Hey guys, c’mere for a second.

Can I tell you a secret?

Want to know what single women think is really sexy?

I can sum it up in one word.

Saving.

Obviously, I can’t speak for all single women, but I know for a lot of us there isn’t anything much sexier than a guy who knows how to manage his money. Now, I’m not talking a guy who keeps his loose change in a coin purse and counts out each cent painstakingly when he needs to pay for something. That’s just annoying. I’m also not referring to the guy who constantly shorts the waitress when he leaves a tip and always insists on buying the cheapest thing on the menu. That’s just cheap.

What I am talking about is the guy who has goals, someone who knows that sometimes you need to delay gratification in order to get what you really want. A guy who knows that throwing hundred dollar bills around like confetti isn’t the way to impress anyone, especially when those hundred dollar bills could be gaining interest in a bank. Show me a guy who knows how to be smart about how he uses his money, and I’m hooked.

Here’s the real scoop, saving isn’t about being dull and boring and deprived. It’s about knowing how to get the best deals and how to use the money you do have in the smartest way possible. Saving is about maximizing the value of and the return on every dollar. Learn how to do that and you’ll have a better life, a brighter, happier smile and a bigger bank account.

What could be more sexy than that?

When you start shopping for teenagers, your ultra-picky relatives, and kids who already have everything out there it gets a bit challenging to decide what to give these people. There is always the gift card option. I do that sometimes but I try to make those gift cards “mean” something too - show that I’ve really thought about what to do for the recipient. This week I’m going to try to share my skill of finding unique gifts for the men in my life with you.

Before you can buy unique gifts for someone you have to understand them - know what they are interested in, what makes them excited, what kinds of things they like and etc… really think about the person, observe them if possible and get to know them. If you are buying gifts for them they must be an important part of your life so do both of you a favor and develop that relationship.

For Guys start with these questions:

• Do they like sports
• Do they enjoy outdoor activities
• Are they readers
• Do they like to grill
• Do they have a hobby
• Are they a grandfather
• Do they like gadgets
• Do they enjoy keeping their house and yard looking nice
• Are they obsessed with their car or truck or motorcycle or boat….

If the answer to any of those is no simply move on to the next one, for every yes answer you have possible gift ideas. I don’t know anything about sports so I’ll skip that one but the next question about outdoor activities - almost all the men on my husbands side of the family like to hunt, fish and camp so if I don’t have any ideas I go to the local Cabelas and wander around looking at things within my price range. And I always check clearance out first. Teen boys who enjoy these things are easy - they probably need all of the “accessories” so there are lots of things to choose from. Men who already have their stuff are a bit harder so for the guys who enjoy “gadgets” I look for the stuff that is “New” on the market and see what I can get them or I can always get them a t-shirt with some hunting or fishing scene on it and that is something they wear, they enjoy and is easy to do.

Going through the rest of the list

• If they are a reader - what kind of books do they enjoy, who is their favorite author, is there anything new by their favorite author or is their a new author who is writing in the style that they enjoy reading?
• If they like to grill - do they have all the latest and greatest grill tools, do they need a new apron, how about a gift bag full of a variety of high-quality spices?
• If they have a hobby - support it! Do they like to do woodworking? Buy them a gift certificate to the place where they buy their supplies. If they have an old car buy them a gift certificate to a car parts place, do they love movies from the 1940’s? Buy them a movie. Do they get excited about photography? Buy them a book about it. Honestly you can find books about anything and coffee table books are always neat to look through and often show up in the bargain book section at Borders.
• Grandpas always like things with pictures of their grandchildren on it - how about the whole family going together and buying him a digital picture frame?
• Guys who love gadgets are easy… go look at any computer or office supply store, you’ll find things - lots of things!
• If they are obsessed with their house or yard you can get gift certificates to the local home improvement store. Same with the guy who is dedicated to keeping his car looking brand new - buy him gift certificates to the local car wash - he’ll appreciate it and use it.

Now it’s your turn - how do you find unique gifts for the guys in your life?

My history with Charter Communications is a checkered one. When I first got my cable and Internet service at my old home, I had issues with Charter. In September of 2007, I even wrote a post about my frustration with their bad customer service. Eventually they made good on their bad service, and I wrote about that too.

