793 – How to get a Great Deal: Tom talks Saving Money

Episode 793 – Saving Money
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 793 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, we're going to talk about saving money. Yes, I am all into making money, but if you make the money and save the money, it puts you way further ahead faster. Instead of blowing all the money that you make on worthless full retail things when you don't have to. So that's what we're going to talk about today and got a lot of tips on how to get really great deals on stuff that you need and want. Hope you to miss Episode 792 that I hope you didn't miss. Episode 792. That was artificial intelligence bias. You've got to be careful with all this artificial intelligence hype because they lean in certain directions and if you don't know it, you could make a big fool of yourself. It was episode 792 and then episode 791. Wow. It was the farthest I ever departed from straight entrepreneur stuff. I did a reaction podcast to Rich Men, north of Richmond song. You got to check that out. Any time you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, and then the episode number. The bias one with artificial intelligence was 792 and the reaction video or I keep saying video because I watched so many reaction videos to that song was at 791 and check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com. All right. When the first thing I want to talk about is when you're saving money, buying stuff, used stuff is what I'm talking about.

[00:02:01] You got to think about safety. Try not to make any purchases at night. Take someone with you. If the area looks dicey, turn around, Message the seller that you broke down or something and just get out of there. Saving money is not worth it. Now, many police departments are allowing people to make transactions in their parking lots and lobbies, so that's a good thing for smaller items, bigger items you got to go to where they are, you know, And so that's just the way it is. So take somebody with you and scope out the person's personality, communication skills, the area that you're going to and all that. All right. Now I'm talking about buying used stuff, things that you want or things that you need for your business. And I primarily use Facebook marketplace offer up. Craigslist and eBay. Most of the time. Ebay, you don't have to worry about safety other than getting ripped off. But, you know, you're not if it's, you know, across the country, somebody's shipping you something. It's not a safety issue for you. Now, one of the tips that I have for you is even if you're on one of these local things like Facebook, Marketplace, Craigslist, well, not Craigslist so much. I don't think you can set I don't know. But I want you to set the mileage that you're willing to go to the maximum, like some of them. I have 500 miles right now.

[00:03:33] For most things. I am not willing to go 500 miles now. I just did that for my new Rokon motorcycle. I went further than that even. All right. But most of the time I don't. But there's a the reason that I want you to do this. I want you to see whatever somebody's selling. And I want you to see as many of them as you can to see the price range people are charging for them because you can use that in your negotiations. When somebody is pricing something that you want and you feel like it's overpriced and even further than that, letting them know that there's competition out there, make them want to get you to buy from them so that you don't go to one of the other vendors. A lot of times they won't even check to see that, you know, the the coffee pot you wanted was 500 miles away. Right. They won't even check. You can just say, hey, there's four other exact ones of yours listed on Facebook marketplace and you happen to be a little closer. So that's why I want to make a deal with you if I can, you know, always let them know that it's possible you'll just go somewhere else. So set your mileage to the maximum so you can see all these other ones that are listed. Now, another thing when you do that, you're going to see. Some. Yeah. They usually have a little area map that shows you roughly where the item that you're looking at is.

[00:05:11] I like to concentrate on the more out of the way rural areas. Now yeah, if it's across the street, you know and I can get it in ten minutes. Yeah, well I might do that. However, if I want the best deals all the time. All right. Or to get a higher percentage of best deals, I want it to be a little bit off the beaten path for a couple of reasons. One is the seller is not going to get as many people make an offers or maybe nobody if they're way out in the boondocks. And two, the reason for that is that a lot of people are not willing to drive that far where I am so I can get fantastic deals with, you know, willing to go a little bit further than everybody else. So this gives you great bargaining power. So here's an example. I was looking for an older table saw that had a very specific table that I was going to convert into a welding table. So I found several locally, but the sellers weren't that great on communication, so I kept looking and I found exactly what I was looking for listed. And it was between 50 and $75 cheaper than the local people. And the guy was only asking $50 for this, and I offered him 35 and he took it. All right. And so as I was on my way to get it, which is about an hour and 15 minutes away, he messaged me pictures of a drill press and a bandsaw.

