Sunday Saving Tip – Shopping Around
By Matt - Sunday, June 10th, 2007
When you decide you want an item at the store do you typically find the best price in the first store you’re in? Probably not, in our day and age finding the right item isn’t necessarily hard but finding the right item at the right price is. Personally I’ve never liked shopping around, but then again I’m often guilty of the impulse buy. Shopping around is very much the complete opposite to the impulse buy because it means that you’re taking the effort to find the right product at the right price.
Shopping around becomes really noticeable when you buy more expensive items such as cars but even the tires on the car are worth shopping around for. The reason I mention the tires is because that was one of the best examples of the power of shopping around that I ever witnessed. I needed to put new tires on my car so I did a little research and found a brand and model I liked and a list of people who could put the tire on my car. The first phone call yielded a guy who had the tire and could put it on my car for X$(sorry don’t remember the exact price). I wasn’t thrilled with the price but I almost took it. Something in the back of my mind said call a few more places and I did. What it turned out had happened is the Goodyear plant was on strike so the tires I was looking for were scarce and the first guy I called knew this and was marking the price up. Shopping around would have saved me more than 50$ per tire and the last place also did free alignments.
The biggest item with shopping around is it requires effort and I’m sure that the phrase shopping around paints a very clear mental picture for some people: getting into the car and driving from one store to the next till I get a good deal. With so much information on the internet easily available all we have to do is do a little research and make a few phone calls and I think you might be surprised how much you can save.
Now with this said I do believe that shopping around is best when it comes to bigger ticket items. If you’re going to shop around and spend an hour getting the best price for your computer speakers that cost 15$ but will cost more than that in gas to get them it’s really not worth it.
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