Fast forward almost a year and I’ve moved to a new home. My main concern when I moved was that my Internet would not be set up right away. Since I write multiple blogs and participate in forums, having an Internet connection is very important to me. I could have switched services, but I already had Charter, and it seemed easiest to just stay with what I knew. Part of me is laughing about that now.

The day of the move came. Charter contacted me to let me know the technician was on his way to my new place, which was more than they had done in 2007. I got to my new home and he was waiting. He set up the phone, Internet and television. It seemed to go pretty smoothly. I now had a cable box, which is something I hadn’t had before, but the technician assured me that I simply had to hook a few cables to the VCR and television and everything would work smoothly. My Internet and telephone seemed to be functioning as well. I figured we were out of the woods.

I was, sadly, mistaken. Saturday night I noticed I couldn’t access my e-mail. Since my e-mail from Charter is my primary e-mail address, I was concerned. I called Charter and was told the e-mail address needed to be imported from my old account to my new account. I didn’t know I had a new account, but I was willing to go along with it. I was told it would be taken care of and someone would call me on Sunday to let me know the account was working.

Sunday came and no call. So I called them. There’s a problem with the phones I was told, and the call centers can’t call the supervisors and a supervisor needs to move the e-mail. I’m not sure anyone there was aware of the irony of a communications company that has phones that didn’t work. I might have found it more amusing if I wasn’t so frustrated. In any case, they said the problem, along with the phones, should be fixed on Monday. They were very sorry.

Fast forward to Monday. Still no e-mail, and no explanation as to why there is no e-mail. Finally, after work, I called them again. After probably about 20 minutes on hold, the e-mail was fixed. Oh, and by the way, all the e-mails you got for the last three days are gone. So sorry.

Add to this the fact that I still haven’t figured out how to get the new cable box, my VCR and TV to work together, and you can see why I may be frustrated. I’ll admit I’m not the most technologically savvy person around, but I asked the technician if it would all work and was assured that it would. Now I’m left with a bunch of components that don’t seem to work together and no resources. I’m also still not sure why I have a box in the first place. I guess I’ll have to call Charter again and try to figure that out.

I’ll admit, I’m frustrated right now and probably shouldn’t write blog posts when I’m frustrated. I also know that part of being frugal is learning how to get the best value for your money and determining where you shouldn’t spend your money. In this case, if you have any alternative to Charter, I’d recommend taking it. If I can find another alternative here, I know I will be.

Here are some of our readers favorite cleaning tips:

Evening Checklist - By Debbie at Suburb Sanity - With four kids, I have had an “evening checklist” typed and posted on the fridge forever. It rotates montly, but everyone gets a turn at trash, recycling, taking care of the cats, and cleaning our screen porch. Then, there are just items on there to remind them of what they should do every day (hang their shoes up, pack lunches, etc.). I had hoped it would just become second nature to them, which it hasn’t, but at least it gets everything picked up and tidy every night.

Set Your Days - By Erica at Fishbowl Sense - Having set days for things like laundry and shopping seems to help me a lot, as does cleaning as I go!! I try to take 5-10 minutes every night before I lay the baby down, to pick up toys, clothes, books, etc. This way it’s at least tidy when we wake up in the morning!

Keep Your Rooms Smelling Fresh - By Holly at 2 Kids And Tired - Vacuum the floor and spray febreze in the room, especially on the curtains. Even if you haven’t done anything else, it smells like you’ve been busy all day.

Quick Cleanup Tips - By Leslie at Reality Mama I keep a container of Lysol wipes in each bathroom under the sink. In the event that the men in my house (3) leave disgusting toilets and/or sink messes, I know I can just grab one of these wipes and be done with it! And By Jen at The Cubicle’s Backporch - I keep the bathroom cleaner underneath the bathroom sink so that wiping down the sink (which always gets really dirty at our house) only take a couple of seconds.

Lemons - By Zoya at Deals-R-Us - Whenever my sink gets dull, I clean it with a half of lemon: not only it sparkles instantly, it also smells great and no chemicals are involved!

White Vinegar - By Michelle at Heart of the Prairie - I like to make my own general purpose cleaner using a combination of water, white vinegar, dish soap, and a few drops of essential oils. It is safe enough for my kids to use and makes the house smell great. It works well on bathroom surfaces, appliances, and even mirrors or windows. The best part is that it costs just pennies per spray bottle.

