5 Everyday Rip-Offs That Are Surprisingly Easy to Avoid
The world is an awful place, filled with people like us, all trying to screw us over every chance we get. Our only defense is intense, bile-filled suspicion, of anyone and everyone we deal with, including infants.
I've always considered it this column's mission to help my readers put up walls between themselves and everyone close to them. Which is why today I'd like to turn everyone's attention to the long grass of consumer purchases, and the jackals that lie in wait for you there. With the tips presented here, you'll soon find yourself saving five, even six dollars a week, which, over the course of 10 years, will add up to two or three grand. Which ... is actually a lot less impressive than it sounds. Huh. OK, I'll also put in some advanced tips, ways to avoid being ripped off so hard that you may actually rip something else entirely. So, as with most of the advice I give, please, please, remember to stretch first.
Razor Blades
Disposable razor blade cartridges can cost more than $4 per cartridge, which, when replaced once per week, turns shaving into one of the most expensive face-related expenses we ever have to face. And yet, thanks to society, shaving is something that can't be ignored, unless we live in the hills, or Portland.
How to Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Replace the blades less often. First, those guidelines that say we should replace our blades three or four times a month come from the companies that are selling the blades. Now, these guys do know razors, but because they also know "taking your money," they might not be the most trustworthy source of advice. Instead, try replacing your blades when they stop working. And you can keep your blades working a lot longer with a few easy tips, also conspicuously absent from the razor blade cartel's promotional reading.
Razor blades don't dull from cutting your soft doughy face, nor even your food-encrusted whiskers -- the dulling effect actually comes from water and air corroding the metal. You can greatly limit that corrosion by simply drying the blades after each use -- blotting them on a towel is the easiest technique, but other people have had success with dipping them in alcohol, blowing on them really hard or throwing them in the direction of the sun.
How to REALLY Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Pluck your face. Tweezers last basically forever, so it's economical, so long as your time isn't very expensive, which, let's be honest here, Cracked reader, it probably isn't. Also, the confidence you gain from plucking every hair on your neck and face will give you a demeanor that many observers would describe as "wild, shit-eating intensity" -- which will certainly come in handy during business negotiations or when staring down any hostage takers.
Gas
Gasoline makes our cars run and our Molotov cocktails burn. And depending on how much you drive, or how much you fight The Man each week, gasoline may very well be one of the biggest expenses you have. Although the rising price of oil is the primary cause of the rising price of gas, the fact that every oil company is currently making record profits is justification enough for your rage, and offers a hint of who to offer your next batch of justice cocktails to.
How to Avoid Being Ripped Off:
There are a lot of tricks on how to save money when shopping for gas floating around out there. Gas-saving websites let you track local gas price fluctuations. Also, try timing your purchases to buy gas at the cheapest times (mornings, the 1980s). And if you can avoid driving all summer, you should definitely do that.
How to REALLY Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Don't give those sons of bitches your money in the first place by cutting back your need for gas. Gas-saving enthusiasts who call themselves hypermilers have compiled a whole bunch of fuel-economy tips that you can use, although the more advanced ones get pretty crazy. I'd suggest starting off with simple measures, like keeping your tires properly inflated, rolling your windows up and tailgating behind semi-trailers while driving downhill with your lights and air conditioning off.
Extended Warranties
Extended warranties are typically offered when purchasing big-ticket appliances and home electronics. "Hey, wouldn't it suck if your television stopped working?" the sales pitch generally goes. "Give us a bunch of money and we'll make sure it sucks less."
There are a whole bunch of reasons why extended warranties are a rip-off. Briefly:
- Because many issues will be covered by the manufacturer's warranty.
- Because many repairs may cost less than the warranty itself.
- Because the extended warranty generally won't cover accidents, or abuse, or fudge damage.
How to Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Don't buy them. Even aside from the above reasons, there's a general rule about insurance -- which extended warranties are a form of -- that you should know. On the other side of every insurance deal is an insurance company with nerds and spreadsheets who know exactly how much that insurance should be worth and will sell it to you for a markup way higher than that.
For example, let's say you're insuring against an Uh-Oh.
