I bought a new TV
Posted on August 20, 2011 5 Comments
The number and intensity of dark and stormy nights in Chicago this summer has been ferociously increasing in 2011. I usually love a good storm, but this year has left us a bit shell-shocked between February’s milestone blizzard and the summer’s downed trees, flooded basements, and power outages.
One casualty of this summer’s storms was our trusty old TV. Purchased around 2000, it was a sturdy, solid 28-inch tube version. My brother, a sales manager at Best Buy, has been telling me for years to get a new TV (see exhibit A, but from 2006), but I always rejected the idea. My TV worked. Therefore, I had no need for a fancy new flat screen.
Until this summer, that is, when a power surge blew out our picture and also totaled our DVD player. We tried going along with the broken picture (we figured that if we futzed with the commands enough, we could watch a show as long as we kept all the lights off and squinted a bit), but ultimately all the squinting was awful, like watching your TV blind.
So we looked at our monthly budget, figured out what we could spend without dipping into savings, and splurged on a TV.
Luckily, since my brother works for an electronics store, I had a good starting point. He recommended several TVs for my price point, mostly LG and Samsung. I had a terrible experience with LG cell phones years ago, so I stuck with the Samsung. We ended up with a 32-inch 720 something or other, which basically has everyone else baffled. Our conversations usually go something like this:
Person X: “You got the 32-inch? Wasn’t the 40-inch just like a hundred dollars more or something?”
Us: “Well, we only budgeted $400 for the TV, and we got this one for $350. The 40-inch was like $550.”
Person X: Blink. Blink. Pause. “Right, the 40-inch was pretty cheap.”
Us: “Um, yeah, but we didn’t need the 40-inch.”
And then person X usually walks away confused. Apparently we are missing out on some rule of the obvious that eludes me.
Even our sales person thought we were buying a “bedroom” TV when we asked for the 32-inch. We didn’t correct him. I mean, eventually when we move into a bigger place I suppose this might be a bedroom TV.
So we managed to find a TV for $50 less than we anticipated – score! We even shopped around at Wal-Mart and Amazon but Best Buy had the cheapest price. This was an exciting discovery.
The second part of our purchase was a surge protector and was far less exciting. We thought we had a surge protector. As my brother describes it, “that beige one I bought at Walgreen’s in 1998″ wasn’t working so well. It failed to protect us, actually.
We thought buying a surge protector would be a cheap easy task. We were wrong on both counts. I’ll spare you the boring details except to say that we ended up with one that costs like $99 before our discounts and coupons. And for the level of protection we needed (3,000 joules), there were even some that went up to $140! That’s half of what the TV costs! Shocking to me!
In the end I ended up shelling out about $79 for the surge protector and then we spent $20 on a new DVD player, too (we had some discounts … B bought that.)
Now we’re back in business, with a TV that works, protected from surges, and able to watch Netflix again. Phew. And with that, I’m off to go watch “Waiting for Superman” on my fancy new TV.
Category: Money
Tags: Spending
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5 Responses to “I bought a new TV”
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August 20th, 2011 @ 10:07 pm
Nice work on sticking to the budget! People splurge and tend to buy more product than they need.
August 20th, 2011 @ 11:33 pm
enjoy your tv
August 21st, 2011 @ 6:01 pm
What a timely post! My hubby — who is a techie kinda guy — keeps scoping out the new TVs for our living room — but as ours (bought a few years ago when the TV we had finally gave up the ghost) is still working well *knock/touch wood*, he knows now is not the time.
But when that day comes, with all the scoping out hubby has already done, I don’t imagine we’ll need to do much hemming and hawing — he’ll already have potential TVs (and new entertainment center, as well — he’s been talking about that, too) in mind.
Good for you sticking to your budget!!
Enjoy your TV.
August 21st, 2011 @ 8:37 pm
Thanks gals! We are loving the new picture. It’s perfect for us.
August 29th, 2011 @ 5:02 pm
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