David Berkoqitz/Flickr
I try to be open minded about how people spend their money. It’s not mine, after all. But after reading a story in yesterday’s newspaper about Panasonic and Samsung to begin selling 3D TVs this week, I am so $(#*@! frustrated.
Why does anyone need to watch TV in 3D?
It costs $500 more than a comparable set. There’s almost nothing to watch in 3D right now. (Sports will be some of the first 3D programming.) And you have to wear bulky glasses that require batteries. Batteries! If you don’t have on the special glasses, everything looks fuzzy.
America, this is not what you need to be spending your money on right now. How about paying off credit card debt? Or even – gasp – contributing to your 401k?
I’ve seen movies in 3D and it’s awesome. But I’m content to experience 3D at the movie theater. Not that I am the target consumer for 3D TVs. I watch about 17 minutes of TV a week and see roughly four movies a year. But even if you are a huge TV and movie buff, is having a 3D TV really going to improve your life? Make you happy? Dissolve all your woes?
No.
Regular TV is good enough for me. Who’s with me?
KellySchott/Flickr
This latest story about saving comes from a loyal reader, my little sister!
So my phone crapped out on me today, and its no longer under warranty. I went to the AT&T store to see what I could do about getting a new one. They gave me three horrible options: pay $120 to get a new phone under my insurance or since I was eligible for an upgrade, or spend $199.99 for the phone I already had, or spend the same amount for the Blackberry Bold 9700.
I decided that it was just to much since I bought my Bold on sale for $99.99, and that I would take my chances and get a cheap to-go phone and wait to see if they had a sale.
I headed over to Walmart to grab a to-go phone to tide me over and I heard angels sing when I went to the counter and saw that they were selling the Blackberry Bold 9700 with an upgrade for $78.88.
I thought after seeing the AT&T prices I had hit the goldmine. I snatched the phone and proceeded to buy it. After the deed was done, I called my husband to brag about how much money I had saved. $122.00 isn’t anything to sneeze at, right?
Well he looked up the phone on Walmart.com and proceeded to tell me it was free with an upgrade (when you renew your 2-year contract) online!
Needless to say tomorrow I will be back at Walmart seeing if they will refund my money and if not I will just return it and buy it online.
The moral of the story? Check prices in stores, at rivals, and online before you buy.
Tips:
- If you find a deal online, stores will occasionally price-match their own online sites if you have a print out or can show them the price on your smart phone.
- If you want to negotiate, ask for the manger and go when the store is not busy so s/he has time to hear you out.
- Amazon.com has great prices for cell phones, but the deals almost always come with a 2-year contract.
Related:
Get out of your cell phone contract
Save money on your cell: family plans
- Tony Austin/Flickr
One of my longtime readers and tech gurus sends this tech tip!
Here’s my geek bargain of the week: DealExtreme.com is a great place to buy those little electronic bits you want or need.
Since my laptop’s sound chip is dead, I bought a USB sound card for…wait for it…$2.26. And it works! And best of all, I bought the one item for less than $3 and THERE’S NO CHARGE FOR SHIPPING.
How do they do it? Well, you can’t use a credit card. You must use your PayPal.com account. That’s how they avoid hefty credit card fees and sell you cheap stuff cheaply.
Other great deals include a USB Bluetooth adapter (to hook up a wireless keyboard or mouse to your old computer; or connect your phone to a PC to transfer files) for $1.98, an iPod charging/data cable for $1.98 (and who doesn’t need an extra five or six of those?), an iPhone car charger for $4.68 … and click the “$2 Gadgets” tab for a few dozen items between 78 cents and $2.99 (OK … so they’re not all $2, but they are all cheap).
DealExtreme ships from Hong Kong, and the last item I ordered took about a week and a half to get here. But to only pay $2.26, with no shipping, I’m more than willing to wait.
Note to readers: always check a website’s return policy and if there is a working customer service number before you buy. Credit cards provide built-in purchase protection that PayPal lacks. Just something to keep in mind.
Thanks, Steve!
somethingstartedcrazy/Flickr
BargainBabe.com really is a group effort. This latest tip comes from my little brother!
I had to charge my phone for a couple of hours, so I went to the T -mobile store and saw the price of the charger (24 dollars). I only needed the charger for a day so I started talking about how much my situation sucked and the lady at the store said I could charge my phone at the store for free.
Not bad, John! I like going to Costco and Len’s Crafters for their free eye glass cleanings!
Victor Bezrukov/Flickr
I went over my cell phone minutes the past two months and the overage charges bothered me so much they seeped into my sleep. Two nights ago I dreamed that I called AT&T and asked them to bump me up to a more expensive plan and forgive my overages.
