My Personal Finance Journey

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"High-End" and "Value" Pricing Strategies on Consumer Goods

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One of my very smart Harvard friends once told me that the best way to describe me in one sentence is that I take pleasure in appreciating little things in life that other people miss seeing. I think that this is probably very accurate about me.
Recently, while shopping with my mom in Ann Taylor for some clothes, I noticed that almost all of the regular clothes were priced as an “8” number ($18.00, $28.00, etc). On the other hand, all of the sales items were priced as “99 cent” numbers ($29.99, $19.99, etc). 
This reminded me of something that I learned in a Principles of Marketing class in college about the psychological strategies that are used for determining how to price items. 
The professor, who was very big in to behavioral finance/economics, stated that we as humans tend to view even prices as a “quality” (high-end) item, and odd prices as a “value-priced” (sales) item.
After seeing this in play at Ann Taylor, I was curious to discover whether or not a lot of other retailers are using this strategy as well. 
To investigate this, let’s do a little online price comparison, using the forum of clothing as the common thread (no pun intended) to see if this technique is used commonly. We’ll compare regularly priced items with “sale” items for each company investigated.
Shown below are the results of my findings.
Wal-Mart
  • Walmart.com – Polo Shirts  
    • All priced at whole numbers, ranging from $7 – $12, both even and odd Dollar values.
    • What a deal, right!?
  • Walmart.com – Rollbacks of the Day
    • All priced at whole numbers, ranging from $5 – $25, both even and odd Dollar values.

Gap

Talbots
As you can see, the majority of the “sales” items are oddly numbered down to the cent and the regular items are evenly numbered down to the cent.
This is quite an interesting find! However, it is not very surprising! In the American society, it seems that a 99-cent price is synonymous with a sale! This leaves me with one question. 
Just why is it that an oddly priced item implies a sale?

In doing a quick search on the internet, I found the article at the following link from Wikipedia about the psychology that goes on around pricing strategies.

The article gives two very meritorious explanations for why 99 cent pricing is perceived by buyers (including me) as a sale.

  • “Fractional prices suggest to consumers that goods are marked at the lowest possible price.”
    • To me, this explanation means that when a retailer places a price at a 99 cent increment, we as consumers feel that it was almost painful for the seller to place the price under the Dollar mark.
    • Very cleaver little plan!
  • “Judgments of numerical differences are anchored on left-most digits, a behavioral phenomenon referred to as the left-digit anchoring effect. This hypothesis suggests that people perceive the difference between 1.99 and 3.00 to be closer to 2.01 than to 1.00 because their judgments are anchored on the left-most digit.”
    • I think this explanation makes a lot of sense. I believe that we as consumers are conditioned to see, process, and decide on things very quickly.
    • As a result, we often just see the “1” and the “3” in front of the two prices, are aware of the incremental cents involved, but just subconsciously place less importance on the 99 cent figure.
How about you all? Have you all seen any good examples of this “odd/even numbered” pricing strategy at work in any stores you frequent? 

What do you think is the main reason why people pay less attention to the amount of Cents on the price?
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How to Maximize Your Profits with Dropshipping

Today’s guest post comes to us from Corry Cummings. Corry is the owner of LearnToImportFromChina.com. His website offers information on how to get true wholesale products from China.

His post is about dropshipping, which is a subject that ties in nicely with my previous posts on selling items on eBay and Amazon to make extra money.

I have never tried dropshipping, so please be sure to share your experiences if it has or hasn’t worked out for you. I can imagine though that the key factor is to ensure that the dropshipper you use is reputable and will not simply take your money and run.

How to Maximize Your Profits with Dropshipping

Almost anyone with an Internet connection can get into online retail these days. Ebay, Amazon, and Yahoo have all created easy and effective ways for individuals to sell products online.

If you are looking for a way to sell more products while maximizing your profits, dropshipping can be a great way to do just that.

Dropshipping is a method of selling your products online that does not involve any inventory or shipping costs on your end. You pay a company that stocks your products and your customers order the product from you. You then give the money and shipping information to the dropshipping company, who then ships your product to the customer. This allows you to sell a wide array of products without having to worry about storing them or paying for shipping. Also, your customers will not necessarily know that you are not shipping or storing the product. Using dropshipping is a great way to maximize your online business’ profits.

