE. Your wallet called. It said it’s done waiting.*
💸 Say yes to a free Quicken or QuickBooks program: GnuCash runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, uses real double-entry accounting, includes a checkbook register and generates reports to answer the big question: “Where did all my money go?” Download it free here. No subscription. No catch. No kidding.
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: Toru Yamanaka
🐺 Fur real
Japan’s latest high-tech anti-bear strategy looks less like wildlife management and more like a demented Chuck E. Cheese animatronic escaped into the woods.
Meet the “Monster Wolf,” a robotic scarecrow with glowing red eyes, fake fur and speakers blasting over 50 sounds, from howls to electronic noise complaints. It swivels its head, flashes LEDs and can screech loud enough to be heard over half a mile away.
Basically a $4,000 demonic lawn ornament running on solar panels and unresolved trauma, but hey, it works.
Just because. A bear walked into a bar and ordered a whiskey and …… a Coke. The bartender asked, “Why the big pause?” The bear looked down and said, “I was born with them.”
LOGGING OUT …
🔜 Tomorrow: A photo of your passport on your phone sells for $600 on the dark web. I’ll tell you the five photos to delete.
Coming up in tomorrow’s trivia, the tiny app that turns one quick video into a missing chunk of your life.
💧 The answer: C) A small water bottle, about 17 ounces per typical conversation. That’s a UC Riverside study finding. One 20- to 50-question chat uses roughly the same water as the bottle in your gym bag. Not for you. For the servers doing the thinking.
Sam Altman pushed back in 2025, claiming newer systems use barely a drop per query. Maybe. But total AI water consumption still hit tens of billions of gallons globally last year. That’s basically the world’s entire bottled water output. For AI. Wow.
Now remember, a bottle of water can’t quench the thirst of a bird, but toucan.
Oh, a reminder to check out Amazon Haul. Go to amazon.com/haul now and spend like a billionaire on a budget. I mean, almost everything is under $10!
🦷 Tough times don’t last. Tough people floss anyway. See you tomorrow and thanks for being here! — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
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