Entries Tagged 'Finance' ↓

I spent a chunk of the weekend looking for a reasonably priced desktop PC to replace the eMachine T6420 that died last week (probably a system board level problem). I was all set to buy a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop for a bit over $500 until I saw the shipping cost. For some reason, Dell.com insisted that the only shipping option available was overnight for $109. Paying 20+% of the system’s cost for shipping didn’t sit well with me. So, I emptied the cart and started looking again.

Then, I noticed a paper mailing from Costco about items on Costco.com and noticed that they had a bunch of desktops including the Dell 530 model I abandoned on Dell.com. It turns out that Costco’s one-size fits all configuration was much better than the $500 config I had earlier. For $599, Costco.com delivers 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, media card reader, USB speakers with a 2 year warranty that includes onsite service. My configuation over at Dell for $499 just had 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, no card reader, no speakers, and a 1 year warranty (no home service). And, Costco.com’s shipping cost? $19.99. So I’m getting much much better specs and warranty for $620 from Costco compared to the $610 I would have paid by buying directly from Dell.com. Both configurations include a Core 2 Quad 6600 processor, btw.

Sure, it will be weeks before I see the PC from Costco.com vs. a few days from Dell. But, that is ok.

One of the many things I found, while cleaning and reorganizing my home office for the past couple of weeks, was an unused $25 Borders gift card. These things used to be great up until a few months ago because they could be used to purchase items from Borders.com at Amazon.com prices when Borders used Amazon as their sales conduit.

I decided to purchase a couple of things through Borders.com because I had the gift card and a $5 coupon specifically for Borders.com (seen above). So, I tried to apply the coupon before applying my gift card. The problem is that when I did that Borders.com told me Better discount already applied and ignored the coupon code. Although Borders’ prices are higher than Amazon’s across the board, they do discount items below retail prices. Apparently, this coupon only applies to items that are sold at retail prices. In other words, it is essentially useless and worthless. So, I just used my gift card. Since Amazon offers better prices for every item I compared, this will be the first and last time I order from Borders.com.

They were better off being associated with Amazon for web sales, IMHO.

I’ve never leased a car myself. However, I happened to read in our local paper (I know, how quaint and archaic that I still read a hard copy newspaper , that some people are trying to get out of car leases for large expensive to operate (burns a lot of fuel) cars. The person quoted in the story said that he went to…

LeaseTrader.com

…to find get out of his car lease. As fuel prices rise and the economy continues to sink, I suspect we will start seeing these kinds of sites prosper (at least in use if not in actual income).