Researching to Maximize Profits with Dropshipping

Before you start selling products, you need to research the market to see what products are selling. Many dropshipping directories will feature data files for their products that show where the highest profit margins are. This is usually done by comparing their prices to MSRP. Also, look at eBay and Amazon to see what are the highest selling items. These websites can also be a good indicator of what you should charge for your products. A lot of shopping sites will have lists of their hottest selling items of the day, week, month, etc. These can be good indicators of what consumers want at the moment. Bear in mind that these are not the most comprehensive lists.

Keep Profit Margins on Your Mind

Profit margins can be all about perception. If your dropshipper charges you $20 for a product and you sell it for $40, you have a 100% profit margin and you have made $20. However, if your dropshipper charges you $500 for a product and you sell it for $550, you have had a profit margin of 10% but you have made $30 more. Keeping track of your profit margins in terms of dollars rather than percentages can be a great way for you to see just how much money you are making dropshipping. Selling highly priced items with dropshipping carries no more risk than selling lower-priced items.

Niche Products

A niche is a segment of the market that is not having its needs sufficiently met by the greater market. A niche, to someone who is looking to maximize products with dropshipping, can mean huge profits and a customer base that is reliant on you alone to meet their needs. A niche can be hard to find – there are so many different online retailers selling so many different types of products. The trick is to find one that is not served by many retailers and to try offering better services than the other retailers. This will take a lot of research and planning on your part but in the end it can mean huge profits for your dropship business.

How about you all? Have you ever had success with selling items online through dropshipping? 


Share your experiences by commenting below!

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Related articles about dropshipping at several of my favorite personal finance blogs:
AllBusiness.com – Make Sure Your Dropshipper is Genuine

Help a Reader: To Refinance a Car or Not?

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Here’s an email I recently received from a reader:

I have a financial question for you. 

Currently, the interest rate of my car loan is 5.75% per year. And, I am wondering if I should refinance my car loan with a 3.99% interest per year loan that I found with my company’s credit union.

 I have paid off 50% of the original loan amount, and only have ~$7,000 left to pay.

At the current rate I am paying off the loan, I will pay off the loan completely in 3 years from now. I have a good job and a steady paycheck each month, and am 23 years old.

Would it be a good financial move for me to refinance with this lower interest rate loan? Any help would be appreciated.

What’s your advice for her?

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Related articles about helping readers at my favorite personal finance blogs:
Free Money Finance – Help a Reader – Paying off a House
Free Money Finance – Help a Reader – To Refinance My Home Or Not

Does Being Green Make Economic Sense? – Part 2 – Recycled Paper and Reusable Batteries

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In Part 1 of this series, we saw that it does not (unfortunately) make economic sense to purchase a hybrid car, unless there is a tax credit that is specifically associated with the make/model for which you are searching.
Continuing with this topic, today, I’d like to analyze whether or not it is economically beneficially (or at least not detrimental) to 1) purchase recycled paper and 2) use rechargeable batteries.

So, let’s get started.

Is it economically beneficial to purchase recycled paper? 


Recently, as I was reading an article on the internet, it mentioned that the majority of major corporations nowadays (even in the “green” era) are still using non-recycled printer paper for the their managed printing jobs company-wide.

This got me thinking what the driver was behind this and what the difference in price is between recycled and non-recycled paper. And more importantly, is the gap indeed big enough that it would cause a company to go with the non-environmentally friendly route?

 To do this analysis, we need to get the prices of several types of paper. In looking around Staples.com, it appears that a good standard order size is 20 lbs / 5000 sheets of paper. Using this as the common size, I found the following prices on the Staples website.

  • Staples 100% Recycled Paper – 20 lb Case – $56.99
  • Staples 30% Recycled Paper – 20 lb Case – $45.99
  • Staples Regular Non-Recycled Paper – 20 lb Case – $37.99

Geez, this is not looking to promising for recycled paper. If you wanted to purchase 100% recycled paper, you would be committing to paying nearly a 50% premium! What’s goin’ on here?

So, let’s now look at the difference in cost of using recycled and non-recycled paper using a real world example.

According to the link below, University of Washington uses 625 tons of paper per year. In terms of lbs, this equates to 1,250,000 lbs of paper. Wow! This is wild, but not surprising.

University of Washington Printer Paper Usage

After running the numbers (see table below), I figured that University of Washington can save $1.2 Million by using the non-recycled paper. 

