Last night when I told Alpay what my post topic was ("66 Ways Being Organized Saves Money") he asked for examples and I gave some. "Wait a second," he objected. "Since when does comparison shopping count as 'organizing'?"
Fighting the urge to say, "since I said so," I explained that systematic comparison shopping takes both discipline and effort. A truly rewarding outcome can require extensive pen-and-paper note-taking and a small cache of user names and passwords, all of which you have to keep straight somehow.
In January, I wrote about how one of the most rewarding (and surprising) uses of my new Circa notebook is how it provides just such a place to organize this type of information. For the skeptics out there who find it hard to believe such effort is necessary, I offer the following example.
Every winter, I get my tires rotated and the wheels removed and cleaned, which has put a stop to the "Low Tire Pressure" warning I used to get with alarming frequency. And every year for the past few years, I've been warned: looks like you're going to be needing new tires soon. "Sure," I say, by which I mean "whatever." Not because I don't believe I could use new tires, but, you know, a tightwad and her money are not easily parted. I also believe that tires have an obligation to last ten years, and it's only been nine.
I changed my tune when informed that, actually, there are laws about these things and my tires' baldness was perilously close to breaking them. One of the wheels was problematic as well; I've known it was dented for a couple years, but now it was so bad that the shop was scared to take the tire off it, lest they not be able to get it back on.
"Fine," I said, which actually means not fine at all but I'll do what needs to be done. First, though, some due diligence was in order.
I got the quote for the four tires: $201.99 per tire. No, wait, I would get one free. No, wait, there was also the price of putting the new tires on. And getting rid of the old ones. And a "state environmental fee". A "Chicago Tire Fee"--I kid you not. A "local tire disposal" fee. On and on, until we were up to $768.46, not including the new wheel. I got it all in writing and put it in my organizer. And then I did some sleuthing.
I vaguely recalled an excellent article on tire shopping. Having found the article, I discovered tirerack.com, on on-line tire store extraordinaire, where I found the same tires for $155 each, albeit without the free tire special. Still, no taxes via tirerack.com made it the better buy. We found a local place to put on and balance the new tires and to get rid of the old for $64.00 total. The end result: I saved $42.86 by going with tirerack and local installation.
I know what some of you are thinking: that was a lot of work to save forty-two bucks. But hold on: remember the wheel? Guess how much the dealer wanted for it? $1100. And that's for a refurbished wheel, not even new. Maybe we could get a discount if we offered our first-born son; we hadn't gotten down to the brass tacks of the negotiation. At this point, Alpay took over and went on-line. He found the same wheel at Detroit Wheel and Tire, for $225. Okay, shipping was $24.25. So the savings was only $850.71.
Between the tires and the wheel, comparison shopping saved us $893.57. In the process, we checked at least a dozen sites, and kept track of the particulars (make, model, price, website URLs and contact names). It did take some effort, but the $893.57 we saved is well worth the the hour of time we spent researching our options.