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What’s the deal?

Busy working on a ToyFare article tonight, so this may be a good time for a patented SNT survey.

What's the best deal you've ever gotten? Garage sales, store clearance sales, eBay hiccups -- they all apply. I have some great stories, but I'll save them for the comments thread. See you in a bit.

Posted by Matt on 08/11/2007. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 201 comments

I’m really tired and can’t invest a lot of mental effort into thinking up some juicy ones, but here are a couple I thought were pretty cool:

McDonald’s drive-thru, at the speaker, I asked for a large order of fries and a medium sprite. The total was two and a half bucks or so and I drove up to the first window. Handed the girl a $5 and she gave me back like $17 and some change.

I said thank you and instead of risking getting caught at the second window, I waited until the car in front of me moved and I drove off and went to another McDonald’s and ordered the same thing.

Appx $15 profit plus food, can’t argue.

A few years back I was traveling a lot which caused extremely high cell phone bills (within 3 months I paid T-Mobile (possibly Voicestream then) about $3,000 in cell phone charges. My fourth extremely high bill came in and I decided I couldn’t keep doing this anymore so I called customer service to change my plan.

Well the lady told me they just came out with a plan that’s not even advertised yet and she will set me up on it if I’d like. The plan was $10 more a month than what I was paying for a buttload of anytime minutes. $50 for 3000 “whenever” minutes. I told her I’ll accept that plan. Well, for whatever reason, when she put me on that plan, she said she’ll credit it for that following month as well, which dropped my bill down from $800 something to $50. I have been a T-Mobile customer since.

Chestnuts roasted by fistpittingnork @ 08/12/2007 2:49 AM

Right now its a toss-up between MST3K vol. 2 DVD set for $9.99 at a clueless GameStop, or the Donkey Kong Jr. table top arcade game for 5 bucks at a garage sale…

Chestnuts roasted by Jerrod @ 08/12/2007 2:50 AM

I found a copy of Into The Void by Nine Inch Nails for 12.99 in an FYE three years ago. At the time it was going for about 60 bucks elsewhere, now it goes for 120. certain websites list it at way higher. I’m a huge collector so I’m not selling it, but holy shite.

Chestnuts roasted by Justin @ 08/12/2007 2:57 AM

I would have to say the best deal I ever got was the purchase of my first color ink-jet printer.
Where I was working at the time my company scored a great deal on rebates for them. A $50 rebate on each printer, a great deal all by itself. But.. Me and another guy I worked with received two rebate checks from Lexmark. Score!!

Original price $75 received $100 back. Net result Lexmark paid us $25 to take there printers.

Chestnuts roasted by Wenthral @ 08/12/2007 3:15 AM

I got a wicked huge box of star wars toys and vehicles at a garage sale like…maybe 10 years ago, for about $10. It had everything! The Falcon, 2 At-At’s, an at-st, the ewok village, a star destroyer, figures, the wompa playset, ewok battle ram, the list goes on. 10 friggin bucks. Plus the box had other random toys and a stretch armstrong. It was like opening pandora’s box.

Chestnuts roasted by Nickelodeon @ 08/12/2007 3:15 AM

fistpittingnork:
Shame on you, you should have told the person they gave the wrong change. You noticed that it was wrong and drove off, that is stealing in my book.
I have on several occasions noticed wrong change back and asked are they sure they got that correct. Pointing out that they gave the wrong change and correcting there mistakes.

I’ve also given wallets back with money still in them, one with over $400 cash.

Damn parents and there stupid morals…

Chestnuts roasted by Wenthral @ 08/12/2007 3:25 AM

A TRU in Brooklyn recently went out of business, and I managed to score the exclusive and over-priced Bantha and Dagobah X-Wing for 50% off. I also only payed a dollar for my SNES in box with all accessories a few years back.

My worst deal was the $250 I just payed for an limited edition Star Wars watch with the Imperial insignia on the face. I love it, but I need to have it resized on top of the 150% markup.

