Saving Money How to Try Hard-to-Find Products Before You Buy Them

How to Try Hard-to-Find Products Before You Buy Them

 

When you go shopping for headphones, HDTVs, and other pricey gear, it helps to research, but there's nothing like trying before you buy. It may seem difficult, especially with electronics, but it's not impossible. Here are some tricks to get your hands, ears, and eyes on the stuff you want before you spend a ton of cash.

Reading reviews and doing research can only help you so much. If you find sites and reviewers with opinions you trust, you're in good shape, but as our own Whitson Gordon noted, if it's all you rely on, you'll miss out on better stuff. Research has diminishing returns, and there's a point where only you can really be the judge of whether a pair of headphones, a new TV, or a pair of speakers are right for you. Sadly, most stores don't just let us take stuff home and use it, then decide we don't want it anymore-to a degree. Here are some ways you can still do your homework, but get a more hands-on experience at the same time.

Join Enthusiast Clubs and Groups That Have Meet-Ups

One great way to get hands-on before you buy is to get familiar with enthusiast clubs and industry groups that have regular showcases, community meetups, and enthusiast events where you'll have the opportunity to try the things on your wishlist before you drop money on them. For example, if you're a big fan of headphones and audio gear but you're not keen on dropping hundreds on an unknown product, join enthusiast groups like Head-Fi, where community members hold regular meetups all over the globe to share and talk audio gear. You'll have the opportunity to see and hear the gear you're researching, and talk to knowledgeable people who can help you make an informed buying decision. Photography meetup groups are common too. You can find a group for just about anything at Meetup.com, or any of these other great places to meet new people.
Similarly, don't forget friends, and the beauty of Craigslist. It's useful to help you find bargains, but if your friends have something you're thinking about buying ask them if you can give those headphones or their HDTV a test drive with your own music or movies first. If you're shopping for a discount on Craigslist, trying before you buy is almost a must. Either way, it may require venturing out to the real world, but you can easily supplement your research with a few hands-on impressions.

Sniff Out Brand Stores and Showrooms

Industry groups, trade shows, and showcases that are open to the public are also great ways to get hands-on experience with the things you're considering before you buy. Home shows and showrooms are great places to get familiar with new appliances, hardware, indoor and outdoor design elements, and more without having to flat out buy anything. Trade shows give you the opportunity to talk to industry representatives (who often want to make a sale, so be careful) about their products as well.
Similarly, enthusiast stores and showrooms that specialize in one specific product or category can help you try before you buy. HDTV showrooms, speaker and audio stores, and brand stores are all great destinations. You'd be surprised which brands have stores too-sure you can always try computers at a Microsoft Store or Apple Store, but Sennheiser, Sony, and Bose all have audio stores that showcase their own gear, and most let you listen before you buy (if you buy.) Home theater showrooms-not big box retailers, mind you-will often let you play with TVs and tweak their settings to see what you're in for when you get the model back home. Of course, there's no way to replicate how a TV will look or how speakers sound in your own space, but you'll have a general idea.

Try Loan-to-Own Services When You Find Them

While they're not extremely common, loan to own services that aren't essentially high-interest, high-cost lending schemes do exist. They're generally geared towards specific people though-for example, The Cable Company offers one to audio and home theater fans in the United States, and while you can certainly try headphones, cables, and other audio products before you buy them, you do have to sink in a deposit and agree to their terms and conditions before you can get involved. It's not as simple as picking something off the shelf at the library-although it's about as good as you can get online.
Speaking of libraries, don't underestimate the resources your local library may have available. Some libraries have tool lending libraries, for example, where you can check out power tools you'd need for home repair work before you spend money on something expensive (or instead of spending money on something expensive.) Hackerspaces and makerspaces, as we've mentioned before, all give you places to get your DIY on, but they often allow members to sign out equipment for their own projects as long as they make sure to bring it back and bring it back in good condition (or replace it). Do a little digging in your community-whether it's your local area or your enthusiast community of choice. You may find an organization dedicated to letting people borrow before they buy-or buy used out of that borrowing pool.

Shop Smart and Support Businesses with Good Return Policies

Finally, when you're ready to open your wallet, remember to support those stores that were influential in helping you make your decision, and to give back to the communities that helped you out. The more you pay the favor of good information forward, the more healthy online communities and businesses there are others like you-and for you when it's time to do your homework again. The same applies if you want to take the "buy, try, then return" approach-make sure you patronize businesses with good return policies, support them with your final purchase, and don't abuse those policies just to try everything they have an eventually send it back. Be mindful, do your homework ahead of time, and then make an educated decision.