Tough Dried-On Stains - By Trudy at Knit/Pickin’ - for tough dried-on stains on appliances or dishes, or whatever–just remember to use a really wet rag or sponge with your cleanser, and DON’T bother to scrub so HARD. Waste of time and energy. You need to get the top stain off first, so take more and easier, light swipes on it–the top part will come off and then the rest will follow. You don’t need elbow grease, let the moisture do the work for you. It really WORKS-you’ll see right away!

Clutter Free and Hardwood Floors - By Sarah at Ordinary Days - These aren’t exactly cleaning tips but the end up making cleaning so much easier! 1. Get rid of the carpets and go with hardwood floors! They are so much easier to clean, much more spill friendly and they don’t hold any odors. 2.Three letters- D-A-V! When you have less stuff, you ahve less to clean up. I am always going through toys, clothes and odds and ends to see what we can get rid of.

Get Your Kids Involved - By CPA Mom at Did You See That - Put your children to work as soon as possible. Seriously. My 5 year old LOVES to clean. I caught him in the school bathroom this morning, sweeping the floor “because it’s dirty mom!”

Turn Up The Music - Lisa at Are You Kidding Me and Christie at Divine Calling love to turn up the music. It will get you in the mood and get you moving around that house.

We had some great cleaning tips from a lot of our readers and if you weren’t mentioned here we will be posting another post that will include the rest of the tips.

Are all of your important phone numbers saved in your cell phone memory? What happens if something happens to your phone and you loose all those numbers? Instant stress and frustration.

Make sure you have a copy of all those important phone numbers written down and filed away and be sure to keep the list updated - after your master list is completed it is easy and quick to keep it updated. Another thing I’ve done in our house that my husband and I both use often is I’ve written down all of our family’s phone numbers, the neighbors, and anyone else who we call often and posted it on our refrigerator. I used a pretty piece of scrapbooking paper and my neatest handwriting - but you could type it if you wanted to. We still use our landline so if we are home we make local calls from the house and it is nice to simply walk over to the refrigerator, find the number you want and dial it rather than having to look phone numbers up all the time.

There’s another list on our refrigerator too - that one has all the birthdays and anniversaries we need to remember on it. That way when Aunt so and so has a birthday and I remember that it is in April but can’t remember the day I can find it and write it on the regular calendar so that I’ll call to say “Happy Birthday” on the right day!

Congratulations #7 Melissa.  You are our winner.

Here is Melissa’s cleaning tip:

Hi! Well I’m starting a new schedule for cleaning where say monday I’ll do 5 loads of laundry, fold them & put them away and I’ll do like my bathroom: scrub shower/tub, toilet, sink, shake the rug, wipe down mirror, etc. Then the next day I’ll do a different room floorboards to ceiling and so on through the week til all rooms have had one day through cleaning. Each night I make sure the other rooms are tidy before I go to bed.

My favorite product for cleaning: Comet (or Barkeepers Friends…but it’s harder to find) This stuff always!, no matter how gunky my sink is makes it sparkly again and completely rids my stainless steel of rust! LoVe It! Thanks

Please e-mail me at jody (@) afrugalhousewife (dot) com to claim your prize.

Thanks everyone for participating.

This post was originally published on my blog A Blessed Crazy Life earlier this year. It’s still summer, but Fall is in the air and before we know it we’ll be turning on our furnaces so here is a alternative to gas or electric heat for you to consider - it works for us and it has saved us a ton of money over the past several years.

—-

The Hunter’s Wife asked me to post about heating with wood since she and the Hunter are thinking about doing the same thing - so since I’m still working on my Saving Appalachia post for Thursday I thought I’d blog about something I’m very familiar with today.
After a major ice storm we had 5 years ago where we were without power for 3 days and kept the house at about 55 degrees with the fireplace and seeing how our natural gas heating bills were climbing we decided to see what we could do to heat with wood so we did a bunch of research and eventually bought this woodburning fireplace insert:

Picture taken from Napoleon’s website

We have been happy with the insert - it isn’t the best brand out there but for the money we could afford to spend at the time it was worth it - the stove ended up costing us around $1200 (I don’t remember exactly…) and then a couple of years later we installed a 6″ stainless steel fireplace liner all the way up our chimney and it greatly improved our efficiency, we wished we done it from the start - that little addition of the liner set us back about $400. This stove has fiber baffles in the top of it - they create a “re-burn” chamber and make the flame really pretty and improve the efficiency of the stove - we’ve had to replace those about every year at $50 for the pair but this year when I talked to the rep he told me that we shouldn’t be having to replace them every year - they are a part that wears out but you should get 3 to 5 years out of them at least and the baffles they sent us this time were different and seem to be holding up better. I guess there were some manufacturing issues so they moved the manufacturing from Canada to the USA (yea for the USA!). This year we also had to replace a few of the firebricks inside the stove - they are about $3 each.

