How to be a Cheap Ass Gamer - The Strategy Guide

[quote name='Madrocsz']As far as flipping. I will adjust the guide when I get a moment however there is no sense in discouraging items being flipped. Flipping versus hoarding are still two very different things.

For example -
During a B2G2 sale, you honestly only come up with a few games you want, get the extras out of a deal to flip them.
Check your target clearance section to find nothing you personally want yet there are a title or two you know is a good price so you decide to purchase and trade in towards something else. Not saying buy every copy they have but maybe one or two.

Sure, flipping in a hoarders world can get quite ridiculous but in the every day CAG it can be used as a filler for items that may not ever see a deal (such as collectors editions etc) to still keep costs down.

oh, and thanks for bringing up the slickdeals thing, yes, I do feel it should be a courtesy on this site to try and keep deals here for those here to enjoy (however it somehow always leaks) I will adjust the op[/QUOTE]
No true CAG flips games.
Cash>Credit ALWAYS.
 
[quote name='pulsar0510']No true CAG flips games.
Cash>Credit ALWAYS.[/QUOTE]
:rofl: Seriously? I've always been a bit of a flipper and I've been of the CAG mindset for far longer than I've been on CAG.

But to say that you're not a true CAG if you flip games is bs. We each pay for our games in the manner that allows us to get the games we want at the price we want to pay.

If it means I have to grab a few games with a decent resale value for cheap and trade them in someplace to get the game I want, then that's what I'll do.

It's all about what you want to spend and when you want to spend it. How you make that money/credit to get the game(s) you want is irrelevant. Oh and cash=credit and vice versa for many of us.;)
 
I will definitely not bother for trying to get cash when the profit for the item just isn't that great. If I can't get perhaps 20 or more on profit for it, pfft trade that stuff in. It's how I only ended up paying only 10 bucks for a PSP. Sometimes it's just too much of a hassle.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']:rofl: Seriously? I've always been a bit of a flipper and I've been of the CAG mindset for far longer than I've been on CAG.

But to say that you're not a true CAG if you flip games is bs. We each pay for our games in the manner that allows us to get the games we want at the price we want to pay.

If it means I have to grab a few games with a decent resale value for cheap and trade them in someplace to get the game I want, then that's what I'll do.

It's all about what you want to spend and when you want to spend it. How you make that money/credit to get the game(s) you want is irrelevant. Oh and cash=credit and vice versa for many of us.;)[/QUOTE]

Sorry dude, cash != credit anywhere in the universe. Or, if you like, cash is always better than credit. Using cash to buy credit is never the best option.
I understand what you're saying. I am saying that the trade in for credit thing is not the great deal you think it is and in the long run you lose.
 
[quote name='pulsar0510']Sorry dude, cash != credit anywhere in the universe. Or, if you like, cash is always better than credit. Using cash to buy credit is never the best option.
I understand what you're saying. I am saying that the trade in for credit thing is not the great deal you think it is and in the long run you lose.[/QUOTE]
Not when you're paying as little as I was for some of the stuff I was trading.;) Believe me, I made sure I was almost always making a 300%+ profit over what I paid. So if I paid $5 for a game I had to get $15+ for it.

If I knew I wouldn't get that, then I didn't trade it in or even buy it in the first place.
 
[quote name='pulsar0510']Sorry dude, cash != credit anywhere in the universe. Or, if you like, cash is always better than credit. Using cash to buy credit is never the best option.
I understand what you're saying. I am saying that the trade in for credit thing is not the great deal you think it is and in the long run you lose.[/QUOTE]

but you can always turn the credit back into more cash if you know what yer doing:D
 
[quote name='bredbu']but you can always turn the credit back into more cash if you know what yer doing:D[/QUOTE]
I couldn't have said it any better myself.:applause:
 
[quote name='bredbu']but you can always turn the credit back into more cash if you know what yer doing:D[/QUOTE]
That's a horse of a completely different color. If you can do that, then you are golden. But generally "trades for X in credit at store Y" is not the smart move.
 
It is if you know how to convert that credit to somewhere where it'll be useful and you're getting much more than ya paid. For example, Best Buy sells Amazon Kindle gc's, which work for ANYTHING on Amazon.

So you're never stuck with buying the overpriced crap at BB while they're still selling those gc's.;)
 
In response to the Target question, if your item is a seasonal item, which may apply to games stocked over the holidays or certain seasonal packages, then you get the lowest price in their system if you are trying to return regardless of what your receipt says.