The insurance company figures this Uh-Oh has a 1 in 10 chance of happening each year, and if it does, it will cost $1,000 dollars. The insurance company will conclude that this insurance should cost them about $100 a year, and will then offer it to you for $150 a year with an enormous smile.
That's not completely unreasonable, incidentally. They obviously have to cover their overhead, the costs of maintaining all those nerds and spreadsheets, and they certainly have a right to make a profit. But you also have the right to not overpay for shit.
Now, in some cases, you should really still buy insurance. For things like home insurance, or life insurance, or car insurance, where you couldn't afford the costs of an Uh-Oh, then insurance is usually a prudent idea. It spreads out the costs of the Uh-Oh into small, bite-sized chunks. But if the Uh-Oh is less big -- more of a Meh-Oh, I guess -- where you can afford the costs, there's a concept called "self-insurance" you should know. This basically says, "Don't buy the damned insurance, Chester." The money you save by not buying it will more than offset the costs you'll incur. Losing a television would suck ...
... but it's something most of us can probably recover from.
How to REALLY Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Offer Best Buy a reverse extended warranty. In exchange for them paying you a small fee, if at any time the product fails during the next three years, you won't drive your car through the front window, shrieking obscenities about OPEC.
Movie Snacks
According to a panel of angry fathers, a thing of popcorn costs 10 goddamned cents to make, and charging $5.50 for it is highway goddamned robbery. It turns out that a staggering amount of box office revenue goes directly to the studios, which leaves theater owners few options to actually make money with their business other than setting massive, father-enraging margins on their popcorn, and candy, and nacho cheese -- which is particularly insulting, as many organizations actually pay movie theaters to dispose of excess "nacho cheese" generated by various industrial processes.
How to Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Sneak your own candy into the movies. This is a time-honored pastime that everyone's probably done at one point or another. I think this is why those huge puffy vests got so popular for awhile.
How to REALLY Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Sell your own snacks inside the theater. Wear your puffiest vest, concealing one of those camel packs that hikers and backcountry skiers use. Fill that bastard with Dr. Pepper, and when the movie starts, begin prowling the aisles, muttering, "Get your Pepper. Pepper here. Pepper, Pepper, Pepper, Pepper, Pepper." When you find a buyer, simply give him a toot through the mouthpiece concealed in the enormous carnation that you obviously wear at all times.
University Textbooks
This is a tough one. On the one hand, every bit of statistical evidence we have suggests that if you don't have a university degree, the best career available for you is $10 Handjob Technician. On the other hand, universities are incredibly, outrageously expensive, because the people who run the things know their students will pay anything to ensure a life of having to provide merely recreational handjobs.
Compared to the big costs like tuition, textbooks are kind of a footnote, but a frustrating one. They're rarely usable for more than one course, get regularly updated and "refreshed" to make them harder to resell to next year's suckers and in many cases are barely even referred to by the professor. What are we buying 800-page books for if we only need 70 pages? Have you heard of the Internet, you colossal dinks? Little demons packing up electric O's and I's, and giving them to tiny robots to carry long tubes? (I think that's how it goes; I refused to buy the TCP/IP text during my undergrad.)
How to Avoid Being Ripped Off:
You could study less. That's always been a popular choice.
More practically, many students are now getting together to share texts with friends, or using reference copies available in the library. Many textbook excerpts can also be found online -- whole textbooks can occasionally even be found on those websites that are not in any way going to be linked here, but we're all cool, so you know what I'm talking about.
How to REALLY Avoid Being Ripped Off:
Twenty dollar handjobs. Nobody out there gives a good handy any more; the manual genital manipulation sector is ripe for a hot new business venture. Work on your technique, establish a premium product and the world will come to you, or at the very least, near you. Then, with the right business case sent to A&E or TLC, you'll soon find yourself the star of a show called Handymen or Tug Stars or something like that. The only textbooks you'll need then will be to decorate the set of your "Fantasies of Soft-Handed Librarians" exhibit, and even those can be written off as a business expense.
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For more from Bucholz, check out An Apology to Customers of My Hot Dog Stand and Something Called Science Claims the Internet Makes Us Dumb.
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