Birds Can Be Silly Too!

There’s always one in every holiday snapshot though, isn’t there?

 

Charleston Co-Working Group

Wikipedia says: "Co working is an emerging trend for a new pattern for working. Typically work-at-home professionals or independent contractors or people who travel frequently end up working in relative isolation. Co working is the social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share values and who are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space."

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Next Tuesday, January 19th, marks the first working day for CHSCoWork, with a meeting towards the end of the session at 4pm

Check out the website too at http://chscowork.org

Shopping in the 21st Century

I’m a frugalist. No, that doesn’t mean I’m a tightwad. It means I am always looking to see if I really need to buy something or if it’s just a whim. I know it’s good treat yourself sometimes, but it’s not really a god idea if you buy something on impulse that you’ll never use. I’ve done that before, like most people, and then gotten cross with myself later.

Anyway, I was at it again yesterday.

I have a netbook. I wanted to get a headset with a mic in, so I can use it when I’m out and about to make phone calls and to listen to music. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, as it’s only going to be for occasional use in any case.

I found something that would suit me in Staples. Well, I found two sets. One is an over the ear folding headset’ the other is an earplug type. The latter is more portable, taking up less room in my bag, but I usually prefer the headset type – I always find earplugs fall out of my ears, no matter what size plugs I use.

Now, this is what I always do when I’m out. I reach for my Blackberry.

I go to Amazon.com, and read customer reviews. OK, I know they’re not perfect, I know some are possibly made up. I make a point of reading both the good ones and the bad ones. Then I check the price. Then I order from Amazon.

Why?

It’s almost always cheaper, and I’ve learned that I usually don’t need things NOW. A few days won’t hurt.

So, the headphones in store were $29.99 for the over the ear type, and $19.99 for the earplugs. On Amazon I found the best of both worlds. An over the ear type, with clips, without the headband, so a very small amount of room in my netbook case. Also, they were $12.72, with $6 shipping. That’s still cheaper than the $19.99 set, to which I’d have to added tax.

OK, so it was only a very few bucks saving, but I saved a lot more a few weeks ago, when I bought my netbook case. It was priced at $39.99 in Office Depot, and I got it online for $29.99 with free shipping, a total saving of some $14! That’s certainly worth the wait.

This can only get worse though, as yesterday, when I was looking on the mobile Amazon site, it offered me their Amazon App for Blackberry. I downloaded it. It works like a dream, you can very easily search for products; read all the reviews, and it even supports secure one-click ordering.

Now if only I could buy through my own Amazon affiliate account, and save even more… Oh well one can’t have everything!