Today I was talking to a person who said that her friend was so excited to get such a great deal for a pair of tickets to the Olympic gold medal hockey game. The price? $15,000. Yes, we are talking five figures here. Apparently she thought it was such a good deal as people are reselling them for as much as $25,000 that I have seen.

This is actually monitored through the official Olympic channel too. So it’s not like a deal where some is trying to scalp their ticket through under the table means. These are one of those purchases that I would have to think like a hundred times before doing it. As a result, most likely I wouldn’t. It’s almost like wanting to buy the latest gadget where the supply is so limited that end consumers simply resell the ones they bought for a profit.

For myself I don’t look at the price compared to what everyone else is selling it for but rather the cost of the item without the insane markups. You just feel a little silly paying so much extra dollars I’d say. Would watching it on say TV be that bad for example if it meant saving $15,000? Unless you have an extreme amount of disposable income that is.

It’s not uncommon for me to see people say how they wished they worked at certain companies or places in order to reap in the benefits. For example, people that work in a electronic store can get deals on TV items and people that work at events can get good package deals. Today I was seeing various Olympic vendors making deals with each other so that their respective staff members good get spiffs from each other.

For example, food vendors would be willing to offer staff from other venues to get snacks for free and vice versa the their staff could get say these collectible items for free. Kind of an interesting relationship building technique if I do say so myself as you are essentially getting good deals and trying to make the entire environment better. That’s usually how it works too when it comes to people establishing business relationships.

Today I was shopping and my parents asked if I could buy them this particular bread for them since I was in the area. At first I went to one place and it was sold out. The price was about $ dollars for the loaf. I then went to another store within the same mall and they did have plenty of stock. Thing is the item was like $4 there which meant it was double the price.

Normally I would be inclined not to buy it and just wait. But since it was not for myself I bought it as it is one of those you need it now type of scenarios. Times like these it makes me inclined to avoid the store in question for particular items as you learn just how much expensive it can be to shop in the place. That’s usually why I always try to do my shopping in places that have some kind of price matching guarantee who aren’t too picky about smaller items.
If they are picky about items having to be in stock the good thing is that you usually have at least a 14 day grace period. So if the other store replenishes its stock you can easily get back the difference that way.

While it is Christmas shopping right now, a lot of retailers have prices on items that make it very attractive for people to buy things for themselves. However, knowing that boxing day is happening in a little over a week makes me want to just ignore all of the holiday flyers and sales.

Fortunately for myself I finished most of my shopping already too and therefore won’t be too inclined to go to stores if they have a Christmas sale. Another incentive is not wanting to deal with the last minute shopping crowd too.

I usually find that the few days before Christmas is usually when stores have inflated prices too to take advantage of all the frantic buyers. Again, one technique that helps a lot is to try and read up on what is coming up ahead. For example, just by doing a little research I learned that apparently there is going to be a store that is selling a DVD players for under $10.

Knowing that for example where if I was in the market for one I would feel kind of foolish if I didn’t hold back to purchase it later.

Usually there are a ton of times where taking advantage of deals requires you to buy an X amount of items in order to qualify for a discount price of sort. Example, buying three items to get one free or purchasing a certain amount to get free shipping.

Because of this I see a lot of people that find shopping buddies where they gather others who usually shop for the same type of items. So if such a promotion comes up the odds are that they will all want to buy something. Imagine buying $100 worth of items and getting $20 off as an example where you can easily obtain and split that discount amongst like three people.

This Christmas having a shopping buddy is definitely very beneficial since retailers are trying to wrack up sales by having many buy X amount of dollars in items and get X amount back type of bargains.