海角大神

Whenever Sarah and I think about a purchase of any kind above roughly $100, the first thing we do is turn to our social network.

I鈥檒l put out a message on Facebook to my personal friends asking them if they know anything about, say, point-and-shoot digital cameras. The next time I see some friends face-to-face, I鈥檒l ask them about the item as well.

What do I usually get in return? I usually get a lot of useful information that ends up making a huge impact on my purchase and often saves me a lot of money.

鲍蝉耻补濒濒测,听I鈥檒l get direct and honest reviews of items similar to the one I鈥檓 looking at.聽I鈥檒l hear directly from people I know and trust about their camera, what they like about it, what they聽诲辞苍鈥檛聽like about it, and so on.

This is really different than looking at, say, Amazon reviews of items, because I 诲辞苍鈥檛 always know how many of those reviews were simply posted by people who are employees of the company making the product (or employees of competitors). I know I can trust my friends.

I鈥檒l also find out about聽specific things I should be looking for in my own shopping.聽What features really made a difference to them?

For example, were they mostly annoyed by low battery life? If so, then I know I should really look at the battery life of models I鈥檓 considering. Do they talk a lot about the clarity of the pictures? The resolution? The things that matter to my friends in their usage are likely to be the features that I鈥檓 affected by.

Perhaps best of all,聽my friends serve as additional eyeballs when looking for discounts.聽If one of them knows about a big sale on a product, they鈥檙e going to mention it when I ask about that product.

I鈥檝e had friends point out big sales to me. I鈥檝e had other friends use their employee discounts to help me get an item very inexpensively. I鈥檝e had friends hand me coupons, too.

All of these things add up to significant savings as well as a route straight to the maximum 鈥渂ang for the buck鈥� on the item I ask about.

Of course,聽part of the equation here is cultivating your friends to help.聽If a friend ever asks me about anything I know something about, I share everything I know and I鈥檒l even look for discounts and sales for that friend. If you have friends that you consistently do this for, they鈥檒l聽all聽help you when you ask for help.

That鈥檚 what friends are for.

This post is part of a yearlong series called 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),鈥� in which I鈥檓 revisiting the entries from my book 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap,鈥� which is available聽at Amazon聽and at bookstores everywhere.聽