A few years ago, when Amazon first debuted their Amazon Prime program, I thought it was never going to take off. While I don’t know how many people have signed up, I’ve only tried it a few times and I still don’t get why someone would pay $79 for two day shipping when it’s free for 3-9 day shipping. There are very few things I absolutely must have within two days and, if there are, I can go to the local store to get them. However, having tried Amazon Prime on trial on several occasions, I agree that it’s a nice perk to have. I just can’t see myself paying $79 a year for it.

Fortunately, if you’re a student with a .edu email address, you can join Amazon Student. Amazon Student is a free program that gives you Amazon Prime for free for a year.

To sign up, you need to be enrolled in a college or university and have a valid .edu email address. In the signup process you have to give them your .edu address, your school, major, and class information to confirm your eligibility but otherwise you can use your normal Amazon.com account.
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Why does Amazon.com hide some of the prices on their product pages? I saw it a lot when I was putting together my home theater a few years ago. It’s remarkably easy to buy electronics online because it’s everything is a commodity. As I sought out receivers, like this Onkyo TX-SR608 Receiver, I saw that nearly every one of them hid their prices.

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Whenever I buy something online, I look to try to reduce the price of the item as much as possible. As a consumer, there are a variety of tools you can use to be a savvier shopper. Most consumers know to use a credit card with at least 1% cash back to reduce the price a small bit. Others shop online to avoid sales tax.

However, one trick I’ve used lately is buying store gift cards on the second hand market. If you’ve seen gift card industry statistics, they’re astonishing. There are billions of dollars lost each year in gift card value and several startups have stepped into the space because they sense an opportunity. The online buying and selling of gift cards is growing and that means opportunity not only for these startups, but savvy consumers.

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What happens when you take a pyramid and turn it upside down? That’s right… you have a funnel. A plunder funnel. If you’ve been wondering how to turn and and every human relationship you have into cold hard cash, then you need to request this special package teaching you how to make your very own plunder funnel.

It’s pretty amazing, I hope to earn my $700,329 a month (I hear the limit is infinity but I don’t want to seem greedy) and I definitely know two people.

Pssst… it’s a parody.

Brought to you by the fine folks at the Consumerist.

It’s estimated that people purchased $87 billion in gift cards this holiday season, according to The Tower Group in a recent CNN Money article. Of all those cards, Marketing Workshop, another research firm, it’s estimated that 40% of recipients don’t use up all of their cards’ value, leaving an average of $2.30 on the card.

While I’m not a fan of gift cards, I’m an even lesser fan of the insidious tricks companies will play to earn money off your money. They have monthly dormancy fees and expiration dates, all designed to let the money slowly disappear into the abyss. New Federal laws are bringing some uniformity to the fees, such as prohibiting dormancy fees until a year has passed, much like they did to the credit card industry many years ago. While these new rules are not yet in effect, they may be weaker than your state’s rules.

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As a fairly frugal person, it wasn’t until recently that I opened an account at Netflix. Maybe it was the monthly fees or the fact that I saw stacks of the same movies week after week on my friends’ coffeetables, but I never really got why people loved Netflix so much.

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BATNA is a well known negotiation acronym that stands for “best alternative to the negotiated agreement.”

If you’re familiar with the concept of opportunity cost, then BATNA will sound very familiar. The idea behind opportunity cost is that the price of something isn’t just the number listed on the tag. There’s an opportunity cost involved and that cost is the price of the next best alternative. Let’s say you have two potential events you can attend this weekend. You can either go to a movie or go to a concert. The opportunity cost of going to the movie is the enjoyment you would’ve experienced if you went to the concert instead. The opportunity cost of going to the concert is the enjoyment you would’ve experienced if you went to the movie instead. So the cost of the movie is not only the ticket but concert enjoyment. Got it?

BATNA is a similar idea. When you’re negotiating anything, it’s important to know the other side’s BATNA. You’re trying to create a win win situation, so you have to create wins for the other side. If you know their next best offer is worth $10, you can offer a $9 solution. They would simply say no and go to their BATNA. You want to know how much their next offer is worth and offer something better.

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There you are, minding your own business watching TV, when there’s a knock at the door. You open the door and discover it’s some kid selling magazine subscriptions, or a person selling the latest product fad (Sham Wow? Snuggies?), and they go into the hard sell pitch trying to get you to buy one. You tell them no but they are persistent and eventually, either because you’re sick of dealing with them or something about the Snuggie intrigues you, you buy it. When the door closes and the salesperson is gone, you’re angry because you just spent money on something you didn’t really want.

Fortunately the FTC has your back with the Cooling Off Rule.

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