If you are buying any seasonal merchandise like christmas, back to school and you want to return it then you won't be getting full price back even if you have the receipt, if the item has gone to clearance, you get whatever the clearance price is back. At least this is the way I understand it.

The trouble is here you don't know which items are seasonal, so this could very well apply to games or electronics that are stocked specifically for a certain season.

Knowledge always will trump smartphones, when you are at a yard sale and you pull out your phone to look something up your competition may be one step ahead of you in getting to the next sale meaning that you might miss a deal. Many cases has this happened. The phones aren't that fast and they are definitely not instant. The seller also might see you looking something up and then try to charge you more for it. Even an extra $25 is a lot for some people especially since you have to pay per month which adds up to an extra $300 per year. It would be difficult to make more than that flipping items, and without a smartphone if you are making money flipping items then you don't have to put the money you make towards your phone bill. Now again if your employer pays for your phone or you get discounts then by all means go for it. But even if I got the cheapest smartphone I could find it wouldn't be worth it since I wouldn't have a use for it other than looking up prices. Now if you have a use for this other than looking up game prices then it might be worth it if you can afford the smartphone prices. There is also no unlimited data anymore, as when you hit a certain amount all the carriers throttle you to very slow speeds and all the carriers have discontinued unlimited smartphone data plans.

Then you have the fact that prices vary greatly by season, I usually buy items in the summer and hold them until Xmas to flip when they are worth more. If I looked up items on my phone and saw they were selling for $3 each in the summer which is what they sell for, then I would pass them up. However those same items might be worth $20-25 during the holiday season and without knowledge I would not know that. So I buy them now for 25-50 cents, hold and then flip for $20-25 or a little more during the holidays.

I once had an item that I bought, I paid about $2 for it, now at the time when I went home and looked up prices after I had bought the item that was exactly what it was worth, about $2. However I held onto that item because I figured it would be a good one for selling and then I listed it on ebay during the holidays... the item fetched about $70-80.
 
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I think that the lesser value for Target returns applies more to holiday items. They don't want you buying a Christmas tree before Christmas, then returning it after and they are stuck with something worth half the value. I just returned a garden hose I bought on clearance. I am pretty sure it was a "summer seasonal" item. It went down again, but had no problem bringing it back (with a receipt).
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']It is if you know how to convert that credit to somewhere where it'll be useful and you're getting much more than ya paid. For example, Best Buy sells Amazon Kindle gc's, which work for ANYTHING on Amazon.

So you're never stuck with buying the overpriced crap at BB while they're still selling those gc's.;)[/QUOTE]

I am pointing out the fact (and it's a fact) that credit isn't as good as cash. Even on Amazon, that's true. Cash isn't as good as gold either, but that's a different argument. In the long run credit doesn't make you money (even though interest rates are at an all-time low 1% beats 0% every time) and you are stuck exchanging your credit at the place that gave it to you. Amazon has a lot of things for low prices, but they are not the lowest on everything every time.
If I had a dollar for every time I saw someone post something like "I had credit to burn anyway" when justifying a purchase, I'd be a wealthy man.
 
I think what you are saying is that cash can be used for anything, not just buying products. You can't use amazon credit to pay the bills. I guess the reason credit isn't as good as cash would be that having store credit for an item might make the buyer spend more than they intended to in the first place at the retailer where they have the most credits or gift cards.
 
[quote name='pulsar0510']I am pointing out the fact (and it's a fact) that credit isn't as good as cash. Even on Amazon, that's true. Cash isn't as good as gold either, but that's a different argument. In the long run credit doesn't make you money (even though interest rates are at an all-time low 1% beats 0% every time) and you are stuck exchanging your credit at the place that gave it to you. Amazon has a lot of things for low prices, but they are not the lowest on everything every time.
If I had a dollar for every time I saw someone post something like "I had credit to burn anyway" when justifying a purchase, I'd be a wealthy man.[/QUOTE]
What you mean to say is that cash is king if you have other things you need to spend it on. But yes, I have spent more than I may have wanted to in times past when buying stuff with credit. Did it matter to me? Not really, since I still got the item I wanted to at the price I was willing to pay at the time.

But converting credit into cash really isn't that hard to do, if you know where to do it.;):razz:
 
So did the whole flipping thing just pertain ti buying at a store to flip, or garage sales too? Because I've been flipping garage sale stuff for a little over a year now and without it I wouldn't have my 360, 3DS, or anything of the sort.
 
