Can someone explain this dichotomy (chasm/split)?
Do you think in public people are aghast (horrifed) to talk about the best prices and hacks for acquiring items?
But in the safety of their home are free to release those inner bargain desires, spending the night refreshing their phone. Waiting for that once in a month bargain.
Mana from the internet gods.
If this is not your personal experience please share your strategies to engage others in this avaricious habit
Haha you could be right.
In my workplace a few of us are keen to buy something that is a good deal. But they aren’t going to to visit this site throughout their day.
Maybe they're working? At work?
I think OzBargain is one of the most popular Australian online communities. But that doesn't mean it's popular in general amongst Australians. That status is reserved for social media only.
Better yet… get two!
Bargain hunting is generally seen as being cheap, so often not something that one talks about to many people unless you know the crowd.
Bargain hunting is generally seen as being cheap
This.
but more widely i have found discussions around 'money' in form to be somewhat a taboo for some people - i personally dont get it but it is just something ive noticed
Everyone talks about money. Look at the news: it's all inflation and cost of living talk. What's considered 'taboo,' is asking what someone makes, asking if they think childcare workers, teachers, or nurses are 'overpaid,' or being that guy who fixates on crypto then complains about buying lottery tickets.
Money in a general sense, people talk about. Or how it impacts society. But how they save money and find bargains and cost saving pricing, people generally don't talk about until they know the crowd. That's the part that's taboo for many. They fear people thinking they're poor or a tightarse (no insult intended @tightarse ). It's unfortunate but a fact because we tie so much of our identity in society to status (generalising not true for all).
What's considered 'taboo,' is asking what someone makes,
Not amongst gen z / younger millennials
Yeah agreed, we're not the norm, we're smarter than that. That's why we're here. When I spoke about how good the birthday freebies were to a colleague, she was like oh no, I'd be too embarrassed to claim that for free, I earn good money and there's no need to resort to that. That was really interesting…
Wont somebody think of the poor businesses is pretty much the modern mindset at large
Many people don't care to spend their time trying to save every last cent and have other priorities in life.
EBGames sells tons of full price ~$125 games to people who pop in and buy on the spot when JB HiFi next door could be half that.
You have some people here trying to get a 5% discount on a $100 gift card and some spending $2,000 on a vacuum cleaner. Probably some that do both.
There's some people that want absolute bang for buck no matter how rubbish an item might be and others that prefer premium products as they don't buy into the buy-cheap fallacy. Both are catered for here but indicating a spectrum of different approaches.
Also, not everyone on OZB is looking for cheapest products. It's a good social forum as well as perfect place to find things tons of things to buy you didn't even know you wanted. Plenty people on here don't actually save money!
see ozbargain as a site for bragging rights, if we assume the average punter is on over 100k per yr they go to ridiculous lengths to save 10 bucks, manipulating credit cards, (gift) cards qantas points etc
Then all whine when companies won't renew cards or ban them for overuse etc. I see very few low cost bargains here for the low income person (me).
Most bargains that have the biggest reduction seem to be in the 1k to 3 k area way outta my league.
As I said ozbargain is for the obsessive hunter that will go to any length to get a discount then brag about it.
Me? I haven't got the time or inclination to spend hrs manipuating cards, playing with cashbacks etc to save cents, its like driving 10 klms to a servo that saves 4 cents a lt over a closer one.
Me? I haven't got the time or inclination to spend hrs manipuating cards
If I can offer a recent anecdote: I'm a card churner, and I recently got the ANZ Black 160k point offer. Immediately redeemed it for a hotel stay. Turned the $250 annual fee paid into $1500 of hotel booking savings.
I think the point I was trying to make that to do that kind of stuff you have to have a fair income to be able to get the right credit cards buy loads of gift cards etc As a pensioner who rents its impossible for me so i dont even try
@ShannonN: That's fair enough. It's not for everyone, but for those whose only reason/impediment is 'it takes a few hours every few months', I just wanted to highlight the reward/return is not trivial sum for the time spent.
Would you have had the exact same hotel bookings if it wasn't the offer? For the exact same dates?
@A-mak: Yes. Because it was just a booking made through Qantas Hotels I can use the points on any they listed. As a bonus they were also doing 30% discount on points redemptions. So yup, just booked the same dates as everyone else I was travelling with
Same. I just can't be arsed jumping through all the hoops for an extra $20 off. But good luck to the cashbackers all the same. It's just not my thing. Have gotten so many bargains from this website though. I love a bargain. Feels good.