[00:06:51] And he said I could have all three for 100 bucks. And I saw the pictures. They looked great. So I said yes. And I got all three multi hundred dollar items. For like $33 a piece. All right. Now, prior to going, I checked the Facebook page and I saw he was legit. He had recent postings. He showed his new baby and his wife and how happy he was and he was getting comments. Congratulations. You know, so that kind of says this is a real person, not a fake. But the new baby thing made me think, ah, he's got a lot of expenses with the new baby. That's why he's getting rid of this stuff cheap. And I was kind of half right when I got there. He had inherited these three big pieces of machinery from his grandfather When his grandfather passed. And they were he wasn't using them. They were just sitting, gathering dust and taking up space in his garage. So he was happy to get rid of them. And I think I was the only call he got. So he got what he wanted and I got a fantastic deal. Yeah, I drove about an hour and 15 minutes each way, but like I said, I got a fantastic deal and that's why I don't get too upset when I run into flakes that don't communicate well. I kind of do call them a few choice words in my mind because I'm sitting there waiting to go pick something up and you don't hear from the person.

[00:08:20] The next day goes by and three days later they say, Hey, are you still interested in this? And I'm thinking, Yeah, you moron. I was ready to pick it up three days ago and I went and bought somebody else's, you douche. That's what I'm thinking anyway. Right. But here's the deal. Had I taken the first deal on the table, saw for 125 bucks? I wouldn't have kept looking for another table saw and I wouldn't have found this guy. The same thing happened with the motorcycle I just bought. A guy was being the kind of not a little bit unreasonable on a bike. He was selling this motorcycle and I was ready to buy. I had already got the money out of the bank and I was going to drive ten hours to get it. And he finally, like, cut off communication. Oh, this is too much trouble. And I don't know who's going to drive ten hours and I don't trust the deal. You know, that kind of crap. So at the time I was a little disappointed because I really wanted that bike. But I was going to buy a 1974 model bike because these things last for a long time and I ended up getting a 2015 model for the same price because I kept looking. So I'm really thanking the first guy for being a little arrogant and unreasonable.

[00:09:36] Right. So that's why I don't get mad at him. A lot of times a better deal will come up. Now, I also look for how long something has been listed. Sometimes people just forget to take down the ad and the item is doesn't really exist anymore. It's sold already, but sometimes it's still sitting there and knowing that it hasn't sold for a long time again, gives me leverage to offer a lower price. Now, here's one thing I don't do. I don't really what they call low ball, low balling is offering an outrageously low price in hopes that the person is desperate to sell. And yes, this could work once in a while, but you'll get a bad reputation. A lot of these places, you know, rate the buyer as much as they rate the seller. And so you'll get a bad reputation and then nobody will respond to you at all after they check out your poor ratings. Now, depending on how much I want the item, I usually offer at least 30% less than their asking. And I close a lot of those deals and I'm always very polite about it. And I frequently use the reason why technique from my copywriting training. That's from copywriting901.com. So I might say, hey, your item looks great, but you know I'm going to burn a ton of gas in my truck since I'm coming from Virginia Beach. So now the most I can do is X amount of dollars.

[00:11:07] Would that be okay? And then I always put thanks. I'm extremely polite. So the reason why I'm offering way less for your nice item is that I have to drive so far and burn expensive gas and people understand this. And again, remember they might be out in the boonies and I might be the only one that ever even showed any interest in the item say. So they're very motivated to make a deal. Now, before I even make an offer, I check Amazon for the price of the item. If it's some normal item, if it's some unique item that you can't check anywhere, well, that's different. But a lot of items are the same. Like, for instance, I'm looking at this rigid chop saw for cutting metal and I think it sells for 179 bucks at Home Depot. But. I'm making a deal for 50. All right. So it doesn't have a blade, but still, for 50, it's. It's a reasonable price for me to pay. But anyway, I check Amazon. I check eBay. Advanced search and advanced search means I can see what a product sold for all the auctions in the past 90 days and see what an item sold for if it didn't sell. So that's another place I'll check. So by doing this research, I can say to the person, you know, I can buy a brand new on Amazon with free shipping and no hassle returns for just a little bit more than you're asking.