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While you can't always try everything before you buy it, there are ways to get hands on with the things you're interested in before you throw down hundreds-possibly thousands-of dollars on a new appliance, gadget, or piece of electronics. You may have to do even more homework (and maybe even drive a ways to test things out), but at the end of the day, you'll be happier with your purchase in the long run if you do the extra legwork. Bonus: You won't catch yourself trying to sell your mistaken purchase to buy what you really wanted later if you do that legwork now.

The Smallish Gadget Go Bag

 

Oftentimes, you want the smallest bag possible that can still fit your stuff in it. That's the case with reader Incendiary Solution's bag. It's small, fits just what he needs, and that's it.

The bag here is a Scout 2 for iPad shoulder bag. Since it's made for the iPad, that means there's not a ton of room for other stuff, but here's what he has in it:

• 2a - Limeade L180X Battery (18,000 mAh), Matte Black
• 2b - Wallet Sized Battery of unknown capacity
• 2c - Limefuel L240X Battery (not pictured)
• 2d - EasyAcc Powerbank (not pictured)
• 3 - PSP Go
• 4 - Kindle 4 NT
• 5 - Keys with Flashlight, Car starter, Carabeener and Paracord keychain
• 6 - Merona, Men's bi-fold wallet with moneyclip and two generic hairbands
• 7a - Samsung Galaxy Note 3 - Primary Cellphone
• 7b - Samsung Galaxy S III - Secondary Gaming Machine
• 7c - Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 - Occasional Netflix (Not Pictured)
• 8 - Inhaler
• 9 - Microusb cables(x2), PSP Go Usb Charging Cable (x1), Micro Microusb cable (x1)
• 10 - Skullcandy Ink'd 2 earbuds
• 11 - Android OTG Cable
• 12 - TP-Link TL-WR710N(US) Travel Router
• 13 - Generic Emerson Charger =
• 14 - Generic Looking WD Passport Bag (For Cable Storage)
• 15 - Pebble Smartwatch
• 16 - Gold Bond Ultimate Intensive Healing Hand Cream
• 17 - Leatherman Skeletool
• 18 - Altoids Tin
• 19 - 16gb Flash Drives, Microsd to USB converter device
• 20 - Plantronics Marque 2
• 21 - Sony 32g MicroVault Smartphone flash drive
• 22 (a-c) - Various hairbands used for connecting things to other things or to themselves
• 23 - Staples Steno Book Notebook
• 24 - TUL Gel Pens
• 25 - Brita Sports Bottle (Not Pictured)

If you have a great go bag with a useful organization scheme and great features, let us know! You can share your bag by posting it to your personal Kinja blog using the tag featured bag or adding it to our Lifehacker Go Bag Show and Tell Flickr pool. Photos must be at least at least 640x360. Please include information about your bag, what you put in it, and any relevant details about how you made it awesome. If yours catches our eye, we might just feature it!

Treat Financial Fitness Like Physical Fitness

Treat Financial Fitness Like Physical Fitness to Achieve Your Goals

 

For many of us, physical fitness and financial fitness are difficult goals. When we're under stress if we can't reach for a cupcake, we at least want to buy ourselves something nice. If you see the skills of financial fitness and physical fitness as being connected, you might find better stress relievers.

LearnVest explains

 Whether you're overeating or overspending, the gratification that comes from indulging in something that's bad for you can happen in a flash-and the effects are usually just as fleeting, which is why many people fall into a pattern of repeating the behavior, packing on pounds and debt in the process.

We've talked about the importance of delaying gratification to control your urges and small habits strengthen your willpower, and both of those come into play here, too.

 

More money DOES make you happier

More money DOES make you happier: Britain and other rich nations among most contented countries... but the French and Japanese are determined to be miserable

• Money can buy you happiness, a report on life satisfaction has shown 
• Britain and other rich nations are among the most contented countries 
• But some wealthy countries, such as France and Japan, are miserable
• Barely half of French and Japanese people said they were satisfied with life 
• Global survey asked thousands to rate their happiness out of 10
• Researchers then compared country's happiness with average income   
• Self-reported well-being in growing Asian nations now rivals Europe and US

More money does make you happier, with people from rich countries like Britain saying they are happier than citizens of poorer nations.

Nearly 60 per cent of people living in the UK rate their happiness as at least a seven out of 10, higher than most other rich countries.

However, some wealthy nations, including France and Japan, are still miserable, with barely half of their citizens happy with their lives.

Scroll down for video and a table of results 

                                                                 

Morale has dropped slightly in the UK, the report by the Pew Research Center, in Washington, found.

The number of people saying they were satisfied with their life dropped from one per cent, from 59 per cent to 58 per cent, in the last seven years.

Germany saw a rise of 13 per cent in the same time, possibly because Germans were less affected by the economic downturn than other Western nations.

Meanwhile only 43 per cent of people surveyed in Japan said they were satisfied with their lives, while slightly more than half of the French said they were happy.  

