October 12th, 2008
Six money-saving secrets to help stretch your tech budget
The recent collapse of worldwide financial markets has everyone on edge. If you’re like most people, the tough times have you looking around at ways to cut back on spending. And your technology budget is an especially easy target.
You might be tempted to impose a freeze on all new purchases of hardware and software, but that draconian strategy only works for so long. Sooner or later, you need to refresh old technology, either because it’s stopped working or is so slow that it’s cramping your productivity.
As part of my research into how the PC market works, I spend a lot of time looking at technology trends and market behavior. One thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that most people pay way too much for hardware and software. In some cases, they pay inflated retail prices and ignore readily available discounts that can shave hundreds of dollars off the bill. Or they buy on the basis of price alone, settling for poorly made, outdated technology when they could do much better for only a few dollars more.
In today’s post, I want to share some of the secrets I’ve learned about how to shop smarter and get great PC hardware and software for a home or small office without breaking the bank.
1. Consider buying refurbished hardware.
For some classes of hardware, buying refurbished is a great way to save money. In the case of most PCs, the hardware and packaging are literally identical to those you would buy new, as is the warranty coverage. The only difference is the price tag, which can be substantially lower.
In my experience, Dell has the best online outlet in the industry. I’ve bought multiple Dell desktop and notebook PCs over the past two years via the outlet, at prices that were as much as 50% lower than the exact same configuration purchased new. The inventory changes literally minute by minute, so it pays to be patient and check at regular intervals over the course of a few weeks to get a feeling for the best prices.
Apple offers a decent selection of refurbished Macs via its online store. The discounts are modest but still real. For instance, a refurbished 24” iMac costs $250-300 less than the identical models sold new; shipping is free and warranty coverage is the same no matter which store you choose.
HP and Sony and Toshiba have outlet stores as well, although their selection is limited and the deals aren’t all that great, in my opinion.
The biggest trap to avoid when shopping online outlet stores is succumbing to the temptation to buy something you don’t need because the price seems too good to pass up. A much better strategy, in my opinion, is to find the product you want via the merchant’s regular store and then haunt the outlet stores to see if you can get the exact same model for a discount.
2. Know the market before you agree to a price.
The PC hardware and software markets represent capitalism at its messiest, with prices yo-yoing up and down constantly thanks to sales, mail-in rebates, instant rebates, and other offers. If you simply settle for the first price you’re offered, you can end up paying hundreds of dollars more than you should.
Fortunately, a handful of web sites have sprung up in recent years to flag the best prices on all sorts of products, most of them tech-related. They often include details about coupons, discount codes, and other limited-time offers that you can use to reduce the price of a product substantially.
I monitor the following deal sites regularly:
- Ben’s Bargains: Web / RSS
- Cheap Stingy Bargains: Web / RSS
- DealCatcher: Web / RSS
- Reseller Ratings: Web / RSS
Some of these sites keep archives of their daily deals, where you can search to find out if a particular product is regularly sold at a better price than you’ve just been offered. Unfortunately, most of thesm make it more difficult than it should be to sift through their archives.
I find it much easier and faster to use an RSS reader (FeedDemon, in my case) to subscribe to each site’s feed. By taking a minute a day to scan the new listings from each site, I can see at a glance whether any products on my wish list are being offered at special prices. In addition to monitoring trends in this way, I save the most recent few months of listings from each site and then use FeedDemon’s search tools to find the best recent price for a product I’m thinking of buying.
Keep your eye open for discounts –>
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 10/13/08
