October 25, 2009
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I hate spending money (because I’m cheap)
Let me just say up front that I am cheap. Not “I won’t spend a dime,” cheap, but “I’m not going to spend a dime if i can get it for a nickel,” cheap. Even then, I’ll be trying to get an additional 20% off or free shipping. For example, I like comedy shows. Some of my friends are comedians. I haven’t paid for a laugh in months.
There is never a reason to pay full price (or just the expensive price) for something unless you need it RIGHT NOW, or the price is the same everywhere. I will never buy something from Best Buy, unless these conditions are met, and the one time it did happen, I found that Radio Shack was cheaper. Yeah, Radio Shack still exists.
Cables are an example of this. Unless you need to hook up a projector today, don’t buy from a store (and NEVER buy Monster cables. Best Buy sells an 8-foot in-wall certified HDMI cable for $79.99. Monoprice.com sells it for $9.60, or you can pay the Best Buy price there and get 75 feet.
The real reason I’m talking about this is because next month I plan to visit a friend in Iowa for a few days (yeah, I anticipate TONS of excitement). Originally, to fly from LaGuardia to Iowa was going to cost $550. I REALLY did not want to bite a bullet that big, but to go to a larger airport would have my friend drive an hour each way to get me.
However, my pocket change started tingling. What if I were willing to drive it? A rental car couldn’t cost that much. Oh, and then I can use my government rate. Oh, and I’m a member at BJ’s, so I can get one free weekend day on the car. Then I just had to compare the rates, after discounts, for the top 6 companies (Alamo won).
End total: Flight ($212) + Car(169) – [Gov rate (22.10) + Free Day ($30.58)] = $343.33. Oh, and then I’ll use the credit card I rarely ever use to get the points so I can cash in for $50 from reward points (so I’m under $300, net). In the end, it’s 47% cheaper, and all I had to do was add a car.