[quote name='pulsar0510']I am pointing out the fact (and it's a fact) that credit isn't as good as cash. Even on Amazon, that's true. Cash isn't as good as gold either, but that's a different argument. In the long run credit doesn't make you money (even though interest rates are at an all-time low 1% beats 0% every time) and you are stuck exchanging your credit at the place that gave it to you. Amazon has a lot of things for low prices, but they are not the lowest on everything every time.
If I had a dollar for every time I saw someone post something like "I had credit to burn anyway" when justifying a purchase, I'd be a wealthy man.[/QUOTE]

There are many reasons why credit can be greater than cash.

1. It allows you to speculate on certain games while the market fluctuates without tying up actual money, hence lower risk if the credit was obtained cheaply.
2. Some games will have excellent TIVs, better or equal to what you would net selling the game. In this case trading-in saves you time and cuts down on losses due to fraud (which can happen if you sell the item yourself).
3. Trading-in can allow you to transform a low-selling or non-selling item into an item that will sell. Often it is better to have a $1 in liquid credit instead of having an original xbox game sitting around waiting for a buyer with $2 in cash.

As an example, say you buy a gamecube w/ controllers and some crap games at a yardsale for $5. None of the items are going to do better than Gamestop's TIVs on Craigslist or online, so you trade in the goods for $20 in credit. You then go ahead and use that credit to purchase Devil Summoner 1, and sell it on Amazon, netting yourself close to $40. And if you're really doing good you can pair this up with Buy 2 Get 1 Free Offers to convert all your cheap credit into cash while at the same time getting free games. If that isn't better than cash, I don't know what is ;)
 
[quote name='adriley313']This should be emailed to every new CAG[/QUOTE]

Glad everyone likes! Ill update as needed and maybe with enough feedback and polish can end up getting stickied
 
[quote name='Indigo_Streetlight']There are many reasons why credit can be greater than cash.

1. It allows you to speculate on certain games while the market fluctuates without tying up actual money, hence lower risk if the credit was obtained cheaply.
2. Some games will have excellent TIVs, better or equal to what you would net selling the game. In this case trading-in saves you time and cuts down on losses due to fraud (which can happen if you sell the item yourself).
3. Trading-in can allow you to transform a low-selling or non-selling item into an item that will sell. Often it is better to have a $1 in liquid credit instead of having an original xbox game sitting around waiting for a buyer with $2 in cash.

As an example, say you buy a gamecube w/ controllers and some crap games at a yardsale for $5. None of the items are going to do better than Gamestop's TIVs on Craigslist or online, so you trade in the goods for $20 in credit. You then go ahead and use that credit to purchase Devil Summoner 1, and sell it on Amazon, netting yourself close to $40. And if you're really doing good you can pair this up with Buy 2 Get 1 Free Offers to convert all your cheap credit into cash while at the same time getting free games. If that isn't better than cash, I don't know what is ;)[/QUOTE]
Yardsale items are impossible to quantify since there is no coherent system in place. And your example calls for Devil Summoner to be available at retail, but I digress: in the short term, in specific instances, you can come out ahead converting cash into credit. But in the long term you lose.
Credit isn't "liquid" either; liquid is cash or an easy conversion to cash; credit is neither. Why do you think they give more in credit than they do in cash?
 
[quote name='pulsar0510']Yardsale items are impossible to quantify since there is no coherent system in place. And your example calls for Devil Summoner to be available at retail, but I digress: in the short term, in specific instances, you can come out ahead converting cash into credit. But in the long term you lose.
Credit isn't "liquid" either; liquid is cash or an easy conversion to cash; credit is neither. Why do you think they give more in credit than they do in cash?[/QUOTE]

Sure, you'll always lose if you pay full retail for every game that comes down the pike, only to obediently trade it in at 1/4 of what you paid--all to pick up the next full price marketing gimmick that comes along. Gamestop and other businesses have to turn a profit somehow--namely by preying upon the thought processes of the average gamer.

For some of us, however, the opportunities to be had with credit are ever-changing. It requires a different mindset for sure--according to my reasoning I'm not in dire need of any particular game, nor do I need an immediate cash pay-out on credit that I obtained at a favorable rate. Thus I always have credit available to work the machine and create dividends when the opportunity presents itself.
 
Just one other caution with credit... know the strength of the retailer! If they file some sort of bankruptcy (even just reorganization), credit can become worthless.
 
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