Lazy Man and Money

Boston, Snow, Guitar Hero, Casinos, and Personal Finance links

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My wife and I are wrapping up our trip in Boston today. Tomorrow we are on the road back to San Francisco. We had reservations to go to CBS Scene (I hear it’s similar to ESPN Zone), but the 6-8 inches of snow has put those plans on ice (excuse the pun).

Yesterday, we used up the last of our Circuit City gift card to get a complete Guitar Hero set (guitar, drums, microphone, etc.) I had to think a couple of times about it because we hadn’t planned on spending the nearly $200 that it costs. Even after the gift card, it was an $150 unplanned expense. We have the money, so it’s not a big deal, but I still like to research such purchases more. I only know that many, many, others seem to like it and it could be good entertainment if we have guests over. There are three Tool songs – so that will be great fun. We just have to figure out how to transport it back to San Francisco.

We went to a casino on Thursday. I know it’s not typically a smart use of money. I am a very conservative craps player and never lose much over the time I’m there. My wife and I gambled for 5 hours. She made $15 and I lost $15. I can’t complain about that.

We are pretty happy about the cost of this trip to Boston. We used frequent flier miles that my wife got from her work travel. We rented a car for around $30 a day using military discounts. We stayed at Hansom Air Force Base for $38 a night – it’s as good as places I’ve paid more than $100 a night for. It comes with a fridge and microwave, so breakfast was Lean Pockets from the commissary for about $1.25 a package (two breakfasts per package). So not including entertainment and gas to visit people, we spent about $500 for the two of us for the trip. I hope this doesn’t come across as boasting, but I hope to illustrate how it’s possible to take advantage of opportunities our situation. You may have similar situations.

Money Writers:

Other Financial Posts:

I was also included in these two carnivals.

Black Friday: Why Does It Exist?

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Has everyone gotten back from the Black Friday sales? I got back from my Black Friday foray a little earlier today. I would have written before now, but I had a little left-over chicken (we opted for chicken rather turkey this year – it’s just a better size for two) and dozed back to sleep.

A couple of years ago, I decided that I was done with Black Friday. I don’t think I went out last year. This year, I decided that it would be worth giving it another shot – on one big condition. I would avoid the big box electric shops (Best Buy, Circuit City) and instead look for something like CVS or Walgreens. My theory: not many people are going to waiting out in line at these places and there are enough of them to thin out the hordes. My choice this year was an out-of-the-way Kmart. It’s not quite CVS, but it’s not Best Buy. They had a couple of perfect gifts for Energy Gal and there’s one 5 minutes from my home.

I showed up around 5:35AM, 25 minutes before it opened. To my surprise there was already a line, around 30 people long. So much for betting everyone to focus on the other stores. Over the next 25 minutes, I played Bejeweled on my Palm Treo. (I may have clocked more hours playing Bejeweled in my time than anyone.) I couldn’t help but think, maybe I should be home using this time to work on the long overdue Lazy Man Gift Guide? Wouldn’t I make more money from ads in that than the money I’d save here in line? It’s probably a close call. In fact wouldn’t almost anyone in this line be better off working an extra hour or two instead fighting the masses for a couple of hours on Black Friday? I’m surprised the woman in front of me didn’t figure that out since she was so proud of herself for figuring out that her Starbucks habit costs her $1500 a year. Here I thought that everyone knew that… I guess I just live in a different world than some others.

This thought of working an extra hour and skipping Black Friday got me really thinking, “Why does Black Friday exist?” It just doesn’t make sense to me.

The Consumer Perspective:

  • Wasted Time Equals Wasted Money – Is this really the best use of time? I’m sure for some it’s not bad. The person in front of me this year said that she spent 24 hours waiting in front of Best Buy last year and didn’t get there early enough to get the voucher for the item she wanted. That’s just craziness to me.
  • Lack of Sleep – Hey sleeping is good. I know a lot of people who love to sleep in when they get the chance. I don’t understand how that changes when you tell them to wake up at 5AM for a chance at saving a couple of bucks. If people are concerned about their wallet, that’s fine – but there are a lot easier ways to save money.
  • Fighting – The news always shows everyone fighting for the initial rush. Someone always gets hurt. I don’t want spend two hours waiting and then have it go to waste by a stampede of people. I don’t want to be part of that stampede.

