My wife and I are struggling to cancel the cable once again. We talk about it every time our Comcast bill goes back to normal price. We have internet + digital cable + DVR for about $122 a month. I usually call and tell them I am going to cancel, and they start offering some deals. I never take the first deal or two, and usually end up negotiating to a price to around $85/month for about a year. I have actually been paying full price for way too long now. Why?, because I really want to cancel cable. I [...]
Read MoreJuly 2007
“Does that headline grab your attention? Well, it’s true. Retailers spend millions figuring out how our minds operate so that they can become more effective. As consumers it helps to examine some of the ways in which retailers are using research to hone their tactics. One such set of research deals with the role that the ending number in a price can have on consumers.” That is the opening paragraph of a guest post on how prices can affect our spending. I wrote the post for FMF over at Free Money Finance while he is on vacation. If you haven’t [...]
Read More10 days into the July Cash Experiment and we have seen our share of speed bumps. First was forgetting that Sunday the 1st was actually July. I hadn’t withdrawn any cash to start the month. My preparation wasn’t there and I resorted to the debit card to avoid a 2.00 ATM fee at Target. Probably not the best choice for the experiment’s sake, since dealing with fees is something that must be balanced when using cash. The next speed bump was with paying tolls. I have EZ-Pass, an electronic toll collection system, so I haven’t paid cash in years. The [...]
Read MoreCredit cards are cleverly designed so that we can comfortably spend more than we make. One of these design features is that we are allowed to make repeated small purchases, yet the purchase ‘pain’ is limited to a mere twelve times a year. By grouping all of the monthly purchases together, we can roll the ‘pain’ into a singular point each month. If at that time we can not pay the card off, it is another month until we have to face it again. In the meantime we keep charging and interest keeps accruing. We often try to maximize pain [...]
Read MoreDuncan Simester created one of the first experiments that attempted to directly test how consumer’s ‘willingness to pay’ is affected by credit cards. In this experiment 1st year MBA students were instructed to provide a sealed envelope with the amount that they would be willing to pay for sold out Celtics and Red Sox tickets. One set of instructions required cash payment and the other a credit card payment. In both cases the face value of the tickets were not given. The prize was to be sold to the person who wrote down the highest price, but sold at the [...]
Read MoreOn the fourth of July, fireworks soar through the sky. Families have fun, we remember how our nation begun. by Gabriella Happy Fourth!
Read MoreI go to the vending machine maybe once a month. Each time it gets more and more painful knowing that the item is has such a huge markup(I still buy). I realize that am paying for my lack of planning and laziness. Let’s take a look at how much we are paying for convenience. I compared the price of a couple items out that could be purchased at Costco or Sam’s club to the $0.80 cents that you would pay in a vending machine. $0.138 cents for Austin’s Crackers – 580% more in a vending machine $0.226 cents for Microwave [...]
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