I have officially crossed the line. I fought it off for years but I think my time has officially become more important than my money.
I love a good deal. In fact, I can not buy most things without getting a good deal on it. I’m the type of person who will spend hours making sure I not only get the absolute best product to fit my needs but that I also get the absolute best deal I can find. Well I have been in the market for a new video card for quite a while. Like usual, I scoured the internet to figure out what the best card was and find the best deal on it that I could. The problem was that I could not find a card that met all my needs so I kept searching.
Now usually, I have a lot of patience on this type of thing. I waited almost 5 years before I finally bought my TV. But I hate not having the use of my computer so it really bothered me to not have my computer working. I kept looking for a good deal, looked every day. I went to the brick and mortar stores to look but was not crazy about the prices there. Then last week, I finally found what I was looking for at Frys (I had been there several times before with no luck). It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty close. The only problem was that I was going to have to pay full retail price.
I am Chinese. If there is one thing I hate doing is paying full retail price for any sort of electronic device when a deal is almost always to be found on the internet. But I was more tired of waiting to fix my computer and I was even more tired of looking every day to try and find a deal on a card. So rather than keep looking, and maybe save $20 or $30, I decided to just buy it. When I think back on it now, the hours I spent looking for the card was nowhere near worth $30. If someone offered me $30 to just nothing but search for a great price for a product for several hours, I am certain I would turn it down. Why is it that I find it necessary to do when the cost is not as explicit? What about you? Do you do equally illogical things?
Sometimes it’s better to not wait for a marginal savings. You’ll just end up kicking yourself for all the time you spent bargain hunting… now if you find bargain hunting relaxing, then that’s a different story. On my days off, I look at to-dos in terms of how much time will each item eat up from my relaxation. If looking for a new video card will take up 3 hours of my Saturday and my savings is about $20, then I choose to use more of my time to relax.
I know I shouldn’t waste so much of my weekend looking for bargains but i just can’t help myself …
With 2 kids, a savings of less than $100 in exchange for 2 or 3 hours of my weekend is not worth my while.
Related: my mom will drive 10 miles to save 2 cents per gallon on gas.