Once you do the hoops a few times, it becomes effortless. Saved over $1,000 in my years on ozb with cashback and card discounts.
It's a thrill. For some people the thrill comes in spending. For me the thrill comes in saving even if I'm spending money on $15k airline tickets or saving $5 on pepsi max via amazon.
I was going to say ecxatly that. The thrill!
yea this, i would rather argue with someone in the forums for an hour then spend 10 mins trying to save/redeem $20
Got it, arguing is worth $120/hr
Are you trying to decide on studying law ?
There's some people that want absolute bang for buck no matter how rubbish an item might be and others that prefer premium products as they don't buy into the buy-cheap fallacy. Both are catered for here but indicating a spectrum of different approaches.
What about those like me who are in-between? I generally won't buy the cheapest stuff - although I do prescribe to the "buy the cheap tool; if you break it, buy the better one" mentality. For me, value-for-money is king, although it can make it hard to select products sometimes. I'll happily get a more expensive product if it's good value for that money; although if it's "proportionately" "better", I'd probably get the cheaper one. Not a linear relationship - 50% more cost for 50% better = no purchase. Couldn't put an exact figure on it, and it likely depends on the product (feature parity, etc).
Exactly. Everyone works in their own ways.
I come in for the bargains, but cannot do cashback, etc. Makes me feel like a next level tight arse. That and I feel like I'll be tempted to buy more things I don't need.
Cashback is awesome, I use cashrewards and probably pull out $3-400 a year to buy something for myself.
It's literally free money if you were buying the item anyway.
$3 a year? Mr. Moneybags over here
@Zilch: Not sure if you knew I meant $300, and a poor attempt at humour, or if you genuinely didn't know.
How is that money "free" ?
Have you wondered how and why Cashbacks work ?
This is a genuine question of mine,
and I'm curious myself, because someone,
somewhere is taking value out of me in exchange for a percentage of the sale.
I just haven't asked this openly (yet).
@whyisave: You’re the product, that’s how you get cash back. They sell your info/shopping habits and you get a cut.
I used to think the same (cashback seemed too much effort) but since I signed up about 18 months ago, I have received more than $250 back for items I woud have purchased regardless.
I appreciate you adding the definition (meaning of) your fancy big words when you use them.
I think the OP snagged a bargain on a thesaurus (a dictionary of synonyms (words that mean the same thing))
Did you know you are being condescending (talking down to people)?
Best comment chain (set of linked comments) I've seen in a while
@Ahbal: Strictly speaking a set is unordered. Since the order of comments in a chain is presumably important, a list would be more appropriate for that definition.
Yeah but what does avaricious mean?
Many of my colleagues love OzB, I didnt even introduce them to it, they knew about it before. Get a new job
when i started making more money, i started caring less about saving, and just started buying stuff for full price, stuff that ordinarily i would have been waiting months for a sale for. maybe they're just making too much money to care about what they spend it on
So you're saying OP gets paid less than everyone he works with?
it's all relative, maybe the purchases they make would not have enough savings to warrant the extra time and effort spent bargain hunting. i know it was nice when i just bought something vs spending hours looking for better prices, the peace of mind buying from an authorised seller was also nice.
same reason i stopped worring about the extra 2 - 5 dollars for express vs normal shipping, i would rather have the items sooner than a couple of dollars saved.
That could be the M.O. in itself,
"talk about OzB all the time, to hide the fact you make more than everyone" … haha
True, but maybe not. One of the richest men I know compulsively collects coupons and times his shops so that he's getting the discounted prices on the meat. So there's that.
(And before you respond with "So what, your fictitious example of some oxymoronically thrifty high-roller means there's hope for us yet? That's some Ukraine-grade copium you've got there fam, how about you cope harder mate", my response to that is: Yes, let me cope.)
And the same people complain you cannot live a comfortable life with $200k.
It's cultural/class related in my experience. My family treat bargain hunting like a sport. We've always been like that.
However, speaking to people at work who clearly see themselves as firmly upper/middle class, see bargain hunting as some kind of thing that plebs do.
Very prevalent in the public service which is very frustrating when it's taxpayers money that's being spent.
I know plenty of people who will refuse to order Dominos without spending an hour looking for the best obscure code first.
