Top 10 Things You Should Buy Used-Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I gave you a list of things you should not buy used. Well this week, here is your list of things you should buy “Used”!

10.  Clothes

It’s utter insanity to buy clothes modeled on vintage styles brand-new and at premium prices.  The best possible anecdote is teenagers paying $70 for hand-ripped jeans at American Eagle, when natural wear and tear (and perhaps a job in construction) could do the same thing for free.  Authenticity would declare a thrift store or vintage clothing retailer your best source of styles that come straight from the horse’s mouth. With three new “thrift” stores in Akwesasne, buying cheap and chic has never been easier. Looking for more, check out Value Village in several locations in Cornwall and Ottawa.  They all feature items from decades past and then most recent fashions that can be transformed into vintage fashion (or worn to a costume party).  While undergarments should of course be bought brand new, for sanitary reasons, a new military jacket will never look better than the one formerly worn by a former serviceman.

9.  Sports Equipment

If you are a parent, you know how expensive it is to have a sports-fancying son.  Padding, sticks, helmets, and balls add up quickly, to the point to where you almost wish he had turned out to be a theater geek.  And should he take an interest in more than one sport, you find that interest builds up quickly on all those credit card statements as well.  The best bet is to go for broke by getting all that gear, in just as good and slightly used condition, for a way more affordable price.

This is where a store like Play it Again Sports or used-anything websites like EBay and Craigslist come in.  At Dicks Sporting Goods, a brand new set of football shoulder pads are no cheaper than a hundred bucks, and can be as much as three or four hundred, while on EBay, roughly thirty bucks will easily get you a less shinier alternative.  And at Play It Again Sports, you cannot only get all your gear cheap, you can sell it back when you’re done with it.  With all the money you save, there is plenty left over for dining out with the family on that drive home.

8.  Movies

With Blu-Ray, prices of DVDs are starting to drastically reduce (being that they don’t even make VHS tapes anymore, it is at the bottom of the format totem pole).  However, you still get that $20 price tag for new releases regardless of format.  But if you want to really build up your collection fast, or host a movie marathon at a low price, the best way to go is used.  New releases generally are about 50% off used, but you can surely get all your past favorites for mere dollars at liquidating video rental stores and on EBay; search wisely, and you could fill up a whole backpack with just a twenty dollar bill.

7.  Video Games

Video games are expensive, and often very short-lived, sources of amusement.  For that, upwards of $50 seems incredibly indecent for a product that could last as quickly as two days of intense, uninterrupted-by-bathroom-and-food gaming.  Better to get a game used at Game Stop (or more preferably EBay where you deal directly with the seller and avoid exorbitant mark-ups), and afford to get more than one game for the price of one brand new heavily buzzed-about title.

The hottest game on internet discussion boards these days has to be The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.  Most retailers sell it for about sixty bucks brand new.  On Ebay, you can find a copy for $25 (lower assuming no one bids against you on a copy up for standard auction).  And when you are done, you can just as easily sell it back or trade it in at Game Stop for a criminally low price (or go fishing on EBay.)

6.  Records

Vinyl is seeing resurgence, and savvy record dealers are cashing in.  With “special edition” re-releases and reprints, new ways to shake unreasonable dollar amounts out of music fanatics are being constantly introduced.  While that may be so, record stores have been around forever, and still sell the same products they’ve been for half a decade, albeit used and for mere dollars.  So while some anniversary reprint of the Beatles’ Abbey Road will go for twenty five dollars brand-new at Newbury Comics, a copy that sounds just as good or better sits at a dilapidated independent record store for six bucks, with the history of having survived the decade it was originally produced in.