I need to record from a tape player to a PC. So I need to buy an audio “line out” cable (or whatever it’s called)
I went to my big computer score, which usually has good prices and I looked for one and it wa $11.99. And that was the cheapest of the three brands.
I was like WHAT THE HECK???
I was expecting to pay, like $3.00 or maybe $5.00 for it. I can get it cheaper online, but then again with shipping…
Anyway so my question is, what items did you set out to buy and when you found the item found out that you TOTALLY underestimated the price you thought you’d have to pay?
I happened to need a USB extension cable. I checked online and found a place that sold it for a couple of bucks, but then I would end up paying 5 bucks in shipping. I went into Best Buy thinking the cable should cost about 3 bucks, but since this is Best Buy it will probably be more like 5 or 6.
They wanted 33 bucks for the damn thing.
It’s a good thing there wasn’t a salesman anywhere nearby or I would have laughed in his face.
So, I went to Radio Shack, figuring that they used to be a decent place to get cables of all sorts from, maybe a bit over priced but they certainly weren’t going to give me the backside reaming that Best Buy wanted.
Radio Shack wanted 24 bucks for theirs.
So, I had two “WHAT THE HECK???” moments for one cable.
So I looked around a bit more online, and ended up getting the cable from monoprice.com for a little over 2 bucks, including shipping. I also decided never to go near a Radio Shack or a Best Buy again for cables.
FYI - Monoprice has your audio cable for about 50 cents. The shipping cost is about a buck fifty. Even though shipping is 3 times the product cost it’s hard to complain about them reaming you for shipping costs when the total is only 2 bucks.
(btw I don’t work for monoprice, and there may be other online vendors that are just as cheap, I’m just relating my personal experience here - if you know of another cheap place to buy stuff please post it)
For me it is the power cord to my wife’s laptop. Somehow, the cord got caught in the recliner and it is significantly frayed (silver wires sticking out) but it still works.
I went online, expecting to pay $10-$15 for a replacement. The one from Toshiba was over $50! I went to Amazon to find something cheaper, and every single product has terrible reviews. At this point, I’m just trying to not spill water on it and hope it lasts a little longer.
Granted, I didn’t do a whole lot of shopping for this, but I’d slammed the end of my cell phone charger in the car door, and despite a repair with sufficient electrical tape, it quit working. I figured I’d grab a replacement while in WalMart, expecting it to be $7 or $8. It was $15. It wasn’t even a fancy-pants brand name. At least it works.
On the other hand, we paused the other day to look at the prices on flat TVs, and I was surprised how much they’d come down! We may get one before the year is over…
I have to say try WalMart. The cables are not so ridiculous. Don’t tell me you can’t buy there because you want to support the local underdog, because you didn’t.
Monoprice really is a good deal. My company used to buy cables from manufacturers for a software product we box with a cable (we’re a small company, so we’re talking about a few thousand, not hundreds of thousands, so I’m sure that makes a difference in scale). We now just order them from Monoprice and unwrap them to put in our packages because it’s so much cheaper. No idea how they make money but they are a good deal.
Yeah, cables are ridiculously expensive at Best Buy. This sort of gouging is why I never step foot in there. I can never remember which prices are normal and which are ridiculously stupid so I just shop online. Screw those guys.
Light bulbs for our outdoor lighting fixtures yesterday - $7.49 for a package of 2 tiny 10W bulbs and the same price ($7.49) for one small flood-type bulb. I expected to buy both in the $3 range.
Seems that way. I lost my cellphone charging cable a few years ago. It had come with the phone, so I had no idea what it would cost when I went shopping for a replacement. The cellphone place wanted $80 and would force me to wait four to six weeks while they ordered it.
I said no, and found a suitable alternative elsewhere. IIRC, the replacement cost about $12 and I could get it right there.
I went into Future Shop at Dundas Square to look at BD players, and asked whether they had an HDMI-to-DVI cable, as my monitor does not have an HDMI-in connector. The disc player was around $250-300. The salesperson pointed me to a cable–it’s more of an adaptor, really–that cost $129!!! I found similar cables, different brand, on newegg.ca for $15-$25.
The cable brand at Future Shop? Monster Cable, of course. The Source (formerly Radio Shack) sells Monster Cable as well. So do many other brick-and-mortar electronics shops. I am now thinking that Monster Cable’s expertise is more in marketing and dealsmanship than technical quality.
This. They wanted something like $70. Couldn’t do it. Sorry, GM, I know you’re going down the toilet and all, but you can’t expect me to save your ass all by myself.
My Dell laptop power cord is about $80. I know, because my cat keeps destroying them.
On the other end of the spectrum, I paid off my car last year, and considered dropping my collision coverage to save a few bucks on insurance. I figured I should check out my car’s value before I did so, just in case it was still worth enough to make full coverage worth it. My nearly six year old car, which cost $17,000 brand new, is still worth over $11,000. Not that I could actually get $11,000 for it, more like $8k, but it was still worth way more than I thought.
Car remote? Absolutely. Lost my remote for my PT Cruiser and it was like $200 for a replacement! If I didn’t think I had an addiction to that stupid thing I know now.
Also, most car repairs. Radiator had a tiny hole. Fix the hole? $200. New Rad $220. Creased the rear quarter panel by backing into the tire of a huge moving van at about 2 km/h. Total repair bill? About $1000!!! Insurance took care of everything after $300, but still!!!
Man, I hate cars.
Also, my dishwasher wasn’t draining very well so I called in a repair guy. He couldn’t quickly figure out what was wrong, so recommended a new motor. $300! I bought a new used dishwasher for $20 (still working fine). It cost me more to throw the old one away in the dump.
I would love to repair stuff rather than buy new, but it seems like for anything semi-complicated like electronics/motors/computers it’s just faster and cheaper to toss it out and buy a new one. Sad.
It’s pretty simple - hardware prices are somewhere around cost, accessories are priced to make up the margin. Pretty much every major chain that sells technology prices things this way. They’re lucky to make $10 off the laptop you bought, but make $20 off the USB cable you bought with it.
I rarely go to cheap shit dollar stores like 99 Cents Only* or Dollar Tree, but when I do I’m always surprised to find things like audio, power, and usb cables for a measly $1. If you don’t have to have a brand name, you can’t beat those prices.
Selection varies from store to store, and I’ve never seen HDMI cables in said stores, but it’s only a matter of time…
*99 cents only has sneakily raised their prices to 99.9 cents on everything…
I’ve had the cough from hell for the past few days, and rather than suffer another sleepless night I went to the doctor myself today and got some Tussionex.
Tussionex is a combination of two drugs–guaifenesin, which is the active ingredient in Robitussin, and hydrocodone, the opiate used in Vicodin and Lorcet and such. Both of these drugs are generic and generally hella cheap.
My copay on 120mL of Tussionex was $40. Drugstore.com lists the cash price for this amount as around $80. The high price is because it’s an extended release formulation, meaning you can take it every 12 hours instead of every 4.
I write for the stuff all the time (or I did, when I saw more acute care-type patients). I knew it was more expensive than the generic versions, but I had no idea it was that crazy.
(All that said, it was worth every penny. One teaspoon and I didn’t cough all afternoon, mostly because I was in a coma.)