Showing posts with label cheap stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheap stuff. Show all posts
Friday, December 4, 2009
Cheapism
FLG sent me this link a while back for a kind of CNET for not-just-electronics that suggests the cheaper version of stuff you want, but also warns against products whose cheapness is not worth it (a temptation to which I am regularly subject). The site is still a work in progress, but could be good for christmas shopping cheapsters.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Craigslist: a study in the long-term effects of the cheapness/quality trade-off
Having just moved (again), I've spent the past two weeks browsing Craigslist in a concerted effort to furnish my entire apartment for no money, and this is my question: Does anyone actually buy stuff from Craigslist for more than $100, give or take?
My mentality--and I assume that of most other people my age--when furnishing a place through Craigslist is that the whole setup will be temporary, hence my disinclination to purchase "real" (read: expensive, solid) furniture and my resorting to Craigslist in the first place. I want to buy the cheapest, lightest, easiest-to-transport version of the thing I'm looking for--$25 collapsible bookshelves, $20 laminate desks, etc. The goal is to furnish on the cheap, then re-sell for even cheaper when I move out, and repeat the process in the new place (until at some point in the extremely distant future, I finally settle down somewhere for good, and the first thing I will do then is have a bed built out of living trees so it can never be moved again). By buying cheap and selling slightly cheaper instead of buying at retail and selling for way less to compete with the even cheaper resold stuff on Craigslist, I lose the least amount of money in the process of moving.
So, when I'm browsing the options on Craigslist and come across such things as $300 solid oak dressers or $700 mahogany dining room sets, I ignore them entirely even though 1) the discount on these items is substantially bigger than the discount on the recycled Target and Ikea junk I actually buy, and 2) they're obviously way better quality. The reason I don't buy a $300 dresser is pretty obvious, but I do note that this dresser probably cost over $600 originally, whereas the ubiquitous Ikea "Malm" dresser made of pressed sawdust and cardboard(!) that I buy instead for $60 only cost $100 originally and is, obviously, a piece of crap. The solid oak dresser is by far the thriftier buy, if thrift is taken to mean quality+price and not just pennies saved.
So I wonder, what becomes of the $300 solid oak dressers when everyone my age adopts my version of home economics? I assume that old rich people are still buying new, expensive, solid furniture, so there remains a market for producing it. But I doubt they're buying it on Craigslist for $300, because people who think in terms of solid oak probably don't overlap much with people who think in terms of Craigslist and driving around town sticking mismatched used things in the backs of their Toyotas. As a result, the people who would otherwise buy expensive furniture with the thought of reselling at a reasonable discount later are doomed in their efforts, and thus is the market for cheap crap from Ikea enlarged. And for places like Target and Ikea, which are in effect competing with Craigslist for the same cheapo furniture buyers, does this pressure drive down their quality even farther so that they can beat the $25 resale price tag on their own merchandise?
Basically, what I'm asking is: will my cheapness result in a massive furniture apocalypse in which the Malm dressers and custom-made, hand-crafted teak dressers are the only two options left?
My mentality--and I assume that of most other people my age--when furnishing a place through Craigslist is that the whole setup will be temporary, hence my disinclination to purchase "real" (read: expensive, solid) furniture and my resorting to Craigslist in the first place. I want to buy the cheapest, lightest, easiest-to-transport version of the thing I'm looking for--$25 collapsible bookshelves, $20 laminate desks, etc. The goal is to furnish on the cheap, then re-sell for even cheaper when I move out, and repeat the process in the new place (until at some point in the extremely distant future, I finally settle down somewhere for good, and the first thing I will do then is have a bed built out of living trees so it can never be moved again). By buying cheap and selling slightly cheaper instead of buying at retail and selling for way less to compete with the even cheaper resold stuff on Craigslist, I lose the least amount of money in the process of moving.
So, when I'm browsing the options on Craigslist and come across such things as $300 solid oak dressers or $700 mahogany dining room sets, I ignore them entirely even though 1) the discount on these items is substantially bigger than the discount on the recycled Target and Ikea junk I actually buy, and 2) they're obviously way better quality. The reason I don't buy a $300 dresser is pretty obvious, but I do note that this dresser probably cost over $600 originally, whereas the ubiquitous Ikea "Malm" dresser made of pressed sawdust and cardboard(!) that I buy instead for $60 only cost $100 originally and is, obviously, a piece of crap. The solid oak dresser is by far the thriftier buy, if thrift is taken to mean quality+price and not just pennies saved.