We cut and split all our own wood. My husband has 2 chain saws, a 2 pound splitting ax and some wedges and a splitting maul. His dad has a hydraulic splitter that we use sometimes too.
Not buying wood - is what makes the saving money part possible. We both enjoy the exercise of splitting and stacking wood (he won’t let me use the chain saw and stands really far away when I’m doing the splitting… I think I have a reputation for being clumsy oh well.) We get our wood from people that have trees they need cut down, we get cutting permits for the wildlife area we live close too - they pile trees that have fallen or they have cut down and we can go in and cut them up. We like to burn: locust, hedge, hickory, oak… but will burn anything but pine/cedar. The stove has a door that closes so you don’t have to worry about sparking but we do have to worry about creosote.

At the end of every burning season I clean the whole house - I start with the stove and move my way back. I wash the walls, clean the mounts, dust all the shelves, wash the curtains… the ash gets everywhere - when I’m done the house looks and smells good - but it takes a full week or two of cleaning. During the burning season we have to brush the chimney out a couple of times - but my husband doesn’t mind getting up on the roof and the whole process takes less than 30 minutes.

The money we save - this year our thermostat is set just a smidge over 70 degrees because we didn’t want the house to get too cool for Lil Sugar but in the past we set it at 65 and for the coldest month of the year this year our gas bill was $69. Also our electric bill goes up about $20 a month to run the blower on the stove and the electric heater we run in the bathroom sometimes.

So we save around $550 a year on heating the house - of course we have ongoing expense of saw blades, fuel to get the wood, and etc… but it doesn’t add up to much. We’ve had the stove for 4 years so our investment has paid itself off. Also our house is normally a very comfortable 75 to 78 degrees, sometimes we even have to open a door or a window in the living area of the house because it will get up to 80 or 85 otherwise. We’re the only ones we know who don’t bundle up in our own house during the winter (most of the time!)

Hubby getting a fire going in our stove

Our House: 1200 sq foot, 2 bedroom on a concrete slab with 30-year-old drafty windows laid out like below:

The living room is certainly the warmest room in the house with the laundry room and our bathroom being the coldest rooms - the bedrooms are colder than the rest of the house but when we leave the doors open they stay pretty warm. Lil Sugar’s crib is right by the door to her room up against the closets. You can feel the temperature change as you walk down the hall - the thermostat for the heater is right outside our bedroom door.

We are glad we decided to heat with wood - it takes a lot of work but it saves a lot of money. Hopefully in our next house we’ll be able to put in an outside wood-burning furnace (just one link to the many options available) - those are neat!

Well - if any of you are thinking of heating with wood I hope this helps. If any of you already heat with wood - I’d love to hear about it!

On Tuesday I talked about my first round of Frugal Furnishing for my new house. The first round was the time when I bought the big ticket items, things I knew I were going to cost me some money. My washer and dryer were delivered on Tuesday. My sofa came this morning. All were worth the money I spent.

Still, even after buying the big ticket items, there are other items of furniture I would like to purchase. I need a dining room table and chairs. I want a TV stand for my television. I’d like a new headboard and footboard for my bed. I need an endtable for the living room. Plus there are assorted decorative items I would like to have for the house. I want to find all this, but I don’t want to spend a lot. Now that the big ticket items are out of the way, I’d like to spend as little money as possible and still fulfill the rest of my wants.

The question now becomes, how do I do that?

One way is to do research online. You can often find great deals that way. Right now Kmart.com is offering 20% off the sale price of selected home furnishing items that were already in the Clearance Section. Target.com is offering 15% off orders of $125 or more. The web sites often carry brands that aren’t in the stores. You can also use the sites to do research before you go to the store. That way you’ll already know what you want and won’t be distracted by the selection or lured into paying more than you had decided to spend.

Another good place for bargains is consignment shops. Furniture consignment is a big business now days and many cities have second hand furniture stores. A lot of local charities like Goodwill or the Salvation Army run shops and may sell furniture as well. This furniture is used and may need some refurbishing or repair, but if you’re willing to spend the time looking you can often find a bargain that will be a great decorative asset in your new home.