                                                                                                                

The only developed nations to have higher satisfaction levels than the UK were the U.S. and Israel, while the lowest ratings were found in Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania.

Emerging markets in Asia saw the biggest rise in citizens' satisfaction over the seven-year period, the global survey suggested. 

Levels of self-reported well-being in fast-growing nations like Indonesia, China and Malaysia now rival those in the U.S. and Europe, who traditionally topped the happiness charts.

And women in particular are growing more satisfied with their lifestyles as a result, the research found. 

 This table shows the per cent saying that they were 7,8,9 or 10 in the 'ladder of life'. Over half of the UK is slightly less happier than it was in 2002, while 13 per cent of Germans are happier than they were 12 years ago                                                                  

Indonesia, China, Pakistan, Malaysia, Russia, Turkey, Chile and Peru are all happier now than 12 years ago                                                                                                                                               

Eighteen per cent of Ugandans are happier now than 12 years ago, and eight per cent are happier in Tanzania                                                                                                                     

The study confirmed that rises in national income are closely linked to personal satisfaction.

The pollsters asked people in 43 countries to place themselves on a 'ladder of life,' with a scale from 0 to 10 and the top rung representing the best possible life and the bottom the worst. 

Pew carried out the same survey in 2002 and 2005 in most of those countries, enabling researchers to look at trends over time.

But the data also suggested that there is a limit to how much happiness money can buy.

For example, 56 per cent of Malaysians rated their life a 'seven' or higher on the ladder, significantly more than the 36 per cent in Bangladesh, a poor country. 

Yet the public in Germany, which has far higher gross domestic product per capita than Malaysia, expressed a life satisfaction level of 60 per cent, just four per cent more than Malaysia.

While wealth appears to contribute to happiness, other research has indicated it is far from the only factor.

Women tend to be happier than men, for example, and unmarried and middle-aged people tend to report lower levels of well-being than married and younger people, respective

 The study, by the Pew Research Center in Washington, confirmed that rises in national income in emerging markets such as China are closely linked to personal satisfaction                                     

Money can buy you happiness, the study found, with people living in wealthy countries likely to be more satisfied with their lives

                                                                                                          

Emerging Asian nations are finding out what developed ones did years ago: Money does buy happiness - or at least satisfaction. Pictured are a couple in Beijing, China                                   

The Pew survey were based on 47,643 interviews in 43 countries with adults 18 and older between March and June.

It found that people in emerging and developing economies prioritise a few essentials in life, including their health, their children's education and safety from crime. 

Fewer people in those economies said internet access, car ownership, free time or the ability to travel is very important in their lives.

The survey saw significant gains in personal satisfaction in Indonesia, where 58 per cent of those polled placed themselves on the seventh-highest rung of the 'ladder of life' or above, up from 23 per cent in 2007.

In Malaysia, where 56 per cent put themselves in that same upper range, up from 36 per cent seven years ago. 

In Vietnam, which wasn't included in the 2007 survey, 64 per cent said they were on the seventh-highest rung or above.

The Associated Press asked people in those three nations what they thought of the findings.

'Money can't secure happiness,' said Nguyen Thi Mai, 66-year-old retired teacher from Vietnam.

'There are people who don't have any money but they lead a happy life because family members love and respect each other. 

'But there are rich families where husbands and wives often quarrel and children are addicted to drugs.' 

'Money can buy lots of happiness for me because I am very materialistic,' said businessman Tony Wong in Malaysia. 

'But that's not the only thing that makes me happy. Money is number one on my top five list, followed by health, family, dogs and friends.' 

by Mahesh.

The New Best Day to Book a Flight Is Sunday

  The New Best Day to Book a Flight Is Sunday

 Sunday is the new Tuesday when it comes to getting the best deal on plane tickets, a new study reveals.

Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), which is responsible for half of all tickets sold, crunched the data on domestic and international ticket sales between January 2013 through July 2014. It found that average ticket prices were lowest on Sunday, challenging previous advice to start shopping for tickets on Tuesdayor get out your credit card on Wednesday at 1am.

Here's their chart (domestic prices on the left, international on the right):

The Wall Street Journal theorizes that prices are lowest on the weekend because airline executives come into work on Monday thinking about hiking up the fares rather than discounting them. Als


The lower Sunday and Saturday prices also result from the ability social media has given airlines to throw discounts in front of consumers at any time. That turns vacation shoppers surfing the Web on weekends into ticketed passengers without discounting tickets business travelers might buy while at work. And the findings reflect the lack of corporate sales over the weekend, since business travelers typically fly on more expensive tickets than vacation buyers.