And they did!
I woke up refreshed and wondering if I had actually called AT&T. Turns out the dream – and the overage forgiveness – was just that.
Drat.
I decided to call and ask if my new plan was pro-rated, giving me a few more minutes until the beginning of the month when my plan resets. While on the phone with a nice gentleman named Rham I asked if it was possible to forgive my overage charges this month, seeing how I was a loyal AT&T customer who always paid my bill on time.
“Let me see what I can do. Please hold.”
Rham came back on the line. He couldn’t immediately credit my account for the overages but put in an “adjustment request.” I would get a call early January with the adjustment amount. The last time this happened I received an adjustment (read: credit) for $1,214.65 so I expect full or partial credit this time.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Well, yes. I also went over my texting plan this month. I’d like to bump up to the next texting plan, and, if I do, is it possible to forgive my overage charges for extra texts in December?”
Rham asked me to hold.
Unlike my minutes overages, Rham was able to immediately credit me $20-some dollars for my overage texts. (At $.10 a pop they add up slowly, but apparently I texted like a teenager in December!) And he pro-rated my new texting plan so I don’t have to worry about texting the rest of the month.
“Thank you for the excellent customer service you have provided me with today,” I told Rham before hanging up.
“You’re very welcome.”
I see the call as a win-win for AT&T and myself.
AT&T keeps a longtime customer happy (so much so that I’m blabbing about it to everyone) and they make more money off me to the tune of $30 extra a month. I save money (at $.45/minute extra paying up front is the cheaper route) and I am more loyal to them because of the consideration they showed me.
Proof dreams come true!
Related: My bra dream: proof I need to spend
Talk about economic home decorating. Flair4All has dozens of different styles of removable wall decals that let teens show their personality. Perfect for their bedroom or dorm. Each $20 set has a few sheets of multiple sticky decals, which don’t leave behind sticky goop and re-stick if you peel them off. Themes include flowers, spots, butterflies, music, shapes, destinations, and messages. There are even sets of decals for guys and toddlers. Buy it!
Worried about your kid drinking from plastic water bottles? Get ‘em a personalized metal water bottle that plays into a passion of theirs. At theBottleShop.com you can choose from 15 colors, 20 categories of images, plus add a name or phrase to the bottle. The bottles are $11-$25, images and names are $3 each. Think of the possibilities! Buy it!
One of the most underrated electronic gadgets right now is the flip camera. No idea why they call it that, but it sure is fun. This flip camera is so easy to use you don’t have to read the manual, and lets teens make quick videos on the go. Low quality, yes, but very entertaining. Prices range from $100-200 depending on whether you get a 2GB, 4GB or 8GB flash drive. Amazon has a nice 8GB flip camera for $160. Buy it!
Teenagers want to get OUT of the house. So get them concert tickets – but don’t pay full price. Find discounts up to 50 percent off at Goldstar, where you can also buy gift certificates so they can choose themselves. Movie tickets are another great gift for teens who would really rather not be seen with you. Buy discounted movie passes through Costco or check with your HR department at work.
Dig this. Necklaces made of recycled vinyl records. How cool is that? There are five choices for what the necklace spells out, including “me,” “American Dream,” and “Role Model,” and “NYC.” You can also get one customized with your name. At $34-$36 they are not cheap, but I’m willing to pay a bit more for a unique gift. Aren’t you? Buy it!
Got a teen that likes to think? The card game Set gets your neurons firing. Set can be played with 1-6 players. The person who finds the most matching patterns in the deck wins. Set is a great present for anybody interested in math or patterns and can easily be simplified for young kids. Meant for ages 6 and up. Amazon has it for $9.68 (orig. $15). Buy it!
Loaded Questions is another fun game for teens who want to prove how much they know about each other. Players move ahead by correctly guessing how other players would answer questions. Sample questions include “What sport should cease to exist?” “Aside from smoking what habit to you hate?” and “What part of your body probably smells right now?” Amazon has it for $21.21 (orig $30). Buy it!
If you want to go lower: Buy an iTunes gift card in your price range.
One of the gadgets in the spotlight this holiday season is the netbook. Bargain Hubby was kind enough to write a guest post to explaining the products and deals so you can find the right mini-computer for you!
Last year was the year of the netbooks for early adopters. This is the year where they’ll get pushed on normal folks. Then next year they’ll be merged in with the rest of the laptops.
Even more so than with a normal computer or multipurpose laptop, the buyer and user of a netbook needs to know what they want to use the computer for so they can pick the correct optimization. Trade-offs are more obvious with netbooks than laptops.
