Is E-bay an option?

Growing up I recall my Father saying “buy quality, not quantity”. I spent much of my life following this advice. However, I have learned this doesn’t always serve us well financially. Paying a premium for everything you purchase certainly adds up. Conservatively, I would have saved at least two thousand dollars in my life if I had followed the advice in this post.

A great example that also served as a personal learning experience recently was the purchase of another computer. For PC’s I have always followed my father’s advice, paying all the money for the latest and greatest. Admittedly, there was also a little voice in my head driving me toward the cool gadgets and features as well.

In this case I was purchasing a PC for the garage. The garage you say? Yes the garage. As odd as it may sound I am in the process of building my own CNC machine. This machine requires a PC that can focus it’s capacity on running the code necessary. However, this machine didn’t need the latest and greatest nor fastest processors. I didn’t need wild graphics cards or super-sized hard drives. In my efforts to manage a lean budget I considered my alternatives including the classifieds for used. But I really didn’t want somebody else’s viruses and Trojan horses.

I searched all the local sources and poked around online to review other options for low cost PC’s.  The best I could find was still a few hundred dollars. I just couldn’t bring myself to accept this.

Then I considered E-bay. With a short search I found dozens of possibilities. Companies that have taken mostly corporate hand-me-downs refurbished them and sell them cleaned up and ready to go with brand new copy of Microsoft XP.

I scored a PC tower, keyboard, speakers and mouse for less than $90 with free shipping and a 1 year warranty!

So happy with it that I am not sure I will ever be able to buy a new computer again!

When getting ready to make a purchase of anything it might just be worth your time and money to review options like E-bay and Craig’s List. In the future, I will save thousand by following this advice.