Despite these findings, however, you might still want to check on Tuesdays, because if the airline is going to offer a discount to sell more seats, Tuesday is the most likely day that'll happen:


Airline pricing executives say the historic pattern has been for airlines to add up sales over the weekend and decide on Monday whether to stimulate purchases with discounts they tout in ads in Tuesday's newspapers.
If you book on Sunday and the price drops on Tuesday (or vice versa), you might be able to get a refund. Either way, these are the two days to keep an eye on if you're planning on flying. ARC's data also confirmed that the booking about 7-8 weeks before your flight is the best for the lowest fares.

Get Rid of that "Old Book Smell" with Cornstarch

Get Rid of that "Old Book Smell" with Cornstarch

 

If you've got some books that have been sitting around in the attic, they might pick up "old book smell". Sprinkling some cornstarch helps get rid of the smell without damaging the book.

POPSUGAR explains how to safely remove that smell:

Grab a box of cornstarch and stand books on their sides slightly open over a length of parchment paper or on a large flat surface, allowing you to easily sweep up cornstarch to use again on other books. Now sprinkle the cornstarch over the book, fanning pages out to coat. Let your old books set overnight, then shake out the cornstarch. The result? Fresh books!

You'll want to be careful shaking it you so you don't damage the binding or the pages. Check out the link for other ways to use cornstarch.

10 Great Ways To Save Money For An Epic Shopping Spree

10 Great Ways To Save Money For An Epic Shopping Spree

 

The festive season is all about shopping! But for that, you need to have a bit of a corpus saved up. If you aren't sure where to begin cutting corners, here are 10 great ways to saving money for your epic shopping spree!

We get it, you love your Starbucks caramel macchiato first thing in the morning, but a daily indulgence like a store-bought cup of coffee can add up to quite a bit at the end of the month. Instead, make your own coffee at home, and indulge in your favorite store-bought coffee once a week as a treat.

Cut down on your phone bills

 
If you talk, text, and browse the web excessively on your mobile phone, you should make a conscious effort to cut down on that. Try and use your home or office landlines to make phone calls or use free apps like Viber if you make a lot of international or STD calls. You could even ask your mobile service provider to suggest a plan that will best suit your usage.

Carpool

 
Travel is one expense that can be quite massive, especially with fuel prices soaring with each passing day. Cut down on travel costs by carpooling with co-workers who travel in the same direction as you. You can share fuel expenses and will also have company while getting to and returning from the office.

Unplug all electrical devices you aren't using 

 
Did you know that even if you have disconnected your phone from your charger, but have left your charger plugged into your wall socket with the switch in the 'on' position, it still consumes electricity and costs money? Unplug all electrical devices you aren't using.

Use CFLs instead of regular bulbs

 
Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) are in high demand these days due to their many benefits like an extended lifespan and significantly less electrical usage. While you may end up paying a little more for a CFL light bulb than a regular one, it will cost you less in the long run where electricity bills are concerned. Opt for branded CFLs as they are known to be more energy efficient. Here's an interesting tip - when you are comparing bulbs, use the lumens number and not the equivalent wattages. The lumens indicate the actual amount of light that the bulb emits.

Cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions that you don't really read

 
If you have subscribed to magazines and newspapers that you don't really read and only just skim through, ask yourself, will you really miss it if you cancel it? If the answer is no, go ahead and do that. An unread subscription is nothing more than expensive clutter and you can put that money towards your holiday shopping spree.

Cook extra food and store it in your freezer 

 
Whenever you get down to cooking, make a few extra portions so that you can freeze the extra portion and use them as future meals. You could even take the extra leftovers to work the next day or pack it in your kids' lunchboxes. Don't throw your leftovers away, because on browsing the web, you will find tons of ingenious recipe ideas on how you can give your leftovers a makeover to get a brand new, delicious meal.

Cut down on eating or ordering out 

 
You come home tired from work and the last thing you want to do is whip up a three course meal. So you automatically reach for the phone and dial the local pizzeria's number. While ordering out can be time-saving, it takes quite a toll on your expenses. Instead, have some shortcuts in place like have your maid cut the veggies before you get home from work, or look for simple recipes like sir-frys. You could also start a tiffin service which is more economical than ordering in.

Groom yourself at home 

 
Think about the amount of money you spend on facials, haircuts, waxing, bleaching, manicures and pedicures every month. You could end up saving quite a bit if you cut back on how often you go to the parlor. For instance, if you go for a mani-pedi twice a month, start going just once a month. You could also groom yourself at home with the amount of DIY grooming products available in the market that costs a quarter of what you would spend at a parlor or salon.

Have a garage sale 

 
You probably have tons of clothes, furniture, books, accessories etc in your home that you probably haven't used for ages now. If these items are just sitting in your home collecting dust, have a garage sale. While the concept of garage sales isn't very popular in India yet, you could post your unwanted items on Quickr or OLX.