So, from the evidence we have seen here, it appears that it most definitely does not (unfortunately) make sense economically to purchase recycled paper.


To me, this is sort of sad news to hear. However, I don’t mean to get every one down. I feel that by having this knowledge in hand, we can more actively work towards creating a solution for this.


At this point, you may also be asking yourself, “why does recycled paper cost more than non-recycled?”

As far as I could find, the main reasons for recycled paper costing more are 1) there isn’t as much supply of recycled paper (as in we has individuals need to work more at recycling all of the paper that we can) and 2) the supply chain for recycled paper is not as established and profitable yet as normal, non-recycled paper. Since it is not as profitable, the paper companies have to pass on the added cost to the consumers for now.

A quick side note/question: I recently heard somewhere that even though recycled copy paper/writing paper is more expensive than non-recycled, the recycled version of toilet paper is actually less expensive. Can anyone validate this?


Ok, so now on to our 2nd topic of the day…

Is it economically beneficial to purchase rechargeable batteries?


Several years ago, I purchased a pack of Energizer Rechargeable Batteries with the intention of using them to replace regular disposable AA batteries around the house.

I have used them every-so-often, but I always seem to find myself mixing in the use disposable AA’s either due to convenience, or the fact that regular AA batteries were available wherever I was at the time I needed them. I figured that by doing a good job investigating this today, it would not only educate me, but also help you all reading this as well.

To do this, as is usually the case, we’ll need to obtain pricing information for 1) rechargeable AA batteries and the associated charging device and 2) regular dispoable AA batteries. Both will be the same brand, Energizer, and we will assume that electricity costs involved with recharging batteries are negligible, in order to simplify the comparison.


Given these assumptions, I found the following prices shown below for rechargeable batteries:

  • 24 Energizer Rechargeable Batteries – $78
    • I chose 24 AA batteries because this seemed to a be a good estimate of the number of AA batteries I have in devices at my house at any one time.
  • Battery Recharger – $32
  • Total price = $110
  • From the information shown at the product description, these batteries can be recharged 250 times, and each charge features 2,500 mA-hours of run time.
    • This equals 625,000 mA-hours of total run time.



For regular AA Energizer batteries, I found the following information:

  • 24 Energizer AA batteries = $15
  • 2,450 mA-hours per battery – Energizer.com
  • 625,000 mA-hours / 2,450 mA-hours per battery = 255 batteries total
  • 255 batteries total x $15 / 24 batteries = $159 total

Ok, great! So, finally, we have found that it does make economic sense to purchase rechargeable batteries/be environmentally friendly. Great news! You save $50 in the long run by purchasing rechargeable batteries.


In the next Part of this series, we’ll look at the different ways that you can make your home environmentally friendly and see how the financials stack up! Until the next time!


How about you all? Does the company you work for use recycled paper? Do you use recycled paper at home? Do you use rechargeable batteries?


Are there any incentives that I might have missed reading for using environmentally friendly products?

Did you like this article? You can get the complete text of all the latest articles at My Personal Finance Journey in your email inbox each evening by clicking the link below and entering your email address. Your address will only be used for mailing you the articles, and each one will include a link so you can unsubscribe at any time.

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Related articles about green products at several of my favorite personal finance blogs:
Why Recycled Paper Costs More – Money Changes Things
Save Money on Toilet Paper – Ultimate Money Blog

Does Being Green Make Economic Sense? – Part 1 – Green and Hybrid Automobiles

It is clear these days to most people that being “green,” or living in a way that is not harmful to the environment, is the appropriate course and absolutely the right thing to do.

However, are we at a point yet that it makes sense economically to do so? In other words, are you punished economically by your urge to live properly?

In my opinion, if being green is truly ever going to be adopted by the majority of the population, it has to be made financially beneficially to do so (even though I wish it weren’t this way – it is just the way things are).

In this series, we will go through several analyses to take a look at if you are rewarded financially (or at least not punished by spending more) for living “green”.

Today, in Part 1, I want to take a look at the interesting subject of if buying “green” / hybrid cars is financially equivalent, more expensive, or less expensive than buying a regular gas-powered car.

To perform this analysis, we’ll compare three new cars – a Toyota Prius, a Toyota Corolla, and a Toyota Camry.

How does purchase price compare?

To start off, let’s get an idea of how much each of these cars costs.

