Many a geek has faced the unfortunate dilemma of having to decide between video games or their savings account. It can get really ugly if only one partner in a relationship is a gamer and the other doesn’t understand the appeal or thinks it’s a waste of money. The good news is that although gaming can be a very expensive hobby, it certainly doesn’t have to be.

• Examine the TRUE cost of your system. A lot of Wii owners found this one out the hard way when they realized that they had to buy all those remotes and nun-chucks. Before you buy a system, look into all the peripherals you’ll need (memory cards, controllers, cords, etc.)


Can you find Mama Geek in this mess?

• Don’t be a system whore. You don’t really need to own every system ever, even if it means that you don’t get to play all the latest releases. Pick a system that suits your gaming needs (Wii for playing with real life friends, XBox for online Halo addicts, etc) and stick with it.
• Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s worth it. The crappy $10-20 games are usually referred to as ‘shovelware’ within the industry. You know these games, they’re in the ‘bargain bin’ and they’re made by companies you’ve never heard of and they’re usually knocks off of 1st party manufacturers. Same thing goes for cheap 3rd party accessories. They may be cheap, but they tend to break long before the original manufacturers stuff.
• Branded is not always better. Nintendo branded SD cards for the Wii are 3-4 times more expensive than regular SD cards. Both work just fine in the system. Same thing goes for headsets and other peripherals. Do a little research online and see what does and does not need to be an ‘officially licensed’ product.
• Get used to the idea of buying used or older games. The world is full of people who rush out to buy the newest games at the cost of selling off their older ones. You could rush out and buy the latest games the day they’re out, or you could wait a few weeks until the initial run is over and the price drops or you can find it used. (Of course this doesn’t work so well for online multi-player games.)
• Work the online market. You’ll get more money for selling used games and be able to buy cheaper if you skip Gamestop and use a service like the Amazon Marketplace or Ebay to buy and sell. It’s a little bit more work, but it’s less disappointing that getting $5 for the $60 game you bought last week.
• Make gamer friends. I don’t mean the online kind, I mean the kind you can actually sit down on the couch with and play a game with. Or, more importantly, that you can meet and swap games with.  Despite the industry making noise about re-playability, you will only play through most games once. You could sell these games, but you’ll get more value by swapping them for ‘new’ games from your friends.
• Consider renting. Renting is best for those with high turnovers. A service like Gamefly is great and cheaper than buying  if you get and return a game every few days. If you’re the type, like me, who wants to keep and play the game for a month or two at a time, it’s not as good a value.

Got any tips for keeping the cost of being a gaming geek down?

Popularity: 19% [?]

I found this link on 7 Ways to Save at an Amusement Park on Smart Money via Consumerist this morning.

Unfortunately, this article only covers ways to save on the price of tickets and doesn’t take on the other expenses of amusement parks (food, transportation, trinkets and occasionally lodging.)

Anyone who’s ever been to an amusement park knows that the food prices are outrageous. You know those picnic areas that are usually located right outside the park entrances? They’re there for a reason. Pack yourself a cooler of relatively non-perishable sandwiches (PB&J, Fluffernutters, etc) and drinks and plan to eat your meals outside or in the vehicle. If you’ve got kids, you may want to pack some candy as well to cut down on the begging for ice cream and other goodies.

Also make sure you pack extras of everything, including sun screen, hats, towels, t-shirts, bathing suits, flip flops, underpants (yes, even for adults), batteries for cameras, etc. Souvenir stands make a killing on unprepared people like people who went on the log flume and now don’t want to ride home with chafing, wet pants. Avoid the stands at all costs unless you’ve budgeted for something. (I know a very smart mom who purchases cheap trinkets from Oriental Trading.com ahead of time and hands them out to her little ones as ‘souvenirs’)

For transportation, see if you can’t make it a genuine road trip and get a whole bunch of people to car pool. If you have a large family and have enough trouble cramming everyone inside your car as it is, consider seeing if there’s a bus service nearby that does trips to the local attractions. Some will even let you charter your own bus cheaply if you’ve got enough people and it’s an ‘off day’ in the ‘off season’.

