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… of ITunes. If I lash myself to the sticky-up-thingie-in-the-middle-of-the-ship-that-the-sails-attach-to (mast? prow? bow?) and plug my ears, will I stop washing up on its rocky shore? And, you know, save money?
Tip Of The Day: How to avoid the evil lure of ITunes and it’s ilk. Also, an important life lesson/reminder from our fearless reader, Danger Kitty, Official Fabric Merchant and Safety Officer of the Cheap But Not Easy Empire.
Tip For Tomorrow: Be more like Santa = save more money. No, I don’t mean dress in red and let your figure go. I mean, make a list and check it twice. How list-making and planning ahead can save you money.
Further Elucidation Of My Cheap Deal: It occurred to me this week that I’ve forgotten to include one or two expenditures in my Weekly Recaps. Namely, the Tunes I’m buying off of ITunes for my IPod. Now, I don’t have the eleventy-billion songs loaded on my Nano like some people. But I do have a number of hand-selected ditties I enjoy, which I’ve purchased from the ITune Store – aka, Money Pit Of DOOM.
For example, in April I purchased Sabotage by The Beastie Boys, Sold Me Down The River (the full-length version) by The Alarm, and Poker Face by Lady Gaga. The last little Tune cost $1.29, because apparently, ITunes has upped their rates for popular music. My total bill was a completely unnecessary $3.27 for three lousy songs (okay, not lousy, they are all awesome in their own right). Totally frivolous, right?
And then this week I’ve already bought Single Ladies by Beyonce and If You Seek Amy by Britney. DON’T JUDGE ME. I LOVE HER. And, combined with Poker Face and Sabotage, I can run almost 2 miles in utter rocking-out happiness. Isn’t that worth the $2.58 I paid this week?
The answer? Yes… and no. Yes, buying individual songs instead of wasting your money on a full CD of stuff you won’t like is cost efficient. And yes, you should buy them, instead of borrowing your friends’ CDs and illegally downloading them onto your IPod. DON’T DO THAT. It’s illegal. Nor should you check CDs out from the library for free, and download them onto your IPod. THAT’S BAD, TOO. There, America, I’ve done my part to end music-pi.jpgrating. Metallica should be thrilled.
So how do you avoid overspending at Ye Old ITunes Shoppe? Here are three steps that may help you. I think I might be a lost cause. Save yourselves!
1. Investigate your old CD collection. Instead of dancing around to Britney’s latest sexual innuendo, can’t I just shake my thing to Duran Duran (masters of the naughty song)? I own practically everything they’ve made, on CD. And it’s legal to download the CDs you’ve bought onto your IPod.
Use what you have, instead of buying new.
2. Buy used CDs, and get more music for less money. Instead of downloading individual 80’s hits (my personal fave) at 99 cents or more a pop, I can buy 80’s compilation CDs at Disc-Go-Round for under $7 and get up to 14 songs per disk. Granted, I may not love every one of them, but I’m bound to at least like most of them – and discover hidden treasures I’d forgotten about.
Buy used, instead of new.
3. It’s time for the Remix. Bored with the music on your IPod? Longing for something new? It may not be the songs, but the way they are mixed together that’s putting you to sleep. Try making new mixes out of old favorites. How about Romantix on Acid? Mix all your slow jams with your heavy metal tracks and make out while moshing. Or combine your oldest oldies with your newest newies and see how current artists are constantly ripping off the past. Making new mixes for your IPod? Is FREE.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
See how frugal life lessons can apply to EVERYTHING. Truly, it’s amazing, or, outrageous – like Jem.
Danger Kitty’s Cautionary Tail (PUN. Hah!)
Danger Kitty, constant reader, good buddy, and our newly appointed Fabric Merchant and Safety Officer (she’s a busy lass) has a life lesson to share with the group:
Check your banking statements weekly. You may get strange or incorrect charges to your savings or checking accounts, which can cause you to overdraw and issue insufficient funds checks. Don’t wait for an overdraft to balance your banking account. Overdrawn fees are not cheap, people.
DK had an accidental charge to her checking account – which fortunately, has been cleared up. However, she asked me to remind everyone to monitor what’s going in and out and on with our personal accounts. We all know to check our credit cards for false charges. You should check your banking accounts, too, at least once a week. Better safe than freaked out by an insufficient funds notice.
Thank you, DK! And I hope you enjoy your new appointment in The Cheap But Not Easy Empire.
7 Comments
Another good way to recycle your CDs is Swap-a-CD.com. You list your CDs and can swap them for other member's. Cheap and environmentally friendly!
I almost wonder if it shouldn't be Anti-Safety Officer. But I feel almost as if I have been knighted, so I shant turn down any title given to me.
I'm sure I can never leave just one comment… I wanted to alert your readers to something else! Ha! Both ITunes and Amazon give away free songs all the time. You can watch http://freeitunessongs.blogspot.com/ for their free songs, and you can also sign up on Amazon to receive notice of their free stuff. I have found some really great tunes that way.
And it's LEGAL.
1. Beyonce and Britney? Ok, so I can now come out of the closet and admit that I like Avril Lavigne?
2. I can vouch for the bank statement thing. My tip is to be sure to close down old dormant accounts. We left about $4 in an old US Bank account and actually forgot about it (hadn't used the account in a couple of years). The next time we went to get a checking account we discovered that US Bank had charged us a dormant account fee of $5, which overdrew our old account by $1 (plus their fees), and which (after two years) became $382. No amount of rational conversation, pleading, or threatening would change it. (And we didn't know about this because we had moved and they apparently don't mail things to you when you have a different address, or else don't have it forwarded to you.) We ended up having to pay it to clear our good names, and let me tell you… I'll never forget them for it (and I mean that in a bad way). I can think of a lot of things I'd rather do with $382. Like iTunes.
Another cheap music idea… trade CD's with your friends if you've got music you're sick of and vice versa.
I still use MySpace to check out music (even though my social networking has migrated to CrackBook). A lot of bands actually post their tunes as downloadable from the MySpace page, especially unsigned acts that are looking to improve their market. And, when you find a band you like, check out their friends… odds are they are networked to some other bands with similar sounds and influences, which, I have to admit, has led to many a night of time wasting here at my apartment. Not sure how to get started on your mystical musical meanderings in MySpace? Well, you could click on over to Pandora.com (Best.Music.Site.Ever.) and start with a artist or song that you already love. A "station" is created, playing artists or songs with similar attributes, and you can give the thumbs up or thumbs down to songs as they play. The Pandora geniuses use this to hone the selections offered up on your stations. So, while you can't actually download tunes from Pandora, you can stream, vote, and discover new music… then head on over to MySpace and hunt down the tunes. Or, you can just google the name of the song you MUST have, along with "mp3"… you be shocked how easily you can find band websites that will give you the tunes, especially older ones (this is how I found a certain song for our beloved cheap chick…). Wow. I wrote a whole treatise on free music. Watch out, people, next I will be asking if I can Guest-Post. Get it, like guest host? okay I am exhausted, that was probably only funny in my head. G'night and happy saving!
I would like to thank our new Safety Officer for selling me the Glove of Safety for my rotary cutter. Its better for all of us, and most of all, my appendages.
Music? Sadly, all I ever hear is Disney these days. I'd like to go and boot Mylie Cyrus in the butt, personally.
Two things. Really? Loading a CD borrowed from the library is pirating? I can kind of see that…but it was purchased…by someone. Now I feel bad. Crap.
And-it's official. I'm old. My teenage daughter and her friend explained to me the true meaning behind the title of "If You Seek Amy." I could have cried.