How To Live on $14 an hour: 5 Things I Always Buy Used

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/First-Person-5-Things-I-ac-3815880417.html?x=0

I enjoyed this article so much, I wanted to make it apart of the $14 an hour series here on How To Love A black Woman.

enjoy...

5 Things I Always Buy Used

I was surprised to discover when I began outlining this article just how much I've estimated saving over the years by purchasing certain items used rather than new. Between the five items on this list, I would guess that I've saved somewhere in the range of $20,000 to $30,000 or more over the last decade and a half.
Probably the most significant savings from that amount came from the cars, clothes, and books categories that I'm about to discuss. However, it's important to remember that buying used has issues of its own, and not every used item is worth the savings it might provide. If you know what you're doing though, know what to look for, and are prepared for encountering a lemon occasionally in your purchases, buying used could save you as much as it has saved me!

read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/First-Person-5-Things-I-ac-3815880417.html?x=0

All five instances hit the nail on the head and living on a budget you really have to pick and choose your fights with your kids who want things new. 

An Extra tip I would offer would be:

Electronics: I always buy miscellaneous electronics from Amazon. This includes cords, DVD's, and so on. I've even gone so far as to buy things for the house that I know the kids will need. 

For instance:

I bought this on the suggestion of a writing website to help with my writing, but when the main computer shut down and all we had to share was the Netbooks, my son had a very important paper to type. 

Unfortuanately, he types slower than paint drys and we were not about to sit around while he took the laptop all day.

I gave him my machine and let him go at it. After hours of typing, he finally returned with a completed paper. We hooked the Alphasmart right up to the computer and then easily formatted the paper to print it off.

We also looked into getting the following as well that I know you'll like as well, especially when you have a lot of teenagers in the house and everyone wants to used the computer to get on the Internet:

This is a Dell Laptop and although an older version, it still has enough sense to get on the Internet and also be available for the kids to do their things. The great thing about this is that it was only less than $180 dollars.

This is an HP Computer Tower. We had an old monitor that worked just fine and we bought this one as a backup when another one broke and one got stolen. It was only $100 and served great for all the kid's needs.