Slashdot Mirror
Websites For The Frugal?
fwc writes "Like most people, I like being able to get the most benefit out of my money. In pursuit of this, I use several websites which help stretch my dollar even more. For instance, I have found smarterliving.com which I consult for good travel-related deals. I also use slickdeals.net and fatwallet to make sure I don't miss those almost-too-good-to-be-true deals. When looking for the best price on a specific item, I usually consult Froogle, Pricewatch, and Shopper.com. I also use a collection of online stores which sell stuff dirt cheap, such as newegg, PC Surplus Online, and of course half.com. Recently, I was looking for some tools at Harbor Freight's Website and a friend suggested that I might want to also look at Homier's. I was pleasantly suprised to find that they have some prices which are even lower than at any other site which I have found. This makes me wonder what other sites are out there I haven't found yet which are in the same category." I know techbargains has "saved" me money on some things I might not otherwise have bought. Where have you been best led?
How is this usefull or relevant to anyone outside US?
a link on the Homier site. I was expecting to see lovely fjords, but no, it was Global Outsourcing.
it's not thriftiness, it's Money Optimization! The game is to maximize the amount of money still remaining in your wallet after each purchasing excercise.
$cat
Stop spending your money and pay off debts and invest. Think of your (financial) future for once!
www.fool.com
Dressing well can REALLY help your career, a well dressed idiot will make more money in the long run than a poorly dressed average man. I consider my clothes, hair, smell and all of that to be an investment, it's a good way to get an edge in the compeditive IT industry, and it works VERY well.
Comparison shopping on-line is time consuming and generally irritating. Is the $5 you save on some item really worth the hour that you spend going from site to site, checking prices, checking shipping costs, adding and subtracting taxes, and then double checking that the company at hand actually is trustworthy enough to deal with?
Plus the added challenge of trying to find out if what you want is actually in stock.
With few exceptions you're just as well off just paying retail at a big outfit like Amazon.com and not worrying about it.
Of course, if you have no life, then spending five days shopping for deals on a $300 system is probably as good as anything.
Three Squirrels
I can understand where you're coming from in terms of work purchases, but I don't see what it has to do with personal ones, which seems to be what this story was about. I certainly don't care how much of my personal time I use (within reason) to look for the best deal.
One thing I have found about frugality - it can be penny wise and pound foolish.
If I spend 2 hours comparing deals, checking competitors, and surfing sites to track down $50 savings on a gadget, did I gain anything? I could have spent that 2 hours with my family, working on consulting gigs, and doing other household chores. It is called the opportunity cost of time in economics. It didn't cost $0.00 to track down that $50 - there was a cost.
I guess it depends on where you are in life. As a college student, I clipped coupons, and comparison shopped to get the best deal. Now with 2 jobs, and 3 kids, I think a few bucks here and there is worth a little more time with my family.
I think it's that we need to wait for that credit card to clear, and find out that it's not actually a stolen number out of Eastern Europe. ;)
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Bullshit. If you "really care" about winning an auction, then be prepared to pay through the nose. The only person who ever really wins at an auction is the seller - the buyer is just the guy who was willing to spend the most money.
I use another sniping service and I routinely win auctions which have tons of "human" sniping going on (easy to determine from the bid records).
Furthermore, sniping is GOOD for buyers because:
1) It lets you "retract" a bid with no penalty since all you are doing is cancelling a snipe instead of a real bid.
2) It reduces bid-inflation. Snipers set a max price and walk away. If everyone used automated snipes, it would be like a blind auction since there would be no opportunity to "make an exception" and bid "just a few dollars more" then your pre-determined limit because someone has outbid you.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Most slashdotters seem to hold an incorrect meaning for the word "frugal" true (and indeed, so does the majority of society).
Frugality isn't so much about only buying the cheapest thing, it's about not buying things in the first place. It's using the wisdom to know what you do and do not really need. Buying 2 liter bottles of cola because 20 oz bottles are more expensive isn't frugal, that's economics. Frugality would be not buying the soda in the first place, because you don't need it and water is freely available (and better for you, to boot).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Anime and manga fans might also want to try The Right Stuf. They carry just about everything and some of their weekly specials are unbelievably good.
Seriously, the whole concept is but lies, deciept and my-penis-is-bigger-than-yours applied to everything to make it bigger-faster-and more slick. We should NOT be encouraging professionalism. We should be encouraging pragmatism! We should be encouraging zenlike intuitive and resourceful intelligence not 'this guy is white^wlooks good in a suit so let's promote him instead of the other guy just like him without the suit.
I recognize #4 as something straight out of Aristotle's Poletics, but notice that not once in that tomb did Aristotle ever use the word 'professional'.
I do however realize that most of the rest of the world agrees less with me and more with you. However, it pisses me off, at least, to no end hearing anyone refer to professionalism in any sort of positive light. It's at best a distraction, and let's leave it at that.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
"I know techbargains has "saved" me money on some things I might not otherwise have bought."
Your buying gadgets and extra useless things on top and think you are frugal! Perverse American thinking.