[00:12:35] So, you know, that's why, you know, I'm not sure you're you're asking price is reasonable. Have you checked the prices lately. Have you looked at the other ones on sale right here on Facebook marketplace or offer up or wherever I'm seeing it say and sometimes they'll take my offer then after they they realize hey there were out of line. But sometimes they get butthurt and arrogant thinking their item is so great and someone's going to pay more than it's worth. Right? So and I'm sure once in a while they're right about that because sometimes, I mean, not everybody does this kind of research before they make a purchase, like I'm telling you. So maybe they do get away with it once in a while, but not with me and not with you. After listening to this, you're going to know it's not a good deal. Now, you could actually make a business of this, especially if you have a small utility trailer or pickup truck for the bigger stuff. For instance, I had about three hours total in the round trip to get those three machines. I could have profited 75 bucks on the table. Saw. Like overnight selling it locally. 100 bucks on the bandsaw profit and 150 on the drill press. I could have made 325 bucks profit. Now, if you took away, let's say, 25 bucks for gas, that meant I made about $100 an hour for just making that deal, driving down there, picking the stuff up and then relisting it.

[00:14:08] Now, many times you can find things people are just giving away because they're moving and things simply have to be gone by a certain date or they're going to get thrown in the dump. So I was talking to a guy the other day who who got a bandsaw for free because of what I just told you. The people were moving. It didn't sell, so they were having a yard sale. So at the end of the day, they just gave it to whoever would take it. All right. So so at the end of the day, yard sales and stuff, that's another way you can get good deals is because people are just sick of it. And if you take it off their hands, they're happy. So the bottom line is, is that you can save an enormous amount of money to get the things you want. Now, there are certain things I wouldn't buy. I don't buy computers. However, I would if I was a really good techie with computers because you can find bargains out the wazoo on computer stuff. But for a lot of like this chop saw, as long as the motor turns, I can put a blade on it and it's going to work, you know? So there's no reason for me to pay 179 bucks. And this, you might say, like Tom, you're supposed to be this big shot multi-millionaire. Why do you play with this stuff? Well, first of all, I grew up very frugal.

[00:15:28] My dad came from Syria on a cattle boat when I was a kid. We you know, I still can't leave the water running when I'm brushing my teeth because I hear my dad saying, well, don't waste water. You know, we're on wells. Don't waste it. So and we we used to buy used lumber. My dad would and make us kids pull the nails out, straighten them so he could reuse them. So that was from the time I could understand English. That's the way my life was, is be frugal. So I love it. I have fun with it. I mean, my parents used to own a flea market. So if you like this kind of stuff, flea markets and and bargaining and things like that, this can be a lot of fun and you can make a lot of money and you can say if you decide to do it as a business or you can just save a fortune. For instance, that motorcycle, I bought 3900 bucks. And if I'd have bought a brand new one with the freight and taxes and all the crap they throw on preparation fees and all this BS, it'd have been $13,000. Well, that's 10,009 or $9100 in my pocket. And I got the bike that I wanted and I have fun fixing up little things on it, you know, So. So you can have a lot of fun with this. You can save a lot of money and make some money if you're if you want to go that far.

[00:16:56] And yeah. Do I still sell my stuff online? That's my my thing in life. But it allows me to have the money to take advantage of a lot of these deals. And I don't talk about taking advantage of people. I'm saying they want to get their tired of something and they want to get rid of it or they have to get rid of it. So why not you help them out and help yourself out? That's what I the way I look at it, I never, you know, try to to rip somebody off doing this. This is just a win win situation. So anyway, you can be in the middle of this transaction when people want to get rid of something and you either want it or somebody else wants it and you can profit from it or save money. So that's the way I roll. That's the way I'm I'm wired from as a young kid and I just have a blast doing it. So, so hope this helps you save some money. You don't have to be as fanatic as me about it, but I think you'll be very happy when you save loads of money on things that you were going to pay through the nose for. All right, That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Check out greatInternetmarketingtraining.com and I will help you create an online business that will rock. All right. We'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.