This is the end-all, be-all savings tip really. Because what it represents is an eternal spring of information to help you save money on virtually every aspect of your life.
Most everyone reading this blog is likely already on Facebook (add me as a friend here). Two years ago half of you hadn’t even heard of it, and the other half had perhaps signed up, but didn’t know why it was important.
Twitter is an even more recent phenomenon. Many of you reading this won’t (yet) have a Twitter account (follow me on Twitter here). It’s still new. And half of you that don’t have a Twitter account will rebut this with, “I don’t need to know what my buddy Steve is eating for breakfast.”
But it’s just because you’re probably using it all wrong :)
The other day I had a hankering to watch what was, at that time, one of the greatest documentaries of all time, Pumping Iron. A simple Facebook status update did the trick:
From one status update I had several options ranging from a bootlegged copy (I sell software for a living so…I’m not into stealing IP at all) to a Netflix trial (free) to borrowing it from a friend of mine (free).
I saved time and money.
People jump on social networks and think it should somehow be different than how things are when you’re out at a restaurant with friends, or surrounding a card table with buddies. It’s not. Or I guess I should say that it doesn’t have to be.
A “real life” example. My wife is a pro with health insurance. She’s not an agent or anything like that, but she’s learned a lot through experience and she will dispense her (money-saving) advice if you ask. She loves helping people save money in that arena. Really. She gets jazzed about it. We had friends over for dinner a few years ago where my wife pretty much single-handedly saved them $2,000. It had to do with them wanting to have a baby in the next year, supplemental insurance, some timeframe…anyway. They actually made money when their baby was born. (I guess I should state that this was totally legal, because I just re-read this paragraph and it sounds too good to be true.)
This was free advice for the taking.
Yahoo! Answers is pretty popular because it’s all about crowdsourcing the answer to a question. Wikipedia…crowdsourcing an encyclopedia.
I don’t mind getting answers from strangers, but I would much prefer getting answers from friends and colleagues because 1) I already have a relationship of trust with them and 2) it builds our relationship even more.
Now don’t just be a leach. Offer your help as well. Karma and all that.
We have a guy building us a sweet piece of furniture. How’d we find him? My cousin.
My Dad needed to sell his truck a while back. Who needed a truck? Strangely enough, another cousin of mine.
I needed to see Pumping Iron. Problem solved. (By the way, what was a breakthrough documentary at the time is now very dull. Our documentary-making skills have improved in the past 30+ years).
We needed some Flex developers for YNAB 3. Taylor (YNAB’s Lead Programmer Guru, follow Taylor on Twitter here) found them through a meetup.
You need a reliable car repair shop.
You’re looking for an old desk to transform into a workbench for your garage (“Does anyone have an old desk they want to get rid of?” You may ask.)
You see the writing on the wall and want to begin looking for other work.
You have no idea when to plant tomatoes in your area.
You’re looking for a new veterinarian.
I could go on and on. These networks you build virtually can be extremely useful in reality, saving you tons of time and money if you use them in this way. Remember to give back as well. That’s exactly what you’d do around the dinner table.
P.S. Let’s connect on Facebook and Twitter!
Great post. I think your wife needs to start about about health insurance. :)
Another way Facebook can help you save is by becoming a “fan”. A lot of times manufacturers or websites will give you coupons or free samples if you sign up as a fan on thier page.
I just saved at least $1000 by following a how-to thread in a Subaru owner’s forum. It was such a nicely detailed set of engine removal instructions and photos, I was able to remove my engine to fix a major oil leak (seven of them to be exact!), re installation went smoothly too. My Subaru should last me another 150,000 miles now! *crosses fingers*
I am a little bit nervous about these sites somehow infecting my computer and unsure how to work them
Great tip! We use it all time in my running group..about 25 moms doing life in similar ways. We swap clothes for ourselves and kids all the time instead of spending money for a one time occasion. A simple e-mail to our group always come back with ideas, suggestions or items. We all participate and no one feels taken advantage of.
freebies4mom is great to Fan on FB.
Your post helps me see the “social” that I thought was missing in the
social network world; my husband still prefers face-to-face to facebook,
but with half the family out of State, he’s relented- but Twitter? Many are like him…….thanks for the tip!
Great idea.
(You might want to blot out the names of your friends who offered ripped versions of the movie though as you might get them into trouble.)
@Greg. Good point.
I’ve tried Twitter and I guess I still don’t understand the process. How do you go about getting people to respond to your tweets? Do you just jump into a likely looking Twitter thread and ask a question? I’ve tried online sites where you post a question and so-called experts give you their answer. For the one I used you assigned points to the best answer. However, no matter how clearly I spell out what I need, I always get a lot of answers that are unrelated to my question, indicate the poster didn’t read my question very carefully, or are of the “duh” variety. (“My computer just stopped working” “Is it plugged in?”) So the signal to noise ratio is pretty low. I find it easier just to email or call a few friends who might be knowledgeable in a given area.
