buying stuff cheap

 So this subject really goes beyond just buying stuff it really encompasses spending less overall, for instance for apartment rent. This is 2022 and it is amazing to me that there are many many people that do not use the internet to advertise. If they want to sell something they put a sign on it and stick it out in their front yard. Now this is probably more prevalent in small towns but I've even noticed this in the city in residential areas. So of course this is using your time but you can simply drive around on Fridays and Saturdays looking for garage sales and for stuff for sale in people's yards. This also works great for stuff like cars boats camping trailers and other outdoor gear. You just look for a for sale sign. Most of these people don't put stuff on the internet. In fact many of the cars you find on the internet have the price jacked up because they look at everybody else's price on the internet and they price it like that. Also there are lots of these cheapo car lots that are scouring the internet and looking for low price vehicles to snap up and then they Jack the price up.

Next is buying brand new stuff cheap. Once again this generally is going to take more work. For instance one of the things I've noticed is that cell phones and car tires are cheaper in the fall. It isn't clear why that is. But I've noticed that car tires are already starting to go up and it's not even December yet. Back in the summer there were almost no car tire sales. Now they're always running these sales where they say $100 or $150 off, but that's on tires that are about $150 a tire. Okay I'm talking about $60 tires. So in the summer you won't find any $60 tires, those deals come up in the fall. And they're not there very long. Cell phones are the same way. Sometimes I have watched cell phone prices for almost a year and then suddenly they drop in the fall.

In America the Black Friday sale now goes for almost all of November and then pours over into December. So you can get some good deals with this but you got to watch out for gimmicks. For instance some of the primary phone carriers like AT&t may be offering some deal but if you look at their monthly fees and how much they're charging you per month for the phone you're still ending up paying like $1,000 for the phone and then you're paying $70 or $80 a month for phone service. That is almost double what I'm looking to spend on phone service. Generally I found that if you watch carefully you can get phones for about 60 to 70% off the list price. This is time consuming and so you may have the attitude look I don't have time to fool with that.

Keepa is a cell phone app that tracks prices on Amazon. I have found this to be about 50% useful. For some reason it has a hard time tracking some prices even though they are marked on Amazon. But still this is a great tool for sometimes finding really amazing discounts like 50% off or more. You simply look the item up on Amazon, and track the price you want to pay.

Then of course there's the standard approach to tracking seasonal items and picking them up cheap right when they're clearing them off the shelves. You can sometimes get stuff 70 to 80% off. Now these deals may only last one or two days, because people walk by and just pick it up it's so cheap even if they don't want it they'll pick it up.

Special info on cell phones:

Straight talk is a great cheap cell phone service. Right now their standard prices are $35, 45 and $55 a month. They also have locked phone deals sometimes. These phone deals work differently depending on what their goals are. They may sell you a phone that is locked to straight talk but you don't have to activate it. They're just selling it to you cheap knowing that you won't be able to use it if you don't use it on straight talk. Then sometimes they do a really deep discount on the cell phone but you have to activate it right away on straight talk. Then as strange as this sounds, straight talk is using the TracFone system. So you may be able to buy a cheap TracFone phone, and stick an active straight talk SIM in it. So some of this is kind of out there. And because I'm talking phone prices at under $200 a phone it's okay if I can't get it to work. These phones are generally 60% off. So this kind of approach probably isn't good for everybody. So far it's never failed though and I've done it three times in the last year.

General impression of Android cell phones. Moto phones are pretty darn good. Pixel phones are very good but not perfect. Samsung phones are still a little bit better than pixel phones.

Other China phones are okay but not great. They may freeze or have to be rebooted. And sometimes the apps will crash unexpectedly. Crashing just means that the app disappears and you have to reopen it. And sometimes China phones have things that don't work perfectly like the Bluetooth will disconnect unexpectedly or something. But generally they're okay.