First off, see if there are any better prices out there. Traditionally, Best Buy is not the best source for cheap systems.

Next, I live in Vancouver, Washington. We have a 7.7% sales tax. Right across the border is Portland, Oregon — 0% sales tax. That’s instantly going to save me $100.10. In order for this to work, you have to go into the store, not online; unless of course you’re willing to just have it shipped to someone who lives in Portland.

Next, search for coupons for Best Buy. These are somewhat rare, but there are some 10%-off-anything coupons that surface from time to time. Make sure that what you are buying falls into the “acceptable categories” as explicitly noted on the coupon. Can’t find any currently.

Next, find gift cards. Ask your friends if they have any they want to sell. Look at online for sale forums. Check eBay. As long as the person selling the gift card is reputable, this is a great way to save money. For example, I just purchased a $250 Best Buy gift card for $238 buy it now -$23.80 for Bing cashback, -$4.76 for eBay’s cashback incentive plan, -$2.38 because I paid with PayPal through my credit card. That makes the final price for this $250 gift card $207.06; a 17.18% discount.

Next, as I mentioned previously, pay with credit card (assuming you pay it off, and have a cash back incentive plan). This is an easy 1-2%.

Finally, don’t accept any upselling that Best Buy will try on you. You don’t need the extended warranty, you don’t need the new peripherals. Don’t be a sucker for their highest margin area of the business.

With these principles applied, I’m going to take a $1400.10 laptop (including tax) and get it for $1084.80 (5*207.06 + 50 – 0.50).

Delicious (geotagged).

I plan to do this once a month — as often as the coupon allows.

Currently it supports [H]ard|Forum’s For Sale / Trade, ArsTechnica’s Agora Classifieds (new!), and AnandTech’s FS/FT Forum (recently fixed). These are the only three forums I’ve used, but perhaps later to include some of the other popular online sale forums…

It’s not perfect, nor complete, but it’s at least fully functional and usable. If you use it, please provide some feedback and let me know what you think.

I bought my Wii back in August. What I neglected to mention is that I got it for free. No, I didn’t do the BS “sign up for these 5 programs and refer 5 friends who do the same and get a free Wii” gimmick (not that I haven’t tried that before). I got a slick deal on it.

So in mid to late July I applied for an American Express Bank of America Rewards Card, which promised $250 in rewards for $250 of purchases. I was a little skeptical at first, but it looked legit, so I went through with it. I received my card on August 6th, and purchased my Wii (the first thing I could think of that was $250) on August 7th. A few weeks later I applied for the reward — to be shipped to me via a check in “1-2 billing cycles.” A few weeks ago I wondered what was taking so long — I went to their site and had to confirm I was ready to accept the check.

Today I received the $250 check. That makes the Wii free, after 3 months. Worth it, I’d say.

So let this be a guide on how to transfer domains FROM Godaddy. I used Mydomain.com as an example.

First step, go to your Godaddy control panel and ensure that
a) Your administrative e-mail is correct.
b) Your domain you will be transferring is unlocked.

Next, go to MyDomain.com and login (signup as necessary). Once logged in, you will see on the bottom of the main page “Transfer Your Domains To Us”. Click that then put in the domain name in the following page. Just follow the steps until you can place the order. Two things that really appealed to me were the fact that
a) Coupons exist for a $5 transfer, which INCLUDES a year renewal. If for no other reason, this makes it much cheaper than godaddy can do.
b) You can use paypal for payments. You can do this with Godaddy but it’s just not as seamless.

Next with the Godaddy control panel, select “Authorization Code: Send by Email”. You will get an e-mail containing a code which you will need later.

Next you will receive an e-mail from Mydomain entitled “Confirm Domain Transfer”. There will be a link in there to confirm the transfer, click that. The page you go to requires you to put in the authorization code obtained from Godaddy. Once you enter that code, the transfer process has begun.

Next (a few hours later), you will receive an e-mail from Godady along these lines:

Dear %NAME%,

GoDaddy.com(R) received notification on %DATE% that you have requested a transfer
to another domain name registrar. If you want to proceed with this transfer, you do
not need to respond to this message. If you wish to cancel the transfer, you must do
so before %DATE%+4.

Followed by a bunch of “incentives” to try and keep you. I’ve tried to hasten the 4 day period, but they won’t have it.

After the 4 days have passed, the domain will be copied. Fortunately, they keep your NS records in tact, so the transition can be seamless insofar as there should be no transition-downtime.

Overall, yes it’s a lot of steps, but it’s worth it. Domains are expensive, and they really shouldn’t have to be.

The premise behind the site is that they sell one technology product per day, usually bulk, often refurbished or factory recertified. You may order 1-3 of the daily Woot, and shipping is a flat $5. The price is typically 40-75% of what it goes for online, so worst case you could just rebay it.

They also accept paypal payments at no fee, so it works out great.

So far I’ve purchased a 256MB Sandisk MP3 player (Kessa loves it) for $9.99, an Audiovox 96-Watt DC-to-AC Power Inverter for the car for $9.99, and a 2-pack of Logitech Curve Headphones for $4.99 (today’s deal).

Fun times

Yet another praise to Craig’s List, it’s pretty hit or miss, but I’ve had good luck with it.

I took some pictures.

So I pursued the SERO plan for myself. I really could care less about the phone I use, and I’ve had enough gadgets in my pockets through high school and college to make me infertile for life, so I figured a cheap, low power emitting device was the way to go. I had originally decided to go with the free model phone from Sprint. After some more investigation, I changed my mind. I realized by paying $50 initially for a phone, I could make money on it in rebates, and that’s in fact what happened.

Here’s the skinny on my Sprint payments so far:
Signup for the Sprint SERO plan, including Vision (internets, lol), unlimited mobile to mobile in the Sprint network (big deal, I don’t know anyone on Sprint), unlimited nights and weekends (9PM on), 500 anytime minutes. $0 setup and $30 monthly.
$100 refundable “poor credit” deposit. Refundable after one year.
$50 for the Sprint LG Fusic LX550 Phone. Mixed reviews, but it’s a small flip phone with more features than I’d use.
-$200 rebate for the LG Fusic, found on Amazon. They say it has to be submitted with a new plan and 2 year contract, which it was. I just don’t have to pay $200 to buy it from them.
-$75 rebate from Kellogg’s, found on their box.
-$25 for saying someone referred me. When you sign up with Sprint if you say someone referred you within a month of signing up, then both you and the person who referred you get a $25 visa debit card (able to receive 12 referrals per year).

I was looking for a good deal on a cell phone, and this is about as good as it gets, I’d say. I don’t have any complaints about the service, or the phone yet.

Edit: BTW, Contact Me if you want to use me as a SERO referrer .