@Roberto,
What you mentioned illustrates exactly why I like to keep things between friends/colleagues and not venture out into the wilds of forums — at least not for a first pass! With twitter you just slowly build out a following. It takes time, but I’m finding it very useful. Start with friends and others you know and build out from there as you meet/interact w/ more people.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
I actually have used these sites for similar purposes but have never thought about using it/them so frequently (neither of these facts should be surprising since I am only 17).
Thanks for sharing about the manufacturer/retailer coupon/discount thing, never really considered that… =D
Great post, Jessie! I used Facebook just last week asking my friends if anyone had an old baby gate…needed it for our puppy to keep her out of the kitchen, so it didn’t have to be perfect. Within 20 minutes, I had several offers from friends who had ones lying around. Saved (at the very least) $20!
You need to mention one other social networking group, though: FreeCycle (www.freecycle.org). From their site, “It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.” You just enter location, join the message boards, and list your stuff or respond to someone else’s listing. Great place to go when your child outgrows his school clothes in just 3 months! (Note, I advise scheduling a public pick-up place for safety)
Another social network worth joining is: http://www.freecycle.org/ Their aim is to reduce the amount of rubbish/garbage that goes to the tip/dump, because “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.
I have given away a rug that had pulls in it, a cot that was in good shape structurally, but needed to be restored to get rid of my child’s gnaw marks, a big armchair that had frayed bits on the arms and more…
In return I have received boxes for packing, a VCR and some pots for my plants.
It reduces waste and you can get things for free.
We’ve done that movie borrowing on Facebook. Also, bulk food co-oping. Freecycle is a hoot. Wanted a wooden fireplace as a prop for decorating our church for Christmas. Estimated at least $30 to $50 in materials and not a lot of spare time to build one. Do you believe someone on freecycle down the street actually had what we needed in their attic? They’d recently replaced it with an electric fireplace. We added leftover paint and a $5 board. Voila! I just unloaded 50 or more VHS movies and yards of fabric in a 24 hour period. Poof. Gone. Folks picked them up off my back step quick!
Try Aardvark for quick answers to questions. I actually got my Google Wave invite on there.. seems like it fits with this tip pretty well.
Nice post Jesse. In Amy Dacyczyn’s book “The Tightwad Gazette” she calls this “Putting out the word.” I’ll bet when she wrote it in the 80′s she never imagined how the internet could put the word out so fast and efficiently. :)
The very last thing I want to do after spending 10 hours of my day at work staring at a computer is to come home and do “social networking” for hours on end with “friends” I really don’t care about.
It’s bad enough that I have to spend the time I do in Quicken (COME ON YNAB 3!!!!) doing my budget – I say “no thanks” to the evening time stealers. I would rather pay a little more for things than to have the life sucked out of me by Twitter and Facebook.
@Liz,
Nah, it doesn’t have to take hours at all (though it could if you let it I suppose). It’s just another avenue you can use to get information from already trusted sources. It just depends on how you build out your network. It’s not just about dinking around on “the Internets” :)
@ Liz: You go, girlfriend! I just don’t get the attraction!
Forget about crowdsourcing why is no one talking about Pumping Iron. From high school through college I must’ve seen that movie 50 times. Fantastic.
Great blog! I love how something as simple as social networking can help people save time and money. Often the obvious in life is overlooked. Thanks for the reminder.
This sounds like a winner. I never thought of using it this way. And thanks for the Freecycle Network info as I am moving soon and have a lot of stuff to give away.
In trying to decide whether to use your product, I have to say this post makes me think twice. Just because “everyone” uses it doesn’t make it valuable. i’ve been trying to figure out what’s the value of my Facebook acct, and the best people can come up with is finding old copies of a moronic movie?
???
Why not just walk next door and ASK someone? Like, see who has a garden in your neighborhood, and make a friend “in person”?? Or pick up the PHONE? Say Hello in your VOICE? Electronic “networks” are only useful if you sit at a screen all day and can’t find the time to make a human connection. (BTW, there are like 20 copies of pumping iron on half.com, what did you need facebook for???)
Technology is not a good per se. So I won’t be buying. I don’t want any phony bullshit with my zeros and ones, so I think I’ll stick with Quicken.
Nah Jane, I think might have missed the point. They’re not mutually exclusive. Just because I use Facebook to find out some information doesn’t mean I don’t ever use my friends, or my VOICE, or learn from my neighbor about how the heck he gets his tomato plants to produce twice as much as mine did last year.
And half.com also leverages technology a bit…so does Quicken…
I was just trying to point out a use for those waste of time social media sites. Asking for tips and whatnot is one of those uses.