Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Are You a Patient Purchaser?

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Conventional wisdom, at least in frugal personal finance circles says you should wait several days (or even weeks) before making most purchases.  Especially large purchases.

Personally, I’m usually a pretty patient purchaser.  I hate paying retail for most things. When I decide I need something (or even want it), I usually start my search on eBay.  Only when the price on eBay is pretty close to retail, or when I just can’t get something at a discount will I purchase it through a retail outlet.  And even then, I generally wait for a sale.

Patience is a Virtue

The main reason that experts suggest that you wait on a purchase is that, after thinking about it for a few days, most people will decide that they don’t need the item, or that they don’t want to spend the money on it right then. It also prevents spontaneous purchases.  I seldom find that to be true.  Well, not entirely, anyways. There have been a few cases where I’ve decided that I really didn’t want the item.  I’m also frugal to a fault, and rarely make a spur-of-the-moment purchase.  If I see something that I want, I’m off to research it and find the best price for it.

Limited Time Offers

LTOs are my downfall.  Because of their limited timeline, I don’t have the luxury of waiting until I can do the same amount of research that I normally do.  I still have a hard time purchasing the item, but have been known to buckle under the pressure and pull out my card.  (That’s a debit card, thank you.)  And, that’s the reason that retailers will have LTOs.  Put under the pressure of a deadline, people will often put off doing the research they should and purchase on the spot to take advantage of a great deal.

How I Practice Patient Purchasing

Patient purchasing has probably saved me thousands of dollars over the years.  Here’s the method that I generally use.

  • Decide on the brand and model that you want.  This can be the super heavy duty research part of the purchase.  I’ll spend time shopping for the item, and then looking online at retailers to find a brand and model that I like as well as get an idea of the average price of the item.  e.g. when I last bought a pair of shoes, I first decided on the brand that I wanted to buy (New Balance) and then on the model.  Deciding on the model took the most time as they have many models that are built for different strides, pronations, etc.  I also found that the full retail for a pair was about $125, but that there were discount retail outlets that regularly sold them for about $100.
  • Set up a search on eBay.  I like eBay.  It gives me the ability to fine tune a search and then save it.  I also very rarely find that the price that I can get something for on eBay is more than what I can get it for at a retailer.  Most of the time it’s quite a bit less.  I usually start with a pretty generic search for the brand and model of the item I’m looking for and then fine tune it based on the other qualifications I’m looking for.  e.g. in the case of the shoes, I started with a search for “New Balance 757” and then refined the search with the shoe size, width, and maximum price I was willing to pay.
  • Exhibit Patience.  This is the part that some people find to be really hard, but that I find comes pretty easily.  I wait.  I check the saved search every two or three days (auctions can be run in 1,3,7, or 10 day lengths, but I’m willing to miss a few of the 1 day auctions) and add items that look like good possibilities to my watch list.  I then sort my watch list by the auctions that are ending soonest, and will place a bid on the first one for the maximum that I am willing to pay.  That usually involves figuring out how much shipping will be, subtracting it from the max I’m willing to pay and then bidding the remainder.

Using that method, I can usually get an item that I want at a price that I want.  Being patient is key though.  Sometimes it can take me weeks to finally win an auction.  In the example I used above (shoes), I think it took me about 3 weeks to get a pair of shoes that I wanted at the price I wanted.  In the end, I paid just under $60 (including shipping) for a pair of shoes that I would have paid about $125 for at a retail shoe store.

Is the savings I got worth the time I put into it?  If you break down the savings and figure out an hourly savings based on the amount of hours I put into getting the shoes, it would probably not be a very good rate.  Below minimum wage for sure.  But, for the most part, the time I spent on it is time that I likely would have wasted on watching TV or something anyways.  In other words, it was non-productive time and therefore had little monetary value associated to it in the first place.  I got a new pair of shoes, and saved money doing.

Are you a patient purchaser?  What are your methods for buying bigger ticket items?

img credit:gemb1 on Flickr

We Conquered Black Friday

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With the recent changes in my employment, it’s become pretty darn important for us to not only keep to our budget, but to reduce our budget as much as we can in order to keep from sending our finances into the whirlpool of red ink that is broke.

One of the ways that we’ve got to cut back, because of the time of year, is in our Christmas present shopping. We’ve already come to the agreement with our extended family that we wouldn’t be exchanging presents with them. However, with the wonderful consumerism myth that is Santa Claus, it’s a bit more difficult to completely cut off the kids from any presents whatsoever. With that in mind, we decided that we’d still be getting the kids a few things, but would have to take advantage of as many great deals and coupons as we possibly could. And, you all know what that means.

