Page 6 - Leighton News November 2016
P. 6
6
OLD HABITS DIE HARD. I can remember when we DH
literally had to count the pennies. Like everyone else, I still
always stock up on the Tesco Special Offers even if it s just - - - - - SAFE SHOPPING TIPS - - - - -
a matter of saving 50p or less.
! Hackers can record your keystrokes so DON T type in
Of course we can now shop around online to find the best
prices it s much faster than phoning retailers let alone card numbers or passwords. Paste them in instead
visiting different shops. keep them in a plain text file on your desktop.
We hardly ever buy from Amazon itself but always ! Use a different credit card for online accounts. Apply for
look there first. Almost every item you would ever look for
is listed there and it gives an idea of price ranges. an extra card and reset to a very low credit limit.
Taking postage into account, Amazon are seldom the ! Not essential but useful: a separate bank account with
cheapest even for what was initially their core products:
books, CDs and DVDs. They still make plenty of money funds as low as your new credit card limit.
from listing offerings from alternative merchants shown as
Used from and New from underneath the main price. sellers nearly always need payment by
Often used books with their condition described as Very All you need is an email address but purchases have
Good are actually brand new they may have been to be paid from a linked bank account. However, PayPal
bought by somebody but you can see that the pages have (owned by eBay) allows 30 days for goods to arrive or
never been turned. other disputes before taking your money.
If you can bear to wait a while after Finally, banks have a big investment in fraud prevention and
publication the savings can be dramatic. will call you if they see suspicious activity on your cards.
Here s a book I ve just bought while looking
for examples for this article: a hardback copy
of Astray by Emma Donoghue £14.99
Amazon price. Other merchant price 1p +
£2.80 postage. This is the fixed postage rate
for books and CD/DVDs are just £1.25.
For all other bigger ticket items like TVs, cameras,
phones, etc. once you ve decided on the product, just enter
the make, name and model code into Google and see the
whole range of prices from all over the country. Online
won t necessarily be the best value local shops can still
be competitive without having to wait for delivery.
Wherever you end up shopping, there are still great
savings to be made by buying just before the latest product
launch. Unless you play the crazy game of keeping up with
the iPhones, just after the latest version is launched, stocks
of last year s version are going to be discounted.
Even more sensibly, if you want an Android phone and still
want to go for the market leader, as well as getting the
reduced price of the previous version, you will be able to
pick a phone that hasn t been known to catch fire!
My greatest coup in the last year s model ploy was a
£500 saving on a top spec TV thanks to a recommendation
from a Samsung rep I met in Currys (no sign of fire yet).
Your biggest expense after buying a house is generally
reckoned to be the cost of buying and running a car.
Unlike houses which usually appreciate, car values drop
alarmingly quickly.
So the first saving is to make sure someone else pays
for the greatest depreciation hit. Ex-lease hire cars have
OLD HABITS DIE HARD. I can remember when we DH
literally had to count the pennies. Like everyone else, I still
always stock up on the Tesco Special Offers even if it s just - - - - - SAFE SHOPPING TIPS - - - - -
a matter of saving 50p or less.
! Hackers can record your keystrokes so DON T type in
Of course we can now shop around online to find the best
prices it s much faster than phoning retailers let alone card numbers or passwords. Paste them in instead
visiting different shops. keep them in a plain text file on your desktop.
We hardly ever buy from Amazon itself but always ! Use a different credit card for online accounts. Apply for
look there first. Almost every item you would ever look for
is listed there and it gives an idea of price ranges. an extra card and reset to a very low credit limit.
Taking postage into account, Amazon are seldom the ! Not essential but useful: a separate bank account with
cheapest even for what was initially their core products:
books, CDs and DVDs. They still make plenty of money funds as low as your new credit card limit.
from listing offerings from alternative merchants shown as
Used from and New from underneath the main price. sellers nearly always need payment by
Often used books with their condition described as Very All you need is an email address but purchases have
Good are actually brand new they may have been to be paid from a linked bank account. However, PayPal
bought by somebody but you can see that the pages have (owned by eBay) allows 30 days for goods to arrive or
never been turned. other disputes before taking your money.
If you can bear to wait a while after Finally, banks have a big investment in fraud prevention and
publication the savings can be dramatic. will call you if they see suspicious activity on your cards.
Here s a book I ve just bought while looking
for examples for this article: a hardback copy
of Astray by Emma Donoghue £14.99
Amazon price. Other merchant price 1p +
£2.80 postage. This is the fixed postage rate
for books and CD/DVDs are just £1.25.
For all other bigger ticket items like TVs, cameras,
phones, etc. once you ve decided on the product, just enter
the make, name and model code into Google and see the
whole range of prices from all over the country. Online
won t necessarily be the best value local shops can still
be competitive without having to wait for delivery.
Wherever you end up shopping, there are still great
savings to be made by buying just before the latest product
launch. Unless you play the crazy game of keeping up with
the iPhones, just after the latest version is launched, stocks
of last year s version are going to be discounted.
Even more sensibly, if you want an Android phone and still
want to go for the market leader, as well as getting the
reduced price of the previous version, you will be able to
pick a phone that hasn t been known to catch fire!
My greatest coup in the last year s model ploy was a
£500 saving on a top spec TV thanks to a recommendation
from a Samsung rep I met in Currys (no sign of fire yet).
Your biggest expense after buying a house is generally
reckoned to be the cost of buying and running a car.
Unlike houses which usually appreciate, car values drop
alarmingly quickly.
So the first saving is to make sure someone else pays
for the greatest depreciation hit. Ex-lease hire cars have