That’s just money down the drain if you don’t spend at least 10 mins.
Not sure about that, I have a few mates that are multi millionaires and they love a bargain. Some of the wealthiest people I know couldn't care less if other people think they are tight with their money, they are beyond that stage, they literally don't care. They don't have to impress anyone, they literally don't care.
Truly wealthy are wealthy because they're tight. We were taught to dress well, not flashy. Buy things that last, not fashion or trends etc.
Can very well appreciate wealthy people loving the OzB! 🤣👍
Nobody becomes wealthy by trying to save on toilet paper.
@Ahdimvarking: They dint become wealthy because of that but I know wealthy people that would look for a bargain on toilet paper or would choose a bargain on toilet paper if they saw it. You dont get rich by wasting your money buying overpriced stuff when you can get the same stuff elsewhere cheaper. I know a multi millionaire that doesnt want to waste money on overpriced coffee so he bought an Aldi coffee pod machine and exclusively drinks Aldi pod coffee.
@2ndeffort: And again nobody misses the opportunity to be rich by drinking coffee from a Cafe instead of making it home. If you wanna be rich, you should either run your own business, create something or be an entrepreneur and put the handwork and tremendous effort into it or get/reach a high paying role.
As per your example, He just tortures himself then. He can way toooooo easily afford breville but he doesn't. I don't find this acceptable. I mean isn't that ridiculous that they can't enjoy their wealth, their sons and daughters will enjoy after they die.
Interesting. Every time I've brought it up, someone always seems to know, and then we end up like some underground OzBargain club ("did you see that deal, no way you got it before it went out of stock :O).
I only know a couple of people on here personally and each time Ozbargain gets brought up, we just go "Eneloops…. haha", and that's the end of our Ozbargain interactions.
This 😂
There's a not-so-secret MS-Teams chat, at my workplace,
dedicated to sharing tips on sharing OzB coupons, tips, discounts, etc.
Usually, it's the same people who are contributors,
and the rest are passive non-contributors.
Is like talking to people about board game and they say nah don’t like monopoly. You wonder if they have heard of newer boardgames.
Likewise, it makes you wonder if people grew out of Boxing Day sales when looking for bargains.
I will not be bothered with learning new board game rules
When I was working in Oil and Gas my colleagues would give me grief for being on Ozbargain and insisting on finding good value places to have team lunches.
They suggested I was a tight @ss, it was all in good fun I suppose but it did highlight something that some people are at the income levels that they don't care to spend a few mins to find the best deal, they just want something now and pay whatever the tag says.
I guess Ozbargainers need people like these because there would be no ozbargains if everyone was tight.
My partner is in oil and gas and he's like that, just buys whatever at whatever price whereas I'm looking for any savings. He usually lets me do my thing and is happy when I get a good deal but when he wants something, he'll just buy it straight away, regardless of the price. What's really annoying is that he doesn't actually have that much money and won't even let me find him the best deal.
It's not only about income, it's about thoughtfulness.
It's not worth spending 30 mins signing up for extra accounts and cashbacks to save $5 when you earn 100k.
But it's also silly to waste hundreds/thousands buying something for twice what you could have paid if you'd spent a minute researching it.
About 90% of people hate thinking, and would much rather waste time or waste money than stop and think whether it actually makes sense.
ozBargain is for people who have thought for more than a few seconds about money and worth.
Yep and I totally love the thrill of getting a good deal. It's one of the few things in life that truly bring me joy…how sad 😏
Is there a chance it's the way you talk and not the subject?
Going by OP’s effort to awkwardly use slightly obscure words and then define them for us, I’d say maybe
People like to brag about how rich they are and how much they're spending, even if they're going in debt to keep up that façade … Status…
I notice this BS a lot with recreational activities, motorbikes, mountainbikes, hiking, fishing, or the likes, almost everyone will stand around bragging about the ridiculous amounts of money they're spending, very few will brag about how frugal they are and how they're doing what they do on the cheap…
I notice some people will make a point about finding a bargain when giving someone an expensive gift, maybe it takes some of the weirdness out of it, like "don't worry about it, you don't owe me in return, I got it as a bargain anyway".
It's better to spend your time relaxing or focusing on making more money/furthering your career, than to obsess about bargains. I think the UK has a much bigger bargain culture than Australia tbh. Scotty should really have tried to make a UK bargain site, they also have a much bigger eBay/Amazon market so greater potential for affiliate income. They also have millions of bargain/comparison websites already so probably harder to break into the market there. Also don't know how hard it is to get a .co.uk domain if you're actually in business there.
