Phew, we made it through one of the two big shopping holidays pretty much unscathed. I’m sure there were fights and some deaths this year on Black Friday, and if there were I didn’t hear about them…let’s keep it that way.
I’m sorry though, I just don’t see the appeal of waiting in line for 85 hours for a TV or well, anything! I have better things to do.
You now understand Romero’s Dawn of the Dead analogy.
But for those people with the time I salute you, and shake my head in shame. You know that TV you got that awesome deal on? Did you read the specs? Hang on, I’ll let you read it now.
Yeah, you got a 720p TV jerk…joke’s on you sucker!
See and that is what, in my opinion Black Friday is. People that can’t afford to buy things in the first place, buying normally unsellable product at a “great deal”. This is why I’m a last minute shopper.
So. many. coupons!
The stores have practically the same deals on Black Friday that they are going to have two weeks later on the same, if not better, crap! So why bother?
That’s a rhetorical question, I don’t know or want an answer to it. What I want to do is make your life easier. So that’s why I’m going to tell you my secrets to shopping like a poor person at the last minute.
I’ve always been a last minute shopper, and never one to really “look” for sales, if the store had the shit I wanted, I bought it right there, no question. But now that soup is my nightly meal I’ve realized that not only do I want to spend a lot of time or energy jumping from store to store looking for cheap ass prices, but I also don’t want to just go to the store across the street that I know has the exact thing I want. A catch-22 if you will.
However, through the gloriousness of the internet, my problems have been solved. Kayak.com now allows me to find killer prices on plane tickets and hotel rooms, and Groupon.com (soon to be part of Google) is huge here in the city of Chicago. The one site that I love…is Amazon.
This site has been a permanent installment on my Toolbar for years, I’ve bought books/movies/posters, shit just about half the stuff in my apartment is from Amazon. Case and point, it. has. everything.
This is especially perfect for me, a poor consumer who wants things. Again, a catch-22…but I’ve grown used to these conundrums, my whole life and personality is a catch-22…Doc Oz and Junk can definitely confirm that.
So here are just a few tips from me to you for cheap, awesome finds for your holiday purchasing.
This whole entire post stems from my rocking buy I made on Monday. Cyber-Monday some call it. Me…I just refer to it as “hell day” as I think many Americans do. I didn’t pay attention to deals or sales, all I knew is that I needed some storage.
I had a wimpy external hard drive that I bought six years ago for college purposes. It was a measly 250gigs and cost me about the same amount to buy it way back when. Oh also, this thing was a flipping Mac drive, since at the time I was doing some heavy editing on Final Cut and working primarily on G4 computers at school. I shelled out 50 bones to get a conversion license so this drive would also be compatible with my PC. That’s right, 300 bucks for 250gigs of space.
“Ludacris!”, you shout, and I agree with you, it’s absolutely insane. So I started my hunt.
I made a purchase about 5 minutes later. Through Amazon I got a 1tb WD external hard drive for FLIPPING 50 BUCKS!
I checked back on the price on Tuesday and it had only shot up about 15 bucks or so after the “cyber-Monday” craze.
But not everyone needs storage, they want stuff like books and movies primarily.
This is a huge tip for all of you Amazon nuts. Don’t just click “add to cart” when you see what you want.
Look just below the price of the product. Look below the long winded “want this by x date…prioritize shipping!” pitch. You’ll see to sad little links that will say (x amount) new – price and (x amount) used – price.
Embiggen me.
HOLY SHIT THAT’S CHEAP!
Yeah I’ve been using this trick for years, works on blu-ray movies as well. You’re not purchasing these items through the Amazon warehouse, it’s through independent companies that specialize in selling this stuff as well. Click on those links and it will pull up all the distributors selling that product and where they are based out of.
You have just become your own purchasing agent. Find a cheap one that is shipping relatively close to you, and you just not only saved a crapton of money, but also all that extra shipping time!
“Fuck you, look at all this shit I bought and how I thrust my hips out at you. I don’t need you…just these colorful bags.”
I can attest for the quality of all used movies as well. Sure the case might be a little cracked in the corner, but the movies play perfectly, and isn’t that why we buy the product in the first place?
Do the same thing for books. I recently got a slew of James Bond titles for a penny each!
My only other piece of advice to you all is buy this crap now and ship it early, the end of the month is going to be horrible and all your gifts will arrive late if you don’t!