After examining the prices at the links below from Toyota.com for the most basic models of all of these cars, we find the results below.

  • Toyota Prius II = $22,800
  • Toyota Corolla = $15,450
  • Toyota Camry = $19,595
    • It is also interesting to note that the hybrid version of the Camry is $26,400. Quite a bit more expensive than the regular car!
    Source Information

    Prius Hybrid Price and Gas Mileage – Toyota.com
    Camry Price and Gas Mileage – Toyota.com
    Corolla Price and Gas Mileage – Toyota.com

    So, to summarize, it looks like we will have to spend an extra $3,205 to purchase the basic model of the Toyota Prius over the Camry and an extra $7,350 over the Corolla.

    How does the gas mileage compare?

    To see if this makes economic sense, we need to now know what sort of gas mileage each car gets. Using the references above from Toyota.com, we find the following gas mileage results. For simplicity, I have taken the average of the city and highway gas mileage rated by the manufacturer.

    • Prius average city/highway gas mileage = 50 miles per gallon (mpg)
    • Camry average city/highway gas mileage = 28 miles per gallon (mpg)
    • Corolla average city/highway gas mileage = 31 miles per gallon (mpg)

    Do you get any tax benefits or other financial bonuses for owning a green car?

    As a matter of thoroughness, I also want to make sure to include any kind of bonuses you get from owning a green car (tax credits, etc).

    I was fairly disappointed to find out that the tax credits you are eligible to receive from purchasing a hybrid vehicle are becoming less and less common.

    In fact, according to the links below, the Ford Fusion and the Mercury Milan hybrids were the only cars that were eligible for a tax credit in 2010. The Prius has not been eligible for this credit since 2004. Sad…

    Alternativefuels.com – Hybrid Vehicle Tax Credits
    Hybridcars.com – Federal Incentives for Environmentally Friendly Cars

    How long would you have to own the Prius to break even financially?

    So, with no tax credits, we will have to rely on gas savings only to see if buying an environmentally responsible car makes economic sense.

    To analyze this, we’ll have to first lay out some assumptions to use.

    Assumptions

    • Car will be driven 1,000 miles per month, or 12,000 miles per year.
    • The cost of gas is $2.50 per gallon.
    • Prius gas mileage = 50 mpg, Camry gas mileage = 28 mpg, Corolla = 31 mpg.

    Results of Analysis


    Due to the higher fuel economy with the Prius, given the assumptions above, it equates to a $472 per year cost savings in fuel purchases with the Prius over the Camry and only a $367 per year cost savings over the Corolla.

    With this magnitude of cost savings per year, it will take almost 7 years of owning the Toyota Prius to break even financially over the Camry, and a whopping 20 years over the Corolla.


    The details of this calculation can be seen in the Google Docs spreadsheet below that I put together.
    Google Docs – Does it Make Sense Financially to Purchase a Toyota Prius or Camry?


    This is quite an unfortunate find due to the fact that after you have owned a car for 7 years (let alone 20 years), you are most likely getting ready and/or thinking about selling it.

    Bottom Line

    So, from today’s investigation, I think our findings can be summarized as follows

    • 1) “Green” cars are much more expensive than regular cars
    • 2) Even though hybrid cars get good gas mileage, it still takes quite a few years to recoup your investment
    • 3) Purchasing a “green” car does not make financial sense in 2010 unless you are able to receive a tax credit for doing so.



    Are there any other costs to maintain a hybrid car that I missed? Are there any other financial benefits of hybrid cars (tax breaks from government, etc) that I might have missed?


    If you performed an economic analysis similar to this when you bought a car, what was your line of thinking? 


    Share your thoughts by commenting below!

    Part 2 of this series analyzes if it is economically justifiable to use recycled paper and use rechargeable batteries.

    Did you like this article? You can get the complete text of all the latest articles at My Personal Finance Journey in your email inbox each evening by clicking the link below and entering your email address. Your address will only be used for mailing you the articles, and each one will include a link so you can unsubscribe at any time.

