The Bottom Line If you want easy, reliable methods to constantly find deals on electronics, computers, and more, then this is a MUST READ!
INTRODUCTION
Everyone loves a deal. And we love to brag about it, or just secretly cavort about, surrounded by all the latest toys, or redeem coupons for free food, or half off of items. Where do all these deals come from, and what do these uber-geeks do that we don't, that constantly find them maximizing their money, while the rest of us find that we have more "month than money," usually? Read on, and discover some of the secrets and strategies I use to make my month "disappear under my money!" Skip to the WEBSITES section for immediate gratification, and Students & Teachers--scroll on!
NEWSPAPER ADS & RETAIL STORES
You might be more comfortable looking through newspapers, or just prefer it to surfing the web. In that case, you'll want to subscribe to a newspaper that has Fry's Electronics advertisements. That, and the coupons included, is practically the only reason I subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, which I got a year of weekend-plus service of, for $19 after the $20 Vons grocery store gift card (delivered and used in about 2 weeks). Fry's mixes up their ads, sometimes putting slightly different products in different newspapers, which is why you'll usually find their ads pasted across an entire wall in their retail stores. They also usually have 1-day only "supersales"-on holidays like Memorial and 4th of July-and these are usually completely different from their website specials. On more than one occasion, I've run down to Fry's in the middle of the night and scored super deals, such as a complete 2.7 Ghz Intel Celeron computer system, with Windows XP Home, for $199, several years ago (Windows XP Home SP2 ALONE is $89-240 today, w/o installation). These supersales are incredibly popular--my wife once had to drop me off over a block away recently, and the checkout line wrapped all the way around the warehouse-style store. That was on "Black Friday" of last year, and-let me tell ya-I made a killing!
If you don't have access to a newspaper, bookmark this for current Southern California Fry's ads--http://ads.ocregister.com/rop/web/ocr/subcategory.php?id=22 More Fry's specials (and more regions) are listed here--http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com
The regular Sunday ads are another good reason to at least subscribe to a weekend paper. Scrutinize the Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot ads, and any smaller stores in your area--such as PcClub.com. They usually have extremely limited quantities of certain loss-leader items, and if you're not there by early Sunday afternoon, you might walk away empty-handed. I was in my local Staples recently, looking for a certain item, when an employee walked by and placed it on the clearance table--it sat there for approximately 0.32 seconds before I grabbed it!
Sometimes it helps to be patient, and ask the clerks about items of interest--be a little pushy, and carry the ad to show them exactly what you're talking about. I had to stand around and INSIST on a computer system I got (and was advertised) for $299 about 7 years ago (at this same Staples)--an HP Pavillion that, ironically, is sitting right beside me, waiting for an upgrade. NO ONE-not even the manager-initially knew what I was talking about. Sometimes, the company's advertising headquarters is way ahead of the store personnel, and YOU may be the customer that passes along the "memo," and benefits from the effort.
Dropping by the OfficeDepot.com in Cerritos, CA and examining their "clearance" specials has been especially kind to me. I once picked up two 19" Hanns-G LCD monitors for $119 each, and the manager agreed to let me exchange or get store credit if they had any dead pixels, and I've scored MANY other deals at this location--a volume leader in the area. It also helps to check their websites, most of which also have their print advertisements.
WEBSITES
For those looking for shortcuts, then the easiest path is to point you to a great site like http://www.ChampMobile.net. This superb resource constantly updates and lists new deals from FOURTEEN discount/bargain websites, and that's just today! Sites like Ben's Bargains, XP Bargains, Dealsea, SecretPrices, Bargaineering, and many others are listed. There is an option to see just the last 10 deals added, overall, or to see the last few added by each of the subsites. Also, you can click on "View all deals added today" to get a list that will take you at least 10 minutes to thoroughly scrutinize. For those needing even more information, you can click on the link to each subsite, or use the search engine to find deals going back several days or weeks. Motherofalldeals.com clearly lends itself to each class of consumer, and their attendant attention spans (no pun intended). And they include restaurant coupons--such as the recent one for a free chicken sandwich with a medium drink (http://cep.mcdonalds.com/foodnews/sandwich; the sandwich costs $2.79 alone)--I redeemed that 5 times during a recent camping trip, and it was still working today. A website I stumbled upon while tracking that down titled "Mommy$avesBig," at http://printable-coupons.blogspot.com/2006/03/mcdonalds-coupons.html, has more Mickey D's printable coupons.