 

 

 

 

 

World Class Traffic JamAs a general rule, I avoid the masses of people that throng to the Black Friday specials. I don’t have the patience for all those people rushing around the aisles, searching for that one last electronic door buster special, or digging through the mountain of cheap DVDs in the middle of the aisle. But, when you’ve got to save some money, sometimes you’ve gotta take a few risks. 😉 Late Thursday night, after all the turkey had been eaten, we went through the flyers for the stores and decided on a few things that we should pick up to give to the kids.

Luckily, for us, our kids are still young enough that they are satisfied more by quantity, than by amount, so it’s easy for us to buy a few bundled items and pack them individually and still come away with as much present opening satisfaction as we would have otherwise.

We took the tips that I wrote a week or so ago, and put them to good use. We went into the day with a detailed idea of what it was we were looking for, and where we were looking for it. We had a list of what we wanted to get, and a budget to spend on that list. If the stores were out of something, we didn’t substitute with the similar, more expensive, item that was conveniently set up next to the empty shelves.

And, we conquered Black Friday. We stuck to our list, only buying one extra item. We not only kept to our budget, but we beat it! When we were done with our busy morning of shopping, we had everything on our list, and we’d spent less than $150! Christmas will be a little lighter under the tree than it has been in previous years, but I’m pretty sure the kids will be happy with it, and we’ll all have a great time, like usual.

Now, we just have to avoid the impulse purchases that will come today in all the Cyber Monday emails and ads, and we’ll be all set. 😉 But, we conquered Black Friday, and that’s something!

How did you all do this Black Friday? Did you go out and shop with the masses? Did you stay home and polish off the turkey leftovers?

photo credit: joiseyshowaa

Avoid Temptation on Black Friday

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November 16, 2006: I See Crazy PeopleIf you’re like almost every other American, after you’ve gorged yourself on all the Thanksgiving day feasts, you’ll be headed out to do a little gorging of a consumer variety.  Black Friday is well known as one of the largest shopping days of the year.  Most every retail store has some huge deals for the turkey-drunk shoppers that wander to their doors.  And, like most every other American, you’ll likely spend way more than you had planned on spending.

 

 

 

 

 

As your favorite personal finance blogger, I urge you to not do that.  I’m all about buying what we need at a price that is below the normal retail price.  Sales, coupons, and rebates are the way to go when buying things that we need.  But, chances are, the things that will be on sale on Black Friday will not be things that you need.  In fact, they’re likely to be things like big-screen televisions, computers, and the hot toy of the day.  You’re going to be tempted to buy them all, because the marketing department makes it look like such a incredible deal!  Here’s some tips for avoiding that temptation, and coming away from your Black Friday shopping with a happy account balance.

  1. Have a budget.  This should be the only tip you need.  But, you’ll get in the store and be tempted.  But, having a defined budget for how much you are planning to spend is still a good thing!  Even if you go over that budget, you’re much more likely to at least stay close to it if you have a budget, than you are if you don’t have one at all.
  2. Make a list.  You’re likely shopping for gifts for everyone, hoping to make them all happy while saving some money on what you buy them.  Make a list of the people you’re planning on buying for, compare it to the flyers that will be inundating your vision over the next week, and then make a master list of people, with the things you plan on buying for them, and where you’ll be buying them.  Now, stick to your list!
  3. Be aware of prices.  Just because the marketing department put the price in big yellow letters over a big red starburst does not mean that it’s really a good deal.  The stores will be full of items that they are marketing as a big savings, when they really are not.  Be aware of the prices of competitors, sure, but also be aware of what the price for that item was last week and be wary of artificial sale prices that aren’t really sale prices.
  4. Don’t fall for the swap.  Many of the places will have a very limited amount of the big sale items on hand.  When they run out, they’ll “swap” the sale item for a similar item that’s more expensive.  You’re there for the big sale item, and you can’t leave without it, so you pay the little bit extra to get the similar item.  Usually, that “swap” item is regular priced, and not on sale at all.
  5. Free can be bad.  More than any other day in the year, the stores will be pushing free items.  “Buy a tickle-me-broke, and get a free tin can!”  The free item is usually a low cost item (loss leader) that they can afford to give away, while the item you have to buy is usually not on sale for as much as they’d like you to believe, and is a much higher profit item.

The biggest thing to remember while you’re doing your shopping next friday is to be aware.  Be aware that the store isn’t out to save you money.  They want to make money, so they will do what they can to bring you in the doors with a huge sale and then sell you all the high-profit items that aren’t on that huge sale list. We’ve all seen the videos each year of the people trampling each other trying to get one of the ten of those super cool kitchen gadgets, or video game systems.  Don’t be that person.  Be conscious of what you want to buy, how much it sold for before, and what the price should be the day you’re buying it.  Have a set amount you want to spend and stay close to that amount.  You’ll be happier that you did.

What are your plans for Black Friday?  Gonna be in the crowds at midnight?  Or wait until it cools off later in the day?  Or, are you a Cyber Monday shopper?

photo credit: Matt McGee