Archive for October, 2008
Being from Canada, health insurance is a bit of an enigma to me. With the costs associated with health insurance it would seem practical to shop around to find the best insurance coverage at the best price you can. Like car or house insurance if you are paying for health insurance it would make sense to do your homework as it is going to be an expense that you will be paying for a very long time. Again with the internet but since you have it at your disposal why not search out some sites and get as many quotes as you can. Take for instance North Carolina health insurance, at their site you can get a free no obligation quote on services. It make sense to find the best for you and your wallet.
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My other half was off to Costco the other day so I wrote down a few items that I was after. Trust me, she is a shopper and knows her prices. She came a short while later with the items I wanted. Soup, frozen orange juice, batteries, Clamato, laundry detergent and a few other bulk items. The bill was near a hundred dollars and at first I was beside myself that we had spent so much on such a few items. Then it struck me. I won't be buying any of those items for quite a while. I have enough frozen OJ to last a month anyways and laundry detergent to last about the same. We spent a little up front but the savings will come when we are buying those items at higher prices every week.
One of the greatest things about the internet is being able to price watch and compare. Think back to the old days and you wanted to buy a television or air conditioner or anything really. If you wanted to price compare you were limited to either travelling to every store you wanted to shop at or call every store and get prices and quotes on goods. I hope that everyone is using the net to shop for best prices and compare prices and incentives for buying items. Some websites even offer deals or bonus items for buying online. It doesn't matter what you are after household goods, meds like Phentermine, electronics or food shopping, you can always find prices and compare prices online and hopefully save a buck or two.
I started a new forum today for something to do. It's general forum with odd news, rants, political talk, celebrities, tv and movies and I will be adding some tech forums as well.
I have been debating for a while to put up a garage or maybe just a carports on the side of the house. I had been pricing out the materials for a simple carport from a few lumber places and hardware stores. I then came across a website that has pre-made kits for carports and I was really impressed. They look like good quality building materials, easy to put up and the price is right. I am definitely rethinking about buy the raw materials and building one from scratch when a kit can save me money and time.
So gas prices are lower than they have been in months but don't expect to see the prices of anything else dropping soon. We have all seen some price increases in all sorts of products. The reason? Because the price of oil was up. Companies have two choices now, either keep their inflated prices to try to offset the high cost of fuel from earlier in the year or take the loss and keep consumers buying their products. Let's face it there is lots of competition out there for your shopping dollar.
Now is the time to be checking your flyers and doing some real price comparing. If a box of Ceral A has gone up and is staying up then find a generic brand and save some money. You are also telling the company that you won't be buying their items until those prices come back down.
If you want a good read about Stick Prices have a look at this one from CNN.
I can't believe how many friends I have that go out and buy products without going to the internet and reading reviews. There are two types of reviews you will find. There are those left by website owners that review products themselves and give their opinions and reviews which are done by people that have used the products themselves. Websites with both are even better. One, because usually the website owner reviewer will familiar with the product along with other similar products and the consumers that leave reviews are those that have purchased the product and have everyday experience using it.Before I purchased my last car I went to the web and read quite a few reviews from both owners and writes and those that had bought the same make and model. I did find that a lot of people that wrote reviews went online to voice their displeasure with different make and models. It's easier to some to complain and you have to weed them out. Finding honest reviews are gold and many people that I found who gave honest reviews of the car I bought were bang on with what they liked and didn't liked.Before I purchase anything I go and read the reviews before I spend the money. You can find reviews of anything you want online from cars, golf clubs and sporting equipment, electronics and even medicine and things like fat burner reviews. It doesn't matter; somewhere in cyberspace there will be a review. So read before you go out and spend your hard saved money. You will glad you did.
My friend just built and moved into his brand new home last week. He was telling me of all of the expenses that he was going tallying up as he bought some new furniture and electronics as well. He was complaining about some of the prices of the things he bought. I told him it was one of those things where you have to spend a little to save a little. If you cheap out on things like stereo equipment, multimedia equipment and any of the wires and connectors to put it all together you are just going to replace them sooner.
For some reason I have a hard time with my connectors and it seems I am always replacing a Cat5e patch cable or two. This is because I have been buying cheaper ones and I am moving my laptop and video game system around the house. It finally dawned on me that by spending a little extra on some good ones will save me down the road from having to replace them two or three times a year.
If you are going to mess around with electronics, stereo equipment and all of the parts that go with them you might be better off to research what you are buying and spend a little extra on something that is going to last.
I was thinking today back to when Howard Stern first went to Sirius and just how much money Arte Lange was spending on the vending machines. Although we don't have them at work we have items we can buy in the lunch room. Besides being totally the worst unhealthy foods you can buy constantly spending money everyday at a vending machine isn't good for the old wallet.
If you want to save some money you have to stop throwing your money into them. The markup is pretty amazing on the food inside. The owners are buying wholesale and then selling to you. Either start bringing your own healthy snacks with your to work or go to a Costco and buy your snacks there. Either way you are going to save money. A box of chocolate bars from a club or wholesaler is going to be a whole lot cheaper then the $2 an item you are paying now.
Really, if you want to save then just stop buying at them all together. Your wallet and body will thank you at the end of the month.
Looks like a little bit of good news on the gas front. Prices have been continually falling over the past few weeks. According to CNN, they have dropped below $3 for the first time since January.
"The average price of unleaded regular fell to $2.95 a gallon, down 3.7 cents, according to the Daily Fuel Gauge Report issued by motorist group AAA. Prices have fallen more than 30 cents a gallon in the last week and 90 cents, or 23%, in the last 32 days. The current national average is $1.16, or 28%, off the record high price of $4.11 that AAA reported July 17"
At the very least we should all have a little extra in our wallets as we head into the Christmas season. Hopefully gas prices will continue to drop off.
Our family recently became Costco shoppers, something we should have done a very long time ago. Since starting the Save Money Blog I have been more aware of our shopping habits. Besides staying away from the more expensive grocery stores we are now bulk buyers. I recently blogged about putting some shelves up in a closet, well they are no filled and I am looking at clearing some storage space away downstairs.
I cannot believe how much you can save by buying large bulk items like paper towels, toliet paper, cases of soup and other canned items. For the most part these are items that have a longer shelf life on them and they are things we are going to use. So by spending a little more on a case of soup we won't have to buy it again for a long time. The savings are evident.
There is a cooking item I buy. At any grocery store it is about $3.00 a can. I just bought a three pack of bulk cans for $5.00. I save a ton and now I won't to buy the item again for a long time. It's a no brainer.
I will say that buyer beware, just because you are shopping at a club store or a Costco doesn't always mean you are getting the cheapest price. You still have to look through those flyers and check other places for sales.