Example: The netbook I had at the end of the summer turned out to have too slow of a video card and bad video drivers. This was worse under linux, but noticeable on windows. That particular netbook used a video card that was different from what the previous netbooks were using. That was a bad choice. On the plus side it was super quiet, very light, and had a monster of a huge 11.6-inch screen.
Factors to consider when buying a netbook:
0) Ergonomics
1) Manufacturer
2) Screen size
3) CPU speed
4) Battery life
5) Ram
6) Hard drive storage
Here are the trade offs:
Ergonomics: The different manufacturers have different ideas about what to do to make keyboards fit on tiny laptops. Scrunch some keys but make others big? Shrink the between-key space? It’s important to go type on one at the store or buy from a place with a good return policy. If you can’t type on it, you can’t do much with it.
Manufacturer: The big names in netbooks are Asus, Acer, Dell, Gateway, and HP. Gateway is owned by Acer, and they make machines with similar (identical?) cases, but with different computers inside based on different trade-offs. Asus was the first, with their EEEpc line. They still make nice machines. Dell had a really nice 9″ machine, but they stopped making it. All of these companies are in the 10-inch space. There are fewer in the 11.6-inch space. Mainly Acer and Gateway at this point. HP has announced a new machine that is in the same ballpark.
Screen size: The range of sizes for netbook screens started with 8- 9-inch screens, then manufacturers added the 10.1 and recently the 11.6. The 10.1 seems to be the popular sweet spot for most of the netbooks. The 8 and 9 have disappeared as too small. The 11.6 is almost too big think some people, that it isn’t as portable. Personally I wanted the extra screen display, the resolution on the 11.6 is higher than on the 10.1, 1366×768 v. 1024×600.basically a choice between 10.1 and 11.6, and video system.
CPU speed: there are a lot of strange names and acronyms for the special processors they put in these things.
Battery life: Typically “3 cell” vs “6 cell” battery. Bigger battery = more time between charges, but more battery to carry. About $50 or $100 between a 3 cell and 6 cell version of the same netbook. So consider how much time you want to spend away from an outlet. For me, that’s a big part of the netbook charm. Four or five hours of usage without plugging in is awesome, but it also add a good chunk of weight.
Ram: I’ve seen 2, 3, and 4Gig machines. If you get the 2 or 3, and want to upgrade, you’ll have to throw away some ram because there are only two slots and they are filled via (1+1, 1+2 and 2+2). That’s $20-$50 difference when buying the machine. Some of these machines use a “shared video memory” system, so the video system uses some of the main ram, and modern video cards use like 256-512M of ram. That’s a big chunk of a 2G machine. The atom machines max out at 2Gig of ram. The dual core cpu in the acer I bought maxes out at 4G.
Hard drive: Some of the early machines came with solid-state drives (SSD) that were silent and had no moving parts. But to save money they were slow SSDs. Seems that most of the larger netbooks (>9-inch screen) have switched back to mini hard drives. It’s common to see 100 or 200+ gig hard drives in the new netbooks. Whatever it comes with will seriously be more than enough. You shouldn’t be using a netbook for long term storage. Back it up at home and carry what you need.
Discounts: The previous generation of netbooks is still pretty solid, and some of them should be nicely discounted now that the new ones are out for win7. The win7 capable models are a bit pricier, so maybe the older ones won’t get super cheap? I have seen some good 10.1 deals at TigerDirect.com and other closeout resellers.
A good deal on a popular machine is the Acer 1410. This was an 11.6-inch model originally made for Europe and then imported to the states. Goes for $399 and comes in a variety of colors and is in stock to ship now.
This holiday season you should be able to find some deals on 10.1-inch models that have a 6 cell battery for under $300. Here’s a 10.1 deal I just saw:
Here’s a nice looking gateway from TigerDirect.com: Gateway EC1803u Notebook PC. You pay more to have such a small light body with a small screen so make sure that’s what you want before you pay a premium for it.
If you want the top of the line, get the Acer AS1810T. It is the first netbook to come out with an updated 11.6-inch screen (the largest size that is still in the netbook realm). It is updated with a “regular” cpu (chip/brain) instead of the traditional “Atom” cpu that was popular in last year’s netbooks. The atom is really low power, which is why it is popular in netbooks, but it is a bit *too* low of power to keep the wider audience of users happy. Surf the web, write in MS Word, sure. But heavy flash sites and flash games won’t fly. Neither will editing a movie. And definitely no Hulu.
By purchasing items from TigerDirect.com you support BargainBabe.com!
Receiving coupons via mobile devices is becoming more popular, according to a story in the NY Times.
