Last year, I decided to become a “late early adopter” by taking the jump to high-definition entertainment. I upgraded my equipment, including a Toshiba HD DVD player. While cognizant of the HD format wars, I went ahead with HD DVD because the equipment was better priced for the mass market. I thought thought that due to pure economics, this format would win despite its technical inferiority to Blu-Ray. I decided to hedge my bet and asked my girlfriend for a Blu-Ray player for the holidays.
Recently, more movie studios have agreed to support Blu-Ray exclusively, so despite HD DVD’s connectivity and interactivity features — none of which were ready on Blu-Ray — people seem to be declaring that Blu-Ray has won the format war. Shortly after this announcement, the Blu-Ray camp announced that players on the market now (except for the one built into the Playstation 3 game console) will not be able to play most future Blu-Ray discs thanks to technological advances that won’t be backwards compatible. Even though I thought I was covering all my bases, I lost the format war. The consumers always lose.
Here are some articles I’ve enjoyed recently: Read the full article →
Thanks to the editors of The Consumerist who directed their readers towards Sasha’s 5 Stupid Financial Mistakes in 2007 and Four Factors That Determine the Value of a Coin. Please feel free to subscribe to the Consumerism Commentary RSS feed to be notified whenever new articles are posted here.
Here are some articles I’ve enjoyed lately from around the web.
A Look at the Ten Highest-Yielding Dow Stocks from AllFinancialMatters. JLP reveals CitiGroup as the highest yielding Dow stock last year. Some of the top ten stocks appear in my mutual funds, but I don’t own any of those stocks outright. The two stocks that I own, MSFT and AKAM, did not do well last year.
50% of Debt: Gone! from No Credit Needed’s guest author, Tricia from Blogging Away Debt. “There are moments of pure bliss when you pay off a chunk of debt. The first year we were paying off chunks of debt left and right. We were tightening our financial belt and bringing in more income. Debt reduction life was good! The next year, things were a lot different.”
You Should Be Paid an Extra $133k for a Long Commute or Lots of Travel. Free Money Finance should tell that to my boss. “Nattavudh Powdthavee of the University of London published research to show that if you are going to take a job where you will give up seeing family and friends on a regular basis, you would need to earn $133,000 just to make up for the lack of happiness you feel from being away from those people.”
Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD: Blu-Ray Likely Winning on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. As Jim mentions, more studios are now supporting the Blu-Ray format exclusively. I was rooting for Blu-Ray in the early stages thanks to its higher capacity; it’s just unfortunate that there has to be one winner and the formats can’t somehow find compatibility with each other. Now I’m glad I hedged my bets and allowed my girlfriend to give me a Blu-Ray player to accompany the shelf with my HD DVD player.
Feed a Family of Two on $10,000 a Year. BankerGirl Heidi is creating her first budget ever this year. “I know that there are people out there that have proven that you can eat well on $20 a week or less — and I say, ‘Good for them!’ We won’t be going to that extreme — we’re trying to eat healthfully and buy locally whenever we can, and sometimes that means paying a bit of a premium.”
Unfortunately, I forgot to mention PriceProtectr during my recent Wall Street Journal interview, but I can’t praise this free service enough. This website keeps a private database of your purchases, in store or online, and monitors the price of the items. Many stores offer a price match policy, in which the customer would be entitled to a credit if the price of a purchased item drops within 30 days of purchase. While I normally check the price of large purchases on my own, PriceProtectr has the benefit of constant monitoring and alert.
A few weeks ago, my girlfriend A. purchased a gift for me — a somewhat pricey gift — from Best Buy. The gift is currently wrapped, so technically I shouldn’t know about it. But I do. This morning, I received notification that the price for the item, a Blu-Ray Disc player, dropped from $399 to $299. That’s a significant decrease, and the money saved could certainly be spent towards other things or deposited into savings.
Originally, my plan was to wait until I could find a lower-cost refurbished Blu-Ray player at a Sony outlet store, but receiving the player as a gift works as well. The price drop is just icing on the cake.
So when we get a chance, probably next weekend, we will visit the store with the receipt and take advantage of the Best Buy price drop policy.
Using PriceProtectr is easy, even if your purchase took place in person. Just find the URL listing the product and enter that address and your email address on the home page. PriceProtectr will do the rest, checking the price of your items each day. You’ll receive an email if the price drops and when the protection expires after 30 days from the purchase date.
photo: downbeat