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    Related articles about green living at several of my favorite personal finance blogs:
    Is a Hybrid Worth It? – Omninerd.com

    Review of Change in eBay Fee Structure – No Listing Fees

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    Today, I got an email from eBay’s Seller Central stating that I can now, “make easy money selling items on eBay because you can now list items for free.”
    Needless to say, I was fairly skeptical about this ad. However, I checked it out on eBay’s website, and sure enough, it’s true! They are now offering free auction style listings. However, we first want to make sure to check up on the details before we jump for joy.
    This further strengthens my statement from a previous post about eBay being very seller friendly/oriented, generally making eBay and better place to sell your items online than Amazon due to several reasons.
    What are the details of this deal?

    According to the links below from eBay, you pay no listing fee for the first 100 items per month that you list on eBay for under $1.

    It is very important to pay close attention to the restrictions of this listed in bold above.

    Key takeaway from this deal


    For me, the key takeaway from this change on eBay fees is that this will significantly reduce the financial barrier to listing household items that I simply want to unload and sell (when I don’t really care what the minimum price is that is sells for).

    However, if I am running an eBay business, the $0.99 maximum starting bid could get me in trouble by not allowing me to make any profit from a sale, in the event that not enough bids come in.

    How about you all? Will this change in fees influence you to sell more on eBay? Will it influence you to steer away from sales on Amazon?

    Share your thoughts by posting a comment below!

    Did you like this article? You can get the complete text of all the latest articles at My Personal Finance Journey in your email inbox each evening by clicking the link below and entering your email address. Your address will only be used for mailing you the articles, and each one will include a link so you can unsubscribe at any time.

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    Frugal Living Idea – Skip the Barber and Cut Your Own Hair

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    For about the past year, I have been mulling over the idea of cutting my own hair, instead of going to the barber. However, today, I am proud to report that I gave myself my first ever self-conducted haircut! It was quite a fun experience.
    What got me started thinking about this?
    Since during the past two years, my hair has started thinning out, it has also become easier to cut. Whenever I go in to the hair cuttery, I tell them that they can either cut it using scissors or with the electric razor.
    Usually, the hair stylist opts for using the electric razor 100%. He or she simply slaps on the #4 blade guard for the top and the #3 guard for the sides of my hair, and goes to work! And, viola! Five minutes later, he or she is finished!
    How much could I save by cutting my own hair?
    These are the kinds of analysis I love doing! 
    Assumptions: 
    • Frequency that I need to get a haircut = Once every 5 weeks
      • 52 weeks = 1 year
      • Equates to 10.4 haircuts per year
    • Price I pay (including tip to get my haircut) = $17
      • $17 x 10.4 haircuts per year = $176.80 per year, increasing at the rate of inflation (3.2%)
    • Cost to purchase the Wahl automatic trimmer/haircut kit from Target I bought several weeks ago = ~$30
    • I start cutting my hair from now (age 24) until I am age 70 (at which time, I will probably have no hair)
    Using these assumptions, I put together the spreadsheet which can be accessed at the Google Docs link below.

    As you can see in the table below, the total cost savings that I could realize by cutting my own hair are truly incredible (over $18,000)!
    Even  more incredible than that amount of savings is to consider the total value of money that we could have if I invested the money I saved from not having a barber cut my hair, and invested it in an index mutual fund, earning 10% per year.
    The total that I could have access to at age 70 would be almost a QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS.
    How to decide if cutting your own hair is right for you
    As I was cutting my hair today, I realized that the exercise would definitely not be good for everyone. There is a certain level of comfort, good-feeling, and satisfaction that one gets from going to the hair stylist. 
    In addition, after cutting your own hair, you have to deal with the clean up part, and getting hair off of you. These activities would of course be taken care of by the barber if you had gone to him/her.

    Aside from the two points above, the biggest factor I think that should influence someone to cut their own hair is the length/ease of cutting for your hair. In other words, I think this probably works best for guys’ haircuts, since they are very hard to mess up.

    How about you all? Have you ever tried cutting your own hair? Were you satisfied with the results?


    How much money did it save you you think?

    My Personal Finance Journey
    Learning for Life

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    Related articles about cutting your own hair at several of my favorite personal finance blogs:

    FreeMoneyFinance – Places in Your Household Budget to Cut Expenses
    Bargaineering.com – Tipping When Getting a Haircut
    FiveCentNickel – Confession – I Cut My Own Hair

    Frugal Living Idea – Renting Vacation Housing Directly Through Owners with VRBO.com

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    While reading several of my favorite personal finance blogs recently, I came across several articles that mentioned the idea that you can save a great deal of money through renting vacation housing directly from owners through the website VRBO.com (Vacation Rental by Owner). See the links below to read the articles at Get Rich Slowly, Five Cent Nickel, and My Money Blog.