“Mobile coupons — usually text messages with discount codes sent to a cellphone — are becoming the blue-light specials for the digital age, promoting last-minute clothing sales, two-for-one entrees and cheap tickets to the theater,” the story says.
To get a mobile discount you pull up the coupon bar code or promo code as you make your purchase.
There are two ways to get mobile coupons. You can sign up to receive discounts with individual retailers or join a website that aggregates coupons and sends you ones that fit your chosen preferences.
On CellFire you can sign up for grocery or non-grocery mobile coupons. When I plugged in my zip code I got coupons for groceries, Payless, Sears photos, Hollywood Videos, Extreme Pita, 1-800-Flowers, and a BOGO free admission to the Aquarium of the Pacific.
On Zavers you can find coupons by category, brand, and retailer (they have four so far).
Yowza is a coupon application that only works with the iPhone or iPod Touch. 8coupons.com focuses only on New York City.
I would start with CellFire and Zavers and see what works for you.
Thanks, Wendy!
A new friend shared a little known fact about shopping at Costco. Members can purchase Costco cash cards and give them to non-members. Recipients can get a free one-day membership to use the cash card on gas or warehouse items. The cards are also good online.
Cash cards make great gifts and they are useful for employees, students living away from home, and friends who are dying to buy 20 pounds of strawberries.
Costco’s page on cash cards lacks details but it may be possible for the recipient to re-load a card as long as they leave some money on it. It also looks like recipients can buy goods for more than the card is worth as long as they can pay for the remainder in cash.
It is unclear if a non-member who receives a Costco cash card is limited to a certain number of uses per year. I suppose if they start recognizing you, you’ll need to pony up $50 and get a membership. Otherwise, the usage guidelines are somewhat open to interpretation.
Thanks, Kim!
The premise behind BeatThat! is simple: the site boasts the best electronic deals on the web and they pay members for spotting them. Some BeatThat! members make hundreds or even a thousand dollars a month. Woah!
BeatThat! pays $.50 to $3 per deal, depending on which store is selling the item and how much lower the price is compared to pre-existing deals. In other words, the better the deal you find, the more they pay you. The deals you submit can be from anywhere – Bing.com, FatWallet, eBay, or Wal-Mart. All the deals have to be for brand new products. No refurbs, returns, or used items.
When I last checked, BeatThat! had a $250 Tom Tom GPS navigator, a 42-inch plasma TV screen for $890, and a LexMark printer for $80. The site requires you to register an email and name in order to submit a deal, or vote on a deal, or comment on one. That seems fair enough. You can also join their email list if you want to hear about their deals but are not ready to share one.
This is paid content. Interested in buying a sponsored post? Read my Advertise page.
This is a guest post by Alex, BargainBabe.com’s intern.
The iPhone has become quite the celebrity and as a result it has alienated it’s closest, much cheaper cousin, the iPod Touch.
If you take an iPod Touch, buy a headset with a microphone, and download an application called Skype, you end up with something incredibly similar to the iPhone. But it’s a lot cheaper. You can make and take calls, and even set up an answering machine.
What’s the catch? The iPod Touch must be connected to the internet via Wifi in order to make phone calls. This isn’t always a downside. WiFi hotspots are becoming more and more common. There’s even an application that will locate Wifi hotspots near you.
Let’s do a quick cost comparison to see what the iPhone’s convenience costs compared to the iPod Touch.
Features by Comparison:
iPhone: Built-in microphone, built-in camera, AT&T phone service, access to satellite internet, Wifi optional, 8 GB hard drive, text messaging optional through AT&T, email and Safari web applications included.
iPod Touch: Headphone microphone, must use Wifi, Skype phone service, 8 GB hard drive, text messaging optional through Skype, email and Safari web applications included.
The iPhone is clearly more convenient, but to purchase one at a reasonable cost you must sign up for a 2-year AT&T contract and the monthly internet. Without signing up for a 2-year contract, a new iPhone will easily cost $400+.
On the other hand, Skype is free to try and doesn’t force you into contracts, plus they can’t nail you with overage charges. You can stop paying that $2.95 per month whenever you want and switch to a better deal if you find one. Still, with Skype you have to purchase a phone number if you want other people to be able to call you. That phone number will run you $30 per year when you purchase a year of service.
You’ll get a cheaper monthly cellular service if you share a family plan, and save even more if you limit your use of minutes. Click here for a list of AT&T plans, and here for Skype.
Maybe after all these comparisons it seems like the iPhone is not worth the money and the iTouch is not worth the hassle. I think there’s a lot of people who would agree with you, which is why I came up with a third option, buying a used and older model iPhone.