Way back B.C.E. when I was working at the local MickeyD’s for college money, the owners used to organize a yearly trip to the Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ (the only one on the east coast worth going to, IMHO). Because they owed a 5 stores, one store would go at a time, an they’d just ship in workers from the other stores. For $45 you’d get a bus to and from the park, snacks and drinks on the bus and a ticket. All we ha to do was show up at an unholy hour of the morning and sleep on the bus. It was a great way to foster good will in a bunch of teenaged workers.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Potlucks are one of the most frugal ways to entertain and as people worry about their finances potluck suppers are coming back in vogue. Potlucks aren’t limited to just dinner and you can be as creative as you want to be.

Potlucks can bring to mind childhood meals of soggy green bean casserole, buckets of tasteless baked ziti and nary a piece of actual meat in sight. It doesn’t have to be that way!

• Have everyone on board. It helps if you’re all on the financial wavelength and understand the need to cut back on costs while still having fun. If you’ve got a friend who still blows $200 a weekend on booze and steak dinners they can’t afford, they may not enjoy a potluck as much or understand why everyone else is cutting back.
• Have an overall theme. It should be fairly specific so there’s some direction for people to look to. You don’t have to have a ‘normal’ theme either. If you want to get together after normal dinner hours, you could have a ‘chocolate desserts’ theme. Or have a ‘zombie’ theme and have people get creative.
• Organize food types. Unless you love potato salad so much you want everyone to bring a pan, it helps to organize your guests so they have a category of food to bring (salad, dessert, side dish, vegetable, whatever.)
• Rotate food types. Some categories of dishes tend to be more expensive (ex. main dishes) than others, so either cook those yourself, or make sure that no one gets stuck with it time after time.
• Get creative. You don’t need to have a Sunday supper potluck. Try a brunch, dessert, after-work picnic, midnight snack, or other more unusual potluck. This will keep everyone from getting bored and help fit in time for some socialization in what are probably very busy schedules.

In the next couple days I’ll try to get to some of my favorite crowd-pleasing (but still inexpensive) dishes. Providing I can a) keep my eyes open and b) stop running to the bathroom every 15 seconds. Pregnancy blows.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’m such a procrastinator and having my computer in my little ‘studio’ doesn’t help me much. Here are some of my favorite ways to ‘entertain’ myself online while I work up the energy to do something useful.

I Can Has Cheezburger? and all it’s cousins, like I Has A Hotdog for dog lovers. Just watch out, because spending too long on that site has been known to subconsciously make me switch up my grammar.

Homestar Runner. Granted, this one requires a juvenile sense of humor, but if you can laugh with your inner 10-year-old, you’re golden.

Polyvore, good for my inner stylist. Since I spend most of my time in grubby clothes thanks to all the painting I do, I need some outlet for my crappy sense of style.

Wikipedia, the fountain of useless knowledge. Since it is user-edited some facts can get distorted, but unless you’re writing your thesis it’s a great place to learn just about anything you want.

StumbleUpon, the supreme ruler of all things procrastination. If you install this free (and ad-free) plugin, you may never been seen outside your home again.

Kingdom of Loathing, the stickfigure online MMORPG. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it really is fun.

Shockwave, hundreds and hundreds of quality flash games. I admit to having an actual shockwave account so I can play offline, but there’s no reason to pay if you’re just online and fooling around.

So, what are you’re favorite places to waste time?

Popularity: unranked [?]

So…guess whose automatic posting plugin isn’t working. Oops. Just a quick post today as I figure out why things aren’t doing what they’re supposed to.

Goldstar is a free program that offers half-price tickets to cool events, theatre performances, and concerts in most major cities.

It’s totally worth your while to check it out. This week in D.C., we’re being offered half-price tickets to the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s All-Male Production of Romeo and Juliet among other things. I really want to go, but we had a big BBQ this past weekend and our entertainment budget has been used up. Darn.

Popularity: unranked [?]