    VRBO.com on MyMoneyBlog

    While I was reading these articles, I began to wonder just how much money could be saved in buying vacation rentals through this direct channel. This will be the topic of today’s posting. Let’s get started!

    How do the prices compare between buying direct on VRBO.com and through normal channels?

    To answer this question, let’s compare rates for like properties/lodging at two destinations that I have visited in the past 3 years or so: Snowshoe, WV and Panama City Bean, FL.

    To simplify our search and ensure equal comparison, we will use the same range of dates for a week this coming August (August 16-23, 2010). Even though these dates may not be the peak travel times to either of the destinations, it will simplify our analysis.

    For Snowshoe, WV, we will assume that we have our hearts set on staying at the Whislepunk Condos (right by the ski/mountain bike trails.

    • Using VRBO.com, I found that the weekly rental rate for this time period at Whistlepunk is $744. See the link below for more details.
    • Using Snowshoe Resort’s website, I found that the weekly rental rate for this time period for the same property is $1600. See the link below for more details.
      • Whistlepunk 2 bdrm Condo – Snowshoe, WV Resort.com

    For Panama City, FL, we will assume that we have our hearts set on staying at the Summit Condominium Resort, a mainstay for college spring breakers across the country. This resort is located right on the Gulf of Mexico, with great views of the waves.

    So, by the evidence found in the investigation above, we would have saved $850 and $125 by booking the Snowshoe and Panama City condos at VRBO.com, respectively.

    While you may not always see results as dramatic as these, I think this clearly shows that I will seriously consider using VRBO.com next time I am needing to book housing for a trip.

    How about you all? Have you had experience renting directly from owners for vacation housing? How did the price compare? Higher? Lower? 


    How was the overall experience?

    My Personal Finance Journey
    Learning for Life

    Did you like this article? You can get the complete text of all the latest articles at My Personal Finance Journey in your email inbox each evening by clicking the link below and entering your email address. Your address will only be used for mailing you the articles, and each one will include a link so you can unsubscribe at any time.

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    Comparison of Online TV Show Options

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    In yesterday’s post (shown at link below), I discussed the different features (both similar and different) that are offered by Blockbuster.com and Netflix’s DVD rental programs.
    Both of these discounted DVD rental programs can be used to effectively lower your monthly entertainment (TV) bills.
    In order to continue this topic of discounted online entertainment options, I wanted to spend some time analyzing online TV show options, such as Hulu.com, to see if they would be worthwhile alternatives for me to look in to. Let’s get started!
    What options are available for watching TV online?
    So, just what options are available out there to us?

    As is the case with many question in life, Google.com’s search engine is a good place to start finding answers to this question.

    Google Search – “Online TV”

    Online TV Options

    • StreamDirectTV
      • With StreamDirect, you pay a one time fee of ~$50, and you supposedly have access to 4100 channels available for live streaming/watching.
      • However, I am skeptical of their service because they do not list the specific channels they offer that would be included in this 4100 group. Additionally, it does not say if you get continuous live streaming TV, or if they are just clips.
      • I did a little search online to see if I could find what everyone else had to say about this service. The link to what I found is shown below.
        • Review of StreamDirect
        • In the comments below the blog posting, everyone seems to have had a pretty negative experience with this service. Therefore, it makes me want to steer clear.
    • MyEasyTV
      • This options is free.
      • However, you are not able to actually stream the live feed from TV channels the way you would be able to if you were watching the station through your cable TV box.
    • ChannelChooser
      • This is my favorite online “TV” option.
      • However, you are again restricted from watching the actual live channels, and can only view whatever clips are currently available.
    Online TV Show Options

    • Hulu
      • I placed Hulu in a class by itself because it takes a different approach to the idea of watching TV online.
      • Instead of claiming to stream live TV channels online, the free service of Hulu aggregates links to popular TV show episodes already being published by the television channels.
        • For example, I am a big fan of the TV series, Lost.
        • At Hulu, I can click on the link of any of the episodes shown for Lost, and it will automatically redirect me to ABC’s website, where I can view the entire episode.
    • Hulu Plus
      • In addition the free service that Hulu offers (which is pretty extensive if I do say so myself), they have also started offerring a Plus service recently.
      • Included in this Plus service is expanded access to current season TV show episodes and mobile device enabled plug-ins.
        • Using the Lost series example above, the free Hulu service does not offer episodes 1-15 of Season 6 (current season at the time of this writing). I would imagine that these would be available within Hulu Plus.
      • The cost of Hulu Plus is $10 per month.
    What’s the bottom line with all this?