By purchasing used, you avoid getting pulled into a two-year wireless plan that comes with a new one, and by purchasing an older model (nicknamed the iPhone 2G) your wireless data plan costs $20 dollars a month instead of $30. You’re paying for a slower connection, but it’s still quite functioning when it comes to downloading email or reading the latest news on the go.
If you search eBay for iPhone 2G, you’ll see that $150 is about as cheap as the old iPhones are going for. It’s more expensive than a brand new one! There’s so many people who either don’t want to start a new 2-year contract, or they’re already in the middle of one from the “latest technology” they bought last year, that there’s a big demand for used iPhones with no contract.
Be on the lookout in the near future. Wifi networks are ever-expanding and there are a lot of rumors floating around the web on a new iTouch with a built-in microphone and camera. The iPod Touch Alternative might just become even more cost effective.
I know where my office away from home is: Barnes & Noble, which yesterday started offering free wifi to customers. The bookseller promises, “No fees. No charges. Just log on.” Sweet!
B&N hopes that free wifi will encourage shoppers to purchase books online when they are sold out in the store.
Of course, this will take a lot of business away from Starbucks, which offers 2 free hours of wifi to customers who register their Starbucks card. The move will force other retailers to offer free wifi, which is good for consumers!
Thanks, Dad!
Remember the days when text messages were $.10 each? Or even $.15? Now T-Mobile joins AT&T, Verizon and Sprint in charging $.20 per text, reports Engadget and Poynter. This fee applies to users who don’t have a texting plan or who go over their monthly allotment of texts.
But there are free alternatives to texting, which I discovered a few months ago. Here’s a recap from my earlier blog post.
Call me a late adopter, but I just discovered a free alternative to texting, something I am doing a lot more of now that I have an iPhone. I was facing a much higher texting bill – going from 200 texts a month ($5) to 1,500 a month ($15) – when a friend told me about Google Talk.
Now I’m not worried about buying more texts or going over my allotment. And this deal is not just for iPhones.
Smart phones like the iPhone and Blackberry have free instant messaging as part of their data plan. There is also AIM from AOL and Yahoo! Messenger. Instant messaging is about as close to texting as you can get without paying for it.
For iPhones and other smart phones, I recommend downloading Google Talk on your phone. If you have a BlackBerry and want to chat free with other Blackberry’s, use Blackberry Messenger, which is part of the phone’s operating system if you have a data plan. The Pearl, 8800, and Curve models support Blackberry Messenger.
Now you can instant message your heart out, and not worrying about the cost of texting.
EBay is old news. What’s new is penny auction sites. “Swoopo and GoBid are two of several new ‘penny auction’ sites where consumers can bid for flat-screen TVs, laptops, cameras and game consoles as well as jewelry and gift cards for prices that start as low as a penny,” says a story in the San Jose Mercury News.
The catch is there is a fee to place each bid, between $.60 and $1. Users buy packs of 10 to 700 bids at a time, then can dole them out on items they crave. The site highlights auctions that are in their final seconds.
But here’s another catch. On Swoopo, users can pre-program bids using a “BidButler,” which waits until the final 10 seconds to place your bid. But every time a bid is placed, the time left on the auction jumps up. So it can be quite exciting – and frustrating – to watch the an item’s price continue to climb as the countdown actually counts up.
Critics of penny auction sites say it is as addicting as gambling and dub them an “evil eBay.”
But…I may try it, just once. I swear I’ll be able to quit!
On the other hand, if paying $.34 for a $150 Nikon Coolpix digital camera, or snagging a $699 Apple 16GB iPhone for $8.06 is going to get you addicted, fogettaboutit!
Thanks, Mark!
I was checking my utility bill recently and noticed So Cal Edison included stats on our past electricity usage. Our average daily electricity usage has dropped from 16 kilowatt per hour in 2007, to 14.59 kWh last year. This year our average usage is 13.33 kWh.
That’s a drop of by 9 percent from 2007 to 2008, and another 8 percent from 2008 to 2009. Not too shabby.
Here are some purposeful (and inadvertent) changes we made to reduce our wattage.
- We replaced our ancient fridge with one that is newer and more efficient
- We run our hot tub less frequently (but still often enough that our friends come over!)
- We wash our clothes on the cold water setting
- We line dry about half of each load (which is as much as the line can take)
- We updated our microwave when the latch broke, above, to one made this century
- We fixed our forced air heater last winter instead of using our plug-in heater
- We unplugged our TV and eventually got rid of it (Hulu, baby!)
What have you done to reduce your utility bill?
