Paying more to save money

I received an e-mail from Amazon.com a week or so ago telling me that Wrestlemania 25 was available for pre-order for just $19.98, which for a 3-disc DVD set, is quite the deal. Of course, that's $19.98 American, but these days that's still only about $22 Canadian, so it's still a good deal.

I checked Amazon.ca, and it was an even better deal, as the Canadian price on the DVD was a shade under $33. I was saving $11, even factoring in currency conversions.

So, I placed my order through Amazon.com ... and lo and behold, the $11 spread vanished in shipping charges. Suddenly, my $20 DVD was nearly $31 US, which after currency conversion, became more expensive than the highly-marked up Canadian version.

In the end, I pre-ordered the DVD through Amazon.ca, because after adding a book I was planning to buy anyway, I got free shipping.

Wacky.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Car camping in our Toyota Rav4

Image
My wife and I booked a tenting trip to Yellowstone National Park last summer. We had never been there before and were really excited to go, but weren't thrilled that we were sleeping in a tent in bear country. We are fundamentally too cheap to buy a camper trailer, and our Toyota Rav4 doesn't have a big enough engine to pull anything larger than a ladybug anyway, so our options were pretty limited. During a discussion of those limited options just weeks ahead of the Yellowstone trip, I Google'd "car camping Rav4" and discovered there's a whole sub-culture out there of people who have retrofitted their Rav4 vehicles to sleep in the back. We started devouring other people's blog posts and videos on the subject and quickly set about to lifehacking our car and our trip to suit our needs. So we did a live beta test in Yellowstone and slept in our vehicle. We loved it. Sleeping in our Rav4 was quiet and dry. We didn't have to worry about wildlife, and
Keep reading

The Amazing Survivor Race

Image
The Amazing Survivor Race This is, I say humbly, the greatest idea in the history of television: CBS must tape seasons of Survivor and The Amazing Race simultaneously. About half-way through the tapings, the Amazing Race teams all end up routed to Survivor Island. The twist in the show is that the last team to the pit stop for that leg of the race doesn't get booted from the show, but changes shows and is now on Survivor, split up and on separate tribes. At the same time, both Survivor tribes go to tribal council separately. The voted off members, however, don't go home - they are told that they have to team up and go on the rest of The Amazing Race. It would be the ultimate twist in both games, would briefly intersect two hit TV shows, and provide at least two episodes of television (one for each show) that would be absolutely must-watch TV, particularly if CBS could pull this off spoiler-free and ensure that no one knows about it before the episodes air. NOTE: I
Keep reading

Buff Pack Run Cap review (and bonus thoughts on Run Cap Pro)

Image
Buff Pack Run Cap in red (left), Buff Cap Pro (centre and right) Every once in a while, I remember I have a blog... And I've edited this post at the bottom. I've become a huge fan of the Buff Cap Pro, which is one of Buff's lesser known products (and one that I've never actually seen for retail sale anywhere). I took a flyer on ordering one from Buff's Canadian website last year and loved it so much I bought a second one on sale last month. The Cap Pro is a terrific little hat. It's like wearing a small Buff on your head, but with a little sun visor attached to the front. They can be totally crunched up and packed tight in a pocket, are pretty breathable, and keep the sun from roasting my increasingly balding head. While I wore a Tilley Hat for year and years, the Cap Pro has become my go-to vacation hat. It keeps the sun off my head and the sweat out of my eyes. And I can crumple it up and stick it in my pocket at restaurants and such. (Which is much
Keep reading