Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev. Bob
I splurged today (well, yesterday now) in a different medium, and not only do I not feel guilty about it, but aside from the physical discomfort, it actually made me happier than I’ve been in a while.
I don’t get out to my local used-media store often, and when I do, I usually end up trading a sizable load of stuff in and buying rather less than the credit earned by doing so. As a result, I’ve had a credit slip for nearly $300 just sitting in my wallet for... well, long enough that the bar code wouldn’t scan and the cashier had to key the numbers in manually. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, my money’s been tight for the last two years. Really tight. My ebook purchases have been funded exclusively by reward points from a couple of apps; I average earning maybe $10 a week that way. I don’t remember the last time I bought a full-price, traditionally published novel, but it has to have been at least one and probably two years ago.
So it felt really good to take my sizable Blu-ray wish list into that used-media store today, find half a dozen things on it, and enjoy the freedom of just grabbing them and taking them up to the counter. I spent about $70 in credit, got a little cash back for what I traded in (paper books that I’d replaced with ebooks), and consider myself to have come out ahead. True, some of the movies were missing digital codes, and most of the stuff on my list wasn’t there at all, but I’ll live. I found a couple of things I’ve really been wanting to see, and it’s going to feel very nice to kick back and do so with zero guilt.
Once in a while, adding to the stack has benefits that can’t be measured on a spreadsheet.
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I absolutely LOVE this. This isn't about addiction, it's about using money wisely and still ending up with a net gain. I have gone for two different stretches in my life where I was without a full-time job for more than a year each, and the used book/media store were salvation.
My best find ever was a box set of Jack Kirby's
Fourth World Omnibi. They are out of print and were worth $350 minimum at the time. But the used store had priced them at $90 for the whole shrink-wrapped set. The books are now worth well over $600! Best credit slip I had ever traded in.