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Friday, May 18, 2007
Save a few bucks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My bank stays open seven days a week, charges no fees and has a nice picture of a cowboy on the side.
A good part of my savings is in nickles, dimes and quarters stored in a can that once held gourmet popcorn. The interest rate isn’t great but the savings do mount over time. With this experience in not-so-high finance I feel confident offering you a few tips today on saving money in computing.
Like the coins in my popcorn can, these are small savings that add up over time. And they are real - things you can do with your computing setup that will save you a few bucks starting right now.
Print your own money
Well, not quite, but one of the biggest expenses in computing is buying ink for your printer. The ink is literally more expensive than gold, ounce for ounce. If you do a lot of printing you’ll spend more for ink in a year than you did for your printer.
For people who print a lot, the solution is a laser printer. You can get a good one for $200 or less if you stick with a black and white laser. You can save your ink jet for the times you just must have color prints. In most cases the laser printer will pay for itself in a year. Producing a page of type with a laser is much cheaper than creating a page with an ink jet printer.
Another way to save on printing: Use the”print preview” command - it’s in the same menu as the print command. You’ll have fewer wasted pages from redos if you check out the preview that shows exactly what you’ll get before printing.
You can also set it to print in “fast draft” form, which uses less ink.
Used computers
Anyone who has ever tried to sell a computer - especially a desktop - knows that even a two-year old PC has little cash value. But it’s not worthless. If you need a second computer, or even an economical starter PC, any machine running Windows XP will do.
Check out specialty stores that deal in used computers and classified ads. I’ve seen really nice computers at yard sales for way under $100.
How about buying a like-new, completely updated computer for 30 percent to 50 percent less than the usual price?
Most manufacturers offer such deals with refurbished PCs. At Dell, for instance, just enter “refurbish” in the search box at the Dell Web page to see a full selection.
Some of these computers were never used and were returned with the box unopened. In other cases, they were returned because of a flaw. Don’t worry. Almost everyone in the business agrees refurbished machines are as good as new. Some argue - I’m among them - that they are better. These machines get hands-on testing after repair. Thats more attention than a new machine would get and it almost guarantees a defect-free PC.
Free software
Some of my favorite programs were free, yet I didn’t have to sneak them out of a store under my jacket.
I’ve long recommended Grisoft’s free anti-virus program, AVG, available for the download here. Belarc’s Advisor available here is one of the best programs around for providing an easy to ready inventory of the hardware inside your computer as well as the software. CCleaner which can be downloaded here is every bit as good as any for-pay program when it comes to cleaning out old cookies, registry entries and bits of software that was left by error when you deleted a program.
Then there are the huge libraries of free or cheap software including Tucows and Download.com. Especially when it comes to programs that you’ll probably use just a time or two, freeware and shareware provides an excellent alternative.
Computer gamers can save money too. Check out the sale bins at computer stores and mass marketers. I often see terrific games - stuff that was very popular a year or two back - for $5. These games represent a double bargain. Not only are they cheap, but they were designed for computers that were popular a year or two ago so they don’t require as much computing power.
Like my popcorn-can bank, these savings won’t fund a trip to France but they will grow if you adopt them as standard operating practice. And, unlike my bank, there’s no chance the leftover aroma of used popcorn will attract mice.
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