Yeah, but no one really gives a damn about the Poms
It's as if HUKD isn't a thing…
Bargain hunting is a weird hobby, and like all weird hobbies
Nobody likes to pay full price, so I put it down to you not bringing it up at the right time or telling them about bargains on boring stuff.
Are you on the cheap/stingy or just finding a good deal to get whatever you were going to get anyway?
Perhaps we need an example from OP.
Is it
Saving money as a priority isn't a positive character trait (e.g. being stingy of cheap). So it's all about how you sold it. Being protective of money is also a learned trait from your family - it's a dead giveaway.
It's called an echo chamber, if you spend all you time here, then you think it's popular and normal, whereas others that don't, won't!
It happens all the time on social media - as an example, ask the next 100 people you talk to what their pronouns are so you can correctly address them and you will get 99+ blank stares, but get them wrong on twitter and 100% of people will howl you down!
Reddit and Twitter actually creep me out in that regard. All of the other denizens of Internet scumhives at least have the self-awareness to realise that they're in a bubble and the normal people don't share their same views of the world. But for whatever reason that same self-awareness doesn't extend to Redditors and Twitter-warriors, who seem to suffer under the collective delusion that the nonsense they believe about how the world works is okay and/or something that decent folk would countenance.
The whole hive mind vibe in Reddit creeps me out. It was kinda like that movie " Village of the Damned" I lasted two days in there. I couldn't even comment because I had negative karma points or some crap. I said goodbye real quick.
Yep, and the "don't spend 10 seconds checking if you're being ripped off! That's stingey! Nope nope stop thinking! Only nerds do that!" echo chamber is about 10 times bigger than the "hang on, waste is kind of dumb" one.
Only real poor people are hanging on this site 🤫😷
And people banned from Reddit for not being woke enough.
Woah, this is a bargain-hunting website? I thought it was a place we went to discuss our thoughts with great minds like SlavOz and SBOB.
I thought it was a place where the primary amusement is downvoting of JV.
Amusement? It is a solemn activity.
Honestly if you out of nowhere started telling me about "bargains" such as "I found this for only $29.99, I found this for $7.99" in person I would also probably tell you to "shut up dingus".
Enjoy ozbargain as an online experience. You don't need to totally merge your online experience with real life.
Why would you share your Ozbargain secrets/ways with bots/normies who obviously don't care to think about their own ways of life?
Don't be to critical, they probably have read some of OzSlav's posts.
Um, I don't think you can compare the two…
This is Ozbargain, so almost everyone here is probably here to post a or look for a bargain. Unless they are shooting the breeze on the forums.
At work, you are not guaranteed that shared commonality, you also likely have a much smaller sample size. So if you do socialise with non close colleagues, it's likely based on the main small talk topics like weather, traffic/commute, current events/news/politics, sports, TV/movies etc the one's that most people are comfortable/used to talking about. Go outside those and some people might not be interested or want to talk.
Not everyone has the same values or definition of a bargain, so all you can do is make them aware of deals you think they would be interested in and see if they bite.
The one deal that comes to mind that my colleagues got into was the free/cheap Ritual meals from a while ago…people love a free/cheap lunch.
OzBargain is good but you have to remember that companies are profiting from us… eBay and Amazon don't run sales because they are nice, they do it to make money.
We are a rare breed mate!
Some folks can't be bothered about bargains even if it hit them square on their faces.
They call me a Scotsman… like it's an insult. Although I do feel a bit bad checking the site multiple times a day.
Paying full price is what keeps the economy running
Lazy, arrogant, too much money, complaining they have spent all of their wages on uber eats etc…..please delete as required.
Yep, can't relate to people continuously using Uber Eats to order Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
At least stock up during a catalogue special and stack with 20% Colesworths rewards lol
In a capitalist society if you aren't rich you are considered a failure. Not having the ability, or perceived ability, to buy whatever you want, whenever you want to many is a sign of failure and people like to save 'face' and show the outward appearance of being rich.
Truth is most people are drowning in debt, wasting money on loans for cars, clothes and accessories they cannot afford.
Don't feel bad. In the long-run you will be much better off than those people.
What’s a ‘capitalist’ society?
Get a new job :)