Chestnuts roasted by GadgetMouse @ 08/12/2007 3:36 AM

I actually just got a terrific deal this evening. Our local Target had the exclusive Spider-man 3 box set (Spider-man Vs. Sandman) on sale for $0.86. That’s down from $14.99. I was elated. That’s part of the fun of collecting. Anyone can drop major coin and have a great collection of something. The idea is to have a great collection without paying much for it. =)

Chestnuts roasted by CrazinBran @ 08/12/2007 3:58 AM

4 slices of french toast, 6 strips of bacon, two servings of hashbrowns and an orange juice. 2 bucks on weekends.

Chestnuts roasted by dohopoki @ 08/12/2007 4:07 AM

Right now I’m using iTunes to make my own summer jukebox from the music I have saved from my family’s CD collection. I have a working draft of 58 songs, and I’m going to add more from CD I haven’t saved on my computer yet.

Chestnuts roasted by hoverbored @ 08/12/2007 4:13 AM

I got an NES for free from my sisters ass kissing boyfriend.
I lost one of the cords to plug it in.
I played it…. maybe twice?
Friend of mine brags about his old star wars guys from 1977, lent em to me, still hasnt and isnt, getting em back.
Most of the spiffy stuff I get is from friends who lend me crap and forget. Suckers.
Anyone else wanna buy that soundwave mp3 player that can transform? I do. but I wanna know how much space it has.

Chestnuts roasted by Richard @ 08/12/2007 5:48 AM

Haha, I’d have to say the best deal I ever managed to get was my completely intact, unscratched, and out of print copy of Oingo Boingo’s Good For Your Soul CD. I was lucky enough to snag it for only a quarter (which is amazing to me, since it’s selling for around fifty bucks on ebay and the like).

I also managed to grab up three well worn Boingo shirts for around six dollars at that very same yard sale.

Chestnuts roasted by Formaldehyde Fayth @ 08/12/2007 5:52 AM

For my birthday my friend gave me a huge stack of Law and Order Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent DVDs. He ran into somebody outside a store trying to trade them in and snagged them all for a C note. I haven’t even finished the first season of SVU yet. For some reason I can’t think of any other great deals I’ve gotten. Oh, I picked up a PSP with a memory card and a couple of games for Christmas gifts for way cheap last year. And at the Quiksilver factory outlet store I got this awesome shirt with a ranchero dude on it and a snake and an eagle for like 2 bucks. I love it.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 08/12/2007 6:08 AM

Back when I used to collect Beanie Babies, I found a store that was selling unopened boxes of the trading cards for like $2. That in itself was a great deal since the single packs were usually at least that, but inside one of the boxes I found a gold Canyon birthday card, one of a hundred made, which I put on eBay and netted a tidy profit from.

Chestnuts roasted by Candice @ 08/12/2007 8:28 AM

Heh, the best virtual deal I ever got {World of Warcraft} just occurred. Found the jewelcrafting pattern for Bright Living Ruby on the AH for 6g. Bitch is usually at least 400g.

Chestnuts roasted by Candice @ 08/12/2007 8:32 AM

I was at a local toys & collectibles fair about a year or so ago and found a guy selling seriously discounted old DVDs out of his booth. There’s nothing remarkable about the dilapidated copy of “Crimes & Misdemeanors” I snagged for a buck, but what is remarkable is the fact that the fella also had a brand-new copy of the 1st season of the British comedy series “Spaced” on his rack for $10. I can only assume that the guy had no earthly idea of what the show was and that you can’t even find new copies of that damn show on Amazon, but I chose not to ask questions and joyously profitted from his ignorance.

Chestnuts roasted by Sassafrasquatch @ 08/12/2007 8:37 AM

I was at Target the other day, looking at Lego sets. They had this big 50 dollar one that was marked down to 34.98. It was one where you could build a house, and I wanted to get it for my mom cause she LOVES building lego houses. Anyhow, I thought I’d get it for her, since it was marked down and she wouldn’t have such a cow over the price. I paid for it, got home and looked at the receipt – it rang up 12 dollars and something. I couldn’t believe it.