Motherofalldeals.com uses a staple of regular, well-known businesses, as well as some smaller, less-familiar ones. You will see Newegg.com, Sears, Fry's Electronics, and all of the major brick-and-mortar computer & business supply stores (ie. C*rcuit City and St*ples). Occasionally, you will see a link to the venerable Woot.com--a fun site that lists a single product per day, at a great discount. Just tonight, I scored a 2-pack of Kingston 2 Gigabyte micro secure digital cards, with SD adapters, for $11.59, shipped! I also got no fewer than 6 free movie tickets-just this summer-for each $3.99 dvd I bought, via "Mother..." That's about $20 for every summer month, and I could've gotten more!
Besides using Epinions reviews to see if products are worthwhile, some of these sites have great "reviews" sections, as well. In this category, NONE can surpass Newegg.com (for the technical/troubleshooting information). I have frequently and reliably looked up reviews for motherboards and cpus, only to discover dedicated shoppers' complete descriptions of the components they used with these parts, and how it was holding up. That really takes the guesswork out of things, and gives you a solid point-of-reference, and it's not uncommon to see hundreds of reviews for a single product--some older products that you may own and have questions about. And Newegg apparently lets ALL the reviews stand--whether they are negative or not. Most of the time, even when a reviewer gives a product a negative rating, they will give Newegg a lot of credit for super-quick shipping, or for a no-frills return or exchange--that's even further testimony of their level of service. Reviews at Am*zon.com, C*rcuitcity.com, st*ples.com, and even Sears.com are also greatly helpful in supplementing the Epinions reviews.
There are a few other sites worth checking daily, for their specials. One of the most helpful is PCMall.com, with retail stores in Torrance, CA (VERY friendly) and Newport Beach, CA--their other branch is MacMall.com. Both of them carry consumer electronics, such as flat-screen televisions, as well, and I scored a Memorex portable DVD player for $39, after the easy (and received rebate) there, which my toddler loves. Mwave.com is another southern California store, with many ongoing specials--they are smaller than Newegg.com, but I have used them on several occasions over the years. They have excellent deals, and have $5 will-call pickup.
For the "cowboys" out there-willing to take more risk and explore the frontier on your own-you'll want to explore the possibilities stemming from a computer & electronics search engine called Pricewatch.com. It's been around forever, and you can discover some really useful websites using this (that's how I found Mwave.com, many years ago). Just checking their homepage right now ("Techspecials" flash across the bottom), they had a link to a combination cpu/motherboard/memory for $82--a 2 Ghz AMD 3000 with a firewire-capable motherboard and 512MB of memory. Add a case & power supply, hard drive, and a couple of fans (which could be had for as little as $70-75 TODAY), and you have a whole computer for about $150. Of course, you'll have to load your own operating system, and add an optical drive and anything else you might want, that you don't have lying around. I'll vouch for the AMD right now, for general websurfing and office/homework tasks--I'm running an AMD64 3400-Plus 2.2 Ghz processor I got, years ago, as a $99 motherboard combo from Newegg, and it's still going strong--right now I have 15 tabs open in Firefox and Seamonkey browsers, am playing mp3s in Media Player, and the cpu usage is between 7-10% on this single-core processor; I also play Far Cry 2, on occasion. Also seen on this site, today, was a Gateway 42" plasma demo television (1080i/90-day warranty/free ground shipping), from www.adc-ast.com. You will have to scrutinize each website carefully--especially their return policy.
Who knows what new & improved discount websites you may find on your own? They seem to always be popping up. Just Google "deals, free, coupon, or special," with the item you're looking for, and also use Google's own "Shopping" feature, which you may have to click the drop-down menu-"Even More"-to find. Am*zon.com, Tigerdirect.com, and many other large websites also list price comparisons, which should be explored. And I've saved a bundle on "used" books ordered through Amazon's "Marketplace," that were just a few dollars, and "like new;" Amazon guarantees the transaction.
