Posts Tagged ‘saving’

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Sam’s Club & Costco: To some, a beacon of bulk buy savings… To me, a dissent into madness.  I want to save money, I really do!  It’s my #05 hobby on this website!  But for me, sometimes going to these bulk buy stories is more trouble than its worth.  Therefore I am introducing my latest hobby #33 “People Watching”  The following are my top 3 reasons why I hate going to these stores.

People Make The Parking Lot a Death Trap
It’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining, you’re hitting all green lights.  Everything is going great.  Then you pull into the parking lot.  Correction, you pull into the line, to get into the parking lot.  That is the case for my Costco in Gaithersburg Maryland.  There is stopped traffic before making the turn into Costco because so many people are trying to get in.  Upon entering their parking lot, it is as if people believe they are exempt from all rules of the road now.  Driving on the wrong side, bumping predestines with their SUV’s, double parking anywhere and everywhere… These are just a few of the practices of the parking lot as a driver.

As a predestine you must either stand your ground – or run for your life.  If a driver senses any fear or hesitation in your direction of movement, you will be hit, they will try to say you’re the one at fault!

People Block An Entire Isle Whenever Possible2012-05-09t143655z_1_cbre84814lm00_rtroptp_3_usa.grid-6x3
I’m dumbfounded every 5 minutes or so as I am unable to pass through an isle because some man or woman has blocked the entire isle with herself and her cart, blissfully unaware of that fact she isn’t the only person in the store.

Now, you might ask, “But, those isles are really big, even is she turned her cart sideways and stood in front of it, there should be room, right?”  Correct, in a perfect world this design would work.  But wherever their are people, we will find ways to mess things up.  For example, the following are three examples I encountered YESTERDAY.

  • There is a large steel support pole to the roof somewhere in the isle.  People are somehow attracted to these poles and puts their cart at an angle so that no one can pass as they browse the isle.
  • There is one of those free sample venders at the end of an isle.  There vender station takes up 1/3 of the exit out of the isle.  Therefore the logical thing to do is to place your cat at the other 1/3 and for you to stand in the middle while eating a free sample.  FAIL.
  • You have two carts – You may polity pull one of your carts off to the side, but your unruly 11 year old son is taking the other cart and crashing into everything that dares to try to pass him.

People Shop WHILE Waiting In Line. 
You see – there are always lines.  People go to these stores to buy a LOT of stuff.  So lines are to be expected.  I think it would be foolish to go to these stores and not expect to wait for at least 15 minutes in line.  Some people, however, think that is a utter waste of time.  So what do they do?  THEY GET IN LINE AND CONTINUE TO SHOP THROUGHOUT THE STORE.  Most commonly I see a parent with several kids with them.  The parent gets in line while the kids run throughout the store grabbing what they need so that by the time they get to the front of the line they’ve finished shopping…only this never happens.

“Oh, sir, wait just a moment, my baby had to go get something else out of the bakery section”  So now everyone behind you is waiting for Timmy to get back with 6 loafs of bread.  I don’t understand!  Is our world in such a hurry today that we try to time getting in line early while sending other people to get the rest of the food?

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The economy is rough right now.  Everyone is looking to save a buck here or there.  I would like to share with you how my wife and I save between 20 – 100 dollars a month depending on your bill.  My wife and I never had a TV subscription when we first got married due to being broke as a joke.  Now we don’t need or ever want a TV subscription.  Here is why

  1. Nothing is EVER on.  You’ve been there.  Sitting down, flicking between shows.  You spend maybe 5 – 10 minutes cycling through 200 channels and somehow nothing is on.  You finally find something but it is the end of the show, am I right?  Then the search begins all over again.  Before you know it, two hours has gone by and you haven’t really watched a full episode of anything.  So you’re paying between 40 – 120 dollars a month for the dish, or cable just so that you can work around the networks schedules?  That’s not the world we live in anymore.  AND THE COMMERCIALS!  Think about it for a moment.  You’re paying 40 – 120 dollars a month to watch TV and you STILL have to watch 10 minutes of commercials for every 20 minutes of show time?  Lets not forget all the hidden state fees, box fees, satellite fees, etc.  Think about it.
  2. Streaming is The Future of Home Entertainment.  My wife and I have a online subscription to Netflix & Hulu.  Netflix is more for the movie side of things where as Hulu is more for the TV side of things.  My wife and I watch all of our favorite shows on our schedule.  For 9 bucks for Netflix & 8 bucks for Hulu, we get significantly more content than anyone with a dish or cable has.  And we can watch all these shows “on demand”.  Doesn’t matter if we are at work, on the road, at home, if you have a device that can connect to the internet, it can connect to these two services.  The main downside is we can’t watch anything live, but here was the biggest revelation for us:  We were never home or remembered to watch ANYTHING live.
  3. Kids can use the technology.  I know a 3 year old who knows how to get on netflix, look up Thomas the Tank engine and watch episode after episode it.  This will be how our children watch entertainment in the future.
  4. But what about Football?  Baseball? Local News!?  National News!  Get a 25 dollar digital antenna and you should be able to get all the local channels if you just have to hear the local news while your cooking dinner or getting ready in the morning.  This will also fix the sports problems as well.  As for national news, all the major networks, Foxnews.com, CNN.com, Msnbc.com provide video segments of their shows from that day on their website.  A special tip of my hat to MSNBC.com because they will actually put the ENTIRE show on the web broken up in segments.  The other networks haven’t jumped on board to this just yet.  They also only show 1 commercial every few clips and its usually a self advertising one.
  5. Join the future and save money while you can.  One of the reasons its so cheap right now is because all the big networks and studios aren’t sold on streaming yet.  They are still stuck in their broadcast on TV ways.  As more and more people join up (I joined Hulu the day it opened, when it was still free, but gladly pay 8 bucks a month for all the content) you can expect a price increase at some point.  Netflix recently raised all its prices and got some major fallout from consumers for it.  It is still pretty cheap right now.  So dive in!  Make it work!  If you’re trying to save some money or saving toward a goal, this is an excellent lifestyle change.  This coming from a guy who grew up on cable tv all my life.  I’ll never look back!

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