I’m always finding deals at work (TRU) though. Sometimes we will find stuff marked down to 1 cent, and occassionally they just let us have it. Today I found some Magnetics marked down to 2.48 from 9.99, plus all clearance stuff is now 20% off.

A long time ago, my mom went to TRU and got me this Sleeping Beauty Barbie doll with her wedding dress on. I don’t know how much it was supposed to be, but I know she was expensive since she was the kind you had to take the ticket up to the register for. Well, she only ended up paying 10 bucks for her. :) That was awesome.

Chestnuts roasted by Ryane @ 08/12/2007 9:08 AM

Most of my best deals are probably book-related. We have a “Friends of the Library Booksale” every year that is HUGE, and I always get lots of cool crap. Like about 50 old Nintendo Powers for 2 bucks, things like that.

I got Final Fantasy IV Advance for 15 bucks at a lonely Kmart in Sweetwater. I’ve never seen it (New) for less that 19.99.

I’ve gotten several good deals from a local used record store that prices NES games at 4 bucks–even if they have the box and manual. Kirby’s Adventure, complete and mint (looked like it had never been used), $4.00

I like to collect old computer stuff, and a friend of mine GAVE me an Apple Powerbook 1400cs (circa 1996) for free. It had no OS on it, but another friend gave me a copy of OS 8 for free, so I have a working Mac laptop that I spent zero bucks on.

I’m sure I’ll think of more later! :)

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron T. @ 08/12/2007 9:16 AM

i got an h.r. giger life sized 3-d relief of the “alien” hanging on my wall. it weighs about 40 pounds. it’s number 524 of 9,500. it retailed in catalogs 10 years ago for around 900 dollars. i found a broken one at a thrift store in alabama for 18 dollars. i fixed it with home made paper mache and spray paint.

Chestnuts roasted by nick @ 08/12/2007 9:19 AM

Longtime lurker here… best deal recently… This weekend at Wizard Con in Chciago my wife was asked this trivia question: “What was Baltar’s title on the original BSG” She replied “Count”, spun a wheel and hit MEGA PRIZE! She got a crap load of stuff including a tenth anniversary megatron and optimus primal transformers beast wars two pack and a code 3 ROTJ sculpted movie poster… not exactly a “deal” but cool nonetheless!!

Chestnuts roasted by Michael @ 08/12/2007 10:06 AM

Yeah, Hoverboard, I’m that Mystie. Ah, to be free to spend my nights making Darkwing Duck galleries and not being torn this way and that by everyone I know. I figure if I play my cards right I might have a couple hours before someone calls me up and tries to drag me away from all the stuff I need to do.

Chestnuts roasted by Mystie @ 08/12/2007 10:32 AM

K-Mart, I bought Metroid(classic) for gameboy advance for $2.00, sure it was marked 9.99 so it wasn’t best deal ever but I love you anyway K-Mart.

Chestnuts roasted by mrjayberry @ 08/12/2007 10:34 AM

GENUINE Luis Vuitton bag for ten dollars! I had it authenticated. Some insanely rich woman had a yardsale.

and I used eat fruit yogurt snacks and pudding rollups. and yes, one rollup brand had seeds.

Chestnuts roasted by mandy_reeves @ 08/12/2007 11:10 AM

D20 Modern Core Rulebook, 2.50 because it was “damaged” – there were two small ink spots on the spine

Chestnuts roasted by Justin @ 08/12/2007 11:16 AM

I got my first game system when I was six from an older cousin in exchange for my dad to take him out for a round of golf.

his Sega Genesis was minty, the larger version with the headphone plug-in too. came with its box and manuals and all. plus about twelve games. I still have it to this day and can’t think of a better deal I’ve come across yet :)

Chestnuts roasted by Dee @ 08/12/2007 11:23 AM

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