Another way to furnish your rooms without breaking your budget is to repurpose. A filing cabinet can double as a tv stand in a pinch. Bookshelves can become a storage space for plates or a curio cabinet to display your treasures. A pretty quilt can become a wall hanging and add color to an otherwise bland room. Take stock of what you have and try to come up with innovative uses for the same old stuff. You may discover there are some things you don’t need to buy at all.

Furnishing a new house should be fun, and it certainly won’t be as enjoyable if you’re worrying about how you’re going to pay for everything you’ve purchased. The biggest thing to remember when setting out to furnish a new place is that you need to use your common sense. Spend what feels comfortable to you and figure out a way to accomplish your goals while maintaining your budget. That’s a sure way to make your new house a happy home.

Last week in the comments I received this question from TopazTook:

OK, here’s a question: I prefer to get my Christmas shopping done early — for my daughter and my three nieces. I generally birthday shopping for at least two of the nieces at the same time (one’s birthday is in November; the other in January). But I find that it is very hard to start any earlier than September — and that’s pushing it — because of the way kids’ development and interests change each year. (And they already have most of the basics and/or classics.) Any ideas?

I had already planned on addressing the shopping early for kids issue this week so the question came at a perfect time.

My short answer - I generally can’t shop as early for kids as I can for adults, but there are a few things I can suggest to help. The most obvious thing is to get all of your “adult” shopping done earlier - then you are looking for just kid stuff as you get closer to Christmas.

Now - I’ll do like I did last week and tell you how what we’ve done for our daughter, 5 year old niece, 8 year old nephew and 11 year old niece - Youngest to oldest:

First Lil Sugar who will celebrate her 1st birthday in less than 2 weeks (where has the time gone?)

All of the toys we’ve bought for her so far have come from Tuesday Morning. Back in April or May I stopped in and saw “Betty Butterfly” a plush rocking toy. I already knew that I wanted to get something like this for her and it was on clearance there for $30. So I came home did some research showed it to my husband and went back a couple of days later and picked it up. It’s been hanging out in the closet ever since. The cheapest I found the toy online was at A Rocking Horse To Love they are selling it for $90 the most expensive I found it online was $130 (I don’t remember the store - but that is the listing I showed my hubby!) So I saved $60 to $100 and the only other things we are giving her for her birthday are a couple of books which also came from Tuesday Morning. I’m a bit of a book fanatic and all the kids usually get a book from us for their birthday and at Christmas.

One of my sisters also asked me to pick up something for her since they live so far away - she and I decided to do puzzles so I stopped at Tuesday Morning again and was able to get two Melissa and Doug wooden puzzles. They both retail for $10, I paid $4 for one and $5 for the other.

I haven’t really picked up anything for Christmas for her yet because I wanted to wait and see what she got for her birthday. I do have an outfit I could give her that was $38 at Kohl’s and I picked it up on after Christmas clearance in January for $6, also I picked up four or five books when I was buying them at Tuesday Morning so a couple of those will be for Christmas too. I have some ideas and might just try to finish decorating her room for her for Christmas - if that is what I do I already have a lot of the stuff I just need to get things made.

Next my 5 year-old niece, “C”.

She’s actually at a difficult age, partly because she is the youngest of 3 and partly because she’s already got so much stuff. Also her birthday is near the beginning of November so I’m hesitant to do too much until after we see what she gets for her birthday. She is a “girly girl” and loves clothes and shoes so I’ll often get her an outfit and a small toy for Christmas. For her birthday I try to buy her boots because those are her absolute favorite kind of footwear - she normally ends up with two or three pairs of boots and by the end of winter they are all worn out. She’d wear them all summer long too but her Momma won’t let her. I saw a game I thought she would like the other day at Tuesday Morning and mentioned it to my sister-in-law who agreed with me so I’ll stop next time I drive past there to see if they still have it and if they do I’ll pick it up.

My nephew “V” is next and he just turned 8 years old:

He’s another one I haven’t done anything for Christmas for yet, but his birthday just passed so I’m looking now. I often wait until TSC (Tractor Supply Company) gets there toys in to buy him any toys - also I look at the sporting goods stores, places like Cabela’s, for gifts for him. I have a knife I was going to give him but his Momma says not yet so I guess I’ll keep it another year. He loves horses, hunting, and any sport that involves a ball so he’s really pretty easy to do something for - it’s just figuring out what exactly to do! I got a good deal on one of his birthday presents and a great deal on the other.