So I wonder, what becomes of the $300 solid oak dressers when everyone my age adopts my version of home economics? I assume that old rich people are still buying new, expensive, solid furniture, so there remains a market for producing it. But I doubt they're buying it on Craigslist for $300, because people who think in terms of solid oak probably don't overlap much with people who think in terms of Craigslist and driving around town sticking mismatched used things in the backs of their Toyotas. As a result, the people who would otherwise buy expensive furniture with the thought of reselling at a reasonable discount later are doomed in their efforts, and thus is the market for cheap crap from Ikea enlarged. And for places like Target and Ikea, which are in effect competing with Craigslist for the same cheapo furniture buyers, does this pressure drive down their quality even farther so that they can beat the $25 resale price tag on their own merchandise?
Basically, what I'm asking is: will my cheapness result in a massive furniture apocalypse in which the Malm dressers and custom-made, hand-crafted teak dressers are the only two options left?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Moving expenses
Right now, I have no profound theoretical things to say about thrift because I'm busy trying to figure out the very practical problem of transporting myself, Sebastian, our stuff, and my cat from our (more or less) happy homes in Washington to our new, chillier homes in Boston in the next month. This is proving to be incredibly expensive.
I managed to find what looks like a decent apartment through a friend, which has saved me the hypothetical money and stress involved in flying out to Boston and scrambling to find a place and sign a lease within a few days, then paying a broker's fee for it. Sebastian, however, has not found a place, so I'm still flying out to Boston next week to help him look for one. Money not saved.
Then there is the problem of schlepping our stuff. I've done a long-distance move once before, from Chicago to Washington the summer after I finished college. That one was somewhat less complicated though thanks to my lack of worldly possessions and angry feline companion. This time, we have probably a small apartment's worth of furniture between us, and the cat can't fly on planes (IMPORTANT THRIFT ADVICE: Pets use up valuable resources and cause endless headaches. Don't get them until you are established and can be reasonably certain that you'll never move anywhere again.) Hiring movers and driving ourselves and the cat is one option, but last time Seb hired movers to move his stuff, they were expensive and lost so much of it that it was impossible to re-assemble half the furniture on arrival.
The other option is renting a large-ish truck and driving it the eight hours ourselves. We lean in this direction. So here is my question: What is the thriftiest way to move? Which truck rentals are the cheapest? Where can I get cheap boxes (that will hold heavy things--not the liquor store boxes mentioned earlier)? What is the best way to find an apartment in three days? Which furniture should I keep and which should I sell? How can I make this process as smooth as possible so that Sebastian and I don't kill each other before we even arrive? Any ideas?
I managed to find what looks like a decent apartment through a friend, which has saved me the hypothetical money and stress involved in flying out to Boston and scrambling to find a place and sign a lease within a few days, then paying a broker's fee for it. Sebastian, however, has not found a place, so I'm still flying out to Boston next week to help him look for one. Money not saved.
Then there is the problem of schlepping our stuff. I've done a long-distance move once before, from Chicago to Washington the summer after I finished college. That one was somewhat less complicated though thanks to my lack of worldly possessions and angry feline companion. This time, we have probably a small apartment's worth of furniture between us, and the cat can't fly on planes (IMPORTANT THRIFT ADVICE: Pets use up valuable resources and cause endless headaches. Don't get them until you are established and can be reasonably certain that you'll never move anywhere again.) Hiring movers and driving ourselves and the cat is one option, but last time Seb hired movers to move his stuff, they were expensive and lost so much of it that it was impossible to re-assemble half the furniture on arrival.
The other option is renting a large-ish truck and driving it the eight hours ourselves. We lean in this direction. So here is my question: What is the thriftiest way to move? Which truck rentals are the cheapest? Where can I get cheap boxes (that will hold heavy things--not the liquor store boxes mentioned earlier)? What is the best way to find an apartment in three days? Which furniture should I keep and which should I sell? How can I make this process as smooth as possible so that Sebastian and I don't kill each other before we even arrive? Any ideas?
Friday, June 5, 2009
Anyone ever purchased $1 makeup from teh internets?
I came across ELF cosmetics, and it looks all pretty and non-sketchy and all their makeup is $1. That could be a major savings over Sephora, but all the reviews I've found have been hugely varied. Some people say it's pretty high quality and reliable, other say it's a scam and they don't ship your stuff. Anyone had any experience? The lipgloss tempts.
The other problem here seems to be that shipping is $7, so in order to make it worthwhile, I'd have to buy about $30 worth of cosmetics which, even if I used tons of it all the time to begin with, would be hard given that everything is $1. The paradoxes of internet cheapness...
The other problem here seems to be that shipping is $7, so in order to make it worthwhile, I'd have to buy about $30 worth of cosmetics which, even if I used tons of it all the time to begin with, would be hard given that everything is $1. The paradoxes of internet cheapness...
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