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Even More Consumer Tips
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 How many more consumer tips could I possibly have? Are these things shooting out of my asshole or what? - Don't use a credit card. Everyone already knows this one, right? Apparently not, because when I turn on Clark Howard and Suze Orman I hear callers oohing and ahhing over this piece of advice my Mom gave me when I was about 15 as though it was the most incredible thing they had ever heard.
George Carlin once said he hated getting stuck in line behind someone who was fumbling for their credit card. "You don't need to pay 15% interest on Tic-Tacs," he wrote. As with many subjects, George summed credit cards up in a nutshell.
Mom said that by paying in cash you got a real sense of the money you were spending. When you witness those dollars leaving your hand, you might be less eager to part with them. The only time it's good to pay with a credit card, she said, was if it was a big ticket item you might want to return because with a credit card you have a window of time to stop payment.
- Buy unloved guitars. I fell into this one by accident. A co-worker at an internship had convinced me I should have a Telecaster. I went to a used guitar shop and saw a no-name Tele clone for $120. I grabbed it, but felt like a total fool quickly afterwards. Why had I bought this piece of crap? It gathered dust in the corner at my parents' house for years.
A dozen years later I realized that my assessment of this guitar as "crap" had not been based on quality of construction, playability or sound. It had been based on the fact it was $120. I began thinking of fixing it up, and took it to Ken Stanton Music to have a guy behind the counter check it out, and he took one look and said, "There's nothing wrong with that guitar." Then I took it to Guitar Center and had some Seymour Duncan `52 pickups put in it and A/B'd it with a real $1,200 Telecaster -- and my $120 guitar sounded just as good!
More recently I bought a $160 Ibanez (had been tagged at $200 -- I haggled!) because it reminded me of the ESP Strat Vito Bratta had played in White Lion. I had some Sperzel tuners put on it and a Duncan JB put in the bridge, and I love it! I play better on that guitar than any of them.
I often see fine used guitars by Schecter and Hamer gathering dust at Guitar Center despite being tagged at $250. They're built just as well as the $2,000 guitars on the racks, but because no big star is affiliated with their brand they go ignored. These are golden bargains if you're more interested in making music than impressing people with designer labels!
Be careful, however, that the bargain guitar you fix up is one you intend to keep. The upgrades aren't going to make them any more valuable and if you intend to sell later you're going to lose the cost of any upgrades you made. I love my faux-Tele and Ibanez, though, so they ain't goin' anywhere.
Okay, I think I'm really out of any tips now. Past this, I have to listen to Clark Howard and read books. |
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Posted by Art | 8:30 AM EST |
2 comments
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Those bits of plastic have been my financial down fall throughout the years. Three times in my life I've had mountains of credit card debt that I managed to dig my way out of. It sickens me to think how much more money I could have saved had I not accumulated that debt.
One of my goals as a parent is to make sure my kids understand that credit cards are bad news. I never got that lesson from my folks, so kudos to Glenna!