The Retail Store Perspective:

  • Higher Costs of Doing Business – Retail stores have to pay employees more to be their earlier in the morning. They have to set up all the sale items. And when customers trash the place (quite literally), it’s going to cost the stores more payroll dollars in cleaning it up.
  • Selling Items at a Loss – They sell the doorbuster items at prices that I can’t possibly make them a profit. Perhaps it’s to get people in the door so that they’ll buy other higher margin items, but does that happen on Black Friday? There’s simply too much commotion. Everyone wants to get out of there as quick as possible.
  • Cannibalizing the Own Profits – Pretend that I want to get my wife a digital picture frame for Christmas. There were some deals on them for $50 (one I even saw for $20). If I didn’t catch a Black Friday deal, I would have had to pay $79 – that’s more money in the store’s pockets.

I must be missing something here. Perhaps it is somehow a winning proposition for stores – I just don’t buy it. It seems like it’s mostly frustrating for consumers. It just feels like we should have evolved to solution that at least is a win for one side instead of this lose-lose situation.

P.S. For those interested, I did get my doorbuster items. They had decided to put one them on a shelf that required a ladder to get to – pretty unusual for highly advertised items that are smaller than a breadbox. No one else managed to find them (and I wouldn’t have without help). The other item had about 80 of them even I spent a half hour for the first one. I probably could have shown up pretty late and got both items.

I Saved $150 on a Samsung 32″ Television by Accident

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Last week, my wife said, “I think it’s about time that we got a second television in the apartment.” From time to time, I’ve been known to tune out what she’s saying, but this time my ears perked up. Hmm, I think I can sanction the purchase of a television.

Here are the problems the I had looking for television on short notice:

  • I couldn’t use Craigslist to save half the money. This is my typical plan, but I had to strike while the iron was hot (i.e. my wife agreed to the television thing).
  • I thought that Costco would have the best deal. It’s impossible to know what they have until you get there. Once there, I don’t have my computer to look up reviews online to see if it’s a good set.

I was going to make a somewhat major purchase a little blind. This always gives me an uneasy feeling. Our first stop was Costco. Oddly, they didn’t have many 32″ televisions in stock and not one of them was 1080P (1080 lines of progressive scan resolution – the best there is). If we were able to go larger we might have gotten a good deal, but our bedroom simply doesn’t have the room for anything bigger.

The next step was to go to Circuit City. Normally, I’d go to Best Buy, but there isn’t one close to my home. Happily, Circuit City had about 5 or 6 televisions that were 32″ and 1080P. The problem was that the 37″ Samsung was their special of the week and was actually cheaper than this 32" one.
. When the salesman came over I asked what was up with that? He said it was just the way it is.

Once again, I felt uneasy about the purchase. It kills me to pay more money and get less product., just because our apartment has a weird layout. I hemmed and hawed for at least 20 minutes over it. Finally, the salesman comes over and says that he can chop off $100 on the Sony XBR one. It would still be $100 more than the Samsung that I was looking at, but Sony XBRs are nice. A difficult decision just got worse.

I hem and haw for another 15 minutes. At this point, my wife is wandering the store and probably plotting my death. The salesman can’t even deal with me any more and went to help others. A new salesman sees me and asks if he can help. I tell him that the other salesman said he’d knock off $100 from the Sony XBR. This salesman then said something magical, “He must have been giving you the online price. Let me look that up.” I was quick to ask if he’d give me the online price on the Samsung 32″ as well. The other salesman didn’t offer that. This salesman said that he’d be happy to give us that price.

It turns out that the online price was $150 cheaper. That sealed the deal for me. I was comfortable with the purchase. Of course, it made me mad that they didn’t start with the online price. Oddly, just a couple of days later Circuit City would be running commercials saying that you’ll find the same price in the store as will online. Odd that this is considered a selling point – it should be automatic. When you think about it, it simply makes sense. Many stores have a buy online and pick up in the store… That’s essentially what this was.

The moral of the story here is to look out for weird pricing from the big chain stores. Perhaps print off a copy of the website and bring it with you to the store so that you can get that price.