First the good deal is an outdoor game called Jarts. I saw it at TSC at the beginning of summer and it was marked $20 so I started watching and a week before his birthday they marked it down to $15 so I bought it, the next week they were sold out. The great deal I bought back in January or February at TSC’s 80-90% off toys, gifts and houseware’s sale - it’s a pop-up book called “The Wild West” it is a really neat book with a lot of history, guns, horses and cowboys - V really liked it and so did his mom - it will be a great Rainy Day book.

My 11 year-old niece “N” is next:

She is probably the easiest of my nieces and nephews right now. I actually think kids between the ages of 8 and 12 are about the easiest to buy for - especially if they have a special interest. N’s birthday was in July and for her birthday I gave her a photo album and picture frame gift set I had found at Michael’s during the after-Christmas clearance. Retail price on the set was $20 and I paid $5 for it. N also loves to take pictures so I developed 100 of her pictures for her that cost $20 minus the $5 coupon I had!

She loves arts and crafts, science, history, reading and anything that doesn’t involve spending a lot of time outside so I will shop at Michael’s, Hobby Lobby or JoAnn’s and will get her something there. She is also getting into Scrapbooking now and I have lots of scrapbook supplies that I might use to put together a gift for her as well. She will be easy - it’s just deciding exactly what to do that is hard!

Next week I’ll talk about shopping for teenagers and how to find unusual, unique gifts for anyone.

As I may have already mentioned here, I’m moving to a new condo in a week. One of the issues I’ve been facing is furnishing the new place. I have more room so I need some new things. Also, my current furniture is mostly hand me downs that I got from my parents when I was much younger. It’s old and falling apart, and I’d like to buy a few new things. The challenge I’m facing is doing that while still maintaining some kind of budget.

Right from the start I knew there were a few big ticket items that I was going to have to buy and that I probably wasn’t going to find cheaply. One set of items was a washer and a dryer. The other was a sofa. These are items I hope to use for years and years, so I didn’t want to skimp. I also knew that I wanted something that wasn’t used. For some things that wouldn’t make a difference, but for these items it did, at least to me. Since I knew I was going to have to spend some money, my plan was to figure out how I could spend the least money and still get what I want. Here’s how I did that.

The first thing I did was search online. I looked at various furniture and appliance stores in the area and compared prices. I also asked around. I asked friends and co-workers where they’d bought their furniture and appliances and whether or not they thought they’d gotten a good deal. I also did some research on makes and models, so I had a pretty good idea of what brands were good and what were not.

Once I’d gathered my information, I window shopped a bit. Then, after that, I made my decision as to where I wanted to go. I chose Sears for the washer and dryer and Art Van for the sofa. Both had been recommended by several people and seemed to have good prices, according to my research.

At Sears I let the salesman know up front that I was on a budget. I didn’t tell him how much but I let him know I was looking for a good basic washer and dryer and that, as I was single, the appliances wouldn’t be getting extremely heavy use. I also asked about sales and closeouts. It turned out they had a washer and dryer set on closeout because both appliances had a small ding in the casing. It was barely noticeable, but that small ding saved me about $150 on each appliance. Because the appliances were on closeout, I was able to buy a nicer washer and dryer than I had expected, while paying the cost of a lower end model. Score one for me.

At Art Van, I headed directly for the Clearance Center. I knew, if there were bargains to be found, that’s where they’d be. Again I told the salesperson up front that I was on a budget and let him know that I was only looking for a sofa. I also let him know that I was only interested in Clearance items, which saved me being dragged through the whole store. We looked through the Clearance section, and I came upon a leather sofa that was originally almost $2,000. It had a small scratch and had been marked down to slightly over $600. Score another one for me.

If you’re looking to get the most value for your money there are a few things you should do. One is to always ask about discontinued models, closeouts and scratch and dents. Finding an item in one of those categories could save you a lot of money. You should also be on the lookout for hidden fees or the add on items that salespeople try to sell you. Just because they offer a special warranty or cleaning option doesn’t mean you have to buy it. If you don’t feel that you need it, or don’t see the value, just decline. Finally, do your research. Ask around and see who others in your community trust. Go online and compare prices. That way, when you do make your purchase, you’ll be armed with the knowledge you need to get the best deal.