    • From my investigation, free online live-streaming TV did not seem to exist, except for short clips here and there. 
      • I did not get a chance to try out online streaming live TV that you pay for. Has anyone had success with that?
    • Hulu is a great option to watch episodes of TV shows, but not live TV.
    • Hulu plus would offer value to people who are looking to watch TV episodes using their mobile phones (iPhone, HTC Droid, etc).
    For me personally, I will stick to using Netflix and watch Hulu’s free service for my favorite TV episodes.

    How about you all? Do you use online TV show sites like Hulu.com? Do you pay for them or use the free versions?


    Do you know of any other good online TV services that you can recommend?

    My Personal Finance Journey
    Learning for Life 

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    Comparison of Blockbuster Online vs. Netflix DVD Rental Programs

    In several previous posts (shown at the links below) on this blog, I have discussed how I am a big fan and user of Netflix’s monthly DVD subscription service. By using this instead of cable, I am able to save myself hundreds of Dollars every year.

    Update on 18-July-2010 – It is also interesting to note that in an article on ChristinaPF.com about this same topic, the author ultimately decided to go with Netflix as well. See the following link for more details. ChristianPF.com – Netflix vs. Blockbuster Online

    However, the decision to use Netflix didn’t come easy. When I first started out in the DVD-by-mail world, I subscribed to Blockbuster Online.

    Therfore, in today’s post, I wanted to walk through a comparison of the two principle DVD-by-mail service providers so that you all can make an informed decision as to which best suits your needs.

    Let’s get started!

    The link below from Blockbuster.com gives a great overview/comparison of the features offerred by both Blockbuster and Netflix.

    Blockbuster.com – Comparison to Netflix
    In looking at the link above, I identified the following key features:
    Blockbusters Key Features
    • Offers DVD’s either by mail only or a small alotment of monthly in-store exchanges.
    • Able to return DVD’s by mail or at Blockbuster stores.
    • Ships DVD’s by mail in ~1 business day.
    • Able to download movies online for a rental charge.
    • >95,000 movies and TV shows.
    • Blue-Ray movies included in monthly rental subscription program FREE of charge.
    • Pricing
      • 1 DVD rental a time = $8.99 ($11.99 with 5 in-store exchanges)
      • 2 DVD’s = $13.99 ($16.99 with 5 in-store exchanges)
    Netflix Key Features
    • DVD rental by mail only.
    • >95,000 movies
    • Ships DVD’s by mail in ~1 business day.
    • Blue-Ray movies not included in regular program. Additional $2 per month fee charged.
    • Able to stream good, new movies and TV episodes for free with your paid subscription on an unlimited basis using their online viewer.
    • Pricing
      • Same pricing as Blockbuster mail-only fees listed above.
      • No in-store exchanges.
    What’s the bottom line – how do you decide between the two?
    Like so many topics I have discussed on this blog, the decision ultimately comes down to personal preference.
    I would recommend using Blockbuster for people who….
    • Enjoy going out to a brick-and-mortar movie rental store and being able to physically look at all of the selections.
      • For me personally, I have very found memories of going to the movie store as a kid. It’s a fun activity, after all! But, that was before online movie rental became big!
    • Demand on viewing Blue-Ray versions of movies (since this is offerred at no extra charge with Blockbuster).
    • Click on the following link to check out Blockbuster’s website – Blockbuster Video
    I would recommend using Netflix for people who…..
    • Enjoy watching a good variety of quality, new and vintage movies in regular DVD format.
    • Enjoy having a wide access to even more movies and TV episodes that you can stream instantly online.
      • This was the biggest selling point for me in my decision to go to Netflix. It is the same price as Blockbuster, but I am able to stream many shows and movies online. In fact, at home right now, I am watching Karate Kid II instantly!
    • Click on the Netflix image below to view a full listing of pricing and features (free trial also available).

    How about you all? Do you use Netflix or Blockbuster? Which do you find is better suited to your needs?

    My Personal Finance Journey
    Learning for Life

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