Pocketmint

Tag: shopping

1. Women and money: four destructive myths

   8 March 2013

   Among financial bloggers, this has been designated Women’s Money Week. I don’t usually think about finances and economics in a gender-specific ways, but coincidentally, last week I happened to be reading a book called Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry. The author, Helaine Olen, devotes a chapter to the way […]

2. Sidestepping my souvenir angst with one cheap, offbeat idea

   11 August 2012

   What with one thing and another, I’ve spent very little of my life to date traveling outside my home country, which meant that our surprise trip to Costa Rica in June provoked a rare dilemma. I hadn’t expected to get to Costa Rica for years yet, and now — given financial realities and the number […]

3. Miswanting, and two strategies to counter it

   6 August 2012

   As part of my attempt to downsize our life, I’m culling my collection of clothes and shoes. As I ransack my closet and dresser drawers, I’m struck by the occasional item that was a complete misfire. There aren’t many of them, because I know myself pretty well, but I’ve run across a few things that […]

4. Extended warranties: from sucker’s bet to outright scam

   9 July 2012

   In the summer of 2009, our comfy but crappily-constructed Ikea couch was not merely bedraggled beyond belief, but the frame had actually snapped right in two, after just a few years of normal wear. We needed to replace it, and I was tired of churning through shoddy sofas. This time, Jak and I wanted to […]

5. Buying groceries, Mexico style

   20 May 2012

   Pocketmint is documenting a month of personal finance in Mexico. For the backstory, see this post. Now that I’ve described my usual grocery strategies, here’s how they apply to Mexican shopping: Price tracking: extremely useful in a between-store sense, much less so in an over-time sense, because … Weekly sale ads: don’t exist. There are […]

6. Frugal grocery shopping basics

   17 May 2012

   As I’ve started to write up my experiences grocery shopping in Mexico, I’ve realized that in order for the comparisons to make any sense I first need to give them some context. If you’ve been reading Pocketmint for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that I place a lot of emphasis on food. From […]

7. An unflinching look at America’s dangerous fascination with ‘cheap’

   5 September 2009

   Even before I’d finished Ellen Ruppel Shell’s new book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, I decided I should review it on Pocketmint. I then spent two weeks artfully procrastinating on doing so. Apparently I have a block on writing formal ‘book reviews’. I have no trouble discussing books, verbally and informally, but the […]

8. Shopping debacle; Craigslist rescue

   10 June 2009

   Last September, I proudly blogged about my bargain-hunting skills in purchasing two sets of dinnerware online. The Corelle worked brilliantly for everyday dishes, so much so that I went back and bought 4 more each of the plates and bowls, even though the price by that time was slightly higher. They’re lightweight, virtually indestructible, and […]

9. Shopping for happiness

   25 September 2008

   With the entire country in dire financial turmoil this week, I’ve been fighting my own great depression with the quintessential American pastime: shopping! Well, sort of. I didn’t go on any kind of wild spree, nor was I shopping just for shopping’s sake; we’ve had a few months to grow our home-improvement fund since our […]

10. Internet shopping magic

    30 June 2008

    Do you shop online? I do. Aside from groceries, I probably make 80-90% of my purchases online. It suits me, because I am very big on product research and price comparisons and bargain-hunting, and because I usually find in-person shopping to be terribly inefficient. There are a